Wallace, Edgar

Edgar Wallace (1875-1932)

Prolific writer of best-selling thrillers, often set in Greenwich, where he was born, or in Deptford, where he worked as a boy; from 1908 to 1915 he lived at 6 Tressillian Crescent.

He was a war correspondent during the Second Boer War, for Reuters and the Daily Mail. As well as journalism, Wallace wrote screen plays, poetry, historical non-fiction, 18 stage plays, 957 short stories, and over 170 novels, 12 in 1929 alone. More than 160 films have been made of Wallace's work, including King Kong.

He died of undiagnosed diabetes in 1932 while working on the script for King Kong.

A bust commissioned for the centenary exhibition can be seen in the LHAC

A Maroon Plaque was erected to Edgar Wallace