The Shocking Marketing Scheme That Nearly Destroyed Edgar Wallace, the King of Thrillers

–>

“Although I sold 38,000 copies, I lost £1400!” Wallace would later write of the debacle in his autobiography. “There was, I discovered, such a thing as over-advertising.” He ended up selling the rights to future novels about the Four Just Men to pay back his debts. 

A Lasting Legacy

Once the dust from The Four Just Men disaster had settled, however, Wallace continued with his writing. He eventually found lasting success, going on to write more than 170 novels (not to mention plays and film scripts) in his career. A new edition of The Four Just Men was also published in 1906—this time containing the solution to the mystery, which had turned out to be less mysterious to many readers than Wallace had hoped.

In his later works, Wallace would write a number of sequels featuring the “just men,” the last of which was published more than 20 years later, in 1928. By then, he was able to lean on his back catalogue of work as part of the promotion of the novels. He would never again try such a reckless stunt as the one that brought him to the brink of financial ruin.

Pages: 1 2