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H.C. McNeile

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Author

The Resume

    (September 28, 1888-August 14, 1937)
    Born in Bodmin, Cornwall, England, United Kingdom
    Birth name was Herman Cyril McNeile
    Best known for creating the character Bulldog Drummond
    Featured Drummond in ten novels, three plays, and a screenplay

Why he might be annoying:

    He said he started writing out of ‘sheer boredom.’
    He originally used the pen name ‘Sapper’ because officers in the British Army were not allowed to publish under their own name.
    A critic noted he was ‘wonderfully forgetful’ about characters dying in one book and appearing alive in the next.
    Latter-day critics complained about xenophobia and anti-Semitism in his writing, with one calling Bulldog Drummond ‘a bundle of chauvinisms, hating Jews, Germans, and most other foreigners.’

Why he might not be annoying:

    He was gassed during the Second Battle of Ypres (1915).
    According to his friend and collaborator Gerald Fairlie, he was the highest-paid short story writer of his day.
    Critics of the day praised his war stories for their realism and lack of sentimentality.
    Ian Fleming said that James Bond was ‘Sapper from the waist up and Mickey Spillane below.’

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    For 2024, as of last weekly ranking, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2023, Out of 2 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 12 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying