Room 13 Annotated

Edgar Wallace was born in London on April 1, 1875 and was a prolific journalist, playwright and novelist. Dropping out of school at the age of twelve, Wallace enlists in the army at eighteen and spends seven years in South Africa, where he makes his debut in journalism as a correspondent for Reuters. He returned to the United Kingdom in 1901 and published in 1905 the novel The Four Just Men, the first of more than one hundred and seventy titles that he would publish over twenty-seven years. More than the construction of complex problems that challenged the reader, Wallace favored the elaboration of fast-paced action and adventure detective stories, in a cinematographic style that resulted in the film adaptation of several of his books, having even been co-screenwriter of the 1933 film King Kong . He died in Hollywood on February 10, 1932.