Edgar Wallace

Edgar Wallace (1875–1932) was an English writer born in Greenwich, the illegitimate son of actors, raised by a fish porter's family. He left school at twelve, served in the army, became a war correspondent in South Africa and published The Four Just Men in 1905. Over the next quarter century he wrote some 170 novels, as well as plays and hundreds of stories, dictating them at a speed that became a joke; his detectives include J. G. Reeder of Room 13, Terror Keep and Red Aces. He died in Hollywood while working on the script of King Kong, leaving debts that his royalties paid off within two years.