In addition he produced 'O England!', a study of social conditions and politics in 1934. He did, however, continue to review books for such as 'John O'London's Weekly', 'The Sunday Times', 'The Daily Telegraph' and, from the mid-1950s to 1970, 'The Guardian'. However, he produced nothing significant after he finished writing with 'Death in the House' (Berkeley) and 'As for the Woman' (Isles) in 1939.

In 1939 he gave up writing detective fiction for no apparent reason although it has been suggested that he came into a large inheritance at the time or that his alleged remark, 'When I find something that pays better than detective stories I shall write that' had some relevance. In the mid-1930s he began reviewing novels, both mystery and non-mystery, for 'The Daily Telegraph' under the Francis Isles pseudonym, which he had first used for 'Malice Aforethought' in 1931.

In 1928 he founded the famous Detection Club in London and became its first honorary secretary. He discovered that the financial rewards were far better for detective fiction so he concentrated his efforts on that genre for the following 14 years, using mainly the Anthony Berkeley pseudonym but also writing four novels and three collections of short stories as Francis Isles and one novel as A Monmouth Platts.

Later editions of the book had the author as Anthony Berkeley. It was also in 1925 when he published, anonymously to begin with, his first detective novel, 'The Layton Court Mystery', which was apparently written for the amusement of himself and his father, who was a big fan of the mystery genre. These were later published collectively (1925) under the Anthony Berkeley pseudonym as 'Jugged Journalism' and the book was followed by a series of minor comic novels such as 'Brenda Entertains' (1925), 'The Family Witch' (1925) and 'The Professor on Paws' (1926). He served in the Army in World War I and thereafter worked as a journalist, contributing a series of humourous sketches to the magazine 'Punch'. Monmouth Platts.Ĭox was born in Watford and was educated at Sherborne School and University College London. Francis Iles is a pseudonym of Anthony Berkeley Cox who also wrote under the names A.B.

Malice Aforethought by Francis Iles