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WHODUNIT ?
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t's
hard to imagine that it was as early as the late 20s when the two Queen cousins worked in
N.Y. as advertising agents,became one person. Anthony Boucher placed his substantial historical and literary significance in a 1951 interview: "The detective story itself was an American invention; and after a long period of British pre-eminence, Ellery Queen as writer and editor has done as much as anyone (and probably more) to make it once more an American possession. . . Ellery Queen IS the American detective story". It's one of the most famous quotes in the history of the genre, and one of the truest. |
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Cousins Lee and Dannay were not only the creators of the character Ellery Queen, one of the most successful in history, they (especially Dannay) did more to support and nurture detective fiction in that country than anyone else. Dannay himself speculated about the possible future significance of the mysteries, "In 20 or 30 years, the literary historians will go back to the good mystery novel to find out what was really going on. Our books are as much a canvas of their time as the books by Proust were of his time." |
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(video by the Mysterious Press and Mysterious Bookshop) |
 y the end of
the century the author's ideas and plots have been so many times copied and
"slightly" altered it is easy to forget the genius behind the masterfully plotted stories.
Ellery Queen is the last of the great classical detectives
were the plot of the mystery is always paramount, far more important than
characterization, social relevance, great writing, or anything else. The
classical detectives don't have personalities, they have mannerisms.
Obviously, this focus on the puzzle aspect of the whodunit lends itself well
to short-stories -- we shouldn't forget that the whole mystery genre was for
decades primarily focused on stories rather than novels; nowadays, very few
crime writers can do a good short whodunit, and even these accomplish the
task largely by referring to the characterizations they have established in
previous novels. However, here the puzzles are good, scrupulously observing
the fair-play rules of the classic whodunit: in fact, there is usually a
clear demarcation just before the solution to the puzzle, so that the reader
will have a chance to take a stab at the case. The topics of the various
stories run the familiar gamut of classical short story territory, including
rare books, vanishing trains, poisonings over inheritances, and dying
messages identifying the killer. As true representative of "literature" Ellery Queen has found his equal but not so in de development of a detective-story with all the playful accessories he made his own. It is far more difficult to differentiate between the figure Ellery Queen who appears in the books and Ellery Queen, the "real writer" and pseudonym for two cousins (or even the two cousins as separate persons) than at first one could expect. In true Ellery Queen style the dates on which the cousins were born and died were often interchanged (even by very renowned sources). Confusion all around as even the places are not exactly the same. |
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October 20. 1905, Brooklyn (Kings), N.Y. City - September 3. 1982, White Plains, N.Y.
January 11. 1905, Brooklyn (Kings), N.Y. - April 3. 1971 (8 pm EST) Roxbury close to Waterbury |
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| Note: Nowadays (2018) access to genealogical sites has become more common. David Nathan is confirmed as being born on October 20. However Emanuel Lepofsky has a birth certificate on file which says January 12. not January 11. Rand B. Lee informed us the following "On his certificate of death my father's birth is listed as January 11. 1905; we always celebrated his birth on January 11th; he always claimed that was his birthday, and his sisters, my aunts, confirmed it many times. January 12th is an error in the document." | |
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Reproduced Newspaper articles:
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| Introduction | Floor Plan | Q.B.I. |
List of Suspects | Whodunit? | Q.E.D. | Kill as directed | New | Copyright Copyright © MCMXCIX-MMXXIV Ellery Queen, a website on deduction. All rights reserved. |
aniel (David)
Nathan alias
anford
(Emanuel) Lepofsky alias 
