E. Phillips Oppenheim (1866 1946) was one of the most popular and successful writers of spy fiction in the early twentieth century, and was known in his time as the Prince of Storytellers. He was the author of more than 100 novels. Edward Phillips Oppenheim (22 October 1866 - 3 February 1946) was an English novelist, in his lifetime a major and successful writer of genre fiction including thrillers.Edward Phillips Oppenheim was born 22 October 1866 in Leicester, the son of Henrietta Susannah Temperley Budd and Edward John Oppenheim, a leather merchant. He worked in his father's business for almost twenty years. He went to Wyggeston Grammar School.Oppenheim's literary success enabled him to buy a villa in France and a yacht, then a house in Guernsey, though he lost access to this during the Second World War. Afterwards he regained the house, le Vanquiédor in St. Peter Port, and he died there on 3 February 1946