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Wheels of Desire: The Popular Adaptations of A.E.W. Mason’s Thrillers from 1900s to the 1930s

  • Alexis Weedon
    ,
  • William Baker
Research Output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding Chapter Peer-review

Open access

Abstract

In the early twentieth century, Alfred Edward Woodley Mason’s (1865-1948) stories were adapted across the media in an early form of today’s practice of transmedia publication. He wrote over twenty stories in the 1920s and 1930s and had a remarkable number of film adaptations. For literary and film historians and scholars of contemporary publishing, he is an example of a British author engaging in process of adaption as his works were transferred to the stage, “realised” by the movie studios and adapted for the new medium of BBC radio. His films were cited as “Britain’s reply to the American talkie monopoly” in 1931. Mason was not as active as some of this contemporaries in exploiting the potential of his work across the different media: authors like H.G. Wells who he commended for being involved in film, Hugh Walpole and Elinor Glyn were far more deeply engaged with the studios. However his particular gifts as a storyteller, traveller and observer of character lead him to write the film-story. And if that story was not yet structured through film grammar to keep suspense or quite with a movie’s narrative arc, the adaptations of his works were milestones in that development.

Publication Information

Output type

Research Output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding Chapter Peer-review

Original language

English

Pages from-to (Number of pages)

Pages 61-79

Publication milestones

  • Published - 01/07/2015

Publication status

Published - 01/07/2015

Place of publication

Vancouver, British Columbia

Publisher

Fairleigh Dickinson University Press

ISBN (Print)

9781611476927

External Publication IDs

  • handle.net: 10547/623061

Host publication title

Studies in Victorian and Modern Literature: A Tribute to John Sutherland

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