Educated at Rugby School, Mundy left school to join a circus and traveled to Germany. This was followed by some volunteer work in India where he contracted malaria and forced his return to England in 1900. Mundy continued to travel throughout the world and claims to have fought in the Boer War, sailed the Persian Gulf, visited the Himalayas, China and Singapore, among others. Married in 1903, he moved to South Africa, but was forced to send his wife back to England when his business dealings turned sour. In 1904, he was jailed in Kenya for bad debts. In 1909, he went to New York where he finally settled down and began his writing career. Using the alias of Talbot Mundy which he had adopted in India, he published his first story, A Transaction in Diamonds, in 1911. He began contributing to Adventure magazine and became extremely popular with the reading public. His first novel, Rung Ho, was serialized in Adventure in 1914. In 1916, Mundy became an American citizen. The following year, he published his third novel, King of the Khyber Rifles, which became his best-known work and firmly established his writing credentials. Having become involved in the Christian Science movement, Mundy became president of the Anglo-American Society in 1920. He traveled to Palestine as part of their relief effort there and traveled to Damascus for an interview with King Feisal. These travels led to further adventure novels concerning the Middle East. In 1922, he joined the Theosophical Society and contributed to their publications until 1927. In 1926, Mundy published Tros of Samonthrace, a massive tale of the ancient Egyptian world. Mundy was indeed an adventurer, traveled throughout much of the world, was married five times, and produced hundreds of stories and adventure novels. Among his better known works are The Lady and the Lord (1911), The Cowards (1912), The Eye of Zeitun (1920), Her Reputation (1923), The Devil's Guard (1926), When Trails Were New (1928), One Egyptian Night (1929), Jimgrim (1930), The Elephant Sahib (1931) and The Wolf of the Pass (1936). |
