Wallace was born in London on April 1, 1875. He was the son of an actress named Mary Jane Richards. His father was T. H. Edgar, an actor; his parents were never married. He was adopted as an infant by a Billingsgate fish porter named George Freeman.
Wallace attended St. Alfege with St. Peter’s, a boarding school in Peckham, but he played truant and then left full-time education at the age of 12.
Edgar held a variety of odd jobs until he joined the army at 18. Sent to South Africa in 1896, he began to write songs, poems, and articles for periodicals; and a journalistic scoop, which enabled the Daily Mail to announce the end of the Second Boer War in advance of an official news, led to his employment by the Harmsworth newspapers on his return.
Edgar's first book was a collection of verses called Writ in Barracks (1900), closely modeled on Kipling's Barrack Room Ballads. In 1905 he produced and personally published an incomplete version of The Four Just Men, offering a prize of £500 for a correct solution of its mystery. In 1911 he wrote his first tale of African adventure, Sanders of the River, which was based on knowledge gained while special correspondent of the Daily Mail. Its success led to other, similar tales.
After World War I, Wallace continued in the vein of The Four Just Men and at top speed dictated book after book. His invention never failed, and his success throughout the world became fabulous. He followed the stories with plays, beginning in 1926 with The Ringer, and thrilling audiences as he had thrilled readers, by means of suspense and surprise.
In December 1931, Wallace was assigned work on the RKO "gorilla picture" (King Kong, 1933) for producer Merian C. Cooper. By late January, however, he was beginning to suffer sudden, severe headaches and was diagnosed with diabetes. His condition deteriorated within days. Violet booked passage on a liner out of Southampton, but received word that Edgar had slipped into a coma and died of the condition, combined with double pneumonia, on 10 February 1932 in North Maple Drive, Beverly Hills.
Edgar is recognized as one of most prolific and successful writer of thriller genre of the 20th century. All told, he wrote over 170 novels, 18 stage plays, and 957 short stories, and his works were translated into 28 languages.
More than 160 films have been made based on Wallace's work. Wallace also has a pub named after him in Essex Street, off Strand in London.
Edgar Wallace was Irish Catholic. His both parents were Irish Catholic and Edgar also lived with faith in God, throughout his life.
Wallace 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
Quotations:
“An intellectual is someone who has found something more interesting than sex.”
“Vanity takes no more obnoxious form than the everlasting desire for approval.”
“I never did believe in the equality of the sexes, but no girl is the weaker vessel if she gets first grip of the kitchen poker.”
Wallace was a heavy gambler and left many debts to his family due to his heavy gambling and extravagant lifestyle. He was also a heavy smoker.
Physical Characteristics: In his later years, Wallace went baldish. He had a long Roman nose and very bushy and curved eyebrows close to his eyes. Thin lips with a lack of smile, but always with a cigar in his mouth. Prominent rounded eyes with a dose of mystery sparkling from them. He had a 33-inch chest, according to his old medical records and was around 180 cm tall. Despite gluttony and extravagant lifestyle, Wallace remained slim.
While he was in South Africa, in 1901, he married Ivy Maude Caldecott, despite Ivy's father opposed that marriage. Edgar's and Ivy's first child Eleanor Clare Hellier Wallace died suddenly from meningitis. Their second child, Bryan was born in 1904 and later their third child, Patricia, was born in 1908. In 1921 Edgar married Ethel Violet King. Their first and only child was Penelope Wallace, born in 1923.
