Talbot Mundy(1879-1940)

Adventure writer Talbot Mundy was born in London, England, and educated at Rigby. After graduation he spent a year in Germany studying agriculture, then took a job with the British government in Baroda, India. He became fascinated with Indian history and culture, and spent much time traveling the country on horseback, even making his way into Tibet. He was later posted to positions in Australia and several areas of Africa, including Kenya, where he spent a good number of years. He became proficient in several African languages and dialects and took up big-game hunting, but he developed a particular interest in local magic, which he studied extensively. He was under no illusions about the abilities of many of the local practitioners--he once said that many of them were "frauds and charlatans"--but he did say that some of them actually did possess "occult powers" that would truly be considered magic and that could not be explained away by science.

He traveled to the US in 1911, and became a US citizen in 1917. The success of his early novels enabled him to travel extensively around the world, especially in the Middle East and Egypt. He also spent a lot of time in Mexico, much of it in the Yucatan area where he studied Mayan history and culture.

He finally settled down in Anna Maria, Florida, where he continued to write novels and short stories. A number of them were turned into films, the best known of which is probably King of the Khyber Rifles (1953), a splashy Technicolor epic made by 20th Century-Fox and starring Tyrone Power.