Edward Wyke Smith

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Edward Augustine Wyke-Smith (1871-1935) was an English author, mining engineer and adventurer. He is the author of The Marvellous Land of Snergs, now particularly noted as an inspiration for Tolkien's creation of hobbits. After a time in the Horse Guards at Whitehall, Wyke-Smith joined the crew of a windjammer and sailed to Australia and the west coast of the United States. In the American West, he worked as a cowboy. Back in England, he studied mine engineering and later managed mines in Mexico, the Sinai, South America, Spain, Portugal and Norway. During the 1913 revolution in Mexico, he rescued his wife from the capital. He built a pontoon bridge across the Suez canal during the First World War. He wrote his first book, Bill of the Bustingforths, at his children's request, and went on to write several others, both for children and adults.