Lucas Malet was the pseudonym of Mary St Leger Kingsley (4 June 1852 - 1931), a Victorian novelist. Of her novels, The Wages of Sin (1891) and The History of Sir Richard Calmady (1901) were especially popular. Malet scholar Talia Schaffer notes that she was "widely regarded as one of the premier writers of fiction in the English-speaking world" at the height of her career, but her reputation declined by the end of her life and today she is rarely read or studied. At the height of her popularity she was "compared favorably to Thomas Hardy, and Henry James, with sales rivaling Rudyard Kipling." Malet's fin de siecle novels offer "detailed, sensitive investigations of the psychology of masochism, perverse desires, unconventional gender roles, and the body."

So far as I know, no British soldier who served on the Italian Front has yet published a book about his experiences. Ten British Batteries went to Italy in the spring of 1917 and passed through memorable days. But their story has not yet been told. Nor, except in the language of official dispatches, has that of the British Divisions which went to Italy six months later, some of which remained and took part in the final and decisive phases of the war against Austria. Something more should soon be written concerning the doings of the British troops in Italy, for they deserve to stand out clearly in the history of the war.