Edgar Wallace

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Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace (April 1, 1875–February 10, 1932) was a prolific British crime writer, journalist and playwright, who wrote 175 novels, 24 plays, and countless articles in newspapers and journals. Over 160 films have been made of his novels, more than any other author. In the 1920s, one of Wallace's publishers claimed that a quarter of all books read in England were written by him.

Contents 1 Parents and Birth 2 Childhood and Early Career 3 Marriage, Initial Success, Return to UK 1898-1902 4 The Four Just Men, Career As Thriller Writer, 1903-1920 5 Second Marriage, Tragedy & Success, 1918-1929 6 The Promise of Hollywood, Death and After, 1929-1935 7 Postscript, 1935-Present 8 Literary works 8.1 African novels 8.2 Crime novels and short stories compilations 8.3 Other novels 8.4 Fact books 8.5 Screenplay 8.6 Plays 9 Quotes 10 See also 11 External links

[edit] Parents and Birth

Edgar Wallace was born in Ashburnham Grove, Greenwich, London, on the dubiously auspicious natal day of 1st April 1875. His biological parents were theatre actors Richard Edgar Horatio Marriott (who never knew of his existence) and Mary Jane "Polly" Richards, nee Blair, an extraordinary woman of great personal integrity and moral courage.

Born Mary Jane Blair in 1843, Liverpool, to an Irish Catholic immigrant family, Mary's family had been in showbusiness for some years, and she grew up to be a theatrical "Jane of All Trades" - stagehand, usherette, bit-part actress. Though pretty and talented, Mary lacked that extra charisma, the indefinable yet instantly recognisable "chemistry" that boosts a person up to "star" status. In 1867 she abandoned the theatre without a backward glance to marry. Also born in Liverpool in 1838, Captain Joseph Richards of the Merchant Navy was likewise from and Irish Catholic immigrant family - his father John Richards was also a Merchant Navy Captain, and his mother Catherine Richards came from a mariner family. Mary almost immediately fell pregnant but in January 1868 when she was eight months pregnant, Joseph Richards died at sea aged just 30 from a sudden illness. By the time his posthumous daughter Josephine Catherine Richards was born a few weeks later in the spring of 1868, Mary was destitute.

Taking the stage name "Polly" Richards, Mary took up theatre work again to support herself and her daughter. In 1872, Polly met and joined the Marriott family theatre troupe, becoming part of the "family" due to the great affection that developed between her and the Marriott women - the troupe was run by Mrs Alice Marriott and her husband and their three adult children, Grace, Adeline and Richard. Intelligent, shrewd and dominating, Alice Marriott's great anxiety was her only son. Usually playing the "romantic lead" due to his tall, dark and handsome looks and physique, Richard was in personality charming but indolent. Alice wished him married to a sensible young woman and producing grandchildren for the Marriott name. Seeing a way to demonstrate her gratitude for the warmth and kindness bestowed upon her and her little daughter, Polly actively sought to locate languid Richard a suitable bride. In 1873, she met a a poised young woman in Dundee named Jennifer Taylor, and hastened to introduce her to the Marriotts. Jenny was a willing nominee and after intense match-making by Polly, Alice, Grace and Adeline, Richard was herded in the right direction and he and Jenny became affianced in the spring of 1874.

In July 1874, the Marriott troupe experienced its greatest commercial success ever and so a "come one come all" back-stage party was held at which everyone drank "not wisely but too well". As a result of this extreme intoxication, Richard Marriott and Polly ended up having a "Boris Becker broom cupboard" style sexual encounter, which everyone was too drunk fortunately to notice. The following morning Polly was mortified and deeply ashamed, but it appears that Richard Marriott was so inebriated he did not even remember the incident. But a few weeks later in August 1874, Polly realised she was pregnant. Since she had been celibate since the death of her beloved husband Joseph in 1868, Richard had to be the father. She was horrified, realising that when the truth was revealed it would destroy the troupe and tear the Marriott family, "her" family, apart.

With the personal integrity and moral courage that was quintessential to her, Polly acted decisively. In the autumn of 1874, she invented a fictitious obligation in Greenwich that would last at least half a year, and obtained a room in a boarding house where she lived off her meagre savings through until Edgar's birth on 1st April 1875. During her confinement she had asked her midwife to locate a couple of sufficient kindness and generosity to entrust with her child's upbringing for the pittance Polly could afford to contribute. The midwife introduced Polly to her close friend, Mrs Freeman, a stout, jolly mother of ten children ranging from the earlys 20s down whose husband George Freeman was a Billingsgate fish porter (fishmonger). The Freemans were a loving couple and excellent parents. On 9th April 1875, Polly took Edgar to the Freeman family and made arrangements to visit as often as she was able without eliciting interest/suspicion by the Marriotts, since by the time she returned to London in April 1875 Jenny Taylor and Richard Marriott, oblivious to the existence of his son, had been married a month.

[edit] Childhood and Early Career

Known as the prosaic Dick Freeman, Edgar had a happy childhood, forming an especially close bond with 20-year-old Clara Freeman who became like a second mother to him. His foster-father George Freeman was an honourable and kind man and determined to ensure Dick got a good education, perhaps the family being influenced by the tragic romanticism of Edgar's birth circumstances. From 1875-8 Polly visited as often as she was able, bringing her contribution, but was careful to maintain a certain emotional distance; it was hard enough keeping her secret as it was.

But by 1878, Polly was faced with a serious dilemma. After their marriage, Richard and Jenny had relocated to Scotland, where their children were born, including Edgar's namesake paternal half-brother, Edgar Marriott (1880-1951), who was renowned under his stage name of Marriott Edgar as a poet, comedian, and scriptwriter for Stanley Holloway, for whom he wrote the famous Holloway Monologues, including The Lion & Albert. But the Marriott troupe was slowly dispersing, as Grace and Adeline married and Alice Marriott's health necessitated retirement. Polly took up new employment with the Hamilton troupe but now in her late 30s was increasingly limited as to the roles and backstage work she could do, forcing a commensurate drop in earnings. In short, she could no longer afford even the small sum she had been paying the Freemans to care for Edgar.

Arriving with the news and a distraught offer to place Edgar in a workhouse, Polly found the Freemans fiercely opposed to any such action, doting on the boy. Overcome with gratitude, Polly left abruptly before she lost her composure. Once away she was also deeply ashamed at the prospect of visiting the Freemans empty-handed, and ever paranoid about protecting Jenny and Alice, she never visited again. Her actions led to tragic consequences for her and Edgar decades later.

Edgar had inherited his father's swarthy handsomeness, his paternal grandmother's ambition and his mother's intelligence, plus a healthy dollop of theatrical extrovertness from both sides. Regrettably he had also inherited his father's languid nature and unlike his mother's inner morality, unfortunately possessed an emotional cowardice. His standard response to any problem was to run away, either literally, mentally or emotionally. By his early teens he had held down numerous jobs and was an ardent if not very good racehorse follower. In 1894 he had rashly become engaged to a local Deptford girl, Edith Anstree, and typically sought to escape, without facing the problem properly but not wishing to hurt her feelings. Unaware that the half-sister he did not know existed had just died, Edgar enlisted in the Infantry preparatory to leaving for South Africa.

In 1885 when she was sixteen, Josephine Catherine Richards had become engaged to William Henry Donovan, and Polly felt honour-bound to inform her of the half-brother living in Deptford. With an eye on the Marriott family's welfare, Josephine agreed the secret must not be revealed and apparently felt it too dangerous to engineer a meeting between her and Edgar. She married Donovan in 1886 and had their only child, named Alice Grace Adeline Donovan in honour of her foster-grandmother and aunts, was born in 1887. Like her father, Joseph Richards, Josephine died young of a sudden illness in 1894 at the age of 25 years.

At the time, Edgar was finding Army life lacking considerably. Inheriting his father's indolence, he found soldiering hard on the feet and ears, and indeed by the time he died was well-known for never partaking in any physical exercise (which probably contributed to his early death). He wangled a transfer to the Medical Corps, which was less arduous but more unpleasant, and so jumped again to the Press Corps, where he found at last his metier. By 1898, he was a war correspondent for the Daily Mail in the Boer War, as well as a poet/columnist for various periodicals - a similar path to which P G Wodehouse would follow a couple of years later. He also met the author Rudyard Kipling whom he greatly admired.

[edit] Marriage, Initial Success, Return to UK 1898-1902

With Edith Anstree out of sight and out of mind, he met one of his avid readers, a girl of similar age, Ivy Maude Caldecott, whose father was a Methodist minister, Reverend William Shaw Caldecott. He forbade any contact between the two. For some years Reverend Caldecott had desired to return to England unencumbered by his family and fondly imagined them unaware of this. Typically much more intelligent than her husband and bright enough to hide the fact, Marion Caldecott knew he would eventually seize upon an excuse to desert them. So, when Ivy defied the paternal diktat and married Edgar Wallace, Marion sided with her daughter. Infuriated, Caldecott did indeed book passage back to England, but was further outraged by the lack of penitently weeping family on Johannesburg docks, the realisation they were gladder to get rid of him than he was to go an unpalatable epiphany. Many years later, Ivy would bear the brunt of his vindictiveness.

In 1900, Ivy had their first child, Eleanor Clare Hellier Wallace, and Edgar met one Harry F. Cohen, a financier. With Cohen's complicity, Edgar came up with an ingenious way of scooping the press-hating General Kitchener in 1902 with the signing of the Treaty ending the Boer War (for details see The Mind of Edgar Wallace by C D Stewart at "The Cat's Whiskers" http://www.cd.stewart.btinternet.co.uk). Impressed, Cohen appointed him editor of the Rand Daily Mail with a £2,000 per annum salary. Edgar had it made, but it was all about to go horribly wrong.

Edgar had always had self-confidence, determination and the ability to spot and seize opportunities; Ivy also regarded him with flatteringly uncritical admiration, ascribing him not just literary genius but business acumen and the status of profound political thinker. However, whilst his literary talent was evident, he remained an inept businessman and hopelessly naive politically throughout his life, as well as being a gambling addict and enslaved by superstition. Unfortunately, his trouncing of Kitchener and Ivy's naively untempered admiration inflated Edgar's ego to the point where he considered his opinion infallible. Since Cohen was of a different political view, this led to increasingly heated arguments that Edgar was too egotistical to realise Cohen, as the paper's owner and financier, was predestined to win. Provoked to wrath, Cohen finally fired Edgar in 1902, when he had been in the job barely 9 months.

As Edgar reeled from the shock, he and Ivy were devastated when 2-year-old Eleanor died of meningitis, going from healthy to dead in less than 24-hours. Edgar's response to any crisis was to flee, and though as grief-stricken as Ivy, he was also unemployed and in serious debt. Deeply superstitious, Edgar viewed any "economising" as a sign his luck was about to desert him, and thus had been living way beyond even a £2,000 per annum salary since the first day of his employment. Eleanor's death triggered in Ivy an irraitonal but profound loathing of Johannesburg, so Edgar promptly sold their house and whisked them aboard a liner for England whilst keeping Ivy completely unaware of their financial situation. When they arrived, Edgar had 12 shillings in his pockets.

His one prudence since the mid 1890s had been to "keep in" with his colleagues at the Daily Mail and so he presented himself at their office with the tale of his daughter's death and his wife's fragile health. The newspaper's new proprietor Alfred Harmsworth, later Lord Northcliffe, promptly hired Edgar as a sub-editor. Despite the annual wage being only £750, Edgar promptly took Ivy and began living way beyond his means. She had no idea of what was going on and Edgar "escaped" his South African creditors by burning their increasingly vicious letters.

[edit] The Four Just Men, Career As Thriller Writer, 1903-1920

In 1903, Edgar experienced another profound event, when his mother Polly came to him. By now 60 years-old and terminally ill, that Polly hoped for some financial assistance cannot be doubted; Alice Marriott and Josephine were long deceased and Polly had been unable to work for some months. She had been following her son's illustrious career as a Colonial correspondent since the late 1890s and like Ivy and everyone around Edgar, had no idea he was really penniless. Still grieving for Eleanor and in total denial over his finances, Edgar reacted with uncharacteristic harshness, giving her a few pounds and turning her away. Stoically accepting this rejection, Polly used the money to travel to Bradford, where she collapsed suddenly and died in Bradford Infirmary. She was only saved from the ignominy of a pauper's grave when her former son-in-law, William Henry Donovan, though long remarried since Josephine's death, learned of it and hastened to pay for her interment. When Ivy, out at the time, returned home and Edgar, already regretting his actions, related what had happened, Ivy chastised him for his harshness and pointed out that he had not given Polly any chance to explain. Usually a generous and "benefit of the doubt" type person, Edgar agreed he had been hasty and, unaware his mother was already dead, decided that as soon as he had "a bit of time", he would track his mother down and get her side of things. But events would conspire to thwart him until 1908, and it would cause him more anguish.

The first distracting event was Ivy's second pregnancy in 1904, to which she reacted with no joy but anxiety and stress; Edgar found escape from the tension by going to Europe as a correspondent during the 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese War. Whilst in the Balkans he met British and Russian spies and was inspired. Returning to England in 1905 he had in his head The Four Just Men, the prototype of the modern blood-and-thunder thriller about four young, handsome, immensely wealthy vigilantes (including a European prince) who kill in the name of Justice.

Upon returning, he was able to briefly meet his healthy baby son, Bryan Edgar Wallace, before Ivy left with Bryan for South Africa, where her ill mother Marion Caldecott, mistakenly believing she was terminally ill, had expressed a wistful desire to see her grandson. This meant Ivy was not present to restrain Edgar's enthusiastic excess. Writing the story of the FJM who would kill the Foreign Secretary if he tried to ratify an unjust law, Edgar had to form his own publishing company, Tallis, to print it. Undeterred, he decided to run a 'guess the murder method' competition in the Daily Mail with a prize of £1,000. The competition would be a runaway success because Edgar intended to advertise the book on a scale unprecedented not just in Britain but across the Empire. He even wrote to the then Prime Minister, Chamberlain, asking him to work a mention of FJM into a parliamentary speech (which was ignored).

He approached Harmsworth for the loan of the £1,000 and was promptly refused. Edgar wasn't really suited to editorship as he preferred to spend his afternoons at the racecourse or poker table; Harmsworth in turn was irriated by the fact that Edgar was so difficult to get hold of instead of being on the other end of the phone awaiting "his master's voice" like the other editors. Completely unfazed, Edgar pressed ahead - his alarmed workmates at the Mail prevailed upon him to lower the prize money to £500: a £250 first prize, £200 second prize and £50 third prize, but were unable to restrain him in the privacy of his home. Edgar took out adverts on buses, hoardings, flyers, and so forth, running up an incredible bill of £2,000. Though he knew he needed the book to sell sufficient copies to make £2,501 before he saw any profit, Edgar was confidently aware this would be achieved in the first three months of the book going on sale, totally unaware he was hopelessly underestimating things.

Forging ahead with enthusiasm but no real idea what he was doing, Edgar had also made a far more serious error. He ran the FJM serial competition in the Daily Mail but failed to include any limitation clause in the competition rules restricting payment of the prize money to one winner only from each of the three categories. Only after the competition had closed and the correct solution printed as part of the final chapter denouement did Edgar learn that he was legally obligated to pay every person who answered correctly the full prize amount in that category; if 6 people got the 1st Prize answer right, he would have to pay not £250 but 6x£250, or £1500, if 3 people got the 2nd Prize it would be £600 and so on. Additionally, though his advertising gimmick had worked as the FJM novel was a bestseller, Edgar discovered that instead of his woefully over-optimistic 3 months, FJM would have to continue selling consistently with no margin of error for 2 full years to recoup the £2,500 he had mistakenly believed he needed to break even. Horror was added to shock when the number of entrants correctly guessing the right answer continued to inexorably rise.

Edgar's answer was to simply ignore the situation, but circumstances were coming together ominously. Today we have to accept newspapers are only interested in profit not probity and so take even broadsheet newspaper articles with a healthy dose of scepticism, as demonstrated by the events of the week of 14th August 2006, when a tabloid newspaper was exposed as having published and passed off 3-year-old photographs of Prince Harry as being only weeks old in a blatant attempt to victimise and stir up trouble for the prince. Back in 1906, newspapers were expected to be gold standards of truth and accountability; any that even mistakenly published articles that were found to be incorrect, inaccurate or misleading could very quickly be driven to bankruptcy and public humiliation.

As 1905 became 1906 and headed for 1907 without any list of prize winners being run, more and more suspicions were being voiced about the honesty of the competition. In addition, to a working-class Edwardian family, winning £50 never mind £250 was like winning a Rollover Lottery jackpot and since those who were winners knew it (courtesy of the published solution) they had been waiting daily for the prize cheque to hit the doormat. Friction already existed between the autocratic Harmsworth and his elusive editor, and Harmsworth, having refused the initial £1,000 loan was furious at having to now loan Edgar over £5,000 to protect the paper's reputation because Edgar couldn't pay. Harmsworth's irritation simmered as instead of appropriate gratitude and contrition, Edgar bounced back full of ebullience and confidence, and also seemed in no hurry to pay back the loan.

The straws that broke Harmsworth's back were two libel suits between 1906-1907. In the latter year, Edgar did his usual flight response by absconding to the Belgian Congo, ostensibly to report on how the native Congolese were being abused by representatives of King Leopold. In 1907 Ivy was again pregnant, but Bryan was 2, the age Eleanor died, making her anxious and stressed again, and two libel suits against the Daily Mail involving Edgar were boiling in the courts. The first and most serious concerned the Lever Brothers, against whom Harmsworth had led a crusade when he learned they intended to raise soap prices. But upon the brothers publicly apologising and scrapping the idea, Harmsworth continued to gloat and approve scurrilously libellous articles, provoking the brothers into a libel suit.

Part of the case hinged on an article in which Edgar had grossly inflated the figures by quoting an "unnamed washerwoman" he'd invented off the top of his head, as he was hopeless with money and had no idea of fiscal prudence. To Harmsworth horror, the Lever Brothers were awarded damages of £50,000 or approximately £3.6 million today. At the same time, a Navy Lt St.George-Collard brought another suit after Wallace repeated an incorrect claim that he had been disciplined for brutality towards enlisted seamen before, and won £5,000. Though the £50,000 was entirely his own fault, Harmsworth was enraged to be £60,000 out-of-pocket for three incidents all involving Wallace, and so upon the latter's return from the Congo, fired him unceremoniously.

Unlike in 1902, in 1908 there was no way to hide the calamity from Ivy, emotionally vulnerable from having the couple's third child Patricia Marion Caldecott Wallace, and in short order they had to move to a virtual slum as Edgar stared penury in the face. Ivy and Edgar had never been truly compatible with each other in personality anyway, and 1908 marked the start of the slow disintegration of their marriage. But again, Edgar found opportunity in the shape Mrs Isabel Thorne, who edited a minor magazine; she initially approached him about "romance" serials but he admitted he was no good at such - his teenage handsomeness and early marriage to Ivy meant he had no real experience of the whole Romeo and Juliet type of thing. Then he began to relate his adventures in Africa, and Mrs Thorne realised that his "blood-and-thunder" tales were his story. She therefore deserves the credit for Edgar Wallace, thriller novelist extraordinaire.

She hired him to write a serial for her magazine, and so was born Sanders of the River in 1909, which ran for years and which he eventually compiled into novels. The movie of the same name is remembered today mostly because it co-starred Paul Robeson as a tribal chief. Today, the pernicious idiocy that is Political Correctness howls about these stories for their "Imperialist ideology" and "racism". Unfortunately the novels are rather mediocre but reflect the mindset of their era and are little different from attitudes of such as H. G. Wells, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Jules Verne et al, who funnily enough are much left vilified by these wearisome types.

As shown in the listing of Wallace's output featured below, the two ten year periods from 1908-1918 and 1922-1932 were the most prolific of his life, but for different reasons. the first period was to keep the wolf from the door. Edgar sold the rights to his novels barely the ink had dried on the page - FJM for £75, its sequel for £80, and so forth - merely to stave off creditors and put meagre food on the table and give token amounts to his creditors, many of which were from South Africa. Also in 1908, he suffered a personal blow when he remembered his determination to find his mother. Instead, he located his niece, A. Grace Donovan, who by then was in her 21st year of life and, after losing her mother at 7 years of age, eager to meet maternal relatives. Through Grace, Edgar learned of his father and mother, his maternal half-sister and the paternal semi-siblings of whom he would only ever meet one, Edgar Marriott. He also learned of Polly Richards' great personal morality and the sacrifices she had made to ensure the emotional wellbeing of the Marriott family. Edgar Wallace could not cope with emotional trauma at all, and his conscience excoriated him as he recalled his treatment of his mother, who had then left and promptly died. Though he and Grace Donovan remained lifelong friends, he never recovered from his guilt, and it burdened him.

As his personal stress increased, his writing output became amazing; he could not escape literally from his problems so he escaped into his imagination, and it showed as he produced some of his most famous and best work during the 1908-1918 period. Edgar was one of those people who did best with the least time to "think" and this was an asset for his writing, though it must be admitted that most of what he wrote was adequate rather than excellent. As time went on, he and Ivy became more and more separated; though too honourable to indulge in a physical betrayal of his wife, he began what today psychologists would term an "emotional" affair with another woman. Basically, when you have concerns or joys, doubts or decisions to make, is your spouse the first person who knows about them or do you find them lacking behind someone else who is your first port of call and go-to for advice and support? Does your spouse learn of you worries and dreams by overhearing your confidante talking about them in the local pub or at work? If so, though you may never literally have sex with that person, you are committing "emotional adultery".

Edgar's meeting of minds soon fizzled out, as did his minor flirtation with Mrs Edith Cockle, nee Anstree, his first fiancee, who was far more sensible and mature than Edgar had ever been. Spurred by guilt over his actions, Edgar was motivated to "woo" Ivy with sufficient success for her to fall unexpectedly pregnant in 1915, though the marriage had been moribund for several years. However, at this time Edgar took on a new secretary, a timid, quiet 15-year-old girl named Violet King. Whereas Ivy had tolerated Violet's predecessors with relief, she was far more perceptive and even intelligent than Edgar, and immediately saw Violet was her successor. Although Edgar was romantically "clueless" in the way that some people (women as well as men) are to the ideal mate underneath their nose, Ivy knew that as Violet matured from girl to woman she would be far more ideally suited to Edgar's temperament than Ivy had ever been. Ivy also knew that when Edgar inevitably fell into literal adultery with Violet, he would flagellate himself over his betrayal of Ivy.

In 1916, Ivy had her last child, named Michael Blair Wallace by Edgar in belated homage to his mother, Polly. Assuring herself that Violet liked and was liked by her children, and aware they would all be at school shortly, Ivy showed consideration and kindness towards Edgar to the bitter end, gently withdrawing from his life before filing for divorce in 1918 and lying like a rug to assure him that he was in no way to blame (he was entirely at fault). There was also her own personal discomfort as the inescapable reality was that Violet was the same age as Edgar and Ivy's eldest daughter Eleanor, and what she could have been had she lived - that constant reminder of dreams forever lost - upset Ivy more than anything.

[edit] Second Marriage, Tragedy & Success, 1918-1929

With Ivy living in Tunbridge Wells and the children at school, Edgar could finally concentrate on his writing and from 1918 drew closer to the intelligent, ever more capable Violet. He finally "caught the clue bus" that Ivy had several years earlier and Violet King became his second wife in 1921. Shrewd, practical and sensible, Violet had no intention of disrupting her and Edgar's life much and so was shocked and upset to fall pregnant, having her only child, Penelope Wallace, in 1923, though Edgar was delighted.

This gradually spurred his second ten-year writing boom, this time because of personal confidence, rather than stress. His output is often compared to that of other prolific authors, such as Isaac Asimov. There is a famous anecdote in which visitors to his home actually observed him dictate a novel in the course of a weekend. It became a standing joke that if someone called Edgar on the phone and was told he was writing a novel, they would promptly reply, "I'll wait!" He also invented and patented the Edgar Wallace Plot Wheel. The wheel has written on it several events, such as "murder", and when turned one comes up and should be incorporated in the storywriting.

It is said that Wallace was the first British crime novelist to use policemen rather than brilliant amateur sleuths as most other writers of the time did. However, his heroes were far from ordinary - they were mostly special investigators of some sort who worked outside the normal police force, such as Mr J G Reeder who worked for the obscure Public Prosecutor's Office (then part of the Crown Prosecution Service. Most of his novels are independent stand-alone stories; he seldom used series heroes, and when he did there was little point in maintaining their order as there was no continuity arc from book to book, viz., the apparent "wandering eye" of that septagenarian model of rectitude, J G Reeder.

At the beginning of this period of increased output, Edgar experienced one more terrible emotional shock, with the death of Ivy Wallace. Experiencing ill-health, she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1923, and wrote a letter to Edgar requesting a loan for minor surgery with such successful obfuscation Edgar had no idea she was seriously ill. Though the tumour's removal was initially successful, it returned terminally by 1925. Aware even in extremis that Edgar was incapable of coping with emotional trauma and with heroic compassion considering his new wife and toddler daughter's situation, Ivy again wrote for a loan and downplayed her condition so well Edgar believed she had a minor chest infection. The frantic summons of a doctor got Bryan to her deathbed so she did not die alone like Polly Richards, but she succumbed to breast cancer in 1926, leaving Edgar utterly shell-shocked.

The most bitter irony was that only months after Ivy's death, he finally achieved the tremendous fame and fortune that her hard work and loyalty had largely made possible. Ivy had been his staunchest supporter and loyal helpmeet, being a de facto single parent and working unnoticed in the background like the make-up artist who never gets the credit he or she is due for the movie star's fabulous face. Even after her love was killed by his emotional weakness and intransigence and she divorced him, Ivy kindly never stopped encouraging him - and Violet - to believe in his future success. Now Violet would reap the rewards Ivy had worked for, though doubtless Ivy, with her typical generosity of nature, would never have begrudged Violet a penny.

As well being a prolific novelist, Edgar was also a noted playwright, in fact rather better at plays than novels, truth be told. Some of his plays are listed below; but he also kept up his journalistic and columnist work too. His route to fame and fortune on an international scale came about by virtue of his play The Gaunt Stranger and a highly controversial journalistic article he wrote in the mid-1920s named The Canker In Our Midst. Once alternative lifestyles and sexuality became more accepted - and fashionable than heterosexuality - from the 1960s, the PC thought police hysterically used the article to posthumously beat Edgar as a rampant homophobe, which he actually wasn't, having many friends and colleagues in the showbusiness world who were non-heterosexual.

The article was actually about paedophilia, which not even the Politically Correct are foolish enough to try and claim just needs "tolerance and understanding"; Edgar was trying to make the point that the licentious excess traditionally associated with the showbusiness world, partly what had led to it being treated as synonymous with prostitution and immorality in the 19th Century, caused some showbusiness people to unwittingly leave their children vulnerable to these vile predators by not using their common sense. Modern exmaples abound - Drew Barrymore, anyone? Unfortunately, Edgar being Edgar, the article was completely tactless, over-simplistic and almost childishly naive besides being hectoring and scolding in presentation.

Amongst those outraged were theatre mogul Gerald du Maurier, father of the more famous authoress Daphne du Maurier of Jamaica Inn and Rebecca fame. He phoned Edgar to deliver a blistering rebuke; when he confirmed his identity as du Maurier, Edgar cheerfully asked, "Oh, you got my letter then?" The two increasingly confused men had a cross-purposes conversation which resulted in du Maurier inviting Edgar out for a meal, at which he fully intended to verbally eviscerate him still. When Edgar arrived, it transpired he thought du Maurier was calling about the letter he had sent regarding his play, The Gaunt Stranger (which du Maurier interestingly never did receive). By the meal's end, du Maurier had accurately pegged Edgar's enthusiastic if rather childish personality to a T., and saw that in his own blundering way, Edgar had not been malicious but rather trying to help. He also realised that The Gaunt Stranger was going to be a sure-fire hit to the extent he insisted on only one change - that of the title to The Ringer.

As always, Edgar turned the play into a novel, and it has been serialised/made into films several times, unfortunately always with an element of rushed mediocrity. But The Ringer was the catalyst that propelled Edgar from being popular in England to the heady heights of fame and fortune in Hollywood.

The chief protagonist was a typical Wallace anti-hero vigilante, one Henry Arthur Milton, aka The Ringer, a legendery assassin who killed for personal vengeance. The play's main character was Inspector Wembury of Scotland Yard, who is having a very bad day. It is his first day as the new commander of Deptford Division; his immediate superior, the brutish, inappropriately named Chief Inspector Bliss, is back from America stuffed full of notions like Tommy guns on the streets of London and a British FBI; his fiancee has just taken a position as secretary to a local lawyer Maurice Meister, an outwardly respectable but actually murderous criminal kingpin who Wembury knows - but cannot prove - was responsible for his fiancee's impressionable younger brother ending up doing a 4-year jail term for a robbery. Wembury's day is made miserably complete when the newsflash comes in - The Ringer, having been "confirmed" dead in Australia, is back in London and out for blood. Specifically Maurice Meister's, for Henry Milton left his only sibling, a much younger sister, in Meister's wardship when he left London and after Milton was supposedly confirmed dead her body was found floating in the Thames.

The Ringer was a hit with audiences and critics alike and made a mint for both Edgar and Gerald du Maurier; also Edgar kept the profits. Shortly before Ivy's death, he had met one Sir Ernest Hodder-Williams, one half of the famous publishing company Hodder-Stoughton Ltd. Recognising Edgar's literary talent, but also his personal flaws, Hodder-Williams quickly signed him to a contract and kept him busy, but introduced Edgar to the concept of royalties. Thanks to Hodder-Williams, Edgar now kept the copyright to his work. In 1927, riding high from The Ringer Edgar secured an extraordinary deal with a film company, British Lion, unprecedented for its time. He was appointed Chairman of the Board (a figurehead position for which he had to do nothing) and in return for giving British Lion first option on all his output, Edgar's contract gave him, incredibly, an annual salary, plus a substantial block of stock in the company, plus a large stipend from everything British Lion produced based on his work, plus 10% of British Lion's overall annual profits! Additionally, British Lion employed his elder son Bryan E. Wallace as a film editor, bringing a second strand of income from the company into the family. Thus, by 1929, Edgar's earnings were heading rapidly towards £50,000 per annum, around £2 million today, give or take a few thousand.

[edit] The Promise of Hollywood, Death and After, 1929-1935

Hollywood wooed Edgar, and he was eager to venture there and pursue his ideas of being a scriptwriter and film director; he had written several screenplays and taken cameo roles in some of his films in the manner of Alfred Hitchcock. Personally he also wanted to "escape" again. Ivy's death devastated him, but also destroyed his egotistical confidence in his own invulnerability as Ivy had been his junior by a few years. His lifestyle had been appallingly bad for decades, having never partaken in physical exertion once out of the military; living mainly on his nerves, his diet consisted incredibly of over 20 cups of sugary tea and four packets of cigarettes a day, to which he attributed his writing success with the wry comment that such a regime should provide "'sufficient inspiration for anyone'". There is no suggestion, however, that Wallace ever resorted to illegal drugs such as cocaine or heroin, and he was known to be a virtual teetotaller.

Though he didn't know it, he was also suffering from sugar Diabetes and this led to ever more sudden mood swings, bouts of melancholia and, mercifully brief, periods of paranoid suspicion about his family. Many of those suspicions centred on Violet, who it must be emphasised was entirely blameless. Edgar could not escape the fact that Violet was the same age as his long-dead eldest child, Eleanor, nor could he cope with his feelings of guilt of Ivy and her death. Violet Wallace was an honourable woman, too much so to have an affair, but she was only human. After a while of Edgar's temper tantrums and hysterical accusations and self-pitying moping, she did begin to stay a little longer at her office or on the film set; it is hardly surprising she craved laughs and pleasant conversation with youthful, handsome colleagues instead of being harangued by Edgar.

There was also Edgar's children - by 1931 Michael the youngest was in his mid-teens and well had his father's measure; Edgar had always excelled at the "fair weather father" type of playing and doling out money and laughs, whilst floundering at the important things a father is - a guide, an instructor, an adviser, confidante and protector. A good father disciplines and teaches his children morals and good conduct, whereas both Edgar's wives were de facto single mothers and his solution to any problem had been to hand out a £5 note or reach for his chequebook. Only with 7-year-old Penny could Edgar maintain the illusion of omniscience as opposed to nescience. Indeed, he was estranged for several months from his eldest son Bryan until the latter's stepmother Violet persuaded Bryan to be "the bigger man" his father would never be and reconcile despite Edgar being the one most at fault.

Thus the boom-time in Hollywood was just what Edgar needed as an excuse to get away but also validate his self-belief in his silver-screen talent. Hollywood was churning out films in a blur and was desperate for somone like who could produce material at great speed yet have it (mostly) make some kind of sense. Never one to just have one iron in the fire, Edgar used his new wealth and fame to venture in politcs in 1931, even as he prepared to up sticks and travel across The Pond. He became active in the Liberal Party and contested Blackpool in the 1931 general election as one of a handful of Independent Liberals who rejected the National Government, and the official Liberal support for it, and strongly supported free trade. In the event, he lost the election because of his reputation for gambling. When he was elected Chairman of the Press Club, he had invented the prestigious Luncheon Club event bringing together his two greatest loves - journalism and horse-racing.

Not particularly bothered, Edgar set sail for America in November 1931, and if anyone had said he had only a little over two months to live, they would have been soundly laughed at.

He took to Hollywood like the proverbial duck to water, starting as a script "doctor" and bringing coherence to some of more hastily churned out material. One of his first successes was the Basil Rathbone vehicle, The Hound of the Baskervilles. His latest play, The Green Pack had also opened to excellent reviews, boosting his status even further. His ultimate aim was to get his own work on Hollywood celluloid, namely The Four Just Men and Mr J G Reeder. Also he encountered another middle-aged man in Hollywood who was Stanley Holloway's scriptwriter, none other than his half-brother Edgar Marriott. Marriott's most famous Monologue for Holloway was The Lion & Albert, in which he named the epnymous lion Wallace, in what is now generally recognised to be a fraternal in-joke. Marriott would outlive his elder half-brother by 19 years.

At the start of 1932, Edgar Wallace began work on a screenplay known today as King Kong. However, he then began to suffer sudden, severe headaches, finally summoning a doctor. That physician, amazed that Edgar had lasted so long and was in such (relatively) good shape, almost immediately informed the astonished Edgar that he had sugar diabetes and that the doctor could not believe he had not been blind or sight-impaired for years.

Almost as if the diagnosis released the disease's restraint, Edgar's condition deteriorated drastically within days and newspapers on both sides of the Altantic carried banner headlines declaring, Wallace Gravely Ill. Violet booked passage on liner out of Southampton, but received word that Edgar had slipped into a coma and died on 7th February 1932 in Beverly Hills.

In life Edgar had been alternatively lionised and vilified, but in death he was accorded all the pomp and glory his ego could have craved. It was journalism and newspapers that had always meant the most to him in terms of his accomplishments; indeed, for all his faults Edgar was a generous man and he spent his money for the benefit of impoverished journalists and many other worthy charities. His coffin aboard the ship to Southampton was draped with the Union Jack and floral wreaths, as it traversed London the flags on Fleet Street's newspapers flew at half-mast and the bell of St. Bride's tolled in mourning. Edgar would have loved every second of it.

Unfortunately, his tendency to cause high drama wherever he went was far from over. Once the funeral was over and Edgar buried in Little Marlow, England, there was an unpleasant shock for his five main heirs: Violet, Bryan, Patricia, Michael and Penelope. At the time of his death, Edgar had been earning £50,000 a year for over two years, yet incredibly was a penniless debtor to the tune of over £140,000 and had no "liquid assets", i.e., cash, to his name. His will left Violet three-sevenths of his estate and each child one-seventh each, which in March 1932 was nothing but a mountain of debts, many of which were still harkening back to his 6 years in South Africa 35 years earlier. Acting with the help of a Theodore Goddard and Sir Patrick Hasting's, King's Counsel, they managed to reduce the debt by negotiation with many creditors to receive a smaller lump sum and a deferred payment; a royalty cheque for £26,000 in 1933 also helped. By the beginning of 1934, the estate's debt was reduced to £38,000 thanks to sterling effort on the part of Violet and others.

Just like Ivy Wallace, Violet Wallace also never lived to enjoy the fruits of her labours. Though a quarter-century younger than Edgar, she outlived him by only 14 months, dying suddenly in April 1933 at the age of 33 with the estate still deep in debt. Her own will had left her three-sevenths of Edgar's estate to one heir, Penelope, who became the chief benefactor and shareholder of - again, virtually nothing. Penny Wallace was a distraught 10 year old girl who cared nothing for her financial situation. Her only family were 3 semi-siblings brought up with endless wealth now penniless and scrambling to earn a living, plus her 47-year-old cousin A. Grace Donovan and sundry half-uncles and aunts she'd never met. The little girl was deeply devastated. It was March 1934 when the debt was finally cleared (admittedly in only 2 years and a month) and the four children finally received their first income dividend.

[edit] Postscript, 1935-Present

A lot of work based on Edgar Wallace's material has been produced, particularly in the 1920s and 1930s. A large number of movies have been based on his novels. The Green Archer was a well-regarded serial in the days of silent cinema. However, these works never achieved the prominence accorded to such characters as Sherlock Holmes et al, which is a great pity, because if done properly, many of Wallace's best stories, such as the Just Men and Mr J G Reeder would make excellent adventure-thrillers.

In 1959 a mini-revival of his work occured in Germany and around the Eastern bloc, and his eldest son Bryan relocated there for some time to edit and direct many of the string of made-for-tv a string of B-movies filmed in that country. These later became a staple of late-night television. In 2004 Oliver Kalkofe -one of the best known German comedy stars- produced the movie 'Der Wixxer' which is an hommage to the popular black and white Wallace movies. It featured a large number of well known comedians.

Both his elder son Bryan Edgar Wallace and his youngest daughter Penelope Wallace were also authors of mystery and crime novels. In 1969, Penelope founded The Edgar Wallace Appreciation Society which she ran until her death in 1997, the work being continued by her daughter, also Penelope.

[edit] Literary works

[edit] African novels

• Sanders of the River (1911)
• The People of the River (1911)
• The River of Stars (1913)
• Bosambo of the River (1914)
• Bones (1915)
• The Keepers of the King's Peace (1917)
• Lieutenant Bones (1918)
• Bones in London (1921)
• Sandi the Kingmaker (1922)
• Bones of the River (1923)
• Sanders (1926)
• Again Sanders (1928)

[edit] Crime novels and short stories compilations

• The Four Just Men (1905)
• Angel Esquire (1908)
• The Nine Bears (1910)
• The Fourth Plague (1913)
• Grey Timothy (1913)
• The Man Who Bought London (1915)
• The Melody of Death (1915)
• A Debt Discharged (1916)
• The Tomb of T'Sin (1916)
• The Just Men of Cordova (1917)
• The Secret House (1917)
• The Clue of the Twisted Candle (1918)
• Down under Donovan (1918)
• The Green Rust (1919)
• Kate Plus 10 (1919)
• The Man Who Knew (1919)
• The Daffodil Mystery (1920)
• Jack O'Judgment (1920)
• The Law of the Four Just Men (1921)
• The Angel of Terror (1922)
• The Crimson Circle (1922)
• Mr. Justice Maxell (1922)
• The Valley of Ghosts (1922)
• Captains of Souls (1923)
• The Clue of the New Pin (1923)
• The Green Archer (1923)
• The Missing Million (1923)
• The Dark Eyes Of London (1924)
• Double Dan (1924)
• Educated Evans (1924)
• The Face in the Night (1924)
• Room 13 (1924)
• The Sinister Man (1924)
• The Three Oak Mystery (1924)
• The Blue Hand (1925)
• The Daughters of the Night (1925)
• The Fellowship of the Frog (1925)
• The Gaunt Stranger (1925)
• A King by Night (1925)
• The Mind of Mr. J.G. Reeder (1925)
• The Strange Countess (1925)
• The Avenger (1926)
• The Black Abbot (1926)
• The Day of Uniting (1926)
• The Door with Seven Locks (1926)
• The Joker (1926)
• The Man from Morocco (1926)
• The Million Dollar Story (1926)
• More Educated Evans (1926)
• The Northing Tramp (1926)
• Penelope of the Polyantha (1926)
• The Square Emerald (1926)
• The Terrible People (1926)
• We Shall See! (1926)
• The Yellow Snake (1926)
• The Big Foot (1927)
• The Brigand (1927)
• The Feathered Serpent (1927)
• Flat 2 (1927)
• The Forger (1927)
• Good Evans (1927)
• The Hand of Power (1927)
• The Man Who Was Nobody (1927)
• The Mixer (1927)
• Number Six (1927)
• The Squeaker (1927)
• Terror Keep (1927)
• The Traitor's Gate (1927)
• The Double (1928)
• Elegant Edward (1928)
• The Flying Squad (1928)
• The Gunner (1928)
• The Orator (1928)
• The Thief in the Night (1928)
• The Twister (1928)
• Again the Ringer (1929)
• Again the Three Just Men or The Law of the Three Just Men (1929)
• The Big Four (1929)
• The Black (1929)
• The Cat-Burglar (1929)
• Circumstantial Evidence (1929)
• Fighting Snub Reilly (1929)
• For Information Received (1929)
• Forty-Eight Short Stories (1929)
• Four Square Jane (1929)
• The Ghost of Down Hill (1929)
• The Golden Hades (1929)
• The Calendar (1930)
• The Hand of Power (1930)
• The Keepers of the King's Peace (1930)
• Silinski - Master Criminal: Detective T.B.Smith (1930)
• The Thief in the Night (1930)
• White Face (1930)
• The Clue of the Silver Key or The Silver Key (1930)
• The Lady of Ascot (1930)
• The Devil Man (1931)
• The Man at the Carlton (1931)
• The Coat of Arms or The Arranways Mystery (1931)
• On the Spot: Violence and Murder in Chicago (1931)
• The Ringer Returns or Again the Ringer (1931)
• Mr J.G. Reeder Returns (1932)
• Sergeant Sir Peter or Sergeant Dunn, C.I.D. (1932)
• When the Gangs Came to London (1932)
• The Frightened Lady (1933)
• The Green Pack (1933)
• The Mouthpiece (1935)
• Smoky Cell (1935)
• The Table (1936)
• Sanctuary Island (1936)
• Death Packs a Suitcase (1961)
• The Road to London (1986)
• The Jewel
• The Shadow Man

[edit] Other novels

• The Mission That Failed (1898)
• War and Other Poems (1900)
• Writ in Barracks (1900)
• Unofficial Despatches (1901)
• Smithy (1905)
• The Council of Justice (1908)
• Captain Tatham of Tatham Island (1909)
• Smithy Abroad (1909)
• The Duke in the Suburbs (1909)
• Private Selby (1912)
• The Admirable Carfew (1914)
• Smithy and the Hun (1915)
• Tam Of The Scouts (1918)
• Those Folk of Bulboro (1918)
• The Adventure of Heine (1917)
• The Fighting Scouts (1919)
• The Book of all Power (1921)
• Flying Fifty-five (1922)
• The Books of Bart (1923)
• Chick (1923)
• Barbara on Her Own (1926)
• This England (1927)

[edit] Fact books

• Famous Scottish Regiments (1914)
• Field Marshal Sir John French (1914)
• Heroes All: Gallant Deeds of the War (1914)
• The Standard History of the War (1914)
• Kitchener's Army and the Territorial Forces: The Full Story of a Great Achievement (1915)
• 1925 - The Story of a Fatal Place (1915)
• Vol. 2-4. War of the Nations (1915)
• Vol. 5-7. War of the Nations (1916)
• Vol. 8-9. War of the Nations (1917)
• Tam of the Scouts (1918)
• People (1926)

[edit] Screenplay

• King Kong (1932, unfinished)

[edit] Plays

• The Ringer (1929)
• On the Spot (1930)
• The Squeaker (1930)

[edit] Quotes

On the exploitation of Native African workers:

• "I do not regard the native as my brother or my sister, nor even as my first cousin: nor as a poor relation. I do not love the native--nor do I hate him. To me he is just a part of the scenery, a picturesque object with uses."

On Intellectualism:

• "The intellectual is someone who has found something more interesting than sex".

• "What is a highbrow? He is a man who has found something more interesting than women."

[edit] See also

• Brockley
• King Kong

[edit] External links

• Former London home of Edgar Wallace
• Works by Edgar Wallace at Project Gutenberg
• Edgar Wallace Bibliography
• wallace-online.de German fansite
• Article on Edgar Wallace
• Edgar Wallace films Films based on Edgar Wallace stories produced by Merton Park studios in London between the years 1960 and 1966.