Lewis Patrick Greene (1891–1971), who usually wrote under the name L. Patrick Greene, was an English writer of adventure stories.
Greene was born in England. He spent several years in Rhodesia working as a civil servant, before a back injury caused him to be deemed medically unfit for service and discharged.[1] By 1913, Greene had emigrated to the US and became an American citizen settling in Boston.
In 1918, Greene began to write fiction based on his experiences for the pulp magazines. Initially, his main American market was Adventure magazine.[2] For Adventure, Greene created his most famous character, the "Major", the alias of English adventurer Aubrey St. John Major. An eccentric Englishman whose foppish behaviour disguised a clever and heroic character, the Major, aided by his Khoikhoi friend Jim, worked as an illicit diamond buyer, illegally trading diamonds in South Africa. Despite his criminal status, the Major and Jim often intervened to help the innocent and bring criminals to justice.[3]
For a time, Greene worked as Assistant Editor on Adventure and was not allowed to write fiction for it. He then began selling fiction to other pulp magazines, especially Short Stories, (where he transferred the Major series). Green became one of Short Stories most frequent and most popular contributors.[4]
Other publications Greene wrote for included Action Stories, Argosy, Blue Book and Everybody's Magazine.
For his nephews, Greene wrote a children's book, Tabu Dick (1933). This revolved around the adventures of a Tarzan-like boy in Africa.[5]