Well, Robin, actually the majority of Wallace's books take place in
England, so that the fact they are English is no big mystery, and his
detectives are by no means all "pukka Sahibs" - Mr.J.G.Reeder, for
instance, is an apparently ordinary middle-aged coot (he works for the
Public Prosecutor) who can get tough with the plethora of toughs that
are endangering the damsel in distress. I found these stories quite
diverting many years ago. In general, as you suggest, a lot of pre-1939
writing displayed racist prejudice in one form or another.
jaywalker
Robin Hamilton wrote:
>They're singularly freaky. One of the oddest things is that while the
>coloured racism is overtly in-your-face, the vein of antisemitism running
>through (about par for the course in Britain at the time) is pretty raw.
>Also the class thing.
>
>Another odd thing was that Edgar Wallace was a working class bastard (I mean
>literally -- illegitimate) so why he made the heroes of *all* his books
>(think about the Four Just Men, though actually there, at least one is a
>token European) bred-in-the-bone pukka English Sahibs beggars belief.
>
>
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