Archibald Marshall, a Realistic Novelist #420456

Arthur Hammond Marshall (6 September 1866 – 29 September 1934), better known by his pen name Archibald Marshall, was an English author, publisher and journalist whose novels were particularly popular in the United States. He published over 50 books and was recognized as a realist in his writing style, and was considered by some as a successor to Anthony Trollope. Educated at Cambridge University, he was later (in 1921) made an honorary Doctor of Letters by Yale University. He travelled widely and made numerous notable acquaintances.

Archibald Marshall's father, Arthur Marshall (1832–1900), was a businessman in London. Archibald was educated at Highgate School. Not wishing to join his father's shipping company, he had first intended to be a clergyman and studied theology at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he befriended Bertram Fletcher Robinson and Vaughan Williams amongst others. He married the widow Nellie Banks in 1902 (née Ellen Pollard), who had three children by her previous marriage to Alfred Banks, and they had one daughter Elizabeth, born in December 1904.

In 1903 he went to live in Beaulieu, Hampshire where he had a house built. He befriended John, Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, who invited him to be editor of The Car, which was first issued in August 1903. He later wrote a Biography of Lord Montagu in collaboration with Lady Laura Troubridge, which was published in 1930.

Marshall's first published novel was Lord Stirling's Son and the second Peter Binney, Undergraduate; His next, The House of Merrilees had been rejected by a variety of publishers, and after rewriting it in 1904 he established the publishing firm Alston Rivers along with two others, in order to publish it in 1905.

In Cambridge, Marshall had written articles for The Granta under R. C. Lehmann; when Lehmann became editor of the Daily News in 1901, Marshall was appointed as his secretary, and later became literary editor. Marshall befriended G. K. Chesterton, and helped him to obtain a position at the Daily News whilst he held this post. In 1906, he was appointed as Assistant Director of the new Daily Mail Literary Supplement, Books, being promoted to Director six months later. Marshall left the Daily Mail in 1911, hoping to make a living from writing novels, and he moved to Switzerland with his family in 1913. In 1916 he was forced to return to Journalism as the Paris Correspondent of the Daily News. He was later to write short stories for Punch between 1926 and 1934, many of which were later republished in his books Simple People, Simple Stories and Simple Stories from Punch.