ONE-MAN NOVEL FACTORY

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 255, 27 October 1928, Page 11 (Supplement)

ONE-MAN NOVEL FACTORY

, EDGAR WALLACE'S METHODS. ft' ...

;f( AN AUTHOR'S SIDELINES.

"ON THE VERGE OF FAME."

Galloping madly down the departure platform of Paddington station in London, three minutes before train time, came a messenger boy. Panting, he struggled up to a man who was about to board the train, and delivered a package which, it developed, contained a

, three-act play. Turning to a companion, the recipient explained that on the preceding Saturday the author had promised 'to write this play over the week-end, ' but at that time had no plot. It was Unow Wednesday, and the man who had the promise, a literary agent, was leaving for America. The man who (had dashed off the play in so short a time was Edgar Wallace,' mystery-story •; 'writer, playwright, dramatic critio, and I racing expert. Mr. Wallace, says a London dispatch by John L. Balderston in >:< the! New York "World," has a few other

sidelines. He modestly admits that in 1927 he wrote twenty-six novels and

.?■' six plays; also we learn that in the year <*. ending with last March his various and ' almost innumerable volumes had sold ; ~to the almost unbelievable extent of {5,000,000 copies. It is a source of increasing wonderment to Mr., Balderston that Mr. Wallace was not born in the States, "the land of mass production." Further, lays the "World" .correspondent:— Edgar Wallace is doing for fiction and the theatre what Henry Ford did •for the motor industry, and his compatriots are awakening to the fadt that ,they have a great pioneer in their midst, year ago Wallace was known as the ■i writer of sensational detective stories a few: thrillers for the stage. To-day - jKe is on the verge of fame. To-morrOw, unless he collapscs under the strain of a .constantly increasing output, he will

bestride like a colossus the literary and dramatic firmament. • 1' It has taken Wallace a long time to get into his stride. He is fifty-three years old, born of poor but honest parents, went to a "board school," which means that he missed the ineffable benefits of public school education bestowed

.upon the British middle and upper class ,yoijthV«wl Served ehTyeafs as~a private |f in army. Then he becama a journalm jist, founded a newspaper in South Africa, ■;£i *nq, like other great men who subse,qusntly live down their early jndkcrcr jMoris, published a volume of poetry. Twenty.two years ago, when he was . already in his thirties, he wrote his first detective story. All London is talking about Edgar His income, his habits, his hours of work are subjects of heated debate. Perhaps the general public, that part of the general, public that does not | read his stories or go to his plays, first . began to take notice when he gave a banquet in'the davoy Hotel some time ; . . .fgo te the people ha was then employing in his plays bin view in foiir r ,v Jiqpdon theatres,. Five hundred and pinety «at down at table. - The Wire." Edgar Wallace jokes are getting as common as Ford jokes, used to be. Here is one of the best: Wallace's butler, in his mansion in Portland Place, is answering the phone. "I'm sorry, sir, I can't nut you through. Mr. Wallace is finishing a new play and left word fc, that he must not be disturbed. What's !> ~ .that, sir? s YouH hold the wire?" 'i : Wallace, .does not c know himself how v many he ha* Written,. we are, told. " pecan only make a rough guess: "Not more than twenty," (he told me apbfcgstically, "but yott must remember foaiy tbok it up three ye«r4'ago, and I haven't much time to give toplayi. I flp in the intervair-fbetween my ,"How many novels have you written !" fe;.; £ - ttkaL 't V*. - "About a hundred and forty." . Wallace thinks he may have forgotten a When ha isn't doing a play or • a novel, he write* short stories... Two f .to. four- hundred is Us estimated output *«f these. . , / . .. .. .1 s I literature does not absorb l / : «» «f Wallace's time, although his fifes? in the last ? three years has * in geometrical, ratio, so that n BD he wrote twice as many novels y; Sudatories as in 1924, and so On, until m 1027 he produced , twenty-six novels . and at least six.playa.. year he modestly hopes to do Better. M r Wallace is a dramatic critic, a job that fcuta into hie evenings. He writes about h\V plays for "Tha Morning Post" Ha is •lso * racing expert. Hia attendance at rsc# meeting and hie expert articles on the turf; which appear in evening and g: Sunday organs, cut into his afternoons. The bulk of his purely literary, output, , he tells ae, is, perforce, produced in his ntornings. He is perhaps more proud of his racing articles than his other work, m;' and thousands follow hie tips, although his reputation suffered somewhat when •V he assured millions that the favourite : "can not possibly Jose? tbe Derby this | X /ear, and the favourite finished twelfth. fei v---' . Longest and Shortest M- Xt will have been gathered that Edgar §|pf : Wallace is what is known as a "fast worker," remarks Mr. Balder son, consinuing;~ It is ssid, with what truth I do not know,.: that he dictates his novels'and ..V' plays into a dictaphone, and that his wife and his corps of. secretaries attend to the rest, without troubling him to read over what he has uttered. This is probably exaggerated. It doea not square with hisconfession to an interviewer who asked him which of this novels took him the shortest time to write and which 'the longest. "A firm, of publishers asked me; on Thursday for a novel of 70,000 words by noon on Monday. Working eighteen , hours a day* dictating it all to a typist, with my. wife 'doing the- .corrections, J ' delivered 'The strange Countess' <jn Monday morning. If anyone wants to give me a present he might send me a copy, L should like to read it." • r H|P^, ? '.-*And your most dilatory effort?" "That was 'The Gunner.' It took me several weeks. > But this apparent lethargy was due to the fart, that driring the s«me period I had to write a novel The Flying Squad/ a play of th« / f saine name, and a j&ay eaJ&X thiiilc, , The Man Who Changed His Name."? Wallace has eut out the middleman In to increase his profits the stage, rv , He eays r tit made only £6000 out of'a | % shocker called "The Binger," wbiU fopfr JFnnk Corson, the theatrical managei Mf,. Who put It on; cleared £20,000. Aeeord« |K#|ngiy; Wallace is how his own impresffiLx. Mrio. After, he has written his plays, m; ' he casts them himself, pays all the-e£ J -; t /. P«W«, bins the theatres, and take* thj