Hulbert Footner

Hulbert Footner (1879-1944) was a Canadian writer of non-fiction and detective fiction.

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Early career

He was born William Hulbert Footner in Hamilton, Ontario, and traveled to New York in 1898. In the United States, he attempted an acting career, which he eventually gave up on. His first published works were travelogues of canoe trips on the Hudson River, as well as in the Northwest Territory along the Peace River, Hay River and Fraser River. He also wrote a series of northwest adventures during the period 1911 through 1920, including The Sealed Valley (1914) and The Fur Bringers (1920).

Career as a crime writer

About 1920, Footner began to write detective fiction, his first series detective character being Madame Rosika Storey. Footner's other series detective is Amos Lee Mappin, a successful, middle aged mystery writer whose crimes tend to occur in New York's cafe society. Mappin is unusual in that his "Watson" (at least in some of his tales) is a young woman, his secretary Fanny Parran. She is one of the few female "Watsons" in fiction, an example of how unusually female-oriented Footner's fiction was.

Bibliography

Non-fiction

Fiction

External links