R C Sherriff (whose book The Fortnight in September will be our twelfth Classic edition this October) was born in 1896, worked in an insurance office until, early in WW1, he joined up and in 1917 was severely wounded at Ypres. After the war he returned to his former job and started writing plays for local amateur theatrical groups. Journey’s End (1929), based on his letters home from the trenches, was an enormous success and became a classic. In the 1930s Sherriff went to Hollywood to write scripts. He wrote several novels, including The Fortnight in September (1931), Greengates (1936), and The Hopkins Manuscript (1939). For many years R C Sherriff lived with his mother in a large house in Esher; he died there in 1975.