Does He Write His Thrillers m the Bath ?

Greymouth Evening Star, 11 May 1929, Page 9

Does He Write His Thrillers m the Bath ?

Sketched Out Musical i Comedy While Waiting For Shaving Water

How the Most Popular Writer of the Day Works.

|T is seven' a.in. I A short, rather handsome man sits in an expensive bath-tub, rubbing himself with expensive soap and splashing himself with 1 expensive-looking bubbles. On a table, resting on the expensively tiled floor there is a dictaphone. The man speaks, with a far-away look in his eyes. . . ? “. .. . and in an instant the black-bearded man had whipped out his revolver, levelled it straight at Phillip’s eyes, and fired. ‘Ah!’ cried Marion —and fell in a swoon on the floor ”

The man pauses, while he chases the soap again. . * « The man is Edgar Wallace. ■

HO the ordinary.man who reads every Edgar Wallace' “thriller” as it spins off the press—or tries to —it must seem that this is how the most popular writer of detective stories of to-day does his work . . . dashes off a few chapters of a novel in his bath; dictates a short story while shaving; rattles off an article between the -porridge and the eggs; concocts a new thriller in the morning; spills .another article into the dictaphone at lunch; and scribbles off a musical comedy libretto in the afternoon — sometimes rounding off the day’s work with another novel or two after dinner. Impossible, of course —yet not such a gross exaggeration of Edgar Wallace’s astounding activity as it seems (writes R.C. in the “Sunday iTmes”). For he is, the most fecund writer of the day. The mere thought of doing the quantity of work that Wallace does would send another writer writhing to his grave. Remarkable Industry This is the feat of work he actually performed on one occasion:— While waiting for his shaving water, he sketched out the libretto of a musical comedy; in a taxi-cab in the morning he rattled off the first act to his secretary, and two days later the remaining two acts were finished! He then engaged a couple of hacks to supply the lyrics and music. This musical comedy was “The Yellow Mask” and, in spite of its hurried composition—or because of it?—it proved a big success. And in the meantime, mark you, he manages to be one of London’s most popular hosts, attend all the important race meetings, moves about the social swirl with his beautiful daughter, and trip across to Europe ever and anon. It was in Africa that Wallace first began to write short stories. Years before he had been a newspaper seller in Fleet Street —and to-day on the very spot that was his “pitch,” there is a bookstall which sells his novels by the hundreds. In South Africa he edited a newspaper, served in the Boer War as a private until he got a job as war correspondent, and then set out to win

a tombstone in Westminster’ Abbey as —a poet. Somewhere about this time he wrote “The Four Just Men,” and he was so certain that it was a good book that he published it himself. It cost him £4OO. In the following fortnight he wrote fourteen articles and seven short stories; and lo! the printer’s bill for that book was paid. That was twenty years ago. To-day publishers clamour, for the right to publish his works. ... Nowadays he must be bored with making money. He has mol's than he can comfortably spend. Yet he continues to write stories because the • public says he must. If Edgar Wallace put down his pen and said, “I shall write no more detective stories,” thousands of women would faint, and strong men weep. But to keep up with the demand, he has found it necessary to run his writing on lines that are somewhat businesslike. Red For Murder His study in his London house Is a marvel of inspirational aids. Dumas or Dickens would have regarded it with unbelieving eyes. The room is fitted up with an arrangement of lights, so that he can diffuse over it whatever colour he feels will be most conducive to the mood he wishes to summon. For instance, a baleful red glow is switched on when he arrives at the point in the story where the villain stabs the housemaid in the back with a dagger; when the gang is plotting, he switches on a dark blue; for intrigue, it is pirple . . . and so on. Furthermore, his study is fitted with dictaphones—although he doesn’t really need them, for he has a stenographer who, he declares, writes shorthand faster than he can think. He always works in a long dressing gown, and Russian boots, smokes an endless chain of cigarettes from a seemingly endless holder, and drinks endless cups of tea. ... Eccentric, you say? . . . Perhaps. But he realises, like so many other writers of to-day, the inestimable value of developing a bump of eccentricity as a means of gaining publicity. But then . . . does Edgar Wallace need publicity?