The son of a minister, Willem de Hartog had a tumultuous childhood, running away to sea not once, but twice, in his youth. Following his naval education at the Netherlands Naval College, he returned to the high seas as a sailor, where he found solace in writing detective stories and penning a popular novel about tugboat crews, titled "Holland's Glory". However, during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, de Hartog sought refuge in a house in Amsterdam, where he remained until the war's end.
After the war, de Hartog made the bold move to England, where he began writing in English and went on to produce a plethora of novels, some of which were adapted into films, including "The Spiral Road" (1962) starring Rock Hudson, "The Inspector" (1962) with Stephen Boyd, and "Stella" (1958) featuring William Holden and Sophia Loren, released as "The Key".
