Charles Whiting

Charles Henry Whiting (18 December 1926 – 24 July 2007 ), was a British writer and military historian and with some 350 books of fiction and non-fiction to his credit, under his own name and a variety of pseudonyms including Duncan Harding, Ian Harding, John Kerrigan, Leo Kessler,Klaus Konrad, K.N. Kostov, while still an undergraduate at Leeds; it was published by Jonathan Cape in 1954. Next followed three wartime thrillers: Lest I Fall, which was awarded the George Dowty Prize at the 1956 Cheltenham Literature Festival, was optioned by Rank but never filmed, and which financed Whiting's study tour in North America and led on to a contract with the University of Maryland University College, which at that time was providing degree courses for US military officers stationed in Europe. followed by The Mighty Fallen (1958).

In 1967, he began writing non-fiction books for the New York publisher Ian Ballantine. Whiting continued this work even when producing novels.

One of his most famous books of non-fiction is York Blitz, 1942 (also published as Fire Over York), about the German bombing of York in April 1942, while his most controversial is Hemingway Goes To War, about the misadventures of the writer Ernest Hemingway during World War II. The latter was republished in 2008 by Humdrumming Ltd, which is also republishing some early Leo Kessler titles, kicking off with Fire Over Kabul, as well as his very first novel, The Frat Wagon.

Selected publications

Originally published as The Battle for Twelveland.

Originally, published in 1990 by Crowood Press under the title: Papa Goes to War.

Personal life Whiting married first wife, Irma Krueger, in 1948; she died in 2001. Together they had a son, Julian.

Whiting married Gillian Tidmus in 2005.

Death Whiting died 24 July 2007 in York, aged 80, from renal failure. His wife Gillian Tidmus and son, Julian, survive him.