Mason, A.E.W.

Alfred Edward Woodley Mason was a British author born in London. He attended Dulwich College and Trinity College, Oxford, graduating with a degree in literature in 1888. He engaged in amateur dramatics at university and also wrote his own plays. After graduating, he unsuccessfully tried the stage. Encouraged by his friend Oscar Wilde he turned to fiction instead, and successfully published an adventure story entitled The Four Feathers (1902). Mason was a Liberal Member of Parliament for Coventry until 1910. He served in the Infantry in the First World War and was promoted to the rank of major in 1917. He then served in naval intelligence in Mexico and Spain, setting up counter-intelligence networks for the British Government.