Achmed Abdullah (1881-1945)
 Abdullah is the pseudonym of Alexander Nicholayevitch Romanoff (1881-1945), a Russian-English author born of a Russian Orthodox father and a Muslim mother, raised in Britain and educated at Eton and Oxford, served in the British Army in France, China and India, wrote mystery, crime and adventure novels some based on his own experiences. Additionally, he wrote screenplays perhaps the most famous of which is for the 1935 film, Lives of a Bengal Lancer

Russian-born British novelist and short story writer, who gained fame after World War I with his mysteries set in exotic locales from New York's Chinatown to India and Tibet. Achmed Abdullah's best-known work is the novelization of the famous silent film, The Thief of Bagdad (1924). Its screenplay was written by Elton Thomas (Douglas Fairbanks, Sr.) and Lotta Woods.

"London is the capital of a motley and picturesque empire, and pink turbans soften the foggy, sulfurous drab of Fleet Street; lavender turbans bob up and down the human eddy of the Burlington Arcade; green and red and white turbans blotch the sober, workday atmosphere of East Croydon and Pimlico." (from 'Wings', in Wings or Tales of the Psychic, 1920)

Achmed Abdullah was born in Yalta, in the Crimea, of mixed Russian-Afghan ancestry. Abdullah never revealed the name to which he was born but apparently he was christened Alexander Nicholayevitch Romanoff. However, he was also know as Achmed Abdullah Nadir Khan el-Durani el Iddrissyeh. His father, Grand Duke Nicholas Romanoff, was a Russian-Orthodox, cousin to the last Tsar of Russia. Abdullah's mother, Princess Nourmahal Durani, was a Moslem. After she divorced her husband, Abdullah lived in Afghanistan. He was educated in Indian School, Darjeling, and College Louis le Grant, France. He then moved to England, where attended Eton School and astonished his schoolmates with his turban and earring. From there he went to Oxford. He also studied at the University of Paris. While still at college, Abdullah made his debut as a poet with Chansons Couleur Puce (1900), which was privately published. His study on Bantu dialects (1902) was also privately published.

Selected works:

• Chansons Couleur Puce, 1900
• A Grammar of Little-Known Bantu Dialects, 1902
• The Red Stain, 1915
• The Blue-Eyed Manchu, 1917
• Bucking the Tiger, 1917
• The Honourable Gentleman and Others, 1919
• The Man on Horseback, 1919
• The Trail of the Beast, 1919
• The Mating of the Blades, 1920
• The Ten-Foor Chain, 1920
• Toto, 1920
• Wings, Tales of the Psychic, 1920
• Night Drums, 1921
• The Benefactor's Club, 1921
• The Grand Duke, 1921
• Alien Souls, 1922
• The Remittance Woman, 1924
• A Buccaneer in Spats, 1924
• Shackled, 1924
• The Thief of Bagdad, 1924 (novelization of a screenplay) - film dir. by Raoul Walsh, screenplay by Douglas Fairbanks as Elton Thomas and Lotta Woods, starring Douglas Fairbaks, Snitz Edwards, Brandon Hurst, Julanne Johnston, Anna May Wong, Sojin
• The Swinging Caravan, 1925
• A Wild Goose of Limerick, 1926
• The Year of the Wood-Dragon, 1926
• Ruth's Rebellion, 1927 (with Faith Baldwin)
• Steel and Jade, 1927
• translator: Lute and Scimitar, Being Poems and Ballads of Central Asia, 1928
• Broadway Interlude, 1929 (with F. Baldwin)
• They Were So Young, 1929 (GB title: To an Eastern Throne)
• Dreamers of Empire, 1929 (with T.Compton Pakenham)
• Black Tents, 1930
• The Bungalow on the Roof, 1931
• The Veiled Woman, 1931 (GB title: The Lady in the Veil)
• Girl on the Make, 1932 (with Faith Baldwin)
• A Romantic Young Man, 1932
• Love Comes to Sally, 1933
• The Cat Had Nine Lives, 1933 (GB title: My Nine Lives)
• Fighting Through, 1933
• Never Without You, 1934
• Broadway Interlude, 1934 (with W.A. Wolff)
• screenplay: The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, 1935 (with others) - film dir. by Henry Hathaway, written by Waldemar Young, John B. Balderston, Achmed Abdullah, Grover Jones, William Slavens McNut, based on the book by Francis Yeats-Brown, starring Gary Cooper, Franchot Tone, Richard Cromwell, Sir Guy Standing, Douglas Dumbrille, Akim Tamiroff
• Mysteries of Asia, 1935
• The Flower of the Gods, 1936 (with Fulton Oursler)
• ed.: Fifty Enthralling Stories of the Mysterious East, 1937
• For Men Only: A Cook Book, 1937 (with J. Kenny)
• Deliver Us From Evil, 1939
• The Shadow of the Master, 1940 (with F. Oursler)
• Arabian Hypnotism, 1959