Edgar Wallace

Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace was a British writer who virtually invented the thriller market and was the first to introduce police characters as leading protagonists rather than amateur sleuths.

Born into poverty as an illegitimate child in London, Wallace left school at the age of 12. He joined the army at age 21 and was a war correspondent during the Second Boer War for Reuters and the Daily Mail. Struggling with debt (he had a weakness for the horses), he left South Africa, returned to London and began writing thrillers to raise income, publishing books including The Four Just Men. Drawing on his time as a reporter in the Congo, Wallace serialised short stories in magazines and published adventure stories featuring his first series character Sanders of the River. He signed with Hodder and Stoughton in 1921 and became an internationally recognized author.

Wallace was such a prolific writer that it was claimed that one of every four books published in England were written by him. Apart from his reportage, Wallace wrote screen plays, poetry, historical non-fiction, 18 stage plays, 957 short stories and over 170 novels, 12 in 1929 alone. Over 160 films have been made from Wallace's work.