> 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)