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Bruce Hamilton (writer)

English novelist

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 22, 2026
Entity authorityQ47471841
Source-derived summary

Arthur Douglas Bruce Hamilton CMG (3 July 1900, Regent's Park, London – 24 March 1974, Brighton, Sussex) was an English novelist.

Family

Bruce Hamilton's younger brother Patrick was a successful novelist and playwright, and his sister was the actress and playwright Diana Hamilton. Their father, Bernard Hamilton (1863–1930), a barrister, also wrote fiction.

Writing

A godson of Arthur Conan Doyle, Bruce Hamilton wrote six crime novels in the 1930s, then four more novels over the next 30 years. Unlike many crime fiction writers, he preferred to try something different with each novel, rather than use a successful formula. He also wrote a biography of his brother Patrick in 1972.

His 1946 novel Pro: An English Tragedy, which was not a crime novel, is particularly admired in cricket circles for its realistic and poignant portrayal of the life of a professional county cricketer in England either side of the First World War.

A collection of his manuscripts and correspondence is held at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin.

Life

Hamilton moved to Barbados in 1938 to take up a teaching post. Soon afterwards, he began writing on international matters for The Barbados Advocate.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Bruce Hamilton (writer)” as english novelist. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1900, 1974, 1863, 1930—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1900. The account is most persuasive where Bruce, Hamilton and writer can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as english novelist. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q47471841. VIAF identifies the subject as 12775600. The Library of Congress control number is n82152889. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1900, 1974, 1863 and 1930.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Bruce Hamilton (writer)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.