Edgar Wallace (1875-1932) was a prolific English novelist, journalist, and screenwriter, best known for his crime, adventure, and thriller fiction. Born Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace in London, he left school young to work as a journalist and war correspondent during the Second Boer War. He turned to fiction in the early 1900s and eventually published more than 170 books, along with countless newspaper articles, plays, and short stories. Wallace’s novels combined crime, espionage, secret societies, scientific threats, and international conspiracies. The Green Rust (1911) exemplifies his fascination with aggressive technology. The novel’s plot centers on a mysterious substance capable of destroying the world’s wheat supply. An international celebrity by the 1920s, Wallace saw his books translated and adapted widely.

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