When Rex Stout met John le Carré.

The Spy Writes blog discusses the interview of John le Carré by Rex Stout for Mademoiselle's July 1964 mystery issue. Stout calls le Carré "unobtrusively handsome" and covers le Carré's revision process; le Carré thinks his own strongest quality is his "critical faculty" (61).

Bonuses for Nancy Drew and Patricia Moyes fans: There's a piece on the girl sleuth plus Moyes's novel Falling Star in the issue. Also, pp. 62–63 features a photo that includes Edgar awardees of that year and other MWA members. Among the luminaries, one can spot Clayton Rawson, Hillary Waugh, and Lawrence Treat in the back; Stout and Dorothy Salisbury Davis in the middle; Howard Haycraft in the front row at left; and Phyllis Whitney in the front row at right.

Rex Stout and radio.

Rex Stout by Arnold Genthe, 1931.
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Div.

Matt Barton, curator of the Library of Congress' Recorded Sound Section, discusses author Rex Stout's roles on the radio that are reflected in more than 40 LOC holdings. These encompass various incarnations of Stout's sleuth Nero Wolfe, Stout's appearances on Information Please, his hosting duties for Speaking of Liberty, and his participation in an episode about the detective story on the NBC program Conversation with critics Clifton Fadiman and Jacques Barzun. Said Stout in the Conversation program, "They're pretty bum stories, the Sherlock Holmes stories. . . . at least two thirds are pretty doggone silly." (It should be noted that Stout wrote the infamous essay "Watson Was a Woman.")

New exhibition on Rex Stout and his work.

The Burns Library at Boston College, the depository of Rex Stout's papers, has opened the exhibition "Golden Spiders and Black Orchids: A 'Satisfactory' Look into the Life and Mysteries of Rex Stout." The exhibition, which features Stout’s fiction and its adaptations, his activism, his pastimes, and his fandom, has interesting items such as a Nero Wolfe comic strip and Nero Wolfe postage stamps from San Marino and Nicaragua. The exhibition is on view until January 2020.

Ellery Queen, Rex Stout, and WQXR.

Ad for WQXR, 1963

New York Public Radio archivist Andy Lanset spotlights mentions of WQXR (a well-known classical music station in New York) in books, including those by Ellery Queen and Rex Stout (the latter mentioning the station in four works). Go here for a history of WQXR, including its ownership for nearly 30 years by the New York Times.

The Thin Man opens in Canada.

Ad for After the Thin Man (1936)

The Thin Man has opened at Calgary's Vertigo Theatre and will run until October 14. There is an interview with the playwright, Lucia Frangione: "Nick and Nora are surrounded by a gaggle of hilarious and volatile personalities."

The Thin Man is part of a BD&P Mystery Theatre Series that will include Ira Levin's Deathtrap and Might as Well Be Dead: A Nero Wolfe Mystery (adapted by Joseph Goodrich from the novel by Rex Stout).

Rex Stout/Bertrand Russell on civil liberties.

Top: Bertrand Russell, ca. 1936. NYPL.
Bottom: Mitch Miller, Edward Whitehead, and
Rex Stout compare beards in Feb. 1957.
Ogdensburg [NY] Journal

Mystery author Rex Stout hosted the NBC radio program Speaking of Liberty during World War II. In a July 1941 episode on civil liberties (program no. 14) with philosopher-mathematician Bertrand Russell, Russell states, "Intolerance is dangerously inconsistent with the goal of liberty." Stout replies, "Nothing is more fundamentally antidemocratic or actually more uncivilized."

The Armed Services editions and mysteries.

Cover of Armed Services edition
of Rex Stout's Not Quite Dead
Enough (1945)

I just finished Molly Guptill Manning's When Books Went to War: The Stories That Helped Us Win World War II, which provides a lively and often poignant discussion of the importance to service members of the Armed Services editions in World War II. They were produced to be sturdy, lightweight, and sized for a pocket, and the Council on Books in Wartime, in charge of the effort, tried to supply a book "to fit the tastes of every man" (79). (One of the council's members was Farrar & Rinehart's Stanley Rinehart, son of Mary Roberts Rinehart). The council printed more than 123 million copies of Armed Services editions.

To mention a few mystery-related elements in the book:

• One of the authors listed as banned in Germany:
  G. K. Chesterton 

• "The most popular genre was contemporary fiction . . . followed by historical novels, mysteries, books of humor, and westerns" (79–80).

•  Among the earliest Armed Services editions: Earl Derr Biggers, Seven Keys to Baldpate; W. R. Burnett, Little Caesar; Daphne du Maurier, Jamaica Inn; and Graham Greene, The Ministry of Fear

• Some of the last Armed Services editions published in 1947: John Dickson Carr, The Sleeping Sphinx; Manning Coles, With Intent to Deceive; Erle Stanley Gardner, The Case of the Fan-Dancer's Horse; Hilda Lawrence, Death of a Doll; Richard and Frances Lockridge, Think of Death; Ngaio Marsh, Final Curtain; Craig Rice, ed., Los Angeles Murders; and Kelley Roos, Ghost of a Chance.

Related:

• BookTV footage of Manning talking about the book in 2015

• Books in Action: The Armed Services Editions (ed. John Y. Cole, 1984)

• Editions for the Armed Services Inc.: A History (1948)

Vintage Paperback Index, BGSU.

Edgar winner
Lawrence G. Blochman
from UC-Berkeley's
The Blue and Gold (1922)

As a fan of Dell mapbacks, I'm enjoying prowls through the 1940s-70s cover art in the Vintage Paperback Index at Bowling Green State University's Browne Popular Culture Library. Mystery authors represented include Lawrence Goldtree Blochman, Robert M. Coates, George Harmon Coxe, Mignon G. Eberhart, A. A. Fair (aka Erle Stanley Gardner), Leslie Ford, Brett Halliday, Dashiell Hammett, Geoffrey Homes, Baynard Kendrick, Helen McCloy, Zelda Popkin, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Rex Stout, and Phoebe Atwood Taylor. It's also not without its pleasant surprises such as the inclusion of Lloyd C. Douglas (The Robe, Magnificent Obsession) for Doctor Hudson's Secret Journal and C. W. Grafton (father of Sue) for The Rope Began to Hang the Butcher and The Rat Began to Gnaw the Rope. In addition, there are items for western fans (The Law at Randado by Elmore Leonard) and sci-fi aficionados (Rocket to the Morgue by Anthony Boucher; Invasion from Mars ed. Orson Welles).

August Derleth: Best mysteries of 1969.

Essential Solitude: The Letters of
H. P. Lovecraft and August Derleth
Hippocampus P

In the Dec. 6, 1969, issue of the Capital [WI] Times, August Derleth (creator of the Holmes-like Solar Pons) listed his selections for the best fiction, nonfiction, and poetry books of 1969. Mysteries and sci-fi appeared under the subtitle "Entertainments" rather than the "Fiction" category. It may have been ethically questionable that he listed H. P. Lovecraft et al.'s Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos—which was issued by Arkham House, the publishing firm he cofounded.

The Godfather by Mario Puzo and Daphne du Maurier's The House on the Strand were two of his fiction selections, whereas two of his sci-fi picks were Fritz Leiber's A Spectre Is Haunting Texas and Douglas Warner's Death on a Warm Wind. His mystery selections included:

Allingham, Margery. The Allingham Casebook. Campion and Charlie Luke short stories
Bernkopf, Jean F., ed. Boucher's Choicest. Some of Anthony Boucher's picks for best mystery short stories
Carr, John Dickson. The Ghosts' High Noon.
Carter, Philip Youngman. Mr. Campion's Farthing. Carter was Allingham's widower
Christie, Agatha. By the Pricking of My Thumbs.
Davies, L. P. Stranger to Town.
Fish, Robert L. The Murder League.
Gardner, John. A Complete State of Death.
Kahn, Joan, ed. Hanging by a Thread.
Marric, J. J [John Creasey]. Gideon's Power.
Marsh, Ngaio. Clutch of Constables.
Queen, Ellery, ed. Queen's Minimysteries.
Simenon, Georges. Maigret in Vichy (aka Maigret Takes the Waters)
Stout, Rex. Death of a Dude.
Whitney, Phyllis A. The Winter People.

Rex Stout on the FBI and his career.

In the WNYC Radio archive is this 15-minute talk by Rex Stout (then-president of the Authors League of America, now known as the Authors Guild) from the Feb. 1966 program Books and Authors Luncheon. His remarks occurred a few months after the publication of his Nero Wolfe novel The Doorbell Rang that deals with the FBI and attracted quite a bit of attention because, says Stout, "I had the nerve to poke J. Edgar Hoover in the nose."

On his career, Stout says:

I realized that if I went on trying to make serious comments about human character and human problems, I would never turn out to be a Dostoevsky or a Balzac. So to hell with it, I quit. And I decided just to write stories and to try to make them as good stories as I could.

He also reports receiving a fan letter from Bertrand Russell and asserts that he is the only mystery author to have been translated into Ceylonese (the language of Ceylon, now known as Sri Lanka), besting Agatha Christie and Erle Stanley Gardner in this regard.

Stout is introduced by New York Herald Tribune book editor Maurice Dolbier. The program also features Helen Hayes and Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas. For Wolfe Pack commentary on The Doorbell Rang, go here.

Nominating mystery authors for halls of fame.

Consider nominating distinguished mystery authors for halls of fame that exist throughout the country. Quite often, genre writers are overlooked for these honors or are nominated for some other achievement (e.g., Celestine Sibley was inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame for her journalism rather than her mysteries; Mildred Wirt Benson is a member of the U Iowa School of Journalism Hall of Fame for her reporting credentials, although her Nancy Drew novels are mentioned).

To be considered for nomination, writers usually need some connection to the particular state (e.g., birth or a minimum term of residence) and a body of work.

Anna Katharine Green.
NYPL

Links to halls of fame appear below. I have nominated police procedural pioneer Ed McBain/Evan Hunter and important early mystery author Anna Katharine Green for the New York State Writers Hall of Fame and, for New Jersey's hall of fame, Ho-ho-kus's Metta Fuller Victor (author of The Dead Letter [1866], the first American detective novel).

State Halls of Fame Devoted to Writers

East Tennessee. It appears the next nominations process will open in June 2013.

Georgia. Current nominees include Mignon Ballard and Virginia Lanier.

Minnesota. Nominated writers must have links to Minnesota, either through birth or residence in the state while producing a body of work. A good candidate for nomination would be Haycraft-Queen lister Mabel Seeley.

Missouri. 2012 Quill Award inductee is Ridley Pearson.

Nevada.

New York. In addition to my nominations of Hunter and Green (mentioned above), another appropriate nominee would be Brewster's Rex Stout—something that the Wolfe Pack should back.

North Carolina. Elizabeth Daniels Squire was inducted in 2006 and Manly Wade Wellman in 1996.

Oklahoma. Jean Hager was inducted in 1992, Carolyn Hart in 1993, and William Bernhardt in 1997.

South Carolina. Does not appear to have a nominations process open to the public. Mickey Spillane was inducted in 2012.

Texas. Established by the Friends of the Fort Worth Public Library to recognize authors who have contributed to the literary heritage of Texas. Bill Crider was inducted in 2010.

Wisconsin Writers Wall of Fame. Sponsored by the Friends of the Milwaukee Public Library. August Derleth was inducted in 1997.

Other
Alabama Men's Hall of Fame.

Alabama Women's Hall of Fame.

Alaska Women's Hall of Fame. Deadline for nominations: November 1, 2012.

Arizona Women's Hall of Fame.

A selection of Faber's mystery cover art.

Some historical samples of Faber's online archive of cover art include the following mystery works:

• The Black Tower by P. D. James (1975)

• Death at Crane's Court by Eilis Dillon (1953; new ed. from Rue Morgue P)

• Death by Request by Romilly John and K[atherine]. John (1933). Romilly was the son of painter Augustus John and the half-brother of cellist Amaryllis Fleming, half-sister of Ian Fleming.

George Antheil, NYPL

• Death in the Dark by Stacey Bishop (aka composer George Antheil, 1930)

• An English Murder by Cyril Hare (aka Alfred Alexander Gordon Clark, 1951)

• Famous Crimes, retold by "The Prince of Criminologists," William Roughead (1935)


• The Mummy Case by Dermot Morrah (1933; review here)

• The Ticker-Tape Murder by Milton Propper (1930; review here; partially serialized in the Border City Star, parts 1, 2, 3)

• A Tomb with a View by BBC producer Lance Sieveking (1950)

And of interest to Rex Stout fans:
• Forest Fire by Stout (1934; review here)
• Mr. Cinderella by Stout (1939; better cover of U.S. ed. here; review here)

Carleton Morse's 10 favorite mysteries, 1943.

In summer 1943 writer-producer Carleton E. Morse (of I Love a Mystery and One Man's Family radio fame) listed his favorite mysteries, which he planned to send to army camps. They are the following:

• Cleve F. Adams, Sabotage (1940)
• Eric Ambler, Cause for Alarm (1938)
• Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep (1939)
• Manning Coles, A Toast to Tomorrow (1941; aka Pray Silence, 1940)
• Mignon G. Eberhart, Murder by an Aristocrat (1933, film 1936)
• Dashiell Hammett, The Dain Curse (1928, mini-series 1978)
• Jonathan Latimer, Red Gardenias (1939)
• Philip MacDonald, The Rasp (1924, film 1931)
• Dorothy L. Sayers, The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club (1928)
• Rex Stout, The Red Box (1937)

Update. Photo of Carleton E. Morse.

Clues 29.2: Simenon, Stout, Sayers, et al.

Vol 29, no. 2 of Clues: A Journal of Detection has just been published, including the following topics:

• Analyses of two matchups of the detective vs. archcriminal. The first one is Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe and Arnold Zeck; John Littlejohn looks at Stout's reasons for creating a major adversary for Wolfe. The second is the Sara Martin Allegre's examination of the complex relationship between Ian Rankin's Inspector Rebus and his nemesis, "Big Ger" Cafferty.

• Detection Club president Simon Brett pays tribute to his late colleague H. R. F. Keating:  "Whenever I think of Harry, I think of the Olympic Diving competition."

• Dorothy L. Sayers's engagement with true crime between the wars by Victoria Stewart.

• Ahmet Mithat Efendi's Esrar-i Cinayat, the first Turkish detective novel (1884), by Zeynep Tufekcioglu

• The role of class in the 1930s Maigret novels of Georges Simenon by Bill Alder.

• The use of sound in the works of Raymond Chandler by Eric Rawson and the role of the automobile in the works of Chandler and James M. Cain by Shelby Smoak.

• Gender bending in Mickey Spillane's Vengeance Is Mine! (1950) by Heather Duerre Humann.

• The Montana-set police procedurals of Robert Sims Reid by Rachel Schaffer.

• Margaret Atwood's techniques that lead the reader to become a detective by Lisa A. Wellinghoff.

The Nero Wolfe book that wasn't.

Cover of
At Wolfe's Door:
The Nero Wolfe Novels
of Rex Stout
by J. K. Van Dover

The Wolfe Pack took a July jaunt to the Rex Stout Papers at Boston College and returned with scans of some interesting items such as a fan letter from P. G. Wodehouse and Stiff Upper Lipstick, the Nero Wolfe book that never existed yet had a summary and cover art—because some at Viking did not understand that it was a joke.

Canada's new chess detective.

Canada's Showcase TV is airing a new series, Endgame, which features an agoraphobic chessmaster as sleuth. Go here to see the trailer; here to read a review; here for the Endgame blog. (Hat tip to Alexandra Kosteniuk's Chessblog)

Margot Kinberg discusses the similarity of the game of chess and the activities of fictional investigators, and the Chess Circle forum mentions appearances of chess in works such as Rex Stout's Gambit (1952), Alan Sharp's Night Moves (1975), and Katherine Neville's The Eight (1988); another example is William Faulkner's short story "Knight's Gambit" in the collection of the same name (1949).

The favorite mystery writers of 1941.

The New York Times of April 18, 1941, reported on a survey conducted by Columbia University Press of the readership of its weekly newsletter The Pleasures of Publishing. Respondents reported reading 4.5 mysteries a month (one hopes they eventually finished the half portion) and the following as their favorite writers (in order of popularity):

1. Dorothy L. Sayers
2. Agatha Christie
3. Arthur Conan Doyle
4. Ngaio Marsh
5. Erle Stanley Gardner
6. Rex Stout
7. Ellery Queen
8. Margery Allingham
9. Dashiell Hammett
10. Georges Simenon

Thus the total is 4 Brits, 4 Americans, 1 New Zealand citizen, and 1 Belgian.

Lord Peter Wimsey was voted best detective; Marsh's Death of a Peer (aka A Surfeit of Lampreys, 1940) was deemed the best story read within the past six months, followed by Allingham's Traitor's Purse (1941).

Some of the Strand's rare mystery offerings.

Some of the Strand Bookstore's rare mystery-related offerings:

• Edward Gorey, 1st ed., Beastly Baby (1962): $750.

• Mickey Spillane, 1st ed., I, the Jury (1947):  $650.

• Rex Stout, limited ed., Corsage: A Bouquet of Rex Stout and Nero Wolfe (1977, includes article "Why Nero Wolfe Likes Orchids" by "Archie Goodwin" and last interview with Stout): $350.

• Black Mask "forgotten man" Raoul Whitfield, 1st ed., Silver Wings (1930):  $1100.

Bibliomysteries.

Over on the Private Library blog, there's an interesting two-part discussion on collecting bibliomysteries—that is, those mysteries that center on books and the book world. Mixed in with the inevitable mentions of Raymond Chandler, Rex Stout, and John Dunning are some unexpected books, such as Carolyn Wells's Murder in the Bookshop (1936).

(Hat tip to PhiloBiblos)

Mystery-related photos in Life photo archive, Google.

You can now search the Life magazine photo archive on Google. When I typed "mystery" into the search box, photos of Mignon G. Eberhart (1960), Harry Stephen Keeler (1947), Mickey Spillane (1952), Rex Stout (1960), and Charlton Heston in a 1949 TV mystery production were some of the results that popped up. There also are several photos of author Craig Rice.

(Hat tip to the AHA blog.)