Alfred Edward Woodley Mason (1865-1948) was a British author. He studied at Dulwich College and graduated from Trinity College, Oxford in 1888. His first novel, A Romance of Wastdale, was published in 1895. He is the author of more than twenty books, among them The Four Feathers, originally published in London in 1902. His next successful work was At the Villa Rose (1910), where he introduced his French detective, Hanaud. He was elected as a Liberal Member of Parliament for Coventry in the 1906 general election. He served only a single term in Parliament, retiring at the next general election in January 1910. He contributed a short story, The Conjurer, to The Queen's Book of the Red Cross. His other works include The Philanderers (1897), Miranda of the Balcony (1899), Clementina (1901), Ensign Knightley and Other Stories (1901), The Four Feathers (1902), Running Water (1907), The Witness for the Defence (1913), The Summons (1920), No Other Tiger (1927), The Prisoner in the Opal (1929), Fire Over England (1937) and The House of the Arrow (1924). --This text refers to the Paperback edition.