The Four Just Men (novel)
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OCLC 2037759 | | |
Followed by | The Council of Justice |
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The Four Just Men is a detective thriller published in 1905 by the British writer Edgar Wallace. The eponymous "Just Men" appear in several sequels.
Publication
Edgar Wallace formed the idea of The Four Just Men — four wealthy gentleman
Enthusiastic, but without any substantial managerial skill, Wallace had also made a far more serious error. He ran the FJM serial competition in the Daily Mail but failed to include any limitation clause in the competition rules restricting payment of the prize money to one winner only from each of the three categories. Only after the competition had closed and the correct solution printed as part of the final chapter denouement did Wallace learn that he was legally obliged to pay every person who answered correctly the full prize amount in that category; if six people got the 1st Prize answer right, he would have to pay not £250 but 6 × £250, or £1500, if three people got the 2nd Prize it would be £600 and so on.
Additionally, though his advertising gimmick had worked as the novel was a bestseller, Wallace discovered that instead of his woefully over-optimistic three months, FJM would have to continue selling consistently with no margin of error for two full years to recoup the £2,500 he had mistakenly believed he needed to break even. Unfortunately during this period the number of entrants correctly guessing the right answer continued to rise inexorably. Wallace's response was to simply ignore the situation, but circumstances were ominous. As 1906 began and continued without any list of prize winners being printed, more and more suspicions were being voiced about the honesty of the competition. In addition, for a working-class
Wallace went bankrupt and hastily sold the rights to the novel for £75 to Sir George Newnes to provide token amounts to his creditors.
In 1910 the murderer Hawley Harvey Crippen was reading a copy of the novel during his journey on the SS Montrose prior to his arrest. Wallace covered his subsequent trial and execution for the Evening Times.[2]
Sequels
The Four Just Men is best known as a stand-alone novel, but Wallace wrote five sequels:
- The Council of Justice (1908)
- The Just Men of Cordova (1918)
- The Law of the Four Just Men (1921)
- The Three Just Men (1924)
- Again the Three(1928)
In 2012 Wordsworth Editions published The Complete Four Just Men, a volume compiling all six books. (
Characters
The four Just Men of the original novel are George Manfred, Leon Gonsalez, and Raymond Poiccart, who recruit a fourth, Thery, in their campaign to punish wrong-doers who are beyond the reach of the law. In later books, Wallace develops their backstory. The original fourth man, Merel, had died in Bordeaux, and the remaining three either recruit a fourth ad hoc or operates as a team of three. After The Great War, they are pardoned on condition that they remain within the law, and Poiccart retires to Spain. Gonsalez and Manfred continue to operate a legitimate detective agency.
Adaptations
The Four Just Men was adapted as a silent film in 1921, as a film in 1939[3] and as a British television series in 1959.
References
- ^ "Inflation calculator". Bank of England. Retrieved 23 April 2024.
- ^ Clark p.126-27
- IMDb
- Vineyard, David L. (1 July 2009). "A Review by: EDGAR WALLACE – The Four Just Men". Mystery*File. Retrieved 13 September 2012.
A Review by David L. Vineyard: EDGAR WALLACE – The Four Just Men.
- Watson, Colin (1972). Snobbery with Violence: Crime Stories and Their Audience. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-413-28420-4.
Bibliography
- Clark, Neil. Stranger than Fiction: The Life of Edgar Wallace, the Man Who Created King Kong. Stroud, UK: The History Press, 2015.
External links
- The Four Just Men at Standard Ebooks
- The Four Just Men at Faded Page (Canada)
- The Four Just Men public domain audiobook at LibriVox