Frederic Dannay, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and the Art of the Detective Short Story

227 Pages·2019·1.734 MB·English

by  Laird R. Blackwell

Frederic Dannay,
Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine
and the Art of the
Detective Short Story
ALSOBYLAIRDR. BLACKWELL
The Metaphysical Mysteries of G.K. Chesterton:
A Critical Study of the Father Brown Stories
and Other Detective Fiction(McFarland, 2018)
H.C. Bailey’s Reggie Fortune and the Golden Age
of Detective Fiction(McFarland, 2017)
Frederic Dannay,
Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine
and the Art of the
Detective Short Story
L R. B
AIRD LACKWELL
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Jefferson, North Carolina
ISBN (print) 978-1-4766-7652-4
♾
ISBN (ebook) 978-1-4766-3561-3
LIBRARYOFCONGRESSCATALOGUINGDATAAREAVAILABLE
BRITISHLIBRARYCATALOGUINGDATAAREAVAILABLE
© 2019 Laird R. Blackwell. All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying
or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
Front cover illustration © 2019 Shutterstock
Printed in the United States of America
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640
www.mcfarlandpub.com
Withloveandgratitude
to my wonderful and accomplished wife Melinda,
for all her support and love over the years,
and to my grandson Jack who, in a few years,
may become another fan of detective literature
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Ellery Queen who almost sin-
glehandedly (doublehandedly?) encouraged and
championed the detective- crime short story
through a time when it was fading from sight
and memory, and undying gratitude to Ellery
Queen Mystery Magazine, which still thrives
after over 75 years of publishing the very best of
the genre—resuscitating the Old Masters, sus-
taining the New Masters, and birthing the Mas-
ters- to-Be.
vi
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments vi
Preface 1
Introduction: Queen as Champion of the Past
and Patron of the Future 5
ONE. From Thinking Machine to Human Being—
From Ellery I to Ellery II 13
TWO. A Quorum of Queens, the Old Masters
and the New Masters 16
THREE. A Never-Ending Stream of Manuscripts 28
FOUR. The Old Masters Resuscitated 39
FIVE. The New Masters Celebrated 54
SIX. The Acclaimed and the Awarded 93
SEVEN. “’Tec Tyros” as Masters of the Future 114
EIGHT. Other Significant Debuts 143
NINE. The Fine Arts of Parody, Pastiche and Spoof 179
TEN. Queen as Champion, Cheerleader, Critic
and Patron 187
Appendix: Story Titles 193
Works Cited 205
Index 207
vii
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Preface
Theshortstoryhasoftenbeencalledtheperfectandideal
form of expression for detective fiction.—Haycraft in Queen
1942, preface
Modern readers tend to think of detective stories as novels,
but the original, the “legitimate” form was the short story.—
Queen 1941, p. vi
Almost without exception, the best detective stories are
short stories.—Starrett in Queen, 1942, preface
Ellery Queen. The two words together have a provocative and satisfying
rhythm—from the multiplicity of the three syllables of the first to the unity
of the single syllable of the second, from the dangling “ee” sound at the end
of the “Ellery” to the closed and final “een” sound at the conclusion of the
“Queen.” The contrast of the complexity of “Ellery” with the simplicity of
“Queen” is reminiscent of the disparate personalities and skills and sometimes
antagonism of the two cousins, Manfred Lee and Frederic Dannay—Man and
Dan—resolving into the apparent unity and accord of their nom de plume—
Ellery Queen—and is suggestive too of the tortuous intricacy of plot, clues,
and red herrings of the classic detective stories resolving at last into the relief
and satisfaction of the single solution. “Ellery” almost seems to be a question
hanging in the air—a puzzle, an enigma, a case; while “Queen” is the answer,
the detective, the solution—solid and irrefutable.
But to the seasoned reader of the detective- crime genre, “Ellery Queen”
not only evokes images of the classic, eccentric, brilliant, rather brash and
arrogant young Ellery, complete with pince- nez and affected speech, pene-
trating the clues and discarding the deception, but also conjures images of
transition and maturation—in Ellery and in the detective- crime genre as a
whole—as the later, wiser, sadder, more compassionate, and more human
Ellery (without the affectations) struggles through the human drama with
all its tragedies and triumphs to solve the crimes but not the human dilemma,
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