THE STRANGE COUNTESS,
by Edgar Wallace INTRODUCTIONThe claim is encountered variously: Once upon a time Edgar Wallace novels made up 25% of all books, including Bibles, sold in 1) Great Britain 2) the English-speaking world 3) the entire world. Whatever is true, it is certain that Wallace (1875-1932) was one of the most prolific and successful writers of all time. He was born into poverty, left school at 12, and worked a variety of jobs until he became a newspaper reporter, not always a successful one, apparently, because several lawsuits resulted from the inaccuracy of his reporting. In the course of his reporting career, he was a war correspondent during the Boer War and traveled to the Congo to report on Belgian atrocities there.
Initially inspired by Kipling, whom he had met in Cape
