Richard Collier (1924–1996) was an English journalist, military historian and novelist.
Life
Born in
Croydon
Croydon is a large town in South London, England, south of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Croydon, a Districts of England, local government district of Greater London; it is one of the largest commercial districts in Greater Lond ...
, Collier joined the
RAF in 1942 and was War Associate Editor of
Lord Mountbatten
Admiral of the Fleet (Royal Navy), Admiral of the Fleet Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma (born Prince Louis of Battenberg; 25 June 1900 – 27 August 1979), commonly known as Lord Mountbatten, was ...
's magazine ''Phoenix: An Allied Magazine for All Allied Forces in South East Asia''. After the war, he joined the ''
Daily Mail
The ''Daily Mail'' is a British daily Middle-market newspaper, middle-market Tabloid journalism, tabloid conservative newspaper founded in 1896 and published in London. , it has the List of newspapers in the United Kingdom by circulation, h ...
'' as a feature writer.
For his 1971 biography of
Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who, upon assuming office as Prime Minister, became the dictator of Fascist Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 until his overthrow in 194 ...
, Collier employed three administrative assistants to coordinate the work of 30 research assistants and eight translators. The book's ''
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' reviewer found the book uncritical but easy to read and entertaining.
Collier's 1974 ''The Plague of the Spanish Lady'' was the first book-length treatment of the
Spanish flu
The 1918–1920 flu pandemic, also known as the Great Influenza epidemic or by the common misnomer Spanish flu, was an exceptionally deadly global influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 subtype of the influenza A virus. The earliest docum ...
pandemic of 1918–19. For the book Collier advertised around the world, asking for memories and eye-witness accounts. The correspondence which he collected is now held by the
Imperial War Museum
The Imperial War Museum (IWM), currently branded "Imperial War Museums", is a British national museum. It is headquartered in London, with five branches in England. Founded as the Imperial War Museum in 1917, it was intended to record the civ ...
.
Remembering the Spanish Flu
''Arts and Humanities Research Council''. Accessed 9 January 2020.
Works
Novels
* ''Beautiful Friend'', 1947
Non-fiction
* ''Ten Thousand Eyes: The Amazing Story of the Spy Network That Cracked Hitler's Atlantic Wall Before D-Day'', 1958
* ''The City that Would Not Die: The Bombing of London, May 10–11, 1941'', 1959
* ''A House Called Memory'', 1960
* ''The Sands of Dunkirk'', 1961
* ''The Great Indian Mutiny: A Dramatic Account of the Sepoy Rebellion'', 1963
* ''The General Next to God: The story of William Booth and the Salvation Army'', 1965
* ''Eagle Day: The Battle of Britain, August 6-September 15, 1940'', 1966
* ''The River that God Forgot: The Story of the Amazon Rubber Boom'', 1968
* ''Duce!: The Rise and Fall of Benito Mussolini'', 1971
* ''The Plague of the Spanish Lady: The Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919'', 1974
* ''The War in the Desert'', 1977
* ''Bridge Across the Sky: The Berlin Blockade and Airlift, 1948-1949'', 1978
* ''1940, The Avalanche'', 1979
* ''The Road to Pearl Harbor--1941'', 1981
* ''The Freedom Road, 1944-1945'', 1983
* '' The Rainbow People: A Gaudy World of the Very Rich and Those Who Served Them'', 1984
* ''Make-believe: The Magic of International Theatre'', 1986
* ''Their Finest Hour: The Battle of Britain Remembered'', 1989
* ''The Few: Summer 1940, The Battle of Britain'', 1989
* ''The Warcos: The War Correspondents of World War Two'', 1989
* ''D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Normandy Landings'', 1992
* ''The Past is a Foreign Country: Scenes from a Life'', 1996
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Collier, Richard
1924 births
1996 deaths
English novelists
English journalists
Daily Mail journalists
English military historians
People from Croydon
Royal Air Force personnel of World War II
Royal Air Force airmen
Military personnel from the London Borough of Croydon