SFF Author: Edgar Wallace

Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace (1 April 1875 – 10 February 1932) was born in Greenwich, England. Born into poverty as an illegitimate London child, Wallace left school at age 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 left South Africa, returned to London, and began writing thrillers to raise income, publishing books including The Four Just Men (1905). Drawing on his time as a reporter in the Congo, covering the Belgian atrocities, Wallace serialized short stories in magazines such as The Windsor Magazine and later published collections such as Sanders of the River (1911). He signed with Hodder and Stoughton in 1921 and, known as “The King of Thrillers,” became one of the most popular writers in the U.K. with some 170 novels and 950 short stories.

After an unsuccessful bid to stand as Liberal MP for Blackpool in the 1931 general election, Wallace moved to Hollywood, where he worked as a script writer for RKO studios. In 1932, at the age of 56, he died suddenly from undiagnosed diabetes, during the initial drafting of King Kong (1933).

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