My friend Marc Alexander, who has died aged 90, was a poet and prolific novelist who wrote more than 70 books, as well as being a journalist and professional photographer.

His books, set in New Zealand, where he grew up, and Britain, had titles such as Haunted Inns (1973), Haunted Castles (1974), Phantom Britain (1975), The Outrageous Queens (1977), The Mist Lizard (1980), Royal Murder (1978) and Not After Nightfall (1985). The horror-thriller Plague Pit (1981), published under the nom de plume Mark Ronson, was a bestseller.

His touching biography The Dance Goes On: The Life and Art of Elizabeth Twistington Higgins (1980) told the story of the ballet dancer who was struck down with polio and became a painter.

This book got Marc interested in photographing dancers. He mastered the craft of conveying movement in a still photograph and thus transferred dance from the stage to the page. Many of his photographs adorned Indian Dances: Their History and Growth (1967), which I jointly wrote with the dancer Rina Singha.

He was born in Weymouth, Dorset, to Ronald, a vet, and his wife, Mary. They emigrated to New Zealand while Marc was a child and he trained as a school teacher in Auckland before, with ambitions as a writer, deciding to move back to Britain in 1956. He started as a Fleet Street feature writer for the Reveille newspaper and contributed a regular column to Majesty magazine. Later he was appointed consultant editor of Heritage, a history publication.

In 1978, when I wrote and directed the travelogue Bangladesh I Love You, which starred the boxer Muhammad Ali, I invited Marc to be the film’s anchorman. We went all over the country from the tea gardens in the north to the beaches of Cox’s Bazar near the border with Myanmar. Marc forged a friendship with Ali which gave the film an added warmth.

Marc’s wife, Maisie (nee Adolphus), died in 1984. He is survived by Olivia Shephard, his partner since 1986, his sons, Simon and Paul, and grandson, Jem.