Edgar Wallace, in full Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace, (born April 1, 1875, Greenwich, London, Eng.—died Feb. 10, 1932, Hollywood, Calif., U.S.), British novelist, playwright, and journalist who was an enormously popular writer of detective and suspense stories.

Wallace was the illegitimate son of an actress and was adopted as an infant by a Billingsgate fish porter named George Freeman. He left school at the age of 12 and held a variety of odd jobs until he joined the army at 18; he served in the South African War until 1899, when he became a reporter. He returned to England and produced his first success, The Four Just Men (1905), which he sold outright for a small amount.