(“ELLERY QUEEN IS THE AMERICAN DETECTIVE STORY” So wrote t...)
“ELLERY QUEEN IS THE AMERICAN DETECTIVE STORY” So wrote the great critic Anthony Boucher about the contributions of Ellery Queen to the mystery story. Queen appeared in novels and short stories, in the movies and on television, on the radio and even in comic books. In honor of the seventieth anniversary of the first Ellery Queen novel, Crippen & Landru is proud to publish the first completely new Ellery Queen book in almost thirty years. “The Tragedy of Errors” is the lengthy and detailed plot outline for the final, but never published EQ novel, containing all the hallmarks of the greatest Queen novels—the dying message, the succession of false solutions before the astonishing truth is revealed, and scrupulous fairplay to the reader. And the theme is one that Queen had been developing for many years: the manipulation of events in a world going mad by people who aspire to the power of gods. The Tragedy of Errors and Others also contains the six hitherto uncollected Ellery Queen short stories, and a section of essays, tributes, and reminiscences of Ellery Queen, written by family members, friends, and some of the finest current mystery writers.
https://www.amazon.com/Tragedy-Errors-Others-Ellery-Queen/dp/1885941366?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=1885941366
(Collects nineteen short stories, including "The Adventure...)
Collects nineteen short stories, including "The Adventure of the African Traveler," "The Adventure of the Mad Tea Party," and four sports mysteries
https://www.amazon.com/Ellery-Queen-Omnibus/dp/0880292733?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=0880292733
(At the tail end of the Roaring Twenties, a birthday bash ...)
At the tail end of the Roaring Twenties, a birthday bash for publishing heir John Sebastian, Jr., perfectly coincides with the twelve days of Christmas. Among the twelve invited guests is Ellery Queen, a newly published mystery writer planning to enjoy every last minute. But when an uninvited Santa Claus shows up on Christmas Eve and then mysteriously goes missing, the party takes a disturbing turn. Threatening clues masked as gifts begin to appear under the tree, and Queen - a novice crime fighter on his first solo case - must try to solve the killer's puzzle before someone gets murdered. After a dead body turns up, Queen is no closer to stopping the killer. If he can’t anticipate the next clue before it shows up, John Sebastian’s birthday will end up his funeral.
https://www.amazon.com/Finishing-Stroke-Ellery-Queen/dp/162567256X?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=162567256X
(From A to Z, the Penguin Drop Caps series collects 26 uni...)
From A to Z, the Penguin Drop Caps series collects 26 unique hardcovers—featuring cover art by Jessica Hische It all begins with a letter. Fall in love with Penguin Drop Caps, a new series of twenty-six collectible and hardcover editions, each with a type cover showcasing a gorgeously illustrated letter of the alphabet. In a design collaboration between Jessica Hische and Penguin Art Director Paul Buckley, the series features unique cover art by Hische, a superstar in the world of type design and illustration, whose work has appeared everywhere from Tiffany & Co. to Wes Anderson's recent film Moonrise Kingdom to Penguin's own bestsellers Committed and Rules of Civility. With exclusive designs that have never before appeared on Hische's hugely popular Daily Drop Cap blog, the Penguin Drop Caps series debuted with an 'A' for Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, a 'B' for Charlotte Brönte's Jane Eyre, and a 'C' for Willa Cather's My Ántonia. It continues with more perennial classics, perfect to give as elegant gifts or to showcase on your own shelves. Q is for Queen. Ellery Queen is a fictional detective regarded by many as the definitive American detective-hero, rivaling Nero Wolfe as the successor to Sherlock Holmes. "Ellery Queen" also serves as the joint pseudonym for the creators, cousins Frederic Dannay and Manfred Lee. In a successful series of novels and short stories that covered 42 years, Ellery Queen was the best known American fictional detective during the 1930s and 1940s. The Greek Coffin Mystery (1932) is considered one of the earliest, most popular, confounding, brilliantly plotted classic whodunit mysteries of the Ellery Queen series, involving a dead and blind art dealer, a slain forger, a stolen priceless painting and the disappearance of a mysterious will from a New York townhouse full of suspects. During the funeral of famous art dealer Georg Khalkis, the metal box containing his last will and testament had vanished from the library safe. Son of a New York cop, Ellery Queen, a young master of deduction, orders a search of the coffin. To the horror of both detectives and mourners, when the coffin is unearthed, a second corpse, strangled and decaying, is found with the late Georg Khalkis.
https://www.amazon.com/Greek-Coffin-Mystery-Penguin-Drop/dp/0143125141?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=0143125141
( Looking for trouble, Ellery Queen descends on a small t...)
Looking for trouble, Ellery Queen descends on a small town At the tail end of the long summer of 1940, there is nowhere in the country more charming than Wrightsville. The Depression has abated, and for the first time in years the city is booming. There is hope in Wrightsville, but Ellery Queen has come looking for death. The mystery author is hoping for fodder for a novel, and he senses the corruption that lurks beneath the apple pie façade. He rents a house owned by the town’s first family, whose three daughters star in most of the local gossip. One is fragile, left at the altar three years ago and never recovered. Another is engaged to the city’s rising political star, an upright man who’s already boring her. And then there’s Lola, the divorced, bohemian black sheep. Together, they make a volatile combination. Once he sees the ugliness in Wrightsville, Queen sits back—waiting for the crime to come to him.
https://www.amazon.com/Calamity-Town-Ellery-Queen/dp/1453236767?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=1453236767
(A mysterious religious commune, New York City during a ch...)
A mysterious religious commune, New York City during a choking heat wave, and a quiet New England town are among the settings for intrigue and murder
https://www.amazon.com/Ellery-Queen-5-Complete-Novels/dp/0517365782?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=0517365782
(Pocket Book printing: February 1962. Original owner)
Pocket Book printing: February 1962. Original owner
https://www.amazon.com/Chinese-Orange-Mystery-Ellery-Queen/dp/B0007E8GC8?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B0007E8GC8
(At the 37th libel suit Thurlow Potts has brought to court...)
At the 37th libel suit Thurlow Potts has brought to court to protect the family name, the family’s beleaguered lawyer Charlie Paxton loses the case. Thurlow seems driven beyond reason to protect the million dollar shoe business of his mother, Cornelia Potts, known to the press as the ‘Old Woman who Lived in a Shoe.’ But some people in the courtroom think Thurlow should be taken seriously, including Ellery Queen, who is looking on while waiting with his father, Inspector Queen of the New York Police Department, for another case. Afraid Thurlow will make good on his threats, Paxton begs Queen for help. Paxton’s fiancee is Thurlow’s sister, and she secures Queen an invitation to dinner, where Queen meets the extended and unusual Potts family. But before the meal ends, Thurlow challenges his younger brother to a duel, and not one, but two murders ensue. For the twin victims, and for Queen who must now solve the crimes, the fairytale is over. From his first appearance in print in 1929, Ellery Queen became one of America’s most famous and beloved fictional detectives. Over the course of nearly half a century, Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee, the duo writing team known as Ellery Queen, won the prestigious Edgar Award multiple times, and their contributions to the mystery genre were recognized with a Grand Master Award, the highest honor bestowed by the Mystery Writers of America. Their fair-play mysteries won over fans due to their intricate puzzles that challenged the reader to solve the mystery alongside the brilliant detective. Queen’s stories were among the first to dominate the earliest days of radio, film, and television. Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, which the writers founded and edited, became the world’s most influential and acclaimed crime fiction magazine.
https://www.amazon.com/There-Was-Woman-Ellery-Queen-ebook/dp/B06W9L25HV?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B06W9L25HV
(New American Library, Signet paperback Y6958, first print...)
New American Library, Signet paperback Y6958, first printing April 1969, 159 pages, book measures 18 cm x 11 cm x 1.4 cm.
https://www.amazon.com/House-Brass-First-Signet-printing/dp/B00EZZXYU4?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B00EZZXYU4
( A murder in a crowded theater leaves a pack of suspects...)
A murder in a crowded theater leaves a pack of suspects, but only one clue Despite the dismal Broadway season, Gunplay continues to draw crowds. A gangland spectacle, it’s packed to the gills with action, explosions, and gunfire. In fact, Gunplay is so loud that no one notices the killing of Monte Field. In a sold-out theater, Field is found dead partway through the second act, surrounded by empty seats. The police hold the crowd and call for the one man who can untangle this daring murder: Inspector Richard Queen. With the help of his son Ellery, a bibliophile and novelist whose imagination can solve any crime, the Inspector attacks this seemingly impenetrable mystery. Anyone in the theater could have killed the unscrupulous lawyer, and several had the motive. Only Ellery Queen, in his debut novel, can decipher the clue of the dead man’s missing top hat.
https://www.amazon.com/Roman-Hat-Mystery-Ellery-Queen/dp/149769518X?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=149769518X
Manfred Bennington Lee was born Emanuel Benjamin Lepofsky on October 20, 1905 in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Rose and Benjamin Lepofsky. His father, a garment-industry worker, later became one of the first members of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union.
He graduated summa cum laude from New York University in 1925 with a degree in English.
Shortly after college, he changed his name to Manfred Bennington Lee. Reportedly, his mother had wanted to name him "Manford, " but the presiding physician thought it wasn't sufficiently Jewish-sounding and wrote "Emmanuel" on the birth certificate instead. Lee chose "Manfred" as a way of anglicizing the name "Manford" and so he could keep his nickname, "Manny. " His choice of the name "Manfred, " which etymologically means "man of peace, " allegedly was a reflection of his lifelong belief in nonviolence.
In 1928, Lee and his cousin Frederic Dannay (born Daniel Nathan) were working in advertising and public relations when they entered a contest McClure's magazine was sponsoring for the best original detective novel by a first-time novelist. The contest rules required a pseudonym, and "Ellery Queen" was born. The name "Ellery" was chosen in honor of a childhood friend of Dannay's and "Queen, " because it sounded royal. Lee and Dannay were unofficially informed that they had won the contest, but McClure's went bankrupt and was purchased by a company who ultimately awarded the $7, 500 prize to another author. Their entry was eventually published in 1929 by the Frederick A. Stokes Company as The Roman Hat Mystery, the first of some thirty-five Ellery Queen novels the cousins wrote.
The name "Ellery Queen" was unique in that it was both the authors' pseudonym and the name of their detective; this was intended to act as a mnemonic device so that the reader would only have to remember one name. The early Queen novels also featured the unique "Challenge to the Reader": in the interests of fair play, all the necessary clues were revealed during the course of the book, but just before the solution was revealed, Queen challenged the reader to deduce the murderer's identity himself.
In 1932, Lee and Dannay adopted a second pseudonym, "Barnaby Ross, " and wrote four novels featuring detective Drury Lane under that name within approximately one year. At the same time, Ellery Queen was asked to lecture at the Columbia University School of Journalism. Lee and Dannay flipped a coin to see who would give the lecture; Lee lost and gave the lecture while wearing a black mask. Eventually, the two went on a lecture tour together, with Dannay posing as Barnaby Ross and Lee still posing as Ellery Queen--both masked. The lecture tours soon fell into a routine in which either Lee or Dannay would challenge the other's skill as a detective; one would fire off clues for an imaginary murder case and challenge the other to solve the crime on the spot. Rumors eventually circulated that "Ellery Queen" was another pen name of fellow mystery writer S. S. Van Dine and that "Barnaby Ross" was actually Alexander Woollcott, author and member of the Algonquin Round Table. A 1936 article in Publisher's Weekly finally revealed Lee and Dannay as the true authors behind both Queen and Ross. All together, publishers estimated that Lee and Dannay sold around 100 million volumes and had about 120 million readers.
Lee and Dannay also collaborated on screenplays for MGM, Paramount, and Columbia Pictures, as well as on scripts for the "Adventures of Ellery Queen" radio series. Their first effort as editors began in 1933 with Mystery League magazine, which folded after only four issues. In 1939, they created a radio show called "Author! Author!" They were permanent panelists; Ogden Nash, and eventually S. J. Perelman, served as moderators. Guest panelists included the likes of Moss Hart, George S. Kaufman, Mark Van Doren, and Dorothy Parker. The programs presented a dramatization of an "inexplicable event, " and the panelists were challenged to come up with a set of circumstances that would explain the event. It aired for six months, but was canceled for lack of a sponsor.
On June 18, 1939, "The Adventures of Ellery Queen" debuted on the CBS network. It was the first hour-long dramatic show in the history of radio. These shows featured a counterpart to the "Challenge to the Reader" in which a distinguished studio guest was given the opportunity to solve the mystery; Lillian Hellman purportedly solved one of the on-air mysteries. By April 1940, the series had been reduced to a half-hour format, and it finally ended on May 27, 1948. For most of those nine years, every script was written by Lee and Dannay; toward the end, the final scripts were written by Lee and several uncredited collaborators, including Anthony Boucher.
In 1941, the first issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine appeared, stating: "Queen has waged an unceasing battle on two fronts to raise the sights of mystery writers generally to the target of a genuine and respected literary forum and to encourage good writing among our colleagues by offering a practical market not otherwise available among American magazines of high or low stature, as well as to develop new writers seeking expression in the genre. " Since its inception, this magazine has published stories by at least eight Nobel and twenty-seven Pulitzer Prize-winning authors.
Lee moved to a sixty-three acre estate in Roxbury, Connecticut, in the early 1950's. He posted signs declaring his property to be a game preserve, with no hunting allowed. When obstinate hunters tore down the signs, he simply had new ones posted. He served on the local library board with William Styron--he reportedly once beat Arthur Miller for election to that same board--and he also served as Roxbury's justice of the peace for a period of time. Lee died of a heart attack at his home.
Manfred B. Lee was a well-known writer who together with his cousin Frederic Dannay wrote, edited, and anthologized detective fiction under the pseudonym of Ellery Queen. The Ellery Queen Series went on to more then 100 million sales worldwide. They wrote 35 novels and seven short stories. The books were later the subject of a television series and a long-running radio program.
( Looking for trouble, Ellery Queen descends on a small t...)
(“ELLERY QUEEN IS THE AMERICAN DETECTIVE STORY” So wrote t...)
(A mysterious religious commune, New York City during a ch...)
(At the 37th libel suit Thurlow Potts has brought to court...)
(Collects nineteen short stories, including "The Adventure...)
( A murder in a crowded theater leaves a pack of suspects...)
(From A to Z, the Penguin Drop Caps series collects 26 uni...)
(New American Library, Signet paperback Y6958, first print...)
(At the tail end of the Roaring Twenties, a birthday bash ...)
(Pocket Book printing: February 1962. Original owner)
Quotations:
"The two women exchanged the kind of glance women use when no knife is handy. ”
"It was wrong. It was like arresting the gun for murder. "
"The girl was kind in a special way; when you spoke to her, she seemed to stop thinking of whatever she been thinking and listened to you altogether. "
Quotes from others about the person
"One can imagine the NBC Ellery being cornered at a party by an enthusiastic fan and falling asleep in his chair while she gushes at him; chopping up redwood patio furniture to use in bird cages; finally succumbing to the charms of some pretty girl but forgetting to formally propose to her until their wedding day. My father actually did all those things. " - Rand lee.
Lee married twice, first to Betty Miller; they had two children and eventually divorced. On July 4, 1942, Lee married radio actress Catherine Fox Brinker; they had five children, and Lee also adopted his wife's daughter from a previous marriage.
