Educated by private tutors in London, Le Queux also studied in Genoa and Paris. He toured France and Germany and on his return to England, became a reporter for the Eastbourne Gazette, before joining the Middlesex Chronicle as an editor. In 1888, he joined the London Globe as a parliamentary reporter and in 1891 became foreign editor. He resigned in 1893 in order to devote his time to writing fiction, primarily mysteries and crime. He was an extensive traveller and visited most of the countries of Europe and this knowledge was often used in his novels. In 1906, he published The Invasion of 1910, which predicted World War I. The book was a phenomenal success, selling around a million copies, and made Le Queux financially independent. During the Balkan War in 1912, Le Queux returned to journalism serving as a war correspondent for the London Daily Mail. Said to have been a British agent, many of Le Queux's novels show an insight into the workings of espionage. After the war, he concentrated on writing mysteries and crime with a great deal of success. In addition to his novels and short stories, he also wrote travel books and radio and television articles. His works include The Great War in England 1897 (1894), Devil's Dice (1897), In White Raiment (1900), The Seven Secrets (1903), The House of the Wicked (1906), The Great Court Scandal (1907), Spies of the Kaiser (1909), An Eye for an Eye (1911), Sons of Satan (1914), The Spy Hunter (1916), The Yellow Ribbon (1918), Secrets of the Foreign Office (1920), The Marked Man (1921), When the Desert Ends (1923), Things I Know About Kings, Celebrities and Crooks (1923), The Valrose Mystery (1925) and The House of Evil (1927). |
