Guy Boothby (1867 - 1905) was an Australian by birth, who came to England in 1894 and was quickly acknowledged as a masterly writer of thrillers and crime stories.

His best work includes a series of stories which appeared in Pearson's Magazine in 1897 under the title The Prince of Swindlers. These stories describe the exploits of Simon Carne, one of the earliest society criminals whose cunning robberies were executed with oustanding imagination and ingenuity.

In The Wedding Guest Simon Carne gets away with an extraordinary heist.