Talbot Mundy

After leading a roguish life as con artist and Ivory poacher in British Africa and thence spending time in jail, he emigrated to the United States in 1909. His writing was admired for its exotic locales and quest themes; he was influenced by Rudyard Kipling. He belonged to the Theosophical Society, which lent some of the fantastic and occult images used in his fiction. He is best known for his "Tros of Samothrace" books set in Britain, Gaul, and the Mediterranean area before the Christian era.

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.

In the mid-1970s, filmmaker Philip Kaufman became interested in bringing Mundy's "Jimgrim" character to the screen, starting with his 1923 story "The Nine Unknown". The project came closest to fruition when the rumored $20 million Tri-Star Pictures production was slated to shoot in England and Nepal starting April 1985.Kaufman, in conjunction with producer Stephen J. Roth, also attempted a third version of Mundy's 1916 novel "King of the Khyber Rifles" (filmed previously in 1929 and 1953). This project collapsed in 1983 allegedly on account of the lukewarm box office reception of Kaufman's film The Right Stuff (1983).