E. C. Vivian

[1] Prior to becoming a writer, Cannell was a former soldier in the Boer War and journalist for The Daily Telegraph.

[2] Vivian is best known for his Lost World fantasy novels such as City of Wonder[3] and his series of novels featuring supernatural detective Gregory George Gordon Green or "Gees" which he wrote under his "Jack Mann" pseudonym.

[1] Vivian also wrote several science-fiction stories, including the novel Star Dust about a scientist who can create gold.

[5] In addition to UK writers, Vivian often reprinted fiction from American pulp magazines such as Adventure and Weird Tales in the Hutchinson publications.

Critic Jack Adrian has praised Cannell's lost-world stories as "bursting with ideas and colour and pace", and "superb examples of a fascinating breed".

The Ninth Life , under the "Jack Mann" byline, was reprinted in the April 1950 issue of A. Merritt's Fantasy Magazine
Another "Jack Mann" novel, Her Ways Are Death , was reprinted in the June 1952 issue of Famous Fantastic Mysteries
Fields of Sleep was reprinted in the August 1949 issue of Famous Fantastic Mysteries , under the title "The Valley of Silent Men"