E. Phillips Oppenheim - Classic Literature E. Phillips Oppenheim
On October 22, 1866, E. Phillips Oppenheim was born in London England. He attended school at Wyggestan Grammar School located in Leicester. He left school at the age of 17. He left school to help out at his father’s leather company. The business was going through some problems. Oppenheim never appreciated the family business and yearned to continue his writing.
Oppenheim had his first story published when he was only 18 years old. When he was 20 he had published his first novel. At age 30 he had written 5 novels in a year and he continued to write at a rapid pace. He continued to write 3 to 5 novels a year until his death.
He worked in his fathers leather company until he was 40 years old. His father sold the company to an American firm and Oppenheim was free to pursue his love of writing. He had written 30 novels by the time he was 41 years old. "The Mysterious Mr. Sabin" was well known and considered one of his best works. "The Great Impersonation" sold more than one million copies in the United States alone.
He was a successful writer and made enough money to purchase a villa on the Riviera, France. Oppenheim became known as "The Prince of Storytellers".
In 1892 he had married Elsie Clara Hopkins. They had one daughter, Josephine. They lived in the villa until the threat of World War II forced them to move to Guernsey in the Channel Islands.
Oppenheim was a very well known British writer. He wrote books, novels, short stories, magazine articles, and even plays. He is known as one of the founders of the ‘thriller genre". He had used a pseudonym "Anthony Partridge" from time to time through out his writing career, and the reason is unknown..
Oppenheim attracted many readers who loved to read the descriptions of luxurious locations, and gourmet meals, and the thrilling pursuit of criminals. Some of his most famous works include, "Kingdom of the Blind" "Envoy Extraordinaire" and "The Great Impersonation".
During the time he worked for his father in the leather business, he also wrote for the local newspaper, the Leicester Mercury. He wrote articles and serialized books. At that time, beginning authors in particular were asked to cover the cost of the publication of their books. He used the money earned from the newspaper work to publish his first book, called "Expiation."
Many of his books have a Leicestershire setting. While he grew up there, he also lived there a number of other times during his life. His only child, Josephine, was born there in The Cedars in Evington, a building that is now a public house.
Working in his fathers business, an occupation he hated, gave him the impetus to continue to write. He was a very fast writer. He used a particular formula for his writing that brought the reader in and was thrilling. This is not to say that his stories were all the same, as they were not.
He was also an avid reader and influenced by his times. The political world around him through much of his writing career was rife with espionage and suspense, themes in most of his writing, along with crime. He, as a relatively wealthy man, also experienced many of the finer things in life. These were also represented in his stories.
His fame had spread widely. He was not only well-known in England, but elsewhere on the Continent, and in the United States. One of his books, "The Great Impersonation" sold more than a million books in the United States alone.
He wrote over 100 spy novels during his life. This contributed greatly to the development of this as a genre, and influenced other writers in much the same way that Wilkie Collins, writing a generation earlier, had influenced the British detective novel.
Throughout his lifetime of writing he produced more than 160 novels. He also wrote books of short stories, wrote magazine articles, and serialized books. His books are not read much today, but until his death in 1946, they had sold in the millions, and copies can still be found in second-hand book stores.
Despite all of his fame as a writer, one of the things he was proudest of was being asked to return to Wyggeston School to present the prizes some 40 years after he had left. Amazingly, the same headmaster was still there, and remained so until the age of 80, the same age as Oppenheim when he himself died.
