Shiel, M. P. (Matthew Phipps)
Dates
- Existence: 1865-1947
biographical statement
Matthew Phipps Shiel was born in Montserrat in 1865. He was the eighth or ninth child but the only son of the family. On his fifteenth birthday, his father, Matthew Dowdy Shiel, crowned him King of Redonda, a rocky island near Montserrat. M. P. Shiel moved to England and became a writer publishing his first book, Prince Zaleski, in 1895. He wrote short stories for the popular magazines and revised some of these stories into full-length novels. His work is sometimes described as science fiction but may perhaps most usefully be called “fantasy” literature. He is noted for his extravagant use of language and sometimes wrote under the pen name “Gordon Holmes”. Shiel married twice, and in his later years, he undertook a regular correspondence with an American fan, Anne Marie Gross Miller, whom he never met. On his death, in 1947, Shiel left his house to Miller’s son, Patrick.