Author: James Manners Romanis
Author: James Manners Romanis (1855–1919)
Alternate Name(s): Romanes (alternate spelling); Hadji of Hyde Park (pseudonym)
Biography: James Manners Romanis was born in 1855 in Inverkeithing, Fife, the son of veterinary surgeon Charles Simon Romanis (1825–1875) and Eleanor Laing (née Davidson). His father was born and lived several years in St. Petersburg, Russia. Romanis attended Edinburgh University in the 1870s. By 1881, he lived in London as a student. It was here he wrote two rather dense romans á clef: Alirabi (1883) by "Hadji of Hyde Park" and The Great Western Mystery (1886). He subsequently worked as a journalist: he edited briefly the Times of India and served as the London correspondent in Russia. By the 1901 census, he lived in Dumfries as a patient in the Crichton Royal Instition. He died on 23 April 1919 of pneumonia in Ediburgh.
Author Tags:
References: British Census (1881, 1901); The Scotsman (10 October 1875; 24 April 1919)
Fiction Titles:
- Alirabi: or, The Banks and Bankers of the Nile. 1 vol. Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1883.
- The Great Western Mystery: or, From the Caucasus to the "Caucus". 3 vol. London: F. V. White, 1886.