Neil Wynn Williams

Neil Wynn Williams (14 February 1864 – 1 February 1940) was a British novelist, writer and contributor of short stories and articles to the periodicals and journals of his time.^{[1][2][3][4][5][6]}

Life

Neil Wynn Williams was born in Hampstead on 14 February 1864, the son of William Rudyard Wynn Williams and Elizabeth Blackwell Campbell Williams (née Lambert).^[7][8] He was educated at Bedford Modern School between 1887 and 1891.^[9]

Wynn-Williams’s initial published works were two volumes of Greek folklore, Tales And Sketches of Modern Greece that was published in 1894 and The Bayonet That Came Home: A Vanity Of Modern Greece that was published in 1896.^[10] In 1904 he was asked to contribute to a writer’s view of Paris and wrote about the catacombs of the City.^[11]

Wynn-William’s science fiction novel, The Electric Theft, was first published in 1906.^[12][13] Although critically judged as having ‘little literary merit’, the novel is suggestive of Ian Fleming’s later James Bond novels: the hero, Reginald Burton, discovers that an anarchist, Boleroff, is in command of a vast electrolytic lake under London that he harnesses for his own means, cutting off London’s electricity supply.^[14] All the while Burton is having an affair with a daughter of a wealthy British capitalist.^[14] At the end of the novel, Boleroff accidentally kills himself.^[14]

Wynn-Williams died in Bedford on 1 February 1940.^[15] He and his brother, Douglas Wynn Williams, had been accomplished oarsmen in their schooldays and endowed a rowing prize for the fastest pair at their old school.^[9] Wynn-Williams was survived by his wife, whom he’d married in London on 4 September 1903, and three children.^[16]

Selected bibliography

• Tales And Sketches of Modern Greece. Published by The Bedford Publishing Co., London, David Nutt, 1894^[17]
• The Bayonet That Came Home: A Vanity Of Modern Greece. Published by Edward Arnold, London and New York City, 1896^[18]
• Greek Peasant Stories; Or, Gleams And Glooms Of Grecian Colour. Published by Digby, Long & Co., London, 1899^[19][20]
• An Extraordinary Story. Published by George Newnes, Ltd, London, 1899
• Lady Haife. A Novel, Etc.. Published London, 1901^[21][22]
• The Electric Theft. Published by Small, Maynard & Company, Boston, 1906^[14]

References

External links

• Neil Wynn Williams at WorldCat Identities
• The Electric Theft at The Open Library
• Audiobook, The Catacombs of Paris, by Neil Wynn Williams