Edward Phillips Oppenheim (22 October 1866 – 3 February 1946) was an English novelist, a prolific writer of best-selling genre fiction, featuring glamorous characters, international intrigue and fast action.

[2][a] After attending Wyggeston Grammar School until the sixth form in 1883, his family's finances forced him to withdraw[5][4] and he worked in his father's business for almost twenty years.

In 1913, John Buchan, launching his career as a suspense novelist, called Oppenheim "my master in fiction" and "the greatest Jewish writer since Isaiah".

It added: "Readers of the author's recent books will find these first stories of life sketches full of interest, their very crudeness being positively amusing in light of his present finished craftsmanship.

[21] Readers came to expect familiar themes, "the peculiar Oppenheim blend of dispatch-box atmosphere, femmes fatales, double traitors, and a tight plot".

[5] Oppenheim's literary success enabled him to buy a villa on the French riviera and a yacht, then a house in Guernsey,[g] though he lost access to this during the Second World War.

His social set included the characters that populated his novels, where he created "a glamorous world of international intrigue, romance and plushy society galloping along in swift action and suspense".

They include: Most of Oppenheim's 38 collections of short stories, 27 of which have been published in the United States, are series with sustained interest in which one group of characters appears throughout.