The Return of Clubfoot

Williams (1883-1946) was an English journalist and writer of popular fiction. He was the eldest son of the chief editor at Reuters and both his brother and an uncle were also journalists. In 1905 he took over as Reuters correspondent in Berlin aged 21 and left in 1908 to join the Daily Mail, filing stories from Paris and covering the Portuguese revolution in 1910. He was in the Balkans at the outbreak of WWI and became one of the first accredited war correspondents in March 1915. In December that year he enlisted for service in the Irish Guards and was later awarded the Military Cross, writing two autobiographical books about his wartime experiences. In the aftermath of war, he travelled widely as a reporter covering events such as the Versailles Peace Conference and the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamen. During this period he began writing thrillers and around 1926 he gave up his post as Foreign Editor of the Daily Mail to pursue a full-time career as an author. Too old for active service at the outbreak of WWII, Williams joined the Secret Intelligence Service vetting potential new recruits including Kim Philby, and in1941 was transferred to the British Embassy in Washington. He soon left for Hollywood where he worked as a scriptwriter for 20th Century Fox and MGM. A sequel to The Man With the Clubfoot (1918), this adventure novel was first published in 1922.