Dornford Yates was the pseudonym of the English novelist,
Cecil William Mercer (7 August 1885 – 5 March 1960), whose novels and short stories, some humorous (the
Berry books), some
thrillers (the
Chandos books), were best-sellers in the 21-year
interwar period between the First and Second world wars. The pen name,
Dornford Yates, first in print in 1910, resulted from combining the surnames of his grandmothers – the paternal Eliza Mary Dornford, and the maternal Harriet Yates.