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Edgar Wallace

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:NA Estimated At:9,000.00 - 10,000.00 USD
Edgar Wallace

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Auction Date:2014 Feb 12 @ 18:00 (UTC-5 : EST/CDT)
Location:5 Rt 101A Suite 5, Amherst, New Hampshire, 03031, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
British novelist, playwright, and journalist (1875–1932) who produced popular detective and suspense stories. Autograph manuscript, 29 pages (paginated 1–30, with pages 13 and 14 on one sheet), mostly, 7.5 x 10, no date. Manuscript contains the entire first act of his crime piece The Squeaker, beginning with "Scene I": “A corner of the Sub Editors Room on the ‘Post Courier.’ Four Sub Editors are sitting at small desks writing rapidly or reading & correcting copies. At a large desk is the chief Sub Editor his table littered with paper…R[ight] is a swing door through which messengers come & go. On one wall is a collection of placards the top one reading ‘New Move to End Strike’…There is a clock showing the hour 11.10. The time is night.” The reverse of the last page lists the names of several other characters, including “Frank Sutton,” “Capt. Leslie,” “Lew Friedman,” and “Sergt. Weaver.” First page also bears two stamps of the Brandt & Brandt literary agency, one dated in pencil, January 1, 1927. In very good condition, with rusty staple holes, some scattered light dampstaining and foxing, creasing to first page, and expected handling wear.

Signing with publishers Hodder and Stoughton in 1921, the staggeringly prolific Edgar Wallace quickly became an internationally recognized author, writing screenplays, poetry, historical nonfiction, stage plays, nearly a thousand short stories, and over 170 novels. In 1927, he wrote and published his popular crime novel The Squeaker (or The Squealer, as titled in the US), telling the story of a disgraced ex-detective’s chance at redemption, as he works to expose ‘the squeaker,’ a powerful fence masquerading as the upright chairman of a charitable organization, avoiding detection by squealing on his criminal associates from whom he buys his stolen goods. The following year, The Squeaker was turned into a play, and two years after that, a popular British film. This lengthy manuscript, revealing both Wallace’s literary and cinematic prowess, offers an excellent glimpse into the speedy work of one of the most prolific and best-selling fiction authors of all time.