Professor Stanwell Briar

Professor Stanwell Briar is a pen name known among pipe enthusiasts. The stories and novels published under this name bring comic fiction and pipe culture together on the same page; in most of the narratives, the lead characters smoke a pipe or a cigar.

Records give only the name "Neil" for the author's actual identity; the pen name is used in credits and on book covers. The name itself evokes two familiar words from the pipe world: the Danish manufacturer Stanwell and briar, the primary material of pipe bodies. No explanation from the author regarding this association is known.

From Newspaper to Books

The author's first regular publication was the Agricultural and Mechanical Gazette, a tabloid-format newspaper that came out every other month. Records indicate its first issue appeared in November 1988 and that the publication ended in 1997 with the first issue of volume nine; the newspaper was printed through the author's own resources, without a commercial publisher. The Dirigible Pirates series, serialized in its pages, was later revised and turned into a standalone book called The Dirigible Pirates. This kind of small-scale, reader-direct publishing isn't unusual in pipe and tobacco literature; for similar examples, see the changes in publishing for pipe and tobacco books entry.