Jul Regis, i. e. Julius Regis Petersson was born on July 20, 1889, in Stockholm, parrish of Adolf Fredrik. His father was Axel Regis Petersson, a travelling salesman, and his mother Julia Sofia Täckman. He only adopted the name Julius Regis in 1908. He graduated from the Högre Allmänna Läroverket, Södermalm, in 1909. He then studied litterary history at the Stockholms Högskola i 1909 and 1910. He never married.
He was employed by P A Norstedt & Söner 1909--1917 as a proof reader. In 1917 he left his job to start upon a litterary career. Already in 1910 a story of his, "Ett och annat om hemlig skrift" was published in "Bonniers Månadshäften", and 1912 in the same magazine "Mannen som kände Saltsjöjodjuret", a story about a dinosaur hunt. His story "I de döda rosornas doft" came in 1914. He wrote two stories for the magazine "Allt för alla" in 1917, "Tornets skugga" and "Det osynliga svärdet".
He chose to write detective stories, inspired by the French author Gaston Leroux. His hero was Maurice Wallion, called "The problem hunter". The character, a journalist, could be said to look a little like Sherlock Holmes, but was not as eccentric. The stories were mostly set in Stockholm and the surroundings, preferably the skerries. The crooks were always foreigners.
The plots were about cyphers, revolutionaries, gold diggers, charlatans, unsolved murders and sunken treasures. He published "Blå spåret" 1916, "Kopparhuset" 1918, "Nr. 13 Toroni" 1919, "Den grå gästen" 1922, "Eldens hus" 1923 and "Granitporten" 1924.
Other stories were "Walter Cray från Paris" 1917 and "Vargflocken" 1921. In 1921 he also wrote "Vägen till Iblîs", with Arabian and Moroccan flavour. He wrote some adventure stories for boys, "Den försvunna patrullen" 1923 ,"Dynamoön" 1924 and "Isens fångar" 1925.
He published two collections of short stories, "Wallion, reporter -- detektiv" in 1918 and "Vid de sex kaptenernas bord" in 1925.
Jul Regis also took a great interest in film, and collaborated in the magazines "Filmvärlden" in 1919, and "Filmjournalen" 1919--1925. In 1920 a historical work "Filmens roman" appeared. Jul Regis wrote 20 of its 24 chapters. It was the first Swedish book on film. He frequently wrote pieces on film in newspapers and magazines. The first film about Karl XII, directed by John Brunius in 1922, had a script written by Jul Regis. He also participated with lectures in a course about film by the director Erik Petschler in 1923.
Jul Regis also did some translating, e. g. Robert Louis Stevenson.
His books got good reviews and sold well. His career went upwards, but was broken by his sudden death in 1925. He was ony 35 years old.
His last short stories were published in 1930, called "Sanningen om Cro-Cro".
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