Robert Hichens

Robert Smythe Hichens (1864–1950) was an English novelist, journalist, and music critic who first drew notice as a satirist of the 1890s. His anonymously published novel "The Green Carnation" (1894) lampooned Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas so pointedly that it was withdrawn during Wilde's trial. He later wrote the bestselling desert romance "The Garden of Allah" (1904) along with a body of supernatural fiction, of which "How Love Came to Professor Guildea" remains the most admired.