8. A Story in Pictures: A.E.W. Mason’s Film Writing

A.E.W. Mason (1865–1948) is probably best known now as the author of The Four Feathers (1902) a story of courage conquering fear, duty, redemption and sacrifice in the face of military action which has been adapted six times for the big screen, most recently in 2002 (Shekhar Kapur). Set in the 1890s British military campaign in Sudan, it was adapted twice during the silent era alone. Aficionados of detective fiction will know him as the British author of a detective story At the Villa Rose. For literary and film historians and scholars of contemporary publishing he is interesting because in the twenties and thirties his stories were adapted across the media in an early form of today’s common practice of transmedia publication. He wrote over twenty stories in these two decades and had an equal number of film adaptations. His works were adapted for the stage and for the new medium of BBC radio and by both British and American studios.