The literary career of Eden Phillpotts lasted for more than seventy-five years, linking the Victorian era with the modern period. Though Phillpotts wrote an average of three books per year during his professional life, for a total of more than 225 volumes, the quantity of his work is not its only distinguishing feature. His range of literary effort, spanning the gamut of expression, is also striking. Phillpotts tried his hand at almost every form, including novels (ninety-five, including eighteen Dartmoor novels); plays (forty-five); short stories (twenty-three volumes); verse (twenty-two volumes); children's stories and fairy tales (twenty-eight volumes, including the Human Boy series); detective stories and mysteries (nineteen volumes); and miscellaneous prose--essays, travel, and memoirs (three volumes). Not even the prodigious efforts of his Victorian predecessors come close to his output of novels: Charles Dickens, for example, wrote fifteen and Anthony Trollope, forty-seven.

Eden Phillpotts was born on 4 November 1862 at...