The Seven Sleepers Author:Francis Beeding 1925. Francis Beeding, writer of crime novels, is the pseudonym for the British writers Hilary St. George Saunders and John Palmer. Francis Beeding has over thirty novels to his credit, five of which have been adapted into feature films. Of these, The House of Dr. Edwardes remains the best known, as it formed the basis of Alfred Hitchcock's mast... more »erpiece Spellbound. The Seven Sleepers begins: It all started with the loss of my luggage. I was returning home to England from a trip to the Tuscan towns by way of the Riviera, and I had registered my trunk to Genoa. On arriving at that city, however, I discovered, after much difficult enquiry, in the course of which I was assured that Italy, thanks to Signor Mussolini, was a great and glorious country which would shortly be undisputed mistress of the Mediterranean and the most efficient nation in Europe, that my effects had been dispatched to Geneva. It was pointed out, for my consolation that the difference between Geneva and Ginevra was almost negligible.« less