(1866-1946)
E. Phillips Oppenheim wrote most famously of secret agents and duplicitous diplomats, secret treaties and international conspiracies, moonlit Riviera casinos, Swiss hotel suites, perilous yacht trips, and glamorous trans-European express trains. Known in his time as “the Prince of Storytellers,” Oppenheim, like the brand names of today’s best seller lists, offered readers in the first half of the 20th century a steady, predictable, and entertaining supply of pop fiction. His name on a topic jacket guaranteed a certain type of escapism—all thrilling situations, bright dialogue, and glitzy settings. Oppenheim’s work included mysteries, detective stories, and science fiction, but he was most closely identified with the spy story, a genre he virtually invented.
English-born Oppenheim was the son of a leather goods merchant, with little formal education before he joined the family business. The job took him all over Europe, giving him a chance to observe the grand settings and mysterious continentals with which his writing would be filled. He self-published a novel, Expiation, when he was just out of his teens, then became a regular contributor to the weekly story papers. His novel The Mysterious Mr. Sabin (1898), about a man’s meddling in international affairs, with the future of Britain at stake, has been called the first “modern” spy novel. He continued to work in this field the rest of his life, sometimes writing of professional spies, but more often of adventurous amateurs—or “accidental spies”—caught up in the sweep of international intrigue. A recurring motif was the discovery of a plot or a document revealing a plan—usually Ger-man-backed—to start a war or overthrow the British government. The topics often played with elements from current affairs, including Britain’s festering fears of Germany (which World War I would prove to have been well-founded), but the realistic was always overlaid with the far-fetched.
Oppenheim’s most famous work was The Great Impersonation (1920), a lively thriller that was a kind of inversion of Anthony Hope’s doppel-ganger adventure, The Prisoner of Zenda. In this case, the hero is impersonated by a German agent trying to subvert the English establishment. His most unusual novels were the futuristic tales The Wrath to Come (1924) and The Dumb Gods Speak (1937), which featured intriguing premonitions as well as the usual forewarnings against the United Kingdom’s foreign enemies.
Oppenheim’s success as a novelist allowed him to sever his ties with the family business and move to what would be his favorite setting on and off the page, the French Riviera. He life became further interwoven with his fiction when he served as an intelligence operative during World War I.
His appeal evaporated with the arrival of World War II, and later readers were more likely to find his work creaky and underwritten. Oppen-heim’s vision of sophisticated spies and international conspiracies was nevertheless a primary influence on the modern espionage novel beginning with Eric ambler and especially in the novels and movies about Ian Fleming’s, jet-setting super-spy James Bond.
Works
- Aaron Rodd, Diviner (1920);
- Adventures of Mr. Joseph P. Cray, The (1925);
- Advice Limited (1935);
- Amazing Judgment, The (1897);
- Amazing Partnership, The (1914);
- Amazing Quest of Mr. Ernest Bliss (1922);
- Ambrose Lavendale, Diplomat (1920);
- And Still I Cheat the Gallows (1938);
- Anna, the Adventuress (1904);
- As a Man Lives (1898);
- Ask Miss Mott (1936);
- Bank Manager, The (1934);
- Battle of Basinghall Street (1935);
- Berenice (1910);
- Betrayal, The (1904);
- Bird of Paradise, The (U.S. title: The Floating Peril) (1936);
- Black Box, The (1915);
- Channay Syndicate, The (1927);
- Chronicles of Melhampton (1928);
- Cinema Murder, The (1917);
- Colossus of Arcadia, The (1938);
- Conspirators (1907);
- Crooks in the Sunshine (1932);
- Curious Happenings to the Rooke Legatees (1937);
- Daughter of Astrea, A (1898);
- Daughter of the Marionis, A (1895);
- Devil’s Paw, The (1921);
- Double Four, The (1911);
- Double Life of Mr. Alfred Burton, The (1914);
- Double Traitor, The (1918);
- Dumb Gods Speak, The (1937);
- Envoy Extraordinary (1937);
- Evil Shepherd, The (1923);
- Ex-Detective, The (1933);
- Ex-Duke, The (U.S. title: The Interloper) (1927);
- Exit a Dictator (1939);
- Expiation (1887);
- Exploits of Pudgy Pete and Co. (1928);
- Falling Star (U.S. title: The Moving Finger) (1911);
- False Evidence (1896);
- For the Queen (1912);
- Fortunate Wayfarer, The (1928);
- Gabriel Samara, Peacemaker (1925);
- Gallows of Chance, The (1934);
- Game of Liberty, The (1915);
- General Besserley’s Puzzle Box (1935);
- Golden Beast, The (1926);
- Grassleyes Mystery, The (1940);
- Great Awakening, The (U.S. title: A Sleeping Memory) (1902);
- Great Impersonation, The (1920);
- Great Prince Shan, The (1922);
- Harvey Garrard’s Crime (1926);
- Illustrious Prince, The (1910);
- Inevitable Millionaires, The (1923);
- Inspector Dickens Retires (U.S. title: Gangsters’ Glory) (1931);
- Jacob’s Ladder (1921);
- Jeanne of the Marshes (1909);
- Jeremiah and the Princess (1933);
- Kingdom of the Blind, The (1916);
Illustration from a scene in E. Phillips Oppenheim’s The Profiteers (1921): “Wingate’s pistol had stolen from his pocket. Rees glared at it for a moment and then went on.”
- Last Train Out (1941);
- Light Beyond, The (1928);
- Lion and the Lamb, The (1930);
- Lost Leader, A (1906);
- Madame (U.S. title: Madame and Her Twelve Virgins) (1927);
- Maker of History, A (1905);
- Man and His Kingdom, The (1899);
- Man Who Changed His Plea, The (1942);
- Master Mummer, The (1905);
- Master of Men (1901);
- Michael’s Evil Deeds (1924);
- Milan Grill Room, The (1940);
- Millionaire of Yesterday (1900);
- Million Pound Deposit, The (1930);
- Mischief-Maker, The (1912);
- Miss Brown of X.Y.O. (1927);
- Missing Delora, The (U.S. title: The Lost Ambassador) (1910);
- Mr. Billingham, the Marquis and Madelon (1927);
- Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo (1915);
- Mr. Mirakel (1943);
- Noran Chambers Smiled (U.S. title: The Man from Sing Sing) (1932);
- Murder at Monte Carlo (1933);
- Mysterious Mr. Sabin Ward (1898);
- Mystery of Mr. Bernard Brown (1896);
- Mystery Road, The (1923);
- Nicholas Goade, Detective (1927);
- Nobody’s Man (1922);
- Ostrekoff Jewels, The (1932);
- Passionate Quest, The (1924);
- Pawns Count, The (1918);
- Peer and the Woman, The (1892);
- Postmaster of Market Deignton (1897);
- Prince of Sinners, A (1903);
- Prodigals of Monte Carlo (1926);
- Profiteers, The (1921);
- Secret, The (1907);
- Shy Plutocrat, The (1941);
- Simple Peter Cradd (1931);
- Sinners Beware (1932);
- Sir Adam Disappeared (1939);
- Slane’s Long Shots (1930);
- Spymaster, The (1938);
- Stolen Idols (1925);
- Spy Paramount, The (1935);
- Strange Boarders of Palace Crescent (1934);
- Stranger’s Gate (1939);
- Survivor, The (1901);
- Temptation of Tavernake (1913);
- Those Other Days (1912);
- Traitors, The (1902);
- Up the Ladder of Gold (1931);
- Vanished Messenger, The (1916);
- Vindicator, The (1907);
- Way of These Women, The (1913);
- What Happened to Forester? (1929);
- Wicked Marquis, The (1919);
- World’s Great Snare, The (1896);
- Wrath to Come, The (1924);
- Yellow Crayon, The (1903);
- Zeppelin’s Passenger, The (1918)
