Selwyn Jepson

Selwyn Jepson (1899–1989) was a British author, of the Far House, Farther Common, Liss, Hants.

His father was the mystery/detective author Edgar Alfred Jepson (1863–1938), his mother was Frieda Holmes, daughter of the musician Henry Holmes. His sister Margaret (1907–2003), also a novelist, was the mother of Fay Weldon.

Jepson was educated at St Paul's School, London and the Sorbonne. He served in the Tank Corps during World War I and in the Special Operations Executive, SOE, in World War II.

In his SOE role, "Captain" Selwyn Jepson was recruiting officer for F section, the independent French section. As a recruiter he was one of SOE's "most skilled craftsmen", and he was SOE's senior recruiting officer. When interviewed by the Imperial War Museum he stated:

M. R. D. Foot's SOE contains an illuminating account of Jepson's interview style with potential recruits; "I have to decide whether I can risk your life and you have to decide whether you're willing to risk it" (p. 73). According to Foot, of F section's 470 agents sent into the field, 117 were killed; 39 of the 470 were women, of whom 13 failed to return.

As an aside Foot comments that Captain (Royal Navy) was a rank Jepson sometimes affected but to which he was not entitled ("...but the Admiralty never knew"), rather he was "a major in the Buffs".

He was a well known mystery/detective author and screenwriter, best known for Keep Murder Quiet (1940), the "Eve Gill" ingénue sleuth novel series, and other non-series novels:

The Alfred Hitchcock film Stage Fright (1950) was based on Selwyn Jepson’s novel Man Running (also published as Outrun the Constable and Killer by Proxy). It was adapted for the screen by Whitfield Cook and Hitchcock’s wife and frequent collaborator Alma Reville, with additional dialog by James Bridie and Ranald MacDougall.

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