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EspañolREX STOUT
'Rex Stout', full name 'Rex Todhunter Stout', (December 1, 1886 - October 27, 1975) was an American writer best known as the creator of the larger-than-life fictional detective Nero Wolfe, described by reviewer Will Cuppy as "that Falstaff of detectives." [1] Wolfe's assistant Archie Goodwin recorded the cases of the detective genius from 1934 (''Fer-de-Lance'') to 1975 (''A Family Affair''). The Nero Wolfe corpus was nominated Best Mystery Series of the Century at Bouchercon 2000, the world's largest mystery convention, and Rex Stout was nominated Best Mystery Writer of the Century.[2]
Biography
Early life
Stout was born in Noblesville, Indiana, but shortly after that his Quaker parents, John Wallace Stout and Lucetta Elizabeth Todhunter Stout, moved their family (nine children in all) to Kansas.
His father was a teacher who encouraged his son to read, and Rex had read the entire Bible twice by the time he was four years old. He was the state spelling bee champion at age 13. Stout was educated at Topeka High School, Kansas, and later at University of Kansas, Lawrence.
His sister, Ruth Stout, also authored several books on no-work gardening and some social commentaries.
He served from 1906 to 1908 in the U.S. Navy (as a yeoman on President Teddy Roosevelt's official yacht) and then spent about the next four years working at about thirty different jobs (in six states), including cigar store clerk, while he sold poems, stories, and articles to various magazines.
It was not his writing but his invention of a school banking system in about 1916 that gave him enough money to travel in Europe extensively. About 400 U.S. schools adopted his system for keeping track of the money school children saved in accounts at school, and he was paid royalties. Also in 1916, Stout married Fay Kennedy of Topeka, Kansas. They separated in 1933 and Stout married in the same year Pola Hoffman of Vienna, Austria.
Writings
Portrait photograph of Rex Stout
by Arnold Genthe (April 1931)
by Arnold Genthe (April 1931)
Stout started his literary career in the 1910s writing for the pulps, publishing romance, adventure, and some borderline detective stories. Rex Stout's first stories appeared among others in ''All-Story Magazine''. He sold articles and stories to a variety of magazines, and became a full-time writer in 1927. Stout lost the money he had made as a businessman in 1929.
In Paris in 1929 he wrote his first book, ''How Like a God'', an unusual psychological story written in the second person. During the course of his career Stout mastered a variety of literary forms, including the short story, the novel, and science fiction, among them a pioneering political thriller, ''The President Vanishes'' (1934).
After he returned to the U.S. Stout turned to writing detective fiction. The first was ''Fer-de-Lance'', which introduced Nero Wolfe and his assistant Archie Goodwin. The novel was published by Farrar & Rinehart in October 1934, and in abridged form as ''Point of Death'' in ''The American Magazine'' (November 1934). In 1937, Stout created Dol Bonner, a female private detective who would reappear in his Nero Wolfe stories and who is an early and significant example of the woman PI as fictional protagonist, in a novel called ''The Hand in the Glove''. After 1938 Stout focused solely on the mystery field. Stout continued writing the Wolfe series -- at least one adventure per year -- until his death in 1975.
During WWII Stout cut back on his detective writing, joined the Fight for Freedom organization, and wrote propaganda. He hosted three weekly radio shows, and coordinated the volunteer services of American writers to help the war effort. After the war Stout returned to writing Nero Wolfe novels, and took up the role of gentleman farmer on his estate at High Meadows in Brewster, north of New York City. He served as president of the Authors Guild and of the Mystery Writers of America, which in 1959 presented Stout with the Grand Master Award — the pinnacle of achievement in the mystery field.
Stout was a longtime friend of the British humorist P. G. Wodehouse, writer of the Jeeves novels and short stories. Each was a fan of the other's work, and there are evident parallels between their characters and techniques. Wodehouse contributed the foreword to ''Rex Stout: A Majesty's Life'', the 2002 reissue of John McAleer's Edgar Award-winning 1977 biography of the author.
Public activities
Raised with a powerful social conscience, Stout served on the original board of the American Civil Liberties Union and helped start the radical magazine ''The New Masses'' during the 1920s. During the Great Depression, he was an enthusiastic supporter of the New Deal. During World War II, he worked with the advocacy group Friends of Democracy and figured prominently on the Writers War Board, particularly in support of the embryonic United Nations. He lobbied for Franklin D. Roosevelt to accept a fourth term as President. When the war ended, Stout became active in the United World Federalists.
Stout was active in liberal causes. When the anti-Communist hysteria of the late 1940s and 1950s began, Stout found himself targeted by members of the American Legion. He ignored a subpoena from the House Un-American Activities Committee at the height of the McCarthy era.
In later years Stout alienated some readers with his hawkish stance on the Vietnam War and with the contempt for Communism expressed in his works.
Stout and the FBI
Rex Stout was one of many American writers closely watched by J. Edgar Hoover's FBI, journalist Herbert Mitgang discovered when he requested Stout's file for his 1988 book, ''Dangerous Dossiers'':
:A dozen years after Rex Stout's death, the FBI did not easily give up his personal file under the Freedom of Information Act. Of 301 pages that were reviewed, only 183 pages were released to me, and these were heavily censored. ... Stout's name in the FBI files reached back to his beginnings as an author, but what particularly irked the bureau and possibly other government agencies occurred during the McCarthy era when he served as president of the Authors League...
:Stout's faithful readers knew him best as the genial author of detective novels featuring Nero Wolfe, gourmet, connoisseur and orchid grower, who, with the help of his assistant, Archie Goodwin, could solve crimes without leaving his Manhattan brownstone. The Federal Bureau of Investigation files show that J. Edgar Hoover considered Stout anything but genial: as a enemy of the FBI, as a Communist or a tool of Communist-dominated groups, someone whose novels and mail had to be watched, and whose involvement with professional writers organizations was not above suspicion. In the vague, bizarre phrase of one of the documents in his dossier, Stout was described as 'an alleged radical' ...
:J. Edgar Hoover himself and the FBI's powerful publicity machine came down hard on Stout in 1965 when his novel, ''The Doorbell Rang'', was published by the Viking Press. About one hundred pages in Stout's file are devoted to this novel, the FBI's panicky response to it, and the attempt to retaliate against the author for writing it.[3]
In its April 1976 report, the U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities — commonly known as the Church Committee — found that ''The Doorbell Rang'' is a reason Rex Stout's name was placed on the FBI's "not to contact list," which it cited as evidence of the FBI's political abuse of intelligence information:
:The Bureau also maintained a "not to contact list" of "those individuals known to be hostile to the Bureau." Director Hoover specifically ordered that "each name" on the list "should be the subject of memo." 91
:This request for "a memo" on each critic meant that, before someone was placed on the list, the Director received, in effect, a "name check" report summarizing "what we had in our files" on the individual.
::91 Memorandum from Executives Conference to Hoover, 1/4/50. Early examples included historian Henry Steele Commager, "personnel of CBS," and former Interior Secretary Harold Ickes. (Memorandum from Mohr to Tolson, 12/21/49.) By the time it was abolished in 1972, the list included 332 names, including mystery writer Rex Stout, whose novel ''The Doorbell Rang'' had "presented a highly distorted and most unfavorable picture of the Bureau." (Memorandum from M. A. Jones to Bishop, 7/11/72.) [4]
Bibliography
Nero Wolfe books by Rex Stout
Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe books are listed below in order of publication. Novels are also browsable by title at the page. Titles of the novella collections are listed alphabetically on the page.
★ ''Fer-de-Lance'' (1934) — The first Nero Wolfe mystery involves the death of a college president while playing golf in Westchester County, New York. Although the characters are not as fully developed as they would become later in the series, the essential characteristics of Wolfe, Archie, and several other regulars already are clearly present. The novel was adapted for the 1936 movie ''Meet Nero Wolfe''.
★ ''The League of Frightened Men'' (1935) — Author Paul Chapin is on trial for obscenity in his popular novel. Wolfe reads the book, then tells Archie that a potential client had asked Wolfe to arrange to protect him from Chapin. The potential client, along with some classmates at Harvard, had taken part in a hazing incident years before, in which Chapin was crippled. Now some of the "League of Frightened Men" — who chipped in to help Chapin after the accident — have begun dying. It is unclear whether that is through malice or by chance, but the surviving members of the League wish to hire Wolfe to find out. (The prominent American man of letters Edmund Wilson wrote in a review in ''The New Yorker'' that the book "makes use of a clever psychological idea.") The book was adapted for the 1937 movie ''The League of Frightened Men''.
★ ''The Rubber Band'' (1936) — Archie books two new clients on the same day, and before the day is over Wolfe has to choose which to keep and there are more than two crimes to untangle. The client he keeps in the end is a beautiful young woman, but it's Wolfe who reads her Hungarian poetry, not Archie. In the course of this novel, Lieutenant Rowcliff, not one of the NYPD's finest (in the opinion not only of Wolfe but Cramer), earns Wolfe's enmity that lasts until the final Wolfe novel in 1975.
★ ''The Red Box'' (1937) — In the midst of a murder investigation, one of the suspects visits Wolfe and begs Wolfe to handle his estate and especially the contents of a certain red box. Wolfe is at first concerned about a possible conflict of interest, but feels unable to refuse when the man then dies in his office before telling Wolfe where to find the red box. The police naturally think that he told Wolfe somewhat more before dying.
★ ''Too Many Cooks'' (1938) — Wolfe, a knowledgeable gourmet as well as a detective, attends a meeting of great chefs, ''The Fifteen Masters'', at a resort in West Virginia, and jealousies among them soon lead to death. Wolfe sustains his own injury in the course of finding the culprit but also obtains the secret recipe for ''saucisse minuit''.
★ ''Some Buried Caesar'' (1939) — On the way to an agricultural fair north of Manhattan, Wolfe's car runs into a tree, stranding Wolfe and Archie at the home of the owner of a chain of fast-food cafés. A neighbor is later found gored to death; the authorities rule the death an accident but Wolfe deduces that it was murder. Lily Rowan, Archie's longtime girlfriend, makes her first appearance.
★ ''Over My Dead Body'' (1940) — This novel and its much later sequel ''The Black Mountain'', have as a background Montenegrin (Yugoslavian) politics[5]
★ ''Where There's a Will'' (1940) — Wolfe is initially retained to assist in a will contest, only soon to find himself engaged in investigating a murder.
★ ''Black Orchids'' (1942) — Novella collection that includes "Black Orchids" and "Cordially Invited to Meet Death"
★ ''Not Quite Dead Enough'' (1944) — Novella collection that includes "Not Quite Dead Enough" and "Booby Trap"
★ ''The Silent Speaker'' (1946) — The head of a Federal agency is bludgeoned to death just before giving a speech to an industrial association. Public opinion quickly turns against the association, which is thought to have been involved in the murder. The association hires Wolfe to find the murderer in hope of ending the public relations disaster.
★ ''Too Many Women'' (1947) — A malcontent at the Naylor-Kerr corporation charges that one of its employees, thought to have been killed in a hit-and-run accident, was actually murdered. The president of the colossal company hires Archie to look into the matter in the guise of a personnel consultant working in Naylor-Kerr's executive offices — where 500 beautiful woman have been gathered under one roof.
★ ''And Be a Villain'' (1948) (British title ''More Deaths Than One'') — The first of three novels (''The Second Confession'', ''In the Best Families'') that concern Nero Wolfe's struggle with Arnold Zeck, an organized crime kingpin.
★ ''Trouble in Triplicate'' (1949) — Novella collection that includes "Help Wanted, Male," "Before I Die" and "Instead of Evidence"
★ ''The Second Confession'' (1949) — Hired to find evidence that Louis Rony is a Communist, Wolfe finds himself under attack from Arnold Zeck and stymied by his own client. Wolfe solves Rony's murder by coercing the assistance of the American Communist Party.
★ ''Three Doors to Death'' (1950) — Novella collection that includes "Man Alive," "Omit Flowers" and "Door to Death"
★ ''In the Best Families'' (1950) — A wealthy wife hires Wolfe to learn the source of her husband's mysterious income. In short order, Arnold Zeck horns in, the wife is murdered, and Wolfe disappears.
★ ''Curtains for Three'' (1951) — Novella collection that includes "The Gun with Wings," "Bullet for One" and "Disguise for Murder"
★ ''Murder by the Book'' (1951) — Because the New York police have written the case off as an accident, a Peoria businessman asks Wolfe to investigate the hit-and-run death of his daughter, a reader for a book publishing company, in Van Cortlandt Park. Wolfe connects her death to a list of names he was recently shown by Inspector Cramer, related to a stalled homicide investigation — and concludes there is a second murder. A third murder validates Wolfe's conclusion, and Archie follows the trail of an unpublished novel to California and back.
★ ''Triple Jeopardy'' (1952) — Novella collection that includes "Home to Roost," "The Cop-Killer" and "The Squirt and the Monkey"
★ ''Prisoner's Base'' (1952) (British title ''Out Goes She'') — A young woman who will shortly inherit control of a large manufacturing firm wants to rent a room in Wolfe's house. Wolfe, outraged, puts her out; she is found murdered later that night. With no client in sight, Wolfe is not interested, but Archie feels responsible. His first step is to crash a meeting of the manufacturer's board of directors.
★ ''The Golden Spiders'' (1953) — A squeegie kid, Pete Drossos, tells his neighbor and hero, Nero Wolfe, how he saw a woman being held at gunpoint at a nearby intersection. It isn't long before Pete is murdered and Wolfe investigates his death for a fee of $4.30 that Pete had managed to save from washing windshields.
★ ''Three Men Out'' (1954) — Novella collection that includes "Invitation to Murder," "The Zero Clue" and "This Won't Kill You"
★ ''The Black Mountain'' (1954) — Wolfe and Archie clandestinely go to Yugoslavia in order to avenge the death of Wolfe's oldest friend and bring the murderer to justice
★ ''Before Midnight'' (1955) — A national literary contest to promote a new brand of perfume leads to murder and more.
★ ''Three Witnesses'' (1956) — Novella collection that includes "The Next Witness," "When a Man Murders" and "Die Like a Dog"
★ ''Might As Well Be Dead'' (1956) — Wolfe is hired to find a missing person, who soon turns up — under a new name — as a newly convicted murderer in a sensational crime.
★ ''Three for the Chair'' (1957) — Novella collection that includes "A Window for Death," "Immune to Murder" and "Too Many Detectives"
★ ''If Death Ever Slept'' (1957) — Millionaire Otis Jarrell retains Nero Wolfe to get a snake out of his house — the snake being his daughter-in-law, whom he believes is ruining his business deals by leaking information to his competitors. Since Archie and Wolfe are in the midst of one of their periodic squabbles, it is decided that Archie will move into Jarrell's Fifth Avenue penthouse apartment, posing as his new secretary, While he's away, Orrie tests out Archie's desk.
★ ''And Four to Go'' (1958) — Novella collection that includes "Christmas Party," "Easter Parade" "Fourth of July Picnic" and "Murder Is No Joke"
★ ''Champagne for One'' (1958) — Archie sits in for a friend at a charity dinner dance for unwed mothers, and one of the guests drops dead on the dance floor.
★ ''Plot It Yourself'' (1959) (British title ''Murder in Style'') — A group of authors and publishers hires Wolfe to investigate a series of plagiarism claims. Wolfe, by his own admission, bungles the investigation so badly that three murders result.
★ ''Three at Wolfe's Door'' (1960) — Novella collection that includes "Poison a la Carte," "Method Three for Murder" and "The Rodeo Murder"
★ ''Too Many Clients'' (1960) — A man who identifies himself as Thomas Yeager, head of Continental Plastics, asks Archie to ascertain whether he is being followed when he visits a certain address in one of New York's worst neighborhoods. When Yeager's body is found at an excavation site in the vicinity of that address, Archie crosses the threshold and finds a fantastically appointed love nest where Yeager secretly entertained many women.
★ ''The Final Deduction'' (1961) — Wolfe is initially retained to work on a kidnapping, but deaths soon crop up.
★ ''Homicide Trinity'' (1962) — Novella collection that includes "Eeny Meeny Murder Mo," "Death of a Demon" and "Counterfeit for Murder"
★ ''Gambit'' (1962) — A chess prodigy is poisoned during a club tournament, and the police arrest the member who served the victim hot chocolate. Wolfe is hired to exonerate the suspect, but finds that no one else has either an adequate motive or the requisite opportunity.
★ ''The Mother Hunt'' (1963) — A baby is left in a young widow's vestibule, along with a note implying that her late husband is the baby's father. The widow hires Wolfe to identify and locate the baby's birth mother.
★ ''Trio for Blunt Instruments'' (1964) — Novella collection that includes "Kill Now — Pay Later," "Murder Is Corny" and "Blood Will Tell"
★ ''A Right to Die'' (1964) — A character who last appeared a quarter-century earlier asks Wolfe to help his son, a young black man whose fiancee is white and wealthy. When the girl is murdered and the son arrested, Wolfe's investigation leads to a 1959 suicide in Wisconsin.
★ ''The Doorbell Rang'' (1965) — Wolfe is hired to force the FBI to stop wiretapping, tailing and otherwise harassing a woman who gave away 10,000 copies of a book that is critical of the Bureau and its Director.
★ ''Death of a Doxy'' (1966) — Orrie Cather, one of Wolfe's operatives, has been secretly seeing a wealthy man's kept mistress at her secret lovenest, but is arrested when she turns up dead.
★ ''The Father Hunt'' (1968) — Amy Denovo, a young woman assisting Lily Rowan, hires Nero Wolfe because she ''must'' find out who her father is, or was. After her mother was killed in a recent hit-and-run, Amy received a locked metal box containing more than a quarter of a million dollars in cash — and a letter from her mother that explained only that the money came from her father. The mystery of Amy's mother's identity rivals that of her father's.
★ ''Death of a Dude'' (1969) — Archie Goodwin is part of a house party at Lily Rowan's vacation home in Montana when a murder brings Nero Wolfe from New York to take a hand.
★ ''Please Pass the Guilt'' (1973)
★ ''A Family Affair'' (1975) — Rex Stout's final Nero Wolfe novel
★ ''Death Times Three'' (1985) — Posthumous novella collection that includes "Bitter End," "Frame-Up for Murder" and "Assault on a Brownstone"
Nero Wolfe novellas by Rex Stout
Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe novellas are listed below in order of first appearance.
★ "Bitter End" (1940) — Rex Stout's rewrite of ''Bad for Business'', a novel that featured Tecumseh Fox,[6] begins with Nero Wolfe vowing to find the person responsible for adulterating a commercial liver pate he has just spit in Archie's face. Originally printed in the November 1940 issue of ''The American Magazine'', "Bitter End" saw its first book publication in ''Corsage: A Bouquet of Rex Stout and Nero Wolfe'' (James A. Rock & Co., 1977), a posthumous collection edited by Michael Bourne (see Books about Rex Stout and Nero Wolfe).
★ "Black Orchids" (1941) — Curiosity about the black orchids grown by millionaire Lewis Hewitt compels an envious Nero Wolfe to attend New York's annual flower show.
★ "Cordially Invited to Meet Death" (1942) — High-society party arranger Bess Huddleston hires Wolfe to investigate anonymous letters, sent to her clients, claiming that she's spreading rumors about them.
★ "Not Quite Dead Enough" (1942) — How Archie joined Army Intelligence in WWII and got Wolfe involved in it.
★ "Booby Trap" (1944) — Another story about Archie in uniform, this time involving attempts by the munitions industry to bribe Congress in order to steal industrial secrets for use after the war.
★ "Help Wanted, Male" (1945) — An anonymous threat leads Wolfe to take unusual steps to prevent his own murder.
★ "Instead of Evidence" (1946) — Certain that his partner is about to murder him, the owner of a novelty company retains Wolfe to keep him from getting away with it.
★ "Before I Die" (1947) — Mobster Dazy Perrit comes to Wolfe for help in stopping a blackmailer.
★ "Man Alive" (1947) — A high-fashion designer consults Wolfe after she sees her uncle — believed to have committed suicide a year before — in disguise and in the audience at one of her shows.
★ "Bullet for One" (1948) — An industrial designer is shot to death while riding horseback in Central Park.
★ "Omit Flowers" (1948) — As a favor for his oldest friend Marko Vukcic, Wolfe takes the case of Virgil Pompa, a chef who traded his genius for a high-paying job as the supervisor of a restaurant chain. He is in jail, charged with murder. Archie begins the story with the statement, "In my opinion it was one of Nero Wolfe's neatest jobs, and he never got a nickel for it."
★ "Door to Death" (1949) — When orchid nurse Theodore Horstmann leaves the brownstone indefinitely to tend to his sick mother, Nero Wolfe goes out — in the snow and on foot — into the raging wilds of Westchester to find a replacement. He and Archie find a corpse in the greenhouse, as well.
★ "The Gun with Wings" (1949) — The police are satisfied that a top tenor at the Metropolitan Opera shot himself, but his widow and the man she hopes to marry know it was murder.
★ "Disguise for Murder" (1950) — The garden editor of the ''Gazette'' persuades Nero Wolfe to play host to the Manhattan Flower Club. While a couple of hundred people are upstairs in the plant rooms looking at Wolfe's orchids, a woman is strangled in his office.
★ "The Cop-Killer" (1951) — Tina and Carl Vardas, employees at the barbershop Archie patronizes, are questioned by a policeman after a hit-and-run. When the Vardases flee to the brownstone and desperately ask Archie for help, their overreaction proves to be justified.
★ "The Squirt and the Monkey" (1951) — Archie becomes involved with gunplay at the unconventional and uncomfortably warm home of a syndicated cartoonist.
★ "Home to Roost" (1952) — A young man is poisoned shortly after confiding to his aunt that his objectionable advocacy of the Communist party is a front for his undercover work for the FBI.
★ "This Won't Kill You" (1952) — Wolfe honors a guest's request by taking him to a World Series game at the Polo Grounds. After the Giants are trounced by the Red Sox, members of the team are found to have been drugged — and a body is discovered in the locker room. Wolfe solves the crime without leaving the ball park.
★ "Invitation to Murder" (1953) — A client hires Archie to assess the matrimonial intentions of his wealthy invalid brother-in-law. When Archie finds the client dead, he tricks Wolfe into leaving the brownstone and identifying the killer before the police are called in.
★ "The Zero Clue" (1953) — Leo Heller, a probability expert who has parlayed his math skills into celebrity, tries to consult Wolfe after he calculates that one of his clients has committed a serious crime. Wolfe refuses the case, but Archie — "who is subordinate only when it suits his temperament and convenience," Wolfe later complains — agrees to explore on his own.
★ "When a Man Murders..." (1954) — Caroline and Paul Aubry ask Wolfe's help after her first husband — reportedly killed in action in Korea — turns up alive in New York. Their marriage is at stake, along with a million-dollar inheritance.
★ "Die Like a Dog" (1954) — A Labrador retriever follows Archie home from a murder scene, and a volatile demirep is at the center of the crime.
★ "The Next Witness" (1955) — When their would-be client Leonard Ashe is on trial for murder, Wolfe and Archie are subpoenaed to testify as witnesses for the prosecution. Wolfe bolts from the courtroom when he realizes his testimony will convict an innocent man. He and Archie elude arrest for contempt — even spending the night at Saul Panzer's apartment — as they investigate the crime themselves.
★ "Immune to Murder" (1955) — Wolfe is invited by the State Department, at the behest of an ambassador from an oil-rich country, to cook a special meal for him at an oil baron's private retreat in the Adirondacks. This naturally results in a death to investigate.
★ "A Window for Death" (1956) — A wealthy prospector returns home after a 20-year absence. He contracts pneumonia and, despite medical care, dies in his bed, bracketed by two empty hot water bottles. His brother suspects homicide and the family hires Wolfe to decide whether the police should be brought in.
★ "Too Many Detectives" (1956) — Wolfe and Archie are called to Albany, along with other licensed private detectives in New York, when there are complaints about how lax the licensing of detectives in the state is and how the detectives violate the rights of private citizens by tapping their phones.
★ "Christmas Party" (1957) — Archie goes to a holiday gathering where the host toasts the season with a poisoned glass of Pernod.
★ "Easter Parade" (1957) — When Wolfe sends him to photograph the uniquely colored orchid that will be worn in the Easter Parade, Archie snaps a murder scene.
★ "Fourth of July Picnic" (1957) — One of a set of fine knives is put to use at a restaurant workers union picnic where Wolfe has agreed to speak. The story is notable for the autobiographical sketches Wolfe and Archie share with the principal suspects gathered at Saul Panzer's apartment.
★ "Murder Is No Joke" (1958, expanded and serialized as "Frame-Up for Murder") — The sister of a fashionable designer asks Wolfe to ascertain what mysterious hold a woman from her brother's past has over him. When she arranges for Wolfe to speak to the woman by telephone, he and Archie hear a murder on the other end of the line.
★ "Method Three for Murder" (1960) — After discovering a body in the back seat, Mina Holt drives the taxi she has borrowed for the evening to 918 West 35th Street. She walks up the front steps of the brownstone just as Archie is walking down — having just told Nero Wolfe that he's quit.
★ "Poison à la Carte" (1960) — Wolfe's chef, Fritz, is invited to prepare the annual dinner for the Ten for Aristology, "a group of ten men pursuing the ideal of perfection in food and drink." Wolfe and Archie are guests at the table when one of the ten becomes acutely ill during the meal and soon dies of arsenic poisoning. Wolfe's self-esteem is injured, he believes that Fritz has been humiliated, and he resolves to determine which of the servers hired for the dinner is the guilty party.
★ "The Rodeo Murder" (1960) — A party at Lily Rowan's Park Avenue penthouse includes a roping contest between some cowboy friends, with a silver-trimmed saddle as the prize. One of the contestants is at a disadvantage when his rope is missing. When it is found wound more than a dozen times around the neck of the chief backer of the World Series Rodeo, Lily asks Wolfe to sort out the murder.
★ "Counterfeit for Murder" (1961) — Wolfe and Archie encounter the Treasury Department when the owner of a rooming house comes to the brownstone with a large packet of counterfeit bills that she's found hidden on a bookshelf.
★ "Death of a Demon" (1961) — A blackmailer hosts a dinner party for his victims, whom he torments by dropping hints about their secrets. The blackmailer is murdered shortly thereafter, and the police arrest his wife, Wolfe's client.
★ "Kill Now — Pay Later" (1961) — Wolfe's aging Greek bootblack is accused of murder.
★ "Eeny Meeny Murder Mo" (1962) — Waiting in Wolfe's office for Archie to return from the plant rooms, a legal secretary is strangled with Wolfe's own necktie.
★ "Blood Will Tell" (1963) — Archie receives a blood-stained tie in the mail from the owner of a small walk-up apartment building in lower Manhattan, who also lives on the top floor. Archie investigates, only to find yet another dead body.
★ "Murder Is Corny" (1964) — A female acquaintance of Archie's implicates him in a murder but seeks his assistance in getting herself out of the mess.
★ "Assault on a Brownstone" (1959, published 1985, posthumous)
Other Nero Wolfe works by Rex Stout
★ ''The Nero Wolfe Cookbook'', with the editors of Viking Press (1973) — The cuisine and world of Nero Wolfe are brought to life in a wealth of recipes and pertinent quotes from the corpus, illustrated by vintage New York City photographs by John Muller, Andreas Feininger and others. Chapters include "Breakfast in the Old Brownstone"; "Luncheon in the Dining Room"; "Warm-Weather Dinners"; "Cold-Weather Dinners"; "Desserts"; "The Perfect Dinner for the Perfect Detective"; "The Relapse"; "Snacks"; "Guests, Male and Female"; "Associates for Dinner"; "Fritz Brenner"; "Dishes Cooked by Others"; "Rusterman's Restaurant"; "Nero Wolfe Cooks"; and "The Kanawha Spa Dinner". Hardcover ISBN 0670505994 / Paperback ISBN 1888952245. "For a number of years Rex Stout had been prodded by friends ... to tackle a bit of hard work at last by writing out the recipes that make the reader's mouth water when they should be thrall to the dry fare of reason. ... The task was accomplished and now the secret of ''saucisse minuit'' is out -- with a couple hundred others. The organization of the book is excellent too ..."[7]
★ "Why Nero Wolfe Likes Orchids" [1], ''Life'' (April 19, 1963) — Concluding a feature story titled "The Orchid" that was photographed by Alfred Eisenstaedt, Archie Goodwin "investigates and explains the deep satisfactions of his boss's orchid-fixation." (The article was reprinted in ''Corsage" A Bouquet of Rex Stout and Nero Wolfe'', edited by Michael Bourne.)
★ "The Case of the Spies Who Weren't," ''Ramparts'' (January 1966) — Archie Goodwin reports that the previous evening Nero Wolfe and "Rex Stout, my literary agent" filled 27 pages in his notebook with their discussion of ''Invitation to an Inquest'' by Walter and Miriam Schneir, a recently published book that they are reviewing for ''Ramparts'' magazine. Since their review must be fewer than 3,000 words, Wolfe frowns and orders Archie to "Contract it. Cramp it."
::I frowned back. "You cramp it. Or Stout. Let him earn his ten per cent. Dictate it."
:Archie loses the argument and condenses their views on the book, which concerns the case against Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
Other works by Rex Stout
★ ''Her Forbidden Knight'' (1913)
★ ''Under the Andes'' (1914)
★ ''A Prize for Princes'' (1914)
★ ''The Great Legend'' (1916)
★ ''How Like a God'' (1929)
★ ''Seed on the Wind'' (1930)
★ ''Golden Remedy'' (1931)
★ ''Forest Fire'' (1933)
★ ''The President Vanishes'' (1934)
★ ''O Careless Love!'' (1935)
★ ''The Hand in the Glove'' (1937) — featuring Dol Bonner
★ ''Mr. Cinderella'' (1938)
★ ''Red Threads'' (1939) — featuring Inspector Cramer
★ ''Mountain Cat'' (1939), always republished as ''The Mountain Cat Murders'' — a non-series mystery
★ ''Double for Death'' (1939) — a mystery featuring Tecumseh Fox
★ ''Bad for Business'' (1940) — a mystery featuring Tecumseh Fox
★ ''The Broken Vase'' (1941) — a mystery featuring Tecumseh Fox
★ ''Alphabet Hicks'' (1941), a mystery republished as ''The Sound of Murder''. Alphabet Hicks is featured in one additional story, "In His Own Hand," which first appeared in ''Manhunt'' magazine (April 1955) and has been reprinted in anthologies under the titles, "By His Own Hand" and "Curtain Line."
★ ''The Illustrious Dunderheads'' (1942, editor)
★ ''Rue Morgue No. 1'' (1946; editor, with Louis Greenfield) — Anthology of 19 mystery stories
★ ''Eat, Drink, and Be Buried'' (1956; editor) — Anthology of mystery stories. British edition titled ''For Tomorrow We Die''(1958) omitted three stories.
★ ''Justice Ends at Home, and Other Stories'' (1977; edited by John McAleer) — Posthumous collection of 16 short stories written between 1912 and 1917
Books about Rex Stout and Nero Wolfe
★ Anderson, David R., ''Rex Stout'' (1984, Frederick Ungar; Hardcover ISBN 080442005X / Paperback ISBN 0804460094). Study of the Nero Wolfe series.
★ Baring-Gould, William S., ''Nero Wolfe of West Thirty-fifth Street'' (1969, Viking Press; ISBN 0140061940). Fanciful biography. Reviewed in ''Time'', March 21, 1969 ("The American Holmes" [2]).
★ Bourne, Michael, ''Corsage: A Bouquet of Rex Stout and Nero Wolfe'' (1977, James A. Rock & Co., Publishers; Hardcover ISBN 0918736005 / Paperback ISBN 0918736013). Posthumous collection produced in a numbered limited edition of 276 hardcovers and 1,500 softcovers. Shortly before his death Rex Stout authorized the editor to include the first Nero Wolfe novella, "Bitter End" (1940), which had not been republished in his own novella collections.[6]''Corsage'' also includes an interview Bourne conducted with Stout (July 18, 1973; also available on audiocassette tape),[9] and concludes with the first and only book publication of "Why Nero Wolfe Likes Orchids," an article by Rex Stout that first appeared in ''Life'' (April 19, 1963).
★ Darby, Ken, ''The Brownstone House of Nero Wolfe, as Told by Archie Goodwin'' (1983, Little, Brown and Company; ISBN 0316172804). Full-length book about Wolfe's house, including several elaborate floor plans.
★ Gotwald, Rev. Frederick G., ''The Nero Wolfe Handbook'' (1985; revised 1992, 2000). Self-published anthology of essays edited by a longtime member of The Wolfe Pack.
★ Kaye, Marvin, ''The Archie Goodwin Files'' (2005, Wildside Press; ISBN 1557424845). Selected articles from The Wolfe Pack publication ''The Gazette'', edited by a charter member.
★ Kaye, Marvin, ''The Nero Wolfe Files'' (2005, Wildside Press; ISBN 0809544946). Selected articles from The Wolfe Pack publication ''The Gazette'', edited by a charter member.
★ McAleer, John, ''Rex Stout: A Biography'' (1977, Little, Brown and Company; ISBN 0316553409). Foreword by P.G. Wodehouse. Winner of the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Award for Best Critical/Biographical Work in 1978. Reissued as ''Rex Stout: A Majesty's Life'' (2002, James A. Rock & Co., Publishers; Hardcover ISBN 0918736439 / Paperback ISBN 0918736447).
★ McAleer, John, ''Royal Decree: Conversations with Rex Stout'' (1983, Pontes Press, Ashton, MD). Published in a numbered limited edition of 1,000 copies.
★ McBride, O.E., ''Stout Fellow: A Guide Through Nero Wolfe's World'' (2003, iUniverse; Hardcover ISBN 0595657168 / Paperback ISBN 0595278612). Pseudonymous self-published homage.
★ Mitgang, Herbert, ''Dangerous Dossiers: Exposing the Secret War Against America's Greatest Authors'' (1988, Donald I. Fine, Inc.; ISBN 1556110774). Chapter 10 is titled "Seeing Red: Rex Stout."
★ Symons, Julian, ''Great Detectives: Seven Original Investigations'' (1981, Abrams; ISBN 0810909782). Illustrated by Tom Adams. "We quiz Archie Goodwin in his den and gain a clue to the ultimate fate of Nero Wolfe" in a chapter titled "In Which Archie Goodwin Remembers."
★ Townsend, Guy M., ''Rex Stout: An Annotated Primary and Secondary Bibliography'' (1980, Garland Publishing; ISBN 0824094794). Associate editors John McAleer, Judson Sapp and Arriean Schemer. Definitive publication history.
★ Van Dover, J. Kenneth, ''At Wolfe's Door: The Nero Wolfe Novels of Rex Stout'' (1991, Borgo Press, Mitford Series; second edition 2003, James A. Rock & Co., Publishers; Hardcover ISBN 091873651X / Paperback ISBN 0918736528). Bibliography, reviews and essays.
Adaptations
Nero Wolfe adaptations
The adaptations section of the article on Nero Wolfe, and the article about the A&E TV series ''A Nero Wolfe Mystery'' (2001–2002), provide detailed information about the various film, radio and television adaptations of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe stories.
''Lady Against the Odds'' (NBC)
Stout's 1937 novel ''The Hand in the Glove'' was adapted for an NBC TV movie titled ''Lady Against the Odds'' [3], which aired April 20, 1992. Crystal Bernard starred as Dol Bonner; Annabeth Gish costarred as Sylvia Raffray. Bradford May, who also directed, received an Emmy Award for outstanding individual achievement in cinematography. The telefilm was previewed by ''The Hollywood Reporter'':
:It's wonderfully scripted, well-acted and thoroughly enjoyable to watch. It features some terrific costumes, great cars, realistic backdrops and stunning photography. Unfortunately, ''Lady Against the Odds'' is constructed around a rather standard-issue plot line, and that keeps it from being quite as great as it otherwise might have been.
:Fortunately, it doesn't spoil the overall fun.
:It's a period drama that manages to stay in character throughout, setting its murder-mystery theme in front of a society at war circa 1943. It centers around two young "dames" trying to do their part on the home front as Los Angeles private eyes despite a wary police department and disapproving family. ... What makes this project so interesting is how it plays like such a lighthearted romp despite its serious, murderous themes. It gives a nod in dialogue and visuals to those old gumshoe films of the '40s, then has fun with itself. The ending is a bit heavy-handed given the overall nature of this project and doesn't quite fit in terms of tone, but it does add some sobriety to an otherwise high-style production.
:The film holds up in large part due to the solid ensemble cast ... led by Crystal Bernard and Annabeth Gish, who deliver absolutely delightful performances as the two lady gumshoes.[10]
''The President Vanishes'' (Paramount)
In an interview printed in ''Royal Decree'' (1983), Rex Stout's official biographer John McAleer asked the author if there were any chance of Hollywood ever making a good Nero Wolfe movie. "I don't know," Stout replied. "I suppose so. They made a movie of another story I wrote — ''The President Vanishes''. I hate like hell to admit it but it was better than the book, I think."[11]
''The President Vanishes'', Rex Stout's anonymous 1934 novel, was quickly transformed into a feature film by Paramount. Produced by Walter Wanger and directed by William Wellman, ''The President Vanishes'' (1934) [4] is described in John Douglas Eames' ''The Paramount Story'':
:It had an accomplished cast and an out-of-the-rut story, but ''The President Vanishes'' (British title ''Strange Conspiracy'') couldn't buck moviegoers' apathy towards political subjects... Its hero was an isolationist President of the U.S. (Arthur Byron) at loggerheads with his pro-war cabinet; he pretends to be kidnapped, to show by the ensuing media uproar how false propaganda can mislead the public. ... In the cast: Edward Arnold, Paul Kelly, Rosalind Russell (beginning her 37-year screen career), Charley Grapewin, Peggy Conklin, Osgood Perkins, Janet Beecher, Walter Kingsford, Sidney Blackmer and Edward Ellis.[12]
Andre Sennwald reviewed the film for ''The New York Times'':
:Although it is unlikely to plunge the country into the bitter fratricide that preliminary gossip had led us to expect, ''The President Vanishes'' is an exciting example of the topical cinema, a racy and biting melodrama which assaults the war-makers with picturesque violence. Like the anonymous novel (generally credited to Rex Stout) upon which it is based, the photoplay tells how a peace-loving President prevents his country from being stampeded into a European war. ...
:For this political mystery story Walter Wanger has assembled a splendid cast... William A. Wellman, the director, has paced the narrative briskly and he gives the film a helpful, realistic atmosphere by inserting timely newsreel scenes of street fighting. ''The President Vanishes'' proves to be an absorbing essay in topical melodrama and Walter Wanger deserves applause for his courage in bringing it to the screen.[13]
Written after ''Fer-de-Lance'' but published immediately before the first Nero Wolfe novel, ''The President Vanishes'' was adapted for the screen by Lynn Starling, Carey Wilson and Cedric Worth, with uncredited contributions by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur.
Of further interest
Rex Stout Archive at Boston College
The Rex Stout Archive [5] at Boston College represents the best collection in existence of the personal papers, literary manuscripts, and published works of Rex Stout, creator of the Nero Wolfe mysteries. Anchoring Boston College's collection of detective fiction, the Rex Stout Archive features materials donated by the Stout family — including manuscripts, correspondence, legal papers, publishing contracts, photographs and ephemera; first editions, international editions and archived reprints of Stout's books; and volumes from Stout's personal library, many of which found their way into Nero Wolfe's office. The comprehensive archive at Burns Library also includes the extensive personal collection of Stout's official biographer John McAleer, and the Rex Stout collection of bibliographer Judson C. Sapp.
''Omnibus'', "The Fine Art of Murder" (ABC)
Rex Stout appeared in the December 9, 1956, episode of ''Omnibus'', a cultural anthology series that epitomized the golden age of television. Hosted by Alistair Cooke, "The Fine Art of Murder" was a 40-minute segment described by ''Time'' magazine as "a homicide as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Allan Poe [and] Rex Stout would variously present it."[14] The author is credited as appearing along with Gene Reynolds (as Archie Goodwin), Robert Echols, James Daly, Jack Sydow and Dennis Hoey.[15] Written by Sidney Carroll and directed by Paul Bogart, "The Fine Art of Murder" is in the collection of the Library of Congress (VBE 2397-2398) and screened in its Mary Pickford Theater February 15, 2000.[16]
External links
★ The Wolfe Pack, official site of the Nero Wolfe Society
★ Merely a Genius..., Winnifred Louis' fan site dedicated to Nero Wolfe and his creator, Rex Stout
★ ''Time'' obituary (November 10, 1975)
★ John J. McAleer: The Making of Rex Stout's Biography (Mark Fullmer)
★ Stout's radicalism, the FBI, the books (from the Daily Bleed Calendar)
★ a comprehensive overview of Rex Stout's work and biography
★ ''wiki'' collections of quotations from Rex Stout's works
★
★
★ ''Under the Andes'' — e-text of one of Stout's earliest works
★ Bibliography of Stout's first editions in the United Kingdom
Notes
1. McAleer, John, ''Rex Stout: A Biography'' (1977), Little, Brown and Company, p. 287; Rothe, Anna (ed.) ''Current Biography'' (1946), New York: H.W. Wilson Co., 1947, p. 576. Essays by both Will Cuppy ("How to Read a Whodunit") and Rex Stout ("Watson Was a Woman") appeared in ''The Art of the Mystery Story: A Collection of Critical Essays'', edited by Howard Haycroft (Simon and Schuster, 1946). Cuppy likened Wolfe to Falstaff 1936, in his review of ''The Rubber Band''. In 1959, Stout's beloved character Hattie Annis stated the comparison to Wolfe himself, immediately after being introduced to him in the novella "Counterfeit for Murder."
2. Walker, Tom "Mystery writers shine light on best: Bouchercon 2000 convention honors authors"; ''The Denver Post'', September 10, 2000. The other four nominees were Raymond Chandler, Agatha Christie, Dashiell Hammett and Dorothy Sayers. Agatha Christie was voted Best Mystery Writer of the Century, and Christie's Hercule Poirot was named Best Mystery Series of the Century. The 31st World Mystery Convention was presented in Denver September 7-10, 2000.
3. Mitgang, Herbert, ''Dangerous Dossiers: Exposing the Secret War Against America's Greatest Authors''; 1988, Donald I. Fine, Inc.; Hardcover ISBN 1556110774, pp. 216–217, 227. For more information see the articles on ''Where There's a Will'' and ''''The Doorbell Rang''.
4. ''Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans, Book II'', Final Report of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Repect to Intelligence Activities, United States Senate; April 26, 1976. E. Political Abuse of Intelligence Information, Subfinding c, Footnote 91.
5. The dissolution of the Turkish and Astro-Hungarian empire created an opportunity for the "South Slavs" (Yugoslavs), previously in separate spheres, to unite in a single country, but over the centuries of separation they had adopted three different religions (Orthodox, Catholic, and Muslim) and there was much intrigue both within the region and instigated by outside powers for control of the area.
6. Townsend, Guy M., ''Rex Stout: An Annotated Primary and Secondary Bibliography'', page 56
7. Barzun, Jacques and Taylor, Wendell Hertig. ''A Catalogue of Crime''. New York: Harper & Row. 1971, revised and enlarged edition 1989. ISBN 0-06-015796-8
8. Townsend, Guy M., ''Rex Stout: An Annotated Primary and Secondary Bibliography'', page 56
9. Bourne, Michael, "An Informal Interview with Rex Stout"; 1998, James A. Rock & Co., Publishers ISBN 0918736226
10. Sherwood, Rick, "Lady Against the Odds"; ''The Hollywood Reporter'', April 20, 1992
11. McAleer, John, ''Royal Decree''; 1983, Pontes Press, Ashton, MD; p. 48
12. Eames, John Douglas, ''The Paramount Story''; 1985, Crown Publishers, Inc.; Hardcover ISBN 0517553481 p. 100
13. Sennwald, Andre, "The Mysterious Disappearance of President Stanley in ''The President Vanishes'', at the Paramount"; ''The New York Times'', December 8, 1934
14. Program Preview, ''Time'', December 10, 1956
15. ''Omnibus'', "The Fine Art of Murder" at TV.com
16. Mary Pickford Theater, Archive of past screenings: 2000 Schedule
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