Edgar Wallace, Literary Mercenary
If the literary establishment ever decides to invent a prize for a 20th-century author with the greatest output of work, a portly English gentleman by the name of Edgar Wallace would be a serious contender. In terms of sheer quantity, Wallace’s output was simply astounding: he wrote over 170 books that were translated into 30 languages; more films were made out of his books than any other writer in the 20th century; and, during his most successful publishing year in the 1920s, one out of every four books sold in England had his name in the title.