Herbert Harris (1) (1911–1995)

Born in London on August 25, 1911, Herbert Edwin Harris was the great-grandson of the poet laureate Robert Southey, who famously wrote a biography of Lord Horatio Nelson.

From the 1930s onwards Harris was a full-time writer, after a tough apprenticeship as a Fleet Street journalist and publicity man. He lived by the sea near Brighton (later moving to Ventnor on the Isle of Wight), churning out literally thousands of short stories and articles which he sold to various newspapers and magazines including The Star, the Evening Standard, Tit-Bits, Reveille, Happy Mag., Boy's Own Paper, Blighty, Argosy, Mike Shayne's Mystery Magazine, The Saint Detective Magazine, Parade, London Mystery Magazine and Weekend.

Some of Harris' stories appeared under the pseudonyms Frank Bury, Michael Moore, Peter Friday and Jerry Regan. He opened his Evening News account with the story "Board Meeting" which was published in 1951. He went on to contribute 106 stories until the last was published in 1980. His vast output of short stories earned him a place in the Guinness Book of World Records as the most prolific short story writer in the United Kingdom.

A long-time member of the Crime Writers Association, Harris edited the annual anthology of the C.W.A. for many years. Although Harris was known for his crime and detective stories, he was a versatile writer who wrote across several genres. His first full-length suspense novel, Who Kill to Live, was published in 1962. He went on to write two novels based on the 1970s TV series Hawaii Five-O, but short stories were always his preferred form. He died in 1995.

[Biography largely courtesy of The Evening News (1881-1980) Short Story Index]