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    The Strange Lapses of Larry Loman: "A highbrow is a man who has found something more interesting than women"
    The Strange Lapses of Larry Loman: "A highbrow is a man who has found something more interesting than women"
    The Strange Lapses of Larry Loman: "A highbrow is a man who has found something more interesting than women"
    Ebook66 pages1 hour

    The Strange Lapses of Larry Loman: "A highbrow is a man who has found something more interesting than women"

    By Edgar Wallace

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    About this ebook

    Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace was born on the 1st April 1875 in Greenwich, London. Leaving school at 12 because of truancy, by the age of fifteen he had experience; selling newspapers, as a worker in a rubber factory, as a shoe shop assistant, as a milk delivery boy and as a ship’s cook.

    By 1894 he was engaged but broke it off to join the Infantry being posted to South Africa. He also changed his name to Edgar Wallace which he took from Lew Wallace, the author of Ben-Hur.

    In Cape Town in 1898 he met Rudyard Kipling and was inspired to begin writing. His first collection of ballads, The Mission that Failed! was enough of a success that in 1899 he paid his way out of the armed forces in order to turn to writing full time.By 1904 he had completed his first thriller, The Four Just Men. Since nobody would publish it he resorted to setting up his own publishing company which he called Tallis Press.

    In 1911 his Congolese stories were published in a collection called Sanders of the River, which became a bestseller. He also started his own racing papers, Bibury’s and R. E. Walton’s Weekly, eventually buying his own racehorses and losing thousands gambling. A life of exceptionally high income was also mirrored with exceptionally large spending and debts.

    Wallace now began to take his career as a fiction writer more seriously, signing with Hodder and Stoughton in 1921. He was marketed as the ‘King of Thrillers’ and they gave him the trademark image of a trilby, a cigarette holder and a yellow Rolls Royce. He was truly prolific, capable not only of producing a 70,000 word novel in three days but of doing three novels in a row in such a manner. It was estimated that by 1928 one in four books being read was written by Wallace, for alongside his famous thrillers he wrote variously in other genres, including science fiction, non-fiction accounts of WWI which amounted to ten volumes and screen plays. Eventually he would reach the remarkable total of 170 novels, 18 stage plays and 957 short stories.

    Wallace became chairman of the Press Club which to this day holds an annual Edgar Wallace Award, rewarding ‘excellence in writing’.

    Diagnosed with diabetes his health deteriorated and he soon entered a coma and died of his condition and double pneumonia on the 7th of February 1932 in North Maple Drive, Beverly Hills. He was buried near his home in England at Chalklands, Bourne End, in Buckinghamshire.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHorse's Mouth
    Release dateJun 21, 2018
    ISBN9781787800380
    The Strange Lapses of Larry Loman: "A highbrow is a man who has found something more interesting than women"
    Author

    Edgar Wallace

    Edgar Wallace (1875-1932) was a London-born writer who rose to prominence during the early twentieth century. With a background in journalism, he excelled at crime fiction with a series of detective thrillers following characters J.G. Reeder and Detective Sgt. (Inspector) Elk. Wallace is known for his extensive literary work, which has been adapted across multiple mediums, including over 160 films. His most notable contribution to cinema was the novelization and early screenplay for 1933’s King Kong.

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      Book preview

      The Strange Lapses of Larry Loman - Edgar Wallace

      The Strange Lapses of Larry Loman by Edgar Wallace

      Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace was born on the 1st April 1875 in Greenwich, London.  Leaving school at 12 because of truancy, by the age of fifteen he had experience; selling newspapers, as a worker in a rubber factory, as a shoe shop assistant, as a milk delivery boy and as a ship’s cook.

      By 1894 he was engaged but broke it off to join the Infantry being posted to South Africa. He also changed his name to Edgar Wallace which he took from Lew Wallace, the author of Ben-Hur.

      In Cape Town in 1898 he met Rudyard Kipling and was inspired to begin writing. His first collection of ballads, The Mission that Failed! was enough of a success that in 1899 he paid his way out of the armed forces in order to turn to writing full time.

      By 1904 he had completed his first thriller, The Four Just Men. Since nobody would publish it he resorted to setting up his own publishing company which he called Tallis Press.

      In 1911 his Congolese stories were published in a collection called Sanders of the River, which became a bestseller. He also started his own racing papers, Bibury’s and R. E. Walton’s Weekly, eventually buying his own racehorses and losing thousands gambling.  A life of exceptionally high income was also mirrored with exceptionally large spending and debts.

      Wallace now began to take his career as a fiction writer more seriously, signing with Hodder and Stoughton in 1921. He was marketed as the ‘King of Thrillers’ and they gave him the trademark image of a trilby, a cigarette holder and a yellow Rolls Royce. He was truly prolific, capable not only of producing a 70,000 word novel in three days but of doing three novels in a row in such a manner. It was estimated that by 1928 one in four books being read was written by Wallace, for alongside his famous thrillers he wrote variously in other genres, including science fiction, non-fiction accounts of WWI which amounted to ten volumes and screen plays. Eventually he would reach the remarkable total of 170 novels, 18 stage plays and 957 short stories.

      Wallace became chairman of the Press Club which to this day holds an annual Edgar Wallace Award, rewarding ‘excellence in writing’.

      Diagnosed with diabetes his health deteriorated and he soon entered a coma and died of his condition and double pneumonia on the 7th of February 1932 in North Maple Drive, Beverly Hills. He was buried near his home in England at Chalklands, Bourne End, in Buckinghamshire.

      Index of Contents

      CHAPTER I - The Crime Trust

      CHAPTER II - The Affair of the Stokehole

      CHAPTER III - The Cure

      EDGAR WALLACE – A SHORT BIOGRAPHY

      EDGAR WALLACE – A CONCISE BIBLIOGRAPHY

      CHAPTER I

      THE CRIME TRUST

      Sir George Grayborn leaned back in his chair and looked from the young man who sat at the other side of his desk to the notes on pulse, respiration, reflexes, et cetera, he had scribbled on his pad.

      Well? Larry Loman's tone was a little truculent.

      My dear sir, said Sir George slowly, yours is a very peculiar case, and I hardly know what to advise you.

      Do you think I am going mad? asked the young man with a certain cheerfulness.

      He took a gold cigarette case from his pocket and carefully extracted and lit a cigarette.

      I suppose I shan't horrify your subsequent patients?

      Sir George smiled.

      No, you won't horrify them, and you can't horrify me. I recognize in you a unique specimen of the human race apart from being a very interesting case, and I am grateful to the circumstances which brought you here at all.

      It was rather a fluke, laughed Larry, Everybody knows—that is to say, everybody who is interested in me—that my memory has been going all wrong, and, knowing this, some unknown friend had sent me a copy of your work on 'Mnemotechny.'

      The physician inclined his head.

      I had heard of you, of course, he said politely. In our profession one is obliged to keep in-touch with current happenings.

      Honestly, Sir George, interrupted the young man, growing serious of a sudden, is there anything radically wrong with me?

      The physician nodded.

      Yes and no, he said. I gather that somewhere in your wanderings you have struck a very bad malaria patch.

      That is right, nodded the other; up in the Aruwimi country, four years ago. I contracted there all kinds of' fever. Is there any symptom of malaria?

      No, said the other carefully, not especially, but your mental condition is one which frequently follows either a bad fever or a bad bout of nerves.

      You can cut out all the nerve theories, said the young man with decision, and put it down to fever. The only thing I am worried about is this. He leaned over the table and emphasized each point by tapping a little tattoo upon the immaculate blotting pad of the consultant. I am up to my eyes in work—serious and dangerous work. I want all my wits about me because I have a tricky crowd to deal with. Now, if I am not responsible for my actions—

      Believe me, said Sir

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