HICHENS, ROBERT SMYTHE (1864— ), English novelist, was born at Speldhurst, Kent, on Nov. 14, 1864. He was educated at Tunbridge Wells and Clifton college, and then be came a student at the Royal College of Music, London. He was, however, diverted to journalism and later to fiction. He first attracted serious attention with The Green Carnation (1894) but his best known work in fiction was a series of novels with an Eastern setting, beginning with The Garden of Allah (19o5) and including The Call of the Blood (1906) and Bella Donna (1909). The Dweller on the Threshold (191 1) is a good example of his tales of the supernatural. Of his dramatized novels Bella Donna, produced at the St. James theatre, London, in 1911-12, and The Garden of Allah, produced first in New York and (192o) at Drury Lane, were the most successful.