Piccadilly Publishing

OLIVER (Thomas) STRANGE

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Piccadilly Publishing / Oliver Strange

AUTHOR PROFILE

written by Frederick Nolan (Aka Frederick H. Christian)



THOMAS OLIVER STRANGE, the son of draper Richard Fairbrother Strange, was born at Blenheim House, Worcester in 1871. Other than that it was spent in Kidderminster, nothing is known of his childhood or schooling. An older brother, Edward Fairbrother Strange (1862-1929), worked as a copyist for the Inland Revenue Service, later in the accounts department of the Science and Art Museum (which became the Victoria & Albert Museum) and commanded the 13th London regiment during World War I. Oliver Strange also had three sisters, Helena, Millicent and Jessie.

His father, Richard Fairbrother Strange, was born in 1833 in Banbury, Oxfordshire and was a draper by profession. In 1861 he married milliner's assistant Anna Maria Hill in Wellington, Somerset. When Thomas Oliver Strange was born in 1871 they were living at 82 High Street, St. Swithens, Worcester, Worcs. Richard died 1904 in St. Neots; Anna died 1896 in Tendring, Essex.

In the 1890s Thomas Oliver Strange worked as a publisher's clerk, but by the turn of the century was making a living as a journalist and author, living with his brother, Edward (already working at the V&A Museum) at 10 Aynhoe Mansions, Hammersmith. In 1907 he married schoolteacher Amy Nora Rumbol in Richmond, Surrey. Born towards the end of 1881 in Leeming, Yorkshire, Amy Nora's family originated in Hampshire; her father was also a school-teacher and an older sister, Ada, was a music teacher - in the 1890s they were teaching school in Barnet, Herts.

Oliver Strange spent most, perhaps all, of his working life in an editorial capacity in the periodicals department of George Newnes, Ltd (who ceased to exist around the mid-1970s) publishers of illustrated books, popular and library fiction and such journals as John O'London's Weekly, Cassell's Weekly and Pearson's Weekly. Up to the time of his retirement, Strange and his wife Nora, (she was the "Noreen" to whom the first of the "Sudden" books - The Range Robbers - was dedicated) lived in North Avenue, Kew.

It was there that "Sudden" was born; a nephew, J. O. Harden, wrote me that Strange was "obviously fascinated by the American scene and wrote knowledgeably of it, but he certainly never visited the United States. When Sudden was conceived I never heard him say. The Range Robbers had been waiting to be written for a long time, but I doubt he did any serious research until he left journalism. He told me '[It] was the only western he had intended to write and he meant to do something quite different after it.'

The Range Robbers was first published in 1931 and became an immediate success (it was also published in the United States by Dial Press). At that time westerns were in enormous vogue, with potentially huge sales to public and subscription libraries; when novelist Compton (Whisky Galore) Mackenzie, then at the height of his fame, enthusiastically recommended "Sudden" to his readers, Strange's first novel became a bestseller.

Although he had never intended to write a series, he was prevailed upon by his publisher - and a clamouring public - to continue the saga. The second story, The Marshal Of Lawless, was published by Newnes in 1933 and by Doubleday in the US as the very first of what became its famous Double D Western series. Shortly thereafter, in the summer of 1934, the Stranges moved to a new house at 66, Tranmere Road, Whitton, near Twickenham, which they called "Fairways."

Their next door neighbours, the Coton family, told me in 1966 that Strange was an avid reader who got through at least one and often two books a day - perhaps research for his own books, perhaps even others writers' westerns? - and that when he settled down to write a new "Sudden" book he did it in longhand while sitting on a deckchair in the back garden.

There was a "Sudden" story nearly every year after that; they were usually published just before Christmas. Strange also wrote a number of western short stories, some of which were published in the old London Evening News in 1935-36 (I have a copy of one called "Aigs" [Eggs]). The saga of "Sudden" came to an end in 1941, when the house at Whitton was severely damaged during the Blitz and the Stranges lost most of their personal possessions. The last book, Sudden Makes War, was serialised in the News of the World (!) between August and December, and published in time for Christmas, 1941 (although the copyright date is given as 1942).

That same year, the "bombed-out" Stranges (what a different meaning that phrase has now) had moved well out of harm's way - as they thought - to Kilmarnock where they rented a property at 6, Avenue Square, Stewarton. Ironically Strange, now in his seventies, was seriously injured in a fire which destroyed the house in April, 1943. The following year they returned to Whitton where their former home had been rebuilt. But in spite of heartfelt pleas from publishers and readers, he never wrote anything else.

In 1948, Nora Strange died at St John's Hospital, Twickenham. Oliver Strange died four years later, aged 82, on November 25, 1952, leaving a substantial estate.



The Sudden Series by Oliver Strange

  • The Range Robbers (1930)
  • The Law o' the Lariat (1931)
  • Sudden (1933)
  • The Marshal of Lawless (1933)
  • Sudden — Outlawed (1934)
  • Sudden — Gold Seeker (1937)
  • Sudden Rides Again (1938)
  • Sudden Takes the Trail (1940)
  • Sudden Makes War (1942)




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