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previous indepth review... The Adventures of Ellery Queen (1934) next indepth review...

That is what Ellery Queen has been called, and from tens of thousands of Queen fans, readers, and radio listeners, comes a roar of approval. Here are eleven of the slick, tricky young investigator's most amazing adventures, each one an appetizing snack for the gourmet at the table of thrills, action, deduction.

  • "The African Traveler" (original story)
  • "The Hanging Acrobat"    (Mystery, 5/34 as "The Girl on the Trapeze")
  • "The One Penny Black" (Great Detective Stories, 4/33)
  • "The Bearded Lady" (Mystery, 8/34 as "The Sinister Beard")
  • "The Three Lame Men" (Mystery, 4/34)
  • "The Invisible Lover" (Mystery, 9/34 as "Four Men Loved a Woman")
  • "The Teakwood Case" (Mystery, 5/33 as "The Affair of the Gallant Bachelor")
  • "The Two-Headed Dog" (Mystery, 6/34)
  • "The Glass-Domed Clock" (Mystery League,10/33)
  • "The Seven Black Cats"  (Mystery, 10/34 as "The Black Cats Vanished")
  • "The Mad Tea-Party" (Redbook, 10/34)


All titles begin with "The Adventure of...." Short stories originally appeared in Redbook, Mystery, Great Detective Stories, and Mystery League

"Eleven Detective Tales - All amazingly clever... daring, extraordinary and exciting." -- Boston Globe
 
The Adventures of Ellery Queen - softcover Frederick A. Stokes, New York, 1934.The Adventures of Ellery Queen - hardcover Frederick A. Stokes, New York, 1934.The Adventures of Ellery Queen - dust cover, Grosset & Dunlap,1934.The Adventures of Ellery Queen - hard cover Black-Red hardback, Grosset & Dunlap, 1934-1936.The Adventures of Ellery Queen - hard cover Black-Red hardback, Grosset & Dunlap, reprint 1934The Adventures of Ellery Queen - soft cover Grosset & Dunlap, 1934
The Adventures of Ellery Queen - dust cover edition Triangle BooksThe Adventures of Ellery Queen - hard cover edition Triangle BooksThe Adventures of Ellery Queen - hard cover edition Triangle Books (variation)The Adventures of Ellery Queen - hard cover edition Triangle Books (variation)The Adventures of Ellery Queen - cover Tower Books, March 1947The Adventures of Ellery Queen - hard cover edition Tower World Publishing Co. , 1947
Above: The first books published sometimes had identical front covers. The spine of the books/dust cover only differ in the publisher's logo. Top row left to right: Both dust cover and hard cover for Stokes, Grosset & Dunlap with two hard cover variations and another dust cover variation.  Bottom row left to right: The Triangle Books edition, with a dust cover and 3 hard cover variations and finally dustcover and  hard cover for World Publishing Company, Tower Books edition (Click on the covers to see the differences) *
 
The Sydney Mail Royal Jubilee Number, May 8. 1935

"IN his new volume, 'The Adventures of Ellery Queen' (Victor Gollancz — Dymock's), Mr. Ellery Queen has collected eleven of his short stories and grouped them under one head. Like all of this author's work, these stories are most ingenious and will test the reader's powers of deduction to the utmost. Perhaps the best of them are 'The Adventure of the African Traveller,' 'The Adventure of the Three Lame Men,' and 'The Adventure of the Seven Black Cats.' However, they are all well worth reading, despite the fact that at times the reader will feel like giving the amateur detective 'one to go on with' for being 'so beastly superior.''

 
Although a series of short-stories still an intro by JJMcC is provided. EQ's early short stories (1933 - 1935) are notable for the substance and complexity of their plots. EQ's first short story, "The One Penny Black" (1933) and "The Glass Domed Clock" (1933), share some common features. Both deal with dealers in precious objects (stamps and gems, respectively), and form a portrait of the world of collectors, anticipating The Chinese Orange Mystery. Both have an ethnic character, the first from Germany, the second from Czarist Russia. Both have a plot two levels deep, where Ellery unearths first a main plot, and then another behind it. The first story is weaker; the second is a gem that starts EQ's interest in dying messages. The early stories shows signs of influence from Morley's The Haunted Bookshop (1919) and Doyle's "The Blue Carbuncle".
The Adventures of Ellery Queen - coverMore Adventures of Ellery Queen - cover edition of reprint of the Adventures of Ellery Queen, 1940The Adventures of Ellery Queen - cover pocket book edition, Pocket Book N° 99The Adventures of Ellery Queen - cover Reader's League of America edition
The Adventures of Ellery Queen - cover pocket book edition, Pocket Book N° 99The Adventures of Ellery Queen - cover Pocket Book, #99, 1947The Adventures of Ellery Queen - cover paperback edition Signet, T4488, 1971The Adventures of Ellery Queen - cover Penguin Books 1963The Adventures of Ellery Queen - cover American edition, Otto Penzler presents American Mystery Classics, Oct 2023
"The Teakwood Case" (1933) is a quintessential early EQ, investigate a situation in-depth puzzler. It adopts the same approach as such novels as The French Powder Mystery (1930). Ellery learns more, then deduces some more, then gets deeper in  investigation, precipitating more things happening, followed by more deductions... The chain of deductions ultimately becomes very satisfying. The story also shows EQ's interest in symmetric patterns.

 "The
 "The Adventure of 'The Two-Headed Dog'" was collected in the 1934 volume The Adventures of Ellery Queen. The story is read by Mark Lagasse.  To hear the podcast click here...Two-Headed Dog" (1934) is a combination puzzle plot and "Nancy Drew type" adventure story (ghost and treasure at sinister cabin). The mystery solution is unveiled at the end, Agatha Christie style, without the sort of intermediate deductions of "The Teakwood Case". This story is quite entertaining, with good New England atmosphere, and its solution is fairly clever.

"The Hanging Acrobat" (1934) is poor, aside from some vaudeville lore; it reads as if EQ were trying to add some spice to his tales to increase their sale ability, an experiment he did not repeat, although he came close with the perversity of "The Bleeding Portrait" (1937). Some of the best tales in the collection are the last. In March 2014 EQMM's Podcast page featured 'The Adventure of the Seven Black Cats' by Ellery Queen, reprinted in EQMM's January 2016 issue, and originally published in the 1934 short-story collection The Adventures of Ellery Queen. This ingenious whodunit by one of the bestselling mystery writers of all time is read for us by Mark Lagasse. EQMM editor and West 87th Street Irregular Janet Hutchings provides an introduction to the podcast!. To hear the podcast click here..."The Seven Black Cats" (1934) is very clever. "The Mad Tea Party" (1934) is a classic of misdirection. EQ picked it as his best short story; after Agatha Christie's "The Affair at the Bungalow", it is the subtlest and most deceptive of all detective short stories. It was made into a superb and faithful TV show, as an episode of the 1975 Ellery Queen TV series (Michael E.Grost)
One of the finest deductive hours of amateur criminologist Ellery Queen occurs in “The Adventure of the Mad Tea Party.” When Ellery arrives during a thunderstorm at the isolated Long Island mansion of wealthy Richard Owens, he steps—literally—right into the midst of a scene from Alice in Wonderland. There in the living room, he sees a dormouse nearly six feet tall, a white rabbit also the size of a human being, a man in a tall beaver hat buttering toast, and a lovely, willowy girl in a child’s dress of Victorian days, with long white stockings, black pumps, and blonde hair to her waist. All are seated around a tea table. Ellery is a bit taken aback — but it’s just a rehearsal for a play skit planned as a present by Owens for his son’s ninth birthday tomorrow. The costumes have been borrowed from the Broadway hit Alice by its charming star Emily Willowes, who plays Alice to Owens’s Mad Hatter.
A fun idea for a weekend house party, but tensions that aren’t funny at all begin to flow between Owens, who gets meaner with each drink, and his bullied wife Laura, and between Gardner, the architect who built Owens’s mansion, and his red-headed, hot-eyed, restless wife and Owens’s shrewd mother-in-law. Ellery goes to bed early.
In the morning, he is greeted with startling news: sometime during the night, Owens has disappeared. Apparently, Owens is still wearing his eye-catching Mad Hatter’s costume; his other clothes are neatly in place, his bed unslept in. Ellery suggests waiting before notifying the police. Perhaps Owens has merely gone for an early morning walk — but the day wears on into evening and still there is no trace of Owens anywhere—and then the mad gifts begin to arrive at the door....
Ellery sets to work, amid puzzling clues that are Carrollesque in all their aspects, including a carefully hand-delivered letter which turns out to be absolutely empty and an electric clock that “has a disappearing quality, like the Chesire cat”—now you see it, now you don’t. Queen himself calls this “one of the most remarkable cases in my experience.”
This frequently reprinted short story is one of the finest—indeed, perhaps the finest—of all Queen’s shorter exploits. It is no wonder that authors Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee— chose this story for inclusion in their majestic anthology of the classic tales of crime and detection, 101 Years Entertainment (1941) (The Armchair Detective v19n02 [1986-Spring])
The Adventures of Ellery Queen - dust cover edition, Victor Gollancz, London, 1935 (Black hardcover, with red lettering on spine)The Adventures of Ellery Queen - cover Victor Gollancz, London, 1936The Adventures of Ellery Queen - cover Victor Gollancz, London, 1941The Adventures of Ellery Queen - cover eBook edition MysteriousPress.com/Open Road, February 5, 2013The Adventures of Ellery Queen - cover audiobook Blackstone Audio, Inc., read by Traber Burns, November 1. 2015
 
Brisbane Telegraph - "Flow of Fiction", July 6. 1935

"The same qualities of superiority pervade the eleven short stories that comprise the volume of "Adventures." Here again, there is resourceful invention wedded to a fertile imagination and a ready wit, an innate sense of humor providing a leaven of quiet fun which adds piquancy to situations that are usually grim enough. There is excellent entertainment in these miscellaneous specimens of the Queen detective instinct."

 
 


De Avonturen van EQ - coverDe Avonturen van Ellery Queen - coverLes aventures d'Ellery Queen - cover French edition Editions de la Nouvelle Revue Critique, Collection l'Empreinte N°124, august 1937Les aventures d'Ellery Queen - cover French edition Nouvelles Editions Oswald, 1983Il Cane Con Due Teste - cover Italian edition , Garzanti, Collana Amena N°56, 1949.Il Signor Queen L'eretico avventuroso - dustcover Italian edition, Feltrinelli, 1963Il Signor Queen L'eretico avventuroso - hardcover Italian edition, Feltrinelli, 1963
Le avventure di Ellery Queen - cover Italian edition, series  'I racconti di', N°1, 1984Delitti Sotto L'Albero - Cover Italian edition SuperGiallo Mondadori, N°28 Nov 2004 (The Adventures and The New Adventures of ...)As Aventuras de Ellery Queen - cover Portuguese edition, Coleccao-XIS, Lisboa, Minerva, 1961Aventuras de Ellery Queen - cover Argentinian edition editada por Libreria Hachette, november 1944. Serie naranja nº 93Las aventuras de Ellery Queen - Cover Spanish edition, Colección Polismen nº 26, Ediciones Picazo, Barcelona 1974Las aventuras de Ellery Queen - Cover Spanish edition Ciudad de Libros (eBook)Περιπέτειες του Έλλερυ Κουήν - cover Greek edition, 1943

The Adventures of Ellery Queen Translations*:  
Chinese: 昆恩探案系列  
Danish: Hvem dræbte  
Dutch/Flemish: De avonturen van Ellery Queen  
French: Les aventures d'Ellery Queen  
Greek: Περιπέτειες του Έλλερυ Κουήν  
Indonesian: Tiga Tjerita Detective  
Italian: Le avventure di Ellery Queen  
aka Il Cane Con Due Teste  
aka Delitti Sotto L'Albero
  
aka Il Signor Queen L'eretico avventuroso)  
Japanese: エラリイ・クイーンの冒険 (erari-kui-nnobouken)  
 双頭の犬 (Two Headed Dog)  
なぞのゆうれいイヌ (Two Headed Dog)  
七匹の黒猫 (The Seven Black Cats)  
ハッター家の秘密 (The Mad Tea Party)  
Korean:엘러리 퀸의 모험   
Portuguese: As Aventuras de Ellery Queen  
Spanish: Las aventuras de Ellery Queen  
Russian: Приключения Эллери Квина  
(or as separate stories) Божественный свет (Lamp of God)  
Загадка «Черного» дома (Lamp of God aka House of Haunts)
  
 Безумное чаепитие (The Mad Tea-Party)
  
Приключение с семью чёрными кошками (
The Seven Black Cats)  
Смерть акробатки aka Повешенная акробатка (The Hanging Acrobat)
  
Thai:
หมาสองหัว และประพฤติการณ์ตอนอื่นๆ  
aka สุภาพสตรีมีเครา และประพฤติการณ์ตอนอื่นๆ
  

หมาสองหัว และประพฤติการณ์ตอนอื่นๆ - cover Thai edition of "The Two-Headed Dog" with 8 other stories, 2008สุภาพสตรีมีเครา และประพฤติการณ์ตอนอื่นๆ - cover Thai edition "The Adventure of the Bearded Lady", April 2008Любимый цирк - cover Russian compilation, stories about the art of circus, about the images of circus actors. Contains "The adventure of the Hanging acrobat" aka "The Girl on the Trapeze" by Ellery Queen, Искусство, 1974.Дорогами приключений N°2 (Roads of Adventure) - cover Russian compilation, anthology with several sciencefiction and detective stories, contains Ellery Queen's "Lamp of God", publisher  Новосибирское кн. изд-во, Novosibirsk, 1990.Заглянуть вперёд… - cover Russian compilation, contains "The Mad Tea-Party" ( Безумное чаепитие), Mileta (Милета),  St Petersburg, 1991.Заглянуть вперёд… - cover variation Russian compilation, contains "The Mad Tea-Party" ( Безумное чаепитие), Mileta (Милета),  St Petersburg, 1991.
Заглянуть вперёд… - cover variation Russian compilation, contains "The Mad Tea-Party" ( Безумное чаепитие), Mileta (Милета),  St Petersburg, 1991.Загадка «Черного» дома - cover Russian compilation, 3 stories with Ellery Queen's "The Lamp of God" aka "House of Haunts" (Загадка «Черного» дома), publisher Воениздат, Moscow, 1991.Советский воин №6, 1991 - cover Russian Magazine (Soviet fighter), contains Ellery Queen's "Lamp of God" (Загадка чёрного дома), 1991Красный сигнал. Эриманфский вепрь. Божественный свет - softcover Russian compilation, contains two Agatha Christie stories "The Red Signal", "Erymanthian Boar" and Ellery Queen's "Lamp of God", Publisher Прейскурантиздат, Moscow, 1991Сериал острых сюжетов 2 (Sharp Plot Series N°2) - cover Russian Magazine, anthology of short-stories contains Ellery Queen's "The Mad Tea-Party" (Приключения на безумном чаепитии), 1992.Трагедия «Y» - cover Russian compilation, contains 5 stories, Earl Derr Biggers "" (Дом без ключа), Ellery Queen's "The Tragedy of Y" (Трагедия «Y»),  Octavus Roy Cohen's "The Mystery of the Missing Wash"(Тайна исчезнувшего белья), Ellery Queen's shortstory "The Mad tea Party" (Приключения на безумном чаепитии) & F. Tennyson Jesse's "Treasure Trove"(Сокровище), Publisher Sanan (Санан), Elista, 1992.
Зарубежный детектив. Том 2 (Foreign Detectives, part 2) - softcover Russian compilation, Part 2 of a collection of selected works in 16 volumes. This volume contains 7 stories by different authors, it includes Ellery Queen's "The Mad Tea-party", publisher Stem (Голос), 1992.Расследует инспектор Квин part of omnibus "Тайна Карен Лейт" - dust cover Russian edition, contains "The Door Between" (Тайна Карен Лейт), "The Lamp of God" (Божественный свет), "A study in terror" (Неизвестная рукопись доктора Ватсона) and "Inspector Queen's Own investigation" (Расследует инспектор Квин), 1993Расследует инспектор Квин part of omnibus "Тайна Карен Лейт" - hardcover Russian edition, contains "The Door Between" (Тайна Карен Лейт), "The Lamp of God" (Божественный свет), "A study in terror" (Неизвестная рукопись доктора Ватсона) and "Inspector Queen's Own investigation" (Расследует инспектор Квин), 1993Детективы «Сельской молодёжи». Выпуск 4 (Detectives of the Rural Youth N° 4) - hard cover Russian edition, contained Francoise Giroud's "Blackmail", Stein Riverton "The Iron Chariot" and Ellery Queen's "The Lamp of God", all stories were previously released in the magazine "Rural youth" («Сельская молодежь»), 1993.Костер, пылающий в ночи - cover Russian compilation, contains Mary Stewart's "Wildfire at midnight" (Костер, пылающий в ночи), Victoria Holt's "The Secret Woman" & Ellery Queen's shortstory "The Mad Tea Party", Publisher Terra (Терра), 1997Рептилия - cover Russian compilation, anthology contains "The Seven Black Cats" ( Безумное чаепитие),  Вече, 2006  (cover singer Tatyana Petrova)
Рептилия - cover Russian compilation, anthology contains "The Seven Black Cats",  Вече, 2006.Дом Брасса - cover Russian compilation, includes "The Adventures of Ellery Queen" (Приключения Эллери Квина) & "The House of Brass" (Дом Брасса), publisher Centrograph (Центрполиграф), 2006.Всё, что в тебе есть (Everything you got) - dustcover Russian Fanzine, collection dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the translations of Yuri Sokolov, (very) limited edition (20 copies!) contains a massive amount of short-stories, Ellery Queen's "The Seven Black Cats",  Publisher Мой Друг Фантастика, Kiev, 2015Всё, что в тебе есть (Everything you got) - hardcover Russian Fanzine, collection dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the translations of Yuri Sokolov, (very) limited edition (20 copies!) contains a massive amount of short-stories, Ellery Queen's "The Seven Black Cats",  Publisher Мой Друг Фантастика, Kiev, 2015«Если свет твой — тьма...» - dustcover Russian Fanzine, collection dedicated to the translations of Yuri Sokolov, limited edition contains a massive amount of short-stories, Ellery Queen's "The Seven Black Cats",  Publisher  Проект "Самиздат", Charkov, 2016.«Если свет твой — тьма...» - hardcover Russian Fanzine, collection dedicated to the translations of Yuri Sokolov, limited edition contains a massive amount of short-stories, Ellery Queen's "The Seven Black Cats",  Publisher  Проект "Самиздат", Charkov, 2016.
Криминальное чтиво и не только (Pulp Fiction and Beyond) - cover Russian compilation, contains "The Adventure of The Seven Black Cats",  Published by АСТ: Corpus, Moscow, 2020 (Actually December 2019)Tiga Tjerita Detective - cover Indonesian edition, short-story collection containing 3 stories ("The Bearded Lady", "The Hollow Dragon" and "The Treasure Hunt"), Editions Bitan Saka Widya, Djakara, 1965The Adventure of Ellery Queen (sic) - cover Japanese edition, part 11 The Collected Works of Ellery Queen (12 volumes), Somatosha, about 1957 (shown without protective box)双頭の犬 - Cover Japanese edition of The Adventure of the Double-Headed Dog and The Adventure of the Penny Black, educational publication, Nov 1959The Adventures of Ellery Queen - cover Japanese edition, Tokyo Sogensha, June 9. 1961ハッター家の秘密 (The Mad Tea Party) - cover Japanese edition, educational publication, May 1961
The Adventures of Ellery Queen - cover Japanese edition, Tokyo Sogensha - Somoto Reasoning Paper, Jun 2. 1962双頭の犬 - Cover Japanese edition of The Adventure of the Double-Headed Dog, educational publication Sep 1967七匹の黒猫 (The Seven Black Cats) - cover Japanese edition, eductional edition Oct 1968The Two-Headed Dog/The Seven Black Cats - cover Japanese edition containing three stories (The Siamese Twin Mystery being the third), published by Tsuru Shobo SeikoSha  なぞのゆうれいイヌ - Cover Japanese edition of The Adventure of the Double-Headed Dog, educational publication Jan 1974七匹の黒ネコの冒険他 (世界の名探偵 5) - cover Japanese edition shortstory collection with "The Adventure of the Seven Black Cats",  Iwasaki Shoten, Feb.15 2001 also includes "The Dead Cat" + "The Telltale Bottle" (from Calendar of Crime)
The Adventures of Ellery Queen - cover Japanese edition, 2018, translation by Yuki NakamuraThe Adventures of Ellery Queen - cover Taiwanese edition, 1990sThe Adventures of Ellery Queen - cover Taiwanese edition, January 20. 1997The Adventures of Ellery Queen - cover Taiwanese edition, Face Press, July 2005엘러리 퀸의 모험(The Adventures of Ellery Queen) - cover South-Korean edition,  Sigma Books, Aug 1 1995엘러리 퀸의 모험(The Adventures of Ellery Queen) - cover South-Korean edition, Dongsuh Mystery Books, 검은숲, Jun 1. 2003


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Other articles on this book
(1) Reading Ellery Queen - The Teakwood Case Jon Mathewson
(2) Reading Ellery Queen - The One-Penny Black Jon Mathewson
(3) Reading Ellery Queen - The African Traveler Jon Mathewson
(4) Reading Ellery Queen - The Two-Headed Dog Jon Mathewson
(5) Reading Ellery Queen - The Hanging Acrobat Jon Mathewson
(6) Reading Ellery Queen - The Three Lame Men Jon Mathewson
(7) Reading Ellery Queen - The Glass-Domed Clock Jon Mathewson
(8) Reading Ellery Queen - The Mad Tea Party Jon Mathewson
(9) Reading Ellery Queen - The Seven Black Cats Jon Mathewson
(10) Reading Ellery Queen - The Invisible Lover Jon Mathewson
(11) Reading Ellery Queen - The Bearded Lady Jon Mathewson
(12) Dead Yesterday Nov 12. 2022
 
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