The Rome Express

Arthur Griffiths (1838 -1908) was a prison administrator and author who published more than 60 books during his lifetime. He was also a military historian who wrote extensively about the wars of the 19th century, and was for a time military correspondent for The Times newspaper. His later accounts of crime and punishment in England were "sensational and grotesque," designed to appeal to the baser fascinations of his Victorian readers. Their success led him to write mystery crime novels such as Fast and Loose, published in 1885.