A.M. Burrage, son of one Burrage-of-letters and nephew to another, was a prolific writer of everything from boys' adventure stories and romantic fiction to (as Ex-Private X) war memoir, plying his trade in comics and magazines and occasionally between hard covers, but sadly without achieving either the financial stability or literary esteem he must have sought. His later life was dogged by poor health and he died aged sixty-seven. It's hard not, then, to imagine Burrage identifying with the character of Hewson in his story The Waxwork : a sadsack unsuccessful journalist, barely scratching a living, and thinking a sensationalist piece about the "Murderers' Den" of the waxwork museum could be just the thing to turn his life around. The short story - one of the three or four classic "ghost" stories he is chiefly remembered for - certainly proved successful for Burrage, earning him a place in Dorothy L. Sayers ' Great Stories of Detection, Mystery
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