SOURCE: "The Thriller," in his Masters of Mystery: A Study of the Detective Story, W. Collins & Co. Ltd., 1931, pp. 212-37.

In the following excerpt, Thomson analyzes the themes and patterns that recur in Wallace's novels.

To many people detective fiction is nowadays synonymous with the novels of Mr. Edgar Wallace. Born in 1875, Mr. Wallace has had a varied career. He has served as a private soldier, been a miner, war correspondent, journalist on the staff of at least two London daily papers, and has experimented in numerous other occupations. Then three or four years ago his detective stories suddenly became popular; now he is one of the world's celebrities. If my memory does not play me false, it was only a few years ago that he was enlivening the columns of the less dignified Sunday papers with the adventures of an Aberdeen Annie: but he has put on...