Geoffrey Household

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Geoffrey Edward West Household (November 30, 1900 — October 4, 1988) was a prolific British novelist who specialized in thrillers. He is best known for his 1939 novel Rogue Male. Many of his stories have scenes set in caves, and there is a science-fiction or supernatural element in some, although this is handled with restraint. The typical Household hero was a strong, capable man with a high sense of honour which bound him to a certain course of action.

Born in Bristol, Household was educated at Clifton College and at Magdalen College, Oxford, from which he received a B.A. in English literature in 1922.

His 1958 autobiography is entitled Against the Wind. He also wrote short stories, published in the collection "The Europe That Was."

Rogue Male is an excellent thriller of the period, about a British sportsman (like Richard Hannay, hero of several John Buchan novels) who for personal reasons attempts to shoot a European dictator, obviously modeled on Adolf Hitler. This attempt fails and the anonymous hero is hunted down in England, eventually trapped in a badger's underground burrow. The book was filmed in Hollywood in 1941, starring Walter Pidgeon and George Sanders, and in 1976 for British TV, starring Peter O'Toole and Alistair Sim.