Colwyn Edward Vulliamy (20 June 1886 – 4 September 1971) was an Anglo-Welsh biographer and author. He was mostly credited as C. E. Vulliamy, but he sometimes used the pen name Anthony Rolls for his crime fiction. Born in

Glasbury Glasbury (), also known as Glasbury-on-Wye, is a village and community in Powys, Wales. The village lies at an important crossing point on the River Wye, connecting the historic counties of Brecknockshire and Radnorshire, and is located just outs ...

Radnorshire Radnorshire () was Historic counties of Wales, one of the thirteen counties of Wales that existed from 1536 until their abolishment in 1974, later becoming a Districts of Wales, district of Powys from 1974 to 1996. It covered a sparsely populat ...

, into a landed branch of the

Vulliamy family The Vulliamy family originated in Switzerland, they were notable as clockmakers in 18th and 19th century Britain, and as architects in the 19th and 20th century. This encyclopedia article does not permit a full genealogy but rather illustrates the ...

, Vulliamy was the son of Edwyn Papendiek Vulliamy and Edith Jane Beaven. His ''James Boswell'' (1933) has been called “the cruellest and most damaging portrait of his subject that has ever been composed”. Vulliamy's ''Ursa Major: A Study of Dr Johnson and His Friends'' (1946) was chosen as a book of the month by the

Right Book Club The Right Book Club was an English book club founded in 1937 by Christina and William Foyle to counter the influential Left Book Club, established in 1936 by Victor Gollancz. Origins and character In May 1936, the Left Book Club had been esta ...

in 1948. Apart from his more serious work as a biographer, historian and archaeologist, Vulliamy also wrote

detective fiction Detective fiction is a subgenre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an criminal investigation, investigator or a detective—whether professional, amateur or retired—investigates a crime, often murder. The detective genre began around ...

. His novel ''Don Among the Dead Men'' (1952) was filmed as '' A Jolly Bad Fellow'', a

black comedy Black comedy, also known as black humor, bleak comedy, dark comedy, dark humor, gallows humor or morbid humor, is a style of comedy that makes light of subject matter that is generally considered taboo, particularly subjects that are normally ...

starring

Leo McKern Reginald "Leo" McKern (16 March 1920 – 23 July 2002) was an Australian actor who appeared in numerous British, Australian and American television programmes and films, and in more than 200 stage roles. His notable roles include Clang in ...

."A Jolly Bad Fellow (1964)"
British Film Institute, accessed 23 July 2021 Vulliamy married Eileen Muriel Hynes (1886–1943), and they had two children, Patricia Drift Vulliamy (1917–1987), and John Sebastian Papendiek Vulliamy (1919–2007), an architect who was the father of the journalist

Ed Vulliamy Edward Sebastian Vulliamy (born 1 August 1954) is a British-born, Irish-Welsh journalist and writer. Early life and education Vulliamy was born and raised in Notting Hill, London. His mother was the children's author and illustrator Shirley ...

Publications as C. E. Vulliamy

*''Charles Kingsley and Christian Socialism'' (1914) *''Our Prehistoric Forerunners'' (London: The Bodley Head, 1925) *''Unknown Cornwall'' (1925) *''The White Bull'' (Scholartis, 1929), translations from

Voltaire François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778), known by his ''Pen name, nom de plume'' Voltaire (, ; ), was a French Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment writer, philosopher (''philosophe''), satirist, and historian. Famous for his wit ...

*''The Letters of the Tsar to the Tsaritsa, 1914–1917'' (translated by A. L. Hynes). (London: The Bodley Head; New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1929) *''Voltaire'' (London: Geoffrey Bles; New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1930) *''The Archaeology of Middlesex and London'' (1930) *''John Wesley'' (1931) *''Rousseau'' (1931) *''The Vicar's Experiments'' (1932) *''James Boswell'' (1932) *''William Penn'' (1933) *''Judas Maccabaeus: A Study Based upon Dr Quarto Karadyne's Translation of the Ararat Codex'' (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1934) *''Mrs Thrale of Streatham'' (1936) *''Royal George: A Study of King George III'' (1937) *''Outlanders: A Study of Imperial Expansion in South Africa, 1877–1902'' (London: Jonathan Cape, 1938) *''Crimea'' (1939) *''Calico Pie'' (1940) *''A Short History of the Montagu-Puffins'' (1941) *''Doctor Philligo'' (1944) *''English Letter Writers'' (Collins, 1945) from the "Britain in Pictures" series *''Edwin and Eleanor: a Pastoral of Pioneer Life'' (1945) *''Ursa Major: A Study of Dr Johnson and His Friends'' (London: Michael Joseph, 1946; Right Book Club, 1948) *''Byron: With a View of the Kingdom of Cant and a Dissection of the Byronic Ego'' (1948) *''Prodwit's Guide to Writing'' (1949) *''Henry Plumdew: His Memoirs, Experiences, and Opinions, 1938–1948'', ed. C. E. Vulliamy (London: Michael Joseph, 1950) *''The Anatomy of Satire'' (1950) *''Rocking Horse Journey: Some Views of the British character '' (London: Michael Joseph, 1952) *''Don Among the Dead Men '' (London: Michael Joseph, 1952) *''The Onslow Family, 1528–1874'' (1953) *''Little Arthur's Guide to Humbug'' (1960) *''Tea at the Abbey'' (1961)

Publications as Anthony Rolls

*''The Vicar’s Experiments'' (Geoffrey Bles, 1932) *''Family Matters'' (Geoffrey Bles, 1933) *''Scarweather'' (Geoffrey Bles, 1934)

Notes

External links

Colwyn Edward Vulliamy

National Portrait Gallery, London The National Portrait Gallery (NPG) is an art gallery in London that houses a collection of portraits of historically important and famous British people. When it opened in 1856, it was arguably the first national public gallery in the world th ...

C. E. Vulliamy

Open Library Open Library is an online project intended to create "one web page for every book ever published". Created by Aaron Swartz, Brewster Kahle, Alexis Rossi, Anand Chitipothu, and Rebecca Hargrave Malamud, Open Library is a project of the Internet ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vulliamy, Colwyn Edward 1886 births 1971 deaths British biographers British mystery writers Vulliamy family Writers of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction