Laurence Walter Meynell (9 August 1899 – 14 April 1989) was the English author of over 150 books, who wrote also as Valerie Baxter, Robert Eton, Geoffrey Ludlow and A. Stephen Tring.

Life

Meynell was born in

Wolverhampton Wolverhampton () is a city, metropolitan borough and administrative centre in the West Midlands, England. The population size has increased by 5.7%, from around 249,500 in 2011 to 263,700 in 2021. People from the city are called "Wulfrunian ...

, the youngest son of Herbert Meynell, chairman of a brass-founding firm, and his wife Agnes Mary Sollom. He was sent to the oldest Catholic boarding school in the country,

St Edmund's College, Ware St Edmund's College is a coeducational independent day and boarding school in the British public school tradition, set in in Ware, Hertfordshire. Founded in 1568 as a seminary, then a boys' school, it is the oldest continuously operating and ...

, and then served in the artillery in the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. He worked for a time as an estate agent and as a schoolmaster before becoming a professional writer in the 1920s. A contemporary satire, ''Mockbeggar'' (1924), won him the Harrap Fiction Prize. Meynell wrote juvenile literature as Valerie Baxter and A. Stephen Tring. His story for boys, ''The Old Gang'', was particularly well received. He also wrote

detective fiction Detective fiction is a subgenre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator or a detective—whether professional, amateur or retired—investigates a crime, often murder. The detective genre began around the same time as s ...

, with a recurring private-eye character, Hooky Hefferman. Meynell was twice married, his second wife was the actress

Joan Henley Joan Henley (2 September 1904 – 10 February 1986) was an Irish actress and radio presenter. She was active on the London stage since at least 1927 in ingenue roles, and appeared there throughout the 1930s. Her first film role was a supporting ...

from 1956 until her death in 1986. He had one daughter, Ann Meynell b London 1938 by his first wife, Shirley Ruth Darbyshire (1903–1955). He died on 14 April 1989 in

Hove Hove is a seaside resort and one of the two main parts of the city of Brighton and Hove, along with Brighton in East Sussex, England. Originally a "small but ancient fishing village" surrounded by open farmland, it grew rapidly in the 19th cen ...

Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...

Notes

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Meynell, Laurence Walter 1899 births 1989 deaths writers from Wolverhampton 20th-century English novelists People educated at St Edmund's College, Ware