I became hooked on the Queen stories in the 70s, at the time Queen was widely translated and freely available in Dutch pockets. I knew little about the special relationship between Frederic Dannay and Manfred B.Lee or indeed about the character of Ellery Queen. I soon realized there was a huge difference in quality between the books. If Ellery appeared in them content was good, if not quality varied, with the one exception made for Drury Lane. The playfulness of the scenario, the use of puzzle's, the format,... who knows what attracted me most but I soon had a list of books which could only have been written by a man who did nothing else! A oeuvre of about 60 books... how could this be? I started a collection not knowing where it would end...  When "pockets" became less popular this "shortage" drove me toward "English" publications. Here I met JJMcC which was cruelly left out the Dutch translations. It became more and more difficult to find the books and I became greatly dependent on second-hand stores. It thrilled me to bits when, in some dusty bookstore, I discovered a Queen "new" to my collection, and frankly incomparable to the emotion when I found a missing Queen on the internet! 

In 1997 the net came to my house...  After some time I wanted to start a website of my own. Not one with personal blah-blah-blah but with content, content useful to the visitor. If all webmasters would do the same the net can remain a interesting place to spend some time. My first idea was to start a website on Tolkien. But several sites on the subject already existed and had done a great job! So what other subject I could talk about? Well, there was the small collection Queen-stories... I did collect text, articles,... on the subject and tried to 'cut and paste' my way through what grew into a large volume of information. Too few sites, in my opinion, do justice to this writer who started of in the late twenties and made it through into the seventies. He made maximum use of the media at that time and is now, I feel, grossly neglected. I hoped the site fired up more interest in the Ellery Queen stories...

Although my knowledge of the English language takes me through all of the Queen books, it is hardly my native tongue. I first intended to create a Dutch site, but this would have left out a large portion of the public. The net could indeed be a prolific medium so I have added my thoughts to those of others and came up with something new. The website doesn't aim at mainstream-visitors...but for a interested reader(fan) it wants to give all available information on a wonderful partnership. No small objective and doing just that has given me the opportunity to make some friends...which is more than one can hope for! The response came from widely across the globe: China, Thailand, France, United States, Netherlands and even my own country Belgium. It created friendships, discussions and contacts which I value to this day. The willingness to share information, send tapes, scans, books sometimes for free is contradictory to the "bad press" the internet sometimes receives.  I have found this site has given me as much back as I've put into it. Meanwhile, whatever the reason you stopped by, I'm honored to have you as my guest, please enjoy my site. 

Damme, Belgium     
April 2002