Much of this earlier work was a collaboration with American puzzlist Sam Loyd; in 1890, they published a series of articles in the English penny weekly Tit-Bits.

Dudeney later contributed puzzles under his real name to publications such as The Weekly Dispatch, The Queen, Blighty, and Cassell's Magazine.

For twenty years, he had a successful column, "Perplexities", in The Strand Magazine, edited by the former editor of Tit-Bits, George Newnes.

Dudeney was a leading exponent of verbal arithmetic puzzles; his were always alphametic, where the letters constitute meaningful phrases or associated words.

[2] Omission of detailed puzzle rules in the cited farm journal suggests they were already popular in America by 1864, when Dudeney was 7 years old.

The income generated by her books was important to the Dudeney household, and her fame gained them entry to both literary and court circles.

In April 1930, Dudeney died of throat cancer in Lewes, where he and his wife had moved in 1914 to rekindle their marriage after a period of separation.