About the Author - Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace (1875 - 1932) was an English writer born into poverty. He joined the army and was a war correspondent during the Second Boer War, for Reuters and the Daily Mail. He wrote thrillers to raise money, publishing books including The Four Just Men (1905). After an unsuccessful bid to stand as Liberal MP for Blackpool in the 1931 general election, Wallace moved to Hollywood, where he worked as a script writer for RKO studios. He died suddenly from undiagnosed diabetes, during the initial drafting of King Kong (1933).