Geoffrey Household

Geoffrey Edward West Household (30 November 1900 – 4 October 1988) was a prolific British novelist who specialized in thrillers. He is best known for his novel Rogue Male.

Personal life He was born in Bristol; his father Horace was a barrister. Household was educated at Clifton College, Bristol (1914–1919), and at Magdalen College, Oxford, from which he received a B.A. in English literature in 1922. He became an assistant confidential secretary for Bank of Romania, in Bucharest (1922–1926). In 1926 he went to Spain, where he worked selling bananas as a marketing manager for the United Fruit Company (Elders and Fyffes). In 1929 Household moved to the United States where he wrote for children's encyclopedias and composed children's radio plays for the Columbia Broadcasting System.

Many of his stories have scenes set in caves, and there is a science-fiction or supernatural element in some, although this is restrained. The typical Household hero was a strong, capable Englishman with a high sense of honour which bound him to a certain course of action. He described himself, in terms of his writing, as "sort of a bastard by Stevenson out of Conrad ... Style is enormously important to me and I do try to develop my hero as a human being in trouble."

Indiana University holds a collection of Household's manuscripts and correspondence.