Joseph Smith Fletcher (7 February 1860 - 30 January 1933) was a British journalist and author. He wrote more than 230 books on a wide variety of subjects, both fiction and non-fiction, and was one of the leading writers of detective fiction in the "Golden Age Fletcher was born in Halifax, West Yorkshire, the son of a clergyman. His father died when he was eight months old, and after which his grandmother raised him on a farm in Darrington, near Pontefract. He was educated at Silcoates School in Wakefield, and after some study of law, he became a journalis At age 20, Fletcher began working in journalism, as a sub-editor in London. He subsequently returned to his native Yorkshire, where he worked first on the Leeds Mercury using the pseudonym A Son of the Soil, and then as a special correspondent for the Yorkshire Post covering Edward VII's coronation in 1902.