M. P. Shiel

M. P. Shiel is a pen name of Matthew Phipps Shiel (1865-1947). He was a West Indian-born British writer who produced twenty-five novels and dozens of short stories under the name M. P. Shiel, mostly in the romantic or supernatural adventure vein. His best-remembered novel is The Purple Cloud (1901), a "last-man-on-Earth" tale that inspired Stephen King's The Stand (1978) as well as several films. He is also known for four stories with the highly unusual detective Prince Zaleski (1895). Chris Steinbrunner and Otto Penzler, in their essential Encyclopedia of Mystery & Detection (1976), call Zaleski "probably the most bizarre, erudite, and ethereal detective in literature." Shiel himself, referring to "the notorious Holmes [as] a bastard son" of Dupin, termed Zaleski "a legitimate son."

Leslie S. Klinger, In The Shadow of Sherlock Holmes (2011)