TWO BEST-SELLERS

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 90, 13 October 1931, Page 8

TWO BEST-SELLERS

Having made a reputation as a writer of thrilling fiction, Mr. Edgar Wallace has now appeared in a new role —as a Lloyd George Liberal to expose the "national confidence trick" of the food-traders. There is something filling in llic association of Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Edgar Wallace, for Mr. Lloyd George, when-the country gave him a part-time holiday from politics, was offered and accepted one of the highest fees ever (paid for a series of articles. But I more interesting is the revelation of Mr. Wallace's other interest in life; apart from racing and crime stories. He is an entertaining writer of fiction and he hopes to be a thrilling champion in politics. Other writers have had this dual personality. Canon Hannay has written theological treatises of which the readers of his "George Birmingham" books have never heard. A lecturer of Christ Church, Oxford, author of "Euclid, Book V-., proved Algebraically," wrote also "Alice in Wonderland." But the Rev. C. L. Dodgson declined to acknowledge his identity as "Lewis Carroll." He probably understood that the authorship of "Alice" would not commend him to mathematicians, and that children who enjoyed "Alice" would not be grateful to an author who mixed algebra and Euclid. Mr. Edgar Wallace's entry to the political field presents another problem of conflicting loyalties. How can good Empire Crusaders read "The Ringer" or the latest thriller with undisturbed pleasure if they know they are thus being disloyal to the cause? And how can they appreciate the discomfiture of the villain when they know lhat the author is putting them in ihe villain's role and claiming that it is not fiction?