Ridgwell Cullum

Ridgwell Cullum was the pseudonym of Sidney Groves Burghard, a British writer and Broadway performer born in London on 13 August 1867. Over a career spanning more than three decades, he produced a substantial body of adventure fiction while also appearing on the New York stage in the first decade of the twentieth century.

Burghard left London at the age of 17, drawn first to the Transvaal in South Africa during a gold rush, where he became caught up in the tensions between British and Boer settlers. He subsequently traveled to the Yukon in northwestern Canada during another gold rush and spent several years working as a cattle rancher in Montana.

His debut novel, The Devil's Keg, set in Alberta, Canada, appeared in 1903. Following its success, he returned to Britain and established himself as a full-time writer. His fiction was typically set in the sparsely populated regions of the United States and Canada, and a number of his novels were adapted into films. Among those adaptations were The Night Riders (1906), filmed in 1920; The Trail of the Axe (1910), filmed in 1922 with Dustin Farnum and George Fisher; and The Twins of Suffering Creek (1912), which was adapted twice, first in 1920 featuring William Russell and again in 1923 as The Man Who Won, directed by William A. Wellman. Additional adaptations included The Way of the Strong (1914), directed by Edwin Carewe and featuring Anna Q. Nilsson, and The Son of His Father (1915), directed by Victor Schertzinger and featuring Charles Ray.

During the period between his early travels and his establishment as a novelist, Burghard appeared on Broadway under the Ridgwell Cullum name. His stage credits included The Duchess of Dantzic and the musical The Girls of Gottenberg, with his Broadway appearances taking place between 1905 and 1908.

Cullum continued publishing fiction into the late 1930s, with his final novel, One Who Kills, appearing in 1938. He died in Torquay on 3 November 1943.