Edward Powys Mathers

Edward Powys Mathers was born on August 28, 1892, in Forest Hill, London. He was educated at Loretto School and Trinity College, Oxford. Mathers is the author and translator of The Garden of Bright Waters: One Hundred and Twenty Asiatic Love Poems (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1920) and Bilhana: Black Marigolds (1919). He also translated J. C. Mardrus’s French version of One Thousand and One Nights, published in four volumes (Routledge & Kegan Paul, Ltd., 1923). Some of his translations were set to music by the composer Aaron Copland. Writing under the pseudonym “Torquemada,” Mathers compiled cryptic crosswords for The Observer from 1926 until his death, pioneering the form of the advanced cryptic crossword. His murder–mystery puzzle novel Cain’s Jawbone (Unbound, 2019 / Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1934) is considered one of the world’s most difficult literary puzzles. Mathers died on February 3, 1939, in Hampstead, London.