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Richard Austin Freeman
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Richard Austin Freeman, c. 1935
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Richard Austin Freeman, c. 1935
Richard Austin Freeman, c. 1935

Richard Austin Freeman

English author
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Quick Facts
Born:
1862, London
Died:
Sept. 30, 1943, Gravesend, Kent, Eng.

Richard Austin Freeman (born 1862, London—died Sept. 30, 1943, Gravesend, Kent, Eng.) was a popular English author of novels and short stories featuring the fictional character John Thorndyke, a pathologist-detective.

Educated as a physician and surgeon, Freeman practiced in the Gold Coast (now Ghana), where he caught a fever. Eventually forced by ill health to retire from practice (1904), he began to write fiction. The Red Thumb Mark (1907) was the first of many works featuring Thorndyke.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Encyclopaedia Britannica.