John Palmer

John Leslie Palmer (4 September 1885, Paddington, London – 5 August 1944) was an English author. Under his own name, he wrote extensively about early English actors and about British literary figures. He also wrote fiction under the collaborative pseudonyms Francis Beeding, Christopher Haddon, David Pilgrim and John Somers.

As "Francis Beeding", he and Hilary Saint George Saunders co-authored 31 novels, including The House of Dr. Edwardes, later used as the basis for the Hitchcock film Spellbound. The majority, beginning with The Seven Sleepers in 1925 and ending with Three are Thirteen in 1946, can be classified as spy novels.

The Beeding pseudonym was kept secret from its start in 1920, until in 1925 Saunders delivered a lecture about his writing methods, as Francis Beeding, while Palmer heckled from the audience. Saunders invited Palmer to the platform, and the dual authorship was revealed.

He wrote biographies of Molière, Ben Jonson, George Bernard Shaw, and Rudyard Kipling. He also wrote books on Shakespeare's comic and political characters.

Palmer and Saunders used the collective pseudonym "Francis Beeding" for more than thirty novels, including:

As "David Pilgrim", the duo wrote historical novels: