There is an ownership inscription on the front paste down, else a clean and solid copy. Edward Harold Begbie (1871 - 929), also known as Harold Begbie, was an English author and journalist who published nearly 50 books and poems and contributed to periodicals. Besides studies of the Christian religion, he wrote numerous other books, including political satire, comedy, fiction, science fiction, plays and poetry. Begbie was born in 1871....; he died in London on 8 October 1929....Begbie had a strong religious bent: he was involved in the Oxford Group (which later became Moral Re-Armament) and with the Salvation Army. His concern with social reform appeared strongly in his book The Little that is Good (1917), where he wrote about charitable work among the poor of London. He raised large sums of money for East End charities.Begbie might be described as a Broad Church Anglican, who was interested in the ways in which modern science seemed to cast doubt on materialism by showing matter was more complicated than previously believed. He was hostile to Anglo-Catholic Ritualism and to Roman Catholicism; several pre-First World War novels portray Ritualists as sinister and dishonest crypto-Catholic conspirators. His 1914 book The Lady Next Door, however, supports Irish home rule and gives an idealised portrayal of Catholicism in Ireland as a genuinely popular religion. His hostile view of urban industrial society in Belfast was criticised by many Ulster Unionists including the writer St. John Ervine. (Wikipedia)