This early work by Edgar Wallace was originally published in 1943 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. 'The Edgar Wallace Reader of Mystery and Adventure' is a collection of short stories that include 'On the Witney Road', 'The Pick-Up', 'Kid Glove Harry', and many more. Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace was born in London, England in 1875. He received his early education at St. Peter's School and the Board School, but after a frenetic teens involving a rash engagement and frequently changing employment circumstances, Wallace went into the military. He served in the Royal West Kent Regiment in England and then as part of the Medical Staff Corps stationed in South Africa. Whilst in the Balkans covering the Russo-Japanese War, Wallace found the inspiration for The Four Just Men, published in 1905. Over the rest of his life, Wallace produced some 173 books and wrote 17 plays. These were largely adventure narratives with elements of crime or mystery, and usually combined a bombastic sensationalism with hammy violence.
1: Establishing Charles Bullivant2: Sentimental Simpson3: White Stocking4: The Woman from the East5: The Chopham Affair6: The Hopper7: The Love of Devil Hampton8: The Silver Charm9: Uncle Faraway10: The Man of the Night11: Patriots12: The Future Lady Shelholme13: The Xmas Gift14: The Man Nobody Loved15: The Strangeness of Joab Lashmere16: Jimmy and the Doughnuts17: Control No. 2
Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace (1 April 1875 – 10 February 1932) was an English writer. Born into poverty as an illegitimate London child, Wallace left school at 12. Joining the army at 21, he was a war correspondent during the Second Boer War for Reuters and The Daily Mail. Struggling with debt, he left South Africa, returned to London and began writing thrillers to raise income, publishing books such as The Four Just Men (1905). Drawing on time as a reporter in the Congo, covering the Belgian atrocities, Wallace serialised short stories in magazines, later publishing collections such as Sanders of the River (1911). He signed with Hodder and Stoughton in 1921 and became an internationally recognised author.
British novelist, playwright, and journalist who produced popular detective and suspense stories and was in his time "the king" of the modern thriller. Wallace's literary output 175 books, 24 plays, and countless articles and review sketches have undermined his reputation as a fresh and original writer. The author was a wholehearted supporter of Victorian and early Edwardian values and mores, which are now considered in some respects politically incorrect. In England in the 1920s Wallace was said to be the second biggest seller after the Bible. This selection specially chosen by the literary critic August Nemo, contains the following stories: - The Cat Burglar - Circumstantial Evidence - The Ghost of Downhill - The Poetical Policeman - Red Aces - The Four Just Men - The Shadow Man
Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace was born on the 1st April 1875 in Greenwich, London. Leaving school at 12 because of truancy, by the age of fifteen he had experience; selling newspapers, as a worker in a rubber factory, as a shoe shop assistant, as a milk delivery boy and as a ship's cook. By 1894 he was engaged but broke it off to join the Infantry being posted to South Africa. He also changed his name to Edgar Wallace which he took from Lew Wallace, the author of Ben-Hur. In Cape Town in 1898 he met Rudyard Kipling and was inspired to begin writing. His first collection of ballads, The Mission that Failed! was enough of a success that in 1899 he paid his way out of the armed forces in order to turn to writing full time. By 1904 he had completed his first thriller, The Four Just Men. Since nobody would publish it he resorted to setting up his own publishing company which he called Tallis Press. In 1911 his Congolese stories were published in a collection called Sanders of the River, which became a bestseller. He also started his own racing papers, Bibury's and R. E. Walton's Weekly, eventually buying his own racehorses and losing thousands gambling. A life of exceptionally high income was also mirrored with exceptionally large spending and debts. Wallace now began to take his career as a fiction writer more seriously, signing with Hodder and Stoughton in 1921. He was marketed as the 'King of Thrillers' and they gave him the trademark image of a trilby, a cigarette holder and a yellow Rolls Royce. He was truly prolific, capable not only of producing a 70,000 word novel in three days but of doing three novels in a row in such a manner. It was in, estimating that by 1928 one in four books being read was written by Wallace, for alongside his famous thrillers he wrote variously in other genres, including science fiction, non-fiction accounts of WWI which amounted to ten volumes and screen plays. Eventually he would reach the remarkable total of 170 novels, 18 stage plays and 957 short stories. Wallace became chairman of the Press Club which to this day holds an annual Edgar Wallace Award, rewarding 'excellence in writing'. Diagnosed with diabetes his health deteriorated and he soon entered a coma and died of his condition and double pneumonia on the 7th of February 1932 in North Maple Drive, Beverly Hills. He was buried near his home in England at Chalklands, Bourne End, in Buckinghamshire.
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