Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace was a prolific English writer, writing 957 short stories and over 170 novels, with more than 160 films based on his works - one of Wallace’s publishers claimed that a quarter of all books then read in England were written by him. He is best remembered for writing the J. G. Reeder detective stories, the Green Archer and creation of King Kong. Selling over 50 million copies of his combined works in various editions, the Economist describes him as “one of the most prolific thriller writers of [the 20th] century”, although few of his books are still in print in the UK.