It is sometimes instructive to judge a book by its cover. Nobody could mistake the E Phillips Oppenheim cover in yesterday’s post for a treatise on bee keeping, unless the protagonists are being stung.
PG Wodehouse was prolific and successful but there was another genre in the first half of the last century – between the wars – and those authors made more money. Edgar Wallace and Somerset Maugham rivalled our subject today in popularity and earnings.
Don’t think I was ever on “The Bill”, when you have to report to the Head Master for a misdemeanour. Today there are three more Bills – eyes down, get ready to tick them off.