John Brophy, who said that he wrote journalism "off the surface of my mind" and kept "its depths for gestating and producing novels," was born in Liverpool on 6 December 1899 to John and Agnes Bodell Brophy. When World War I broke out in 1914, he ran away from home to join the army, serving in the infantry in France and Belgium. After the war he received a bachelor of arts degree at Liverpool University and spent a year at Durham University. In 1924 he married Charis Weare Grundy, the daughter of a Chicago clergyman, and took a teaching job in Egypt; they returned to England two years later when Charis fell ill. Brophy got a job on the advertising staff of a large store in Liverpool, then moved to London to become head copywriter for a leading British advertising firm. Later he was the chief reviewer of fiction for the Daily...