Hackett p.175. SABIB I, p.205. where it is noted that Blackburn is identified as the author by an inked note on the title page of the Mendelssohn Library copy.
Douglas Blackburn, whose childhood details are somewhat cloudy, was born in 1857 in Surrey to George Blackburn and his wife Elizabeth née Ward. At the age of twenty-three, Blackburn’s interest in journalism led to an editorial position with The Brightonian as well as the Sussex Daily Post. Two years later, his journalistic inclinations took a brief pause as he collaborated with George Albert Smith, “a local seaside entertainer,” in presenting an exhibition in Brighton “that combined mesmerism and thought-reading.” In fact, Blackburn’s first publication entitled Thought-reading; or Modern Mysteries explained, is a hypnotism handbook. During the years of 1882-3, his musical interests emerged resulting in the writing of libretti for two operas, Disenchantment and Angelo; or, an Ideal Love.
His love of journalism soon resurfaced and took him to Johannesburg in the late 1880s where he began working for The Star, writing as a theatre and book critic. After founding and editing the liberal paper The Krugersdorp Sentinel in 1896, Blackburn founded Life - a Subtropical Journal “of which only one copy is extant.” He published anonymously several times beginning in 1898 with his satirical novel Prinsloo of Prinsloosdorp followed by A Burgher Quixote in 1903. His novel, Kruger’s Secret Service, also published anonymously, in 1900. It was only after being wounded in the battle of Colenso during the Second Anglo-Boer War that Blackburn took a much needed break, two years in the Lotemi Valley outside Pietermaritzburg. In 1905, however, Blackburn returned to Johannesburg where he became an editor of The Daily Express. Three years later, he continued his pursuit of journalism in England where “His friendship with Waithman Caddell resulted in joint authorship of The Detection of Forgery and Blackdell’s Print Shorthand.” [DSAB]
