Allan Wilton's crime reports
Allan Wilton's crime reports (subtitle of the series: The crime novel of the week ) were booklet novels that achieved widespread circulation in Austria in the 1950s and 1960s and some reprints are still on the market.
The series was published by Hiro-Verlag / Typopress from 1949. The owner of this publishing house was Otto Hirsch, Vienna 1., Singerstraße 30.
The booklet novels about the Belgian detective chief Allan Wilton, who mostly investigated in southern France, London and Paris, claimed to be based on excerpts from the diaries of the Interpol commissioner. As usual in the industry, the various authors drew with imaginary names, often as Jules Charpentier, Roland Berry or Fred Martens. Again and again one heard the rumor that behind all these names there was a woman as an author.
In contrast to the action-oriented series Commissioner X and Jerry Cotton, the Wilton novels tended to appeal to an older reading audience. Until the series was sold to Viktor Biricz, b. In 1935, over 1,500 Wilton novels are thought to have appeared. From number 1082, however, there were only reprints. Viktor Biricz from Mattersburg (Burgenland) continued this tradition with his "Allan-Wilton-Krimi Verlag".
Due to its great success, Allan Wilton paperbacks, special editions, reprints in other series, selected volumes, books, new editions and even plagiarism were published as early as the 1950s. The Wilton special issue No. 29, " The House on the Hill ", was filmed in 1964 by Werner Klingler with Ron Randell as Wilton.
In 1990, the German Cora publishing house reprinted some of the “crime novels of the week” as pocket books.
literature
- Manfred Pilz: Catalog of Austrian Novel Booklets - 1876 until today. Edition 2000 , Pollischansky-Verlag, Vienna 1999