Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} The First Omnibus Featuring And Archie Goodwin The Second The First Rex Stout Omnibus: Featuring Nero Wolfe And Archie Goodwin: " The Doorbell Rang " " " And " More Deaths Than One " by Rex Stout. TimeSearch for Books and Writers by Bamber Gascoigne. American author, who wrote over 70 detective novels, 46 of them featuring eccentric, chubby, beer drinking gourmet sleuth Nero Wolfe, whose wisecracking aide and right hand assistant in crime solving was Archie Goodwin. Stout began his literary career by writing for pulp magazines, publishing romance, adventure, some borderline detective stories. After 1938 he focused solely on the mystery field. Rex Stout was born in Noblesville, Indiana, the son of John Wallace Stout and Lucetta Elizabeth Todhunter. They both were Quakers. Shortly after his birth, the family moved to Wakarusa, Kansas. Stout was educated at Topeka High School, and at University of Kansas, Lawrence, which he left to enlist in the Navy. From 1906 to 1908 he served as a Yeoman on President Theodore Roosevelt's yacht. The following years Stout spent writing freelance articles and working in odd jobs – as an office boy, store clerk, bookkeeper, and hotel manager. With his brother he invented an astonishing savings plans, the Educational Thrift Service, for school children. The system was installed in 400 cities throughout the USA, earning Stout about $400,000 and making him financially secure. In 1916 Stout married Fay Kennedy of Topeka, Kansas. They separated in 1931 – according to a story, she eloped with a Russian commissar – and Stout married Pola Hoffman, a fabric designer. Stout's first writings appeared in the 1910s among others in All-Story Magazine. He went to sell articles and stories to a variety of magazines. A stalwart opponent of censorship, he helped to republish Arthur Machen's barred translation of Casanova's Memoirs . In 1927 Stout became a full- time writer. Much of his money he had made as a businessman he lost in the Stock Market Crash. After publishing four moderately well-received novels, among them How Like a God (1929), an unusual psychological story written in the second person, Stout turned to the form of . Stout's mentally and physically great hero is Nero Wolfe, the 286-pound detective. Basically he is a man of intellect who sees himself as an artist. Noteworthy, by the age of nine, Stout himself had been recognized as a prodigy in arithmetic and he had an IQ of 185, but the character was not a self portrait – actually Wolfe had many of the characteristics of Stout's father, who had died in 1934. Wolfe's daily beer consumption is a marvel, he has yellow silk pyjamas, and he loves orchids. He is a gourmet who eats a whole eight-pound goose in the course of a single day. At eight-fifteen Wolfe enjoys breakfast in his room on the second floor of his house on West Thirty-fifth Street – "orange juice, eggs au beurre noir , two slices of boiled Georgia ham, hashed brown potatoes, hot blueberry muffins, and a pot of steaming cocoa." (from Over My Dead Body , 1940) Wolfe's associates are occasionally invited to dinner, customarily served at seven-thirty. The extraordinary meals are prepared by Fritz Brenner, Wolfe's personal chef. Goodwin's primary function is to serve as the ears and eyes of his eccentric employer, not his brains. Occasionally he criticizes Wolfe's extreme political viewpoints. The young operative was introduced in the novel Fer-Der-Lance (1934), which appeared first as a serial in the Saturday Evening Post . It was followed by The League of Frightened Men in 1935. The critic and awarded mystery writer H.R.F. Keating included it among the 100 best crime and mystery books ever published. Archie suggests in the story that Wolfe steps out from his apartment. Wolfe answers "I don't know why you persists in trying to badger me into frantic sorties." The book was adapted into screen in 1937, directed by Alfred E. Green. Meet nero Wolfe (1936), loosely based on Fer-de-Lance , was a surprise success, starring Edward Arnold. In the later attempt Lionel Stander played again Archie Goodwin, but Arnold was replaced by Walter Connolly. "Hardly any audience likes to watch a character who just sits and thinks," wrote a sour critic in Variety . The phenomenally fat private eye gained wide popularity from the start. Stout wrote prolifically one Nero Wolfe adventure in a year – from the 1940s some times several – until the end of his life. Usually he finished a book in about 40 days. The first draft was the final draft. Like Isaac Asimov, he never rewrote or redrafted his stories. 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), in which the disappearance of the US President causes a near-future crisis. In an earlier work, Under the Andes (1914, All-Story Magazine), Stout described an underground lost world of dwarf Incas. The form of detective fiction did not prevent him from touching upon political and social questions. Already in (1938), Wolfe argued for racial equality as Stout's mouthpiece. Its sequel, (1964), dealt with civil rights movement. During the WW II Stout cut back on his detective writing, joined the Fight for Freedom organization, and wrote propaganda, that encouraged to support Roosevelt and American involvement in WW II. Charles Lindbergh, who supported American neutrality, was one of the targets of his criticism. Stout hosted three weekly radio shows, 'Speaking of Liberty,' and coordinated volunteer services of American writers to help the war effort. To relax from the burdens of office, FDR sometimes read Wolfe stories. During his first term as president, Dwight D. Eisenhower read Prisoner's Base (1952) while recovering from a heat attack. After the war Stout returned to his 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. In 1959 he received Grand Master Award from the latter organization. With the outbreak of the Cold War, Wolfe rejected communism in The Second Confession (1949) because it is "intellectually contemptible and morally unsound." Stout was active in liberal causes, and ignored a subpoena from the House Un-American Activities Committee at the height of the McCarthy era. Wolfe declared in the story 'Home to Roost' (1952) that "I deplore the current tendency to accuse people of pro-communism irresponsibly and unjustly." The Doorbell Rang from 1965 ridiculed FBI agents – in an interview Stout labelled Hoover as megalomanic, egocentrinc, and narrowminded. Behind the Iron Curtain, Stout was a highly popular writer, though his books were available mostly in contraband editions. The Black Mountain (1954) sent Wolfe and Goodwin to the Balkans, where they witness corruption, cruelty, inequality, and despotism. In Over My Dead Body (1939) Stout had revealed that Wolfe was in Montenegro, which later became a part of Tito's Yugoslavia. Stout helped to form the Committee to Protest Absurd Censorship but his hawkish stance on Vietnam alienated many liberal friends from him. Between 1969 and 1973 he wrote no novels at all. Stout died on October 27, 1975. Just a month before his death he had published his 72nd Nero Wolfe mystery, having no plans bury his hero as Agatha Christie did it both with Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. In the late 1980s, the writer Robert Goldsborough started to continue the series. Selected works: Her Forbidden Knight, 1913 (in All-Story Magazine) Under the Andes, 1914 (in All-Story Magazine) A Prize for Princes, 1914 (in All-Story Weekly) The Great Legend, 1916 (in All-Story Weekly) How Like a God, 1929 Seed on the Wind, 1930 Golden Remedy, 1931 Forest Fire, 1933 Fer-de-Lance, 1934 - Keih�sk��rme (suom. Reijo Kalvas, 1989) The President Vanishes, 1934 O Careless Love!, 1935 A Question of Proof, 1935 The League of Frightened Men, 1935 - Pelokkaitten miesten liitto (suom. Reijo Lehtonen, 1990) , 1936 - Puuttuva lenkki (suomentanut Reijo Kalvas, 1991) , 1937 - Punaisen rasian arvoitus (suom. Reijo Lehtonen, 1987) The Hand in the Glove, 1937 Mr. Cinderella , 1938 Too Many Cooks, 1938 - Liian monta kokkia (suom. Eila Pennanen, 1979) Mountain Cat, 1939 Double For Death, 1939 Red Threads, 1939 , 1939 (as The Red Bull, 1945) - Caesar on kuollut (suom. Eero Ahmavaara, 1957) Bad For Business, 1940 Over My Dead Body, 1940 - Yli kuolleen ruumiini (suomentanut Eila Pennanen, 1992) Where There's a Will, 1940 - Miss� on testamentti. (suom. suomentanut Eila Pennanen, 1993) Alphabe Hics, 1941 (as The Sound of Murder, 1965) The Illustrious Dunderhead, 1942 (ed.) Sequel to the Apocalypse: The Uncensored Story How Your Dimes and Quarters Helped Pay for Hitler's War / John Boylan, 1942 (foreword by Rex Stout; illustrated by William Sharp) , 1944 Not Quite Dead Enough, 1944 - Ei aivan tarpeeksi kuollut (suom. P�ivi Kalenius, 1992) The Silent Speaker, 1946 - Kadonnut ��ni (suom. Eero Ahmavaara, 1954) Rue Morgue No. 1, 1946 (ed., with Louis Greenfield) , 1947 - Liian monta naista (suom. Reijo Lehtonen, 1977) , 1948 (UK title: More Deaths Than One) - Liian monta kuolemaa (suom. Eero Ahmavaara, 1954) Trouble in Triplicate, 1949 The Second Confession, 1949 - Toinen tunnustus (suom. Eila Pennanen ja Hanno Vammelvuo, 1994) Three Doors to Death, 1950 , 1950 (UK title: Even in the Best Families) - Parhaissakin perheiss� (suom. Eero Ahmavaara, 1959) , 1951 - Kuoleman k�sikirjoitus (suom. Timo Martin, 1966) Curtains for Three, 1951 Prisoner's Base, 1952 (UK title: Out Goes She) - Nero Wolfe pesee k�tens� (suomentanut: Hanno Vammelvuo, 1994) , 1952 , 1953 - Kultaiset h�m�h�kit (suom. Reijo Kalvas, 1990) The Black Mountain, 1954 - Mustan vuoren varjossa (suom. Olli-Pekka R�nn, 1987) Three Men Out, 1954 , 1955 - Ennen keskiy�t� (suom. Seppo Virtanen, 1959) , 1956 - Viitt� vaille vainaja (suom. Kalevi Nyyt�j�, 1971) , 1956 Eat, Drink, and Be Buried, 1956 (UK title: For Tomorrow We Die, 1958) Three for the Chair, 1957 - Liian monta etsiv�� (suom. Sirkka-Liisa Sj�blom, 1992) , 1957 - Jos kuolema uinahtaa (suom. Reijo Lehtonen, 1972) , 1958 (UK title: Crime and Again, 1959) , 1959 - Sampanjaa yhdelle (suom. Eero Ahmavaara ja Martti Montonen, 1963) Plot It Yourself, 1959 (UK title: Murder in Style, 1960) - Murhaajan tyyliin (suomentanut Kristiina Rikman, 1995) Three at Wolfe's Door, 1960 , 1960 - Liian monta asiakasta (suom. Reijo Lehtonen, 1981) , 1961 - Lopullinen ratkaisu (suom. Kari Nenonen, 1988) Homicide Trinity, 1962 , 1962 - Viimeinen siirto (suomentanut Kalevi Nyyt�j�, 1995) The Mother Hunt, 1963 - L�yt�lapsi (suom. Sauli Sipil�, 1965) A Right to Die, 1964 - Oikeus kuolla (suom. Eila Pennanen, Hanno Vammelvuo, 1980) Trio for Blunt Instruments, 1964 The Doorbell Rang, 1965 - Ovikello soi (suom. Eila Pennanen, 1967) Death of a Doxy, 1966 - Murha makuuhuoneessa (suom. Hilkka Pekkanen) , 1968 - Is�t�n tytt� (suomentanut Kalevi Nyyt�j�, 1996) , 1969 - Kes�vieraana kuolema (suomentanut Kalevi Nyyt�j�, 1996) , 1973 - Kuolema p�yt�laatikossa (suomentanut Kalevi Nyyt�j�, 1997) The Nero Wolfe Cookbook, 1973 (with others) , 1975 - Nero Wolfen viimeinen juttu (suomentanut Kalevi Nyyt�j�, 1997) Corsage: A Bouquet of Rex Stout and Nero Wolfe, 1977 Justice Ends at Home and Other Stories, 1977 (ed. John McAleer) Death Times Three, 1985 (introduction by John J. McAleer) Target Practice, 1998 An Officer and a Lady and Other Stories, 2000. Some rights reserved Petri Liukkonen (author) & Ari Pesonen. Kuusankosken kaupunginkirjasto 2008. A Stout Fellow. David Langford flips idly through some 1992 Nero Wolfe reissues. The point is not so much whether Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe is one of the great detectives. It is that Wolfe and his narrator Archie Goodwin are a good bet for second place in the altogether more exclusive ranks of great detective double-acts (after the inevitable Holmes and Watson). The combination of ponderous, Johnsonian Wolfe with wisecracking Archie remains almost irresistible, almost all the time. Now that the Wolfe books are being reissued in Scribners hardback and Sphere paperback [1992] , it's worth a look back at the fat private eye's career. He had a long run despite his vast weight of one-seventh of a ton (the exact figure varies, but not as much as I thought before recalling that the American ton is only a mingy 2000 lb). It starts at the tail-end of Prohibition as Wolfe samples legal alternatives to his usual bootleg beer in the opening scene of Fer-de- Lance (1934), and finishes in the context of his aching wish to help unravel the tangles of Watergate and pin the big one on Nixon ( A Family Affair , 1975, the year of Rex Stout's death at age 89). I prefer to ignore the works by Other Hands which have caused him to shamble massively on beyond the grave, like Tor Johnson in Plan 9 From Outer Space . In a series so protracted, it's hard to maintain a steady level of quality. Once he'd played himself in, Stout managed a thoroughly convincing illusion of doing so, by careful handling of his regular props: Wolfe's gluttony, agoraphobia, pedantry, laziness, erudition, misogyny and manic refusal to assist the police; his bickering love/annoyance relationship with Archie (secretary, legman, gadfly and cocklebur); the obsessive devotion to the orchid collection from nine to eleven and four to six each day; the cameo appearances from live-in chef Fritz Brenner, from crafty Saul Panzer and the other freelance operatives, from the increasingly maddened and cigar- chewing Inspector Cramer . and so on. The best unifying device of all is Archie's sprightly narrative style, which reliably conveys the impression that things are bubbling along excitingly even when in fact they aren't. There are some hiccups. Wolfe's tremendous personality and his whole bizarre household on West 35th St, New York (the street number varies), didn't wholly come into focus in the first book, which is only to be expected of a trial balloon. (Nevertheless the second, The League Of Frightened Men from 1935, is among the best, with some twisty morbid psychology.) The 1940 When There's A Will lapses badly from the standard which had by then been set, thanks to pulp stuff like a fearful scarred lady in a veil who tends to vanish mysteriously into the draperies. Not to mention some wholly undecipherable photographic clues which must have helped to make this the least reprinted Wolfe novel. Our man accuses the murderer on the damning grounds that, in the photo, 'The flower in your buttonhole is a . wild rose,' – while (a) strain as they may, readers can see nothing but a tiny white dot, and (b) the photographs also show totally leafless trees in what is supposed to be July, a far more blatant clue that the photographer must have been up to no good. The US publishers who'd made this cock-up received so many complaining letters that they fudged up an explanation about some hideous defoliating blight which Wolfe knew of and had discounted without actually bothering to mention the fact. As the great man himself would have said: Pfui. For the long haul, familiar trappings are not enough: we need shocks. Stout's favourite way of disrupting the expected order of things was usually, and in the end perhaps rather too often, to have Wolfe wrenched from his beloved desk, table and bed. We can believe his visiting the odd gourmet restaurant or flower show (especially when consumed with envy at a rival collector's display of black orchids), and still more so his being arrested by enraged cops as a material witness – but dislocation does become a trifle hard to take in The Black Mountain (1954). This would be slickly inoffensive action-adventure if it weren't for our difficulty in accepting that the vast and adipose Wolfe, even to avenge his best friend, is capable of tottering across large tracts of Montenegro, climbing mountains, sleeping rough on narrow ledges, and even getting into a knife fight. Nevertheless, while you're reading them, the effortless-seeming but highly polished narrative propels you smoothly over mere implausibilities. Even when Wolfe takes on and defeats the FBI by outrageous mummery in The Doorbell Rang (1965, called in Dilys Wynn's Murder Ink the 'most overrated Wolfe'), it is only some time after emerging from Stout's glorious piece of wish-fulfilment that chilly hindsight begins to say, 'It couldn't actually have worked.' It worked for long enough – until the page after THE END . The more insidious problems against which the books contend are that we never get as many Wolfe or Wolfe-and-Archie scenes as we'd like, and that often there is not enough plot to fill the vehicle of a standard novel. Problem one, articulated by Kingsley Amis in his 1966 essay 'Unreal Policemen', is forgivable. One can sense that topnotch Nero Wolfe speeches were damnably difficult to write, and that he needs to be taken in seemly moderation. Here he is at his wit's end, 'reflecting in desperation . on a diphthong' as his aides exchange worried glances: 'Tenuous almost to nullity, it was unworthy of consideration. It still is. But I'm bereft, and it's a fact.' ( A Right To Die , 1964. Parodists usually dwell on polysyllables while neglecting the short words that clinch a speech like this.) We have enough Wolfe to satisfy, and Archie is always fun. Problem two was stated and overstated by critic Edmund Wilson in one of his periodic bashes at genre fiction, 'Why Do People Read Detective Stories?' (1944). Wolfe himself he 'rather enjoyed', while feeling the novels 'seemed to have been somewhat padded, for they were full of long episodes that led nowhere and had no real business in the story'. Warming to his theme, Wilson summed up the case for the prosecution: 'I finally got to feel that I had to unpack large crates by swallowing the excelsior in order to find at the bottom a few bent and rusty nails . I even began to mutter that the real secret that Author Rex Stout had been screening by his false scents and interminable divagations was a meagreness of imagination of which one only came to realize the full ghastliness when the last chapter had left one blank.' Now if 'classical' detective fans can curb their righteous rage for a moment, they might on reflection agree that there is a tinge of truth in this. The classic Holmesian or Father Brownian detective tale is a short story, having one clever knot of ingenuity at its heart. A great deal more than one perfect ingenuity is needed to fill out a novel, and unless there's an utterly fiendish tangle of plot on plot, there are likely to be irrelevancies, digressions and patent delaying actions. Even the maestro Conan Doyle padded out and broke the backs of two Holmes novels with massive historical flashbacks sadly lacking in Holmes (does everyone else skip those bits of A Study in Scarlet and The Valley of Fear , too?). Even John Dickson Carr could spend altogether too much time on highly routine 'love interest', and Dorothy Sayers too long ransacking her dictionary of quotations. Stout's 'realistic' detective scenario allows for plenty of good clean fun without too much actual development. Wolfe may throw a tantrum and block the action for days. Vital evidence can take time for even Panzer and the other freelances to track down, while Wolfe pessimizes loud and long over the thousands of men the police (who have no chance) have assigned to the same task. Chapters of ingenuity may be needed to lure a recalcitrant suspect to West 35th Street for a marathon session of 'ten thousand questions'. Archie can always be arrested and divert us by his supreme cool under interrogation (not to mention the tense question of whether he'll beat his record for infuriating Lieutenant Rowcliffe into stuttering). Invariably readable, but sometimes it seems painfully true that the plot is spinning in neutral – at least in the chill light of hindsight. My favourite example is in Murder in Style alias Plot It Yourself (1959), where after a brilliant early coup Wolfe sits on his vast bottom brooding, with increasing self-recrimination, and generally doing nothing while the ripples of his unwontedly clumsy investigation cause three-quarters of the suspects to be murdered. For those who think brevity is the soul of detection there are in fact a goodly number of Wolfe novellas, gathered into collections of two, four or (mostly) three stories. These are generally taut, concentrated and successful, include many of my favourite Wolfeisms, and are singularly hard to find – few have seen British paperback editions in living memory, even when most of the novels were being regularly reprinted by Penguin or Fontana. Is this the traditional caution of publishers, following the well-known adage 'The Public Doesn't Buy Short Stories'? A pity if so. The books chosen for this year's [1992] British relaunch of Wolfe are The Red Box (1937 – it says '1936' in this edition), Over My Dead Body (1940), Even In The Best Families (1950) and Champagne For One (1958 – here it mysteriously says '1952, First Edition published in 1959'). According to me these are all good entertainment and representative of Stout, although the early The Red Box does admittedly have an example of those plot jams during the long and unsuccessful search for the fatal box itself . also one of those bits of portentous but inadequately baffling mystification common in crime fiction though rare in Stout, which blows the murderer's name rather too soon if you can remember a trace of schoolday Latin. But there are several nice ingenuities and set-pieces: Wolfe dragged from his office by Archie's experimental ploy of a petition from revered orchid-growers, murder by remote control in front of his very desk, murder by nitrobenzene booby-trap in a car, etc. The book contains one of Wolfe's most splendid and splenetic outbursts, after Archie has conned him out of abandoning the case and going into a gourmet relapse whose menu plans begin with peafowl, goose, kid, squabs and shish-kabob. For starters. By the way, Stout's prose in The Red Box attracted the finical attention of The New Yorker magazine – which ran a filler entitled 'Infatuation with Sound of Own Words Department: Finger-Wiggling Division', listing seventeen variations on 'Wolfe wiggled a finger at him' or 'He wiggled Fritz away with a finger'. It is my impression that Wolfe never again deployed his wiggling finger so often in a single book. Over My Dead Body expands on the fat man's past, specifically his Montenegrin ancestry and ability to speak Serbo-Croat, and lands him with an adopted daughter who is promptly entangled in a stew of pre-war politics, murder and international finance. (Wolfe gets in some good snide remarks on international financiers.) Rather than a boring old blunt instrument, the deed is done using a blunt fencing épée fitted not with a button to make it safe but with a purpose-designed pointy bit, which Wolfe at one stage conceals from the police in a spurious chocolate cake. There is much enjoyment in a ruse like this even when – as here – it's fairly pointless. (Archie: 'It's wonderful how your mind works. If that had been me I would have gone up and chucked it in my bureau drawer. Of course, it's more picturesque to disguise it as a cake. ' Yes.) There is more to relish in Wolfe's disgusted pique when the most excruciatingly foreign-accented of an almost entirely foreign suspect-list is tracked down to her true origin in Ottumwa, Iowa, and her true name Pansy Bupp. (Wolfe: 'Get her out of the house!' Archie: 'Zhat weel be a plaizhoore.') Stout was now in firm possession of the fact that for most detective readers other than Edmund Wilson, a perky style and quirky developments are far more attractive than a mere puzzle. It is better to travel hopefully than to arrive at the last page. Archie as well as Wolfe was still a developing character at this time. The worst blemish in Over My Dead Body is his descent – perhaps inflamed by war fever – into needless bullying of and violence against admittedly unlovable characters (a German agent, an international financier). Beats me how he survived doing the same to an Assistant District Attorney in The Red Box . In later books the reformed Archie prefers to banter with aggressors until actually forced into violence, which seems far more in character. Even in the Best Families is the most enjoyable of the four books here, though paradoxically not the best introduction to Wolfe. It has less impact if you don't 'know' Wolfe, and it concludes a loose trilogy involving Stout's equivalent of Professor Moriarty . the dread and highly respectable mastermind Arnold Zeck. The prior books are And Be a Villain alias More Deaths Than One (1948) and The Second Confession (1949). Both appeared in Penguin's 1975 The First Rex Stout Omnibus , cleverly placed in the wrong order and without the concluding novel. Pfui. A virtue of this one is that it has plenty of plot, opening with a straightforward mystery case that brings a Hands Off warning from Zeck (in the form of a tear-gas-trapped packet of gourmet sausage) and before too long sends Wolfe scurrying unprecedentedly to an offstage hidey-hole for a third of the book – there to lose 117 lb while preparing himself for a masterstroke against the arch-fiend. Meanwhile Archie demonstrates in convincingly circumstantial detail that he can (as we always knew he could) set up a detective agency and make it on his own. Wolfe's flight and surprise reappearance give two of the best frisson s in the entire works. The machinations against Zeck are also good fun, involving the goading of a third party to murder in order to keep Wolfe's and Archie's hands clean of premeditated outrage, and finally the original case is wrapped up with a satisfying and more or less unexpected solution. Hindsight insists that our intrepid pair could not possibly have survived the aftermath of Zeck's end (his goons burst straight in and start shooting), but once again hindsight will kindly shut up. Finally, Champagne for One is a good example of later-period Wolfe: polished, fun, full of irreverent observations about charity foundations and where charity begins; perhaps a little thinner in every sense than some of the earlier cases, but showing Stout's increasingly accurate eye for thumbnail characterizations, and his total confidence in handling Wolfe/Archie relations. Nevertheless he was producing the books annually at a surprising speed: 'Rex began another novel on 1 March [1958]. The working title was Murder of an Unmarried Mother . Rex finished it on 24 April, then entitled it Champagne for One . Thirty-four writing days. Still more remarkable was the three-week hiatus in Rex's work schedule. He had been to Florida.' Thus John McAleer's wolfeishly fat Rex Stout: a Biography (1977), which must be one of the most trivia-crammed and uncritical works ever written by a Professor of English. These Scribners reprints look good outside, with a laudatory quote from the Amis essay already mentioned and the traditional but inevitable cover paintings of sinisterly bedizened orchids. (The unnamed artist has evidently read all the books with care, and even manages a plausible depiction of the useful add-on gadget for one's fencing foil.) Inside, through the miracles of photo-offset, the texts have been lifted from four separate sources, typos and all, including a Julian Symons introduction to Families written for – and making mention of – the Collins Crime Club jubilee reprints. Does anyone remember the days when publishers of a uniform edition would contrive, by some arcane trade secret, not to have the words 'Chapter One' set in a blatantly different style for each book? We need more Stout in print. The effect of this series is cumulative, as touch after touch is added to Wolfe's massive personality (I still treasure his page-by-page burning of Webster's New International Dictionary , third edition, for threatening the integrity of the English language), to Archie's cheeky resourcefulness and to the old brownstone house on West 35th street whose eccentric cosiness makes it – far more than Poirot's art-deco, Wimsey's clubman magnificence or 221b Baker Street with its reek of chemicals – a place where one might really like to live. It's worth a visit. Originally published in Million magazine, 1992. Article Index • Home. The First Rex Stout Omnibus: Featuring Nero Wolfe And Archie Goodwin: " The Doorbell Rang " " The Second Confession " And " More Deaths Than One " by Rex Stout. Fer-de-Lance 5 (1934) APA: Point of Death (1934) [American Magazine] APA: Meet Nero Wolfe (194?) The Rubber Band 4 (1936) APA: To Kill Again (1960) Some Buried Caesar 3 (1939) APA: The Red Bull (1945) [condensed version] Black Orchids 11 (1942) includes novellas: Black Orchids Cordially Invited to Meet Death [APA: Invitation to Murder (1956)] Not Quite Dead Enough (1944) includes novellas: Not Quite Dead Enough . And Be a Villain 2, 9, 11 (1948) APA: More Deaths Than One 10 (1949) Trouble in Triplicate 3 (1949), includes novellas: Before I Die Help Wanted, Male . Three Doors to Death 4 (1950) includes novellas: . In the Best Families 4, 9 (1950) APA: Even in the Best Families (1951) Curtains for Three 2 (1950) includes novellas: The Gun with Wings Disguise for Murder. Triple Jeopardy 6 (1952) includes novellas: Home to Roost (APA: Nero Wolfe and the Communist Killer, APA: Nero Wolfe Devises a Strategem) The Cop-Killer The Squirt and the Monkey (APA: See No Evil, APA: Dazzle Dan Murder Case) Three Men Out (1954) includes novellas: Invitation to Murder (APA: Will to Murder) The Zero Clue (APA: Scared to Death) This Won’t Kill You (APA: This Will Kill You, APA: The World Series Murder) Three Witnesses 5 (1956) includes novellas: (APA: The Last Witness) … (APA: The Body in the Hall, APA: A Dog in the Daytime) Three for the Chair (1957) includes novellas: A Window for Death (APA: Nero Wolfe and the Vanishing Clue) Immune to Murder . And Four To Go (1958) APA: Crime and Again (1959), includes novellas: Christmas Party (APA: The Christmas Party Murder) Easter Parade (APA: Fourth of July Murder, APA: Labor Union Murder) . Plot It Yourself 6 (1959) APA: Murder in Style (1960) Three at Wolfe’s Door 9 (1960) includes novellas: Poison a la Carte Method Three for Murder The Rodeo Murder (APA: The Penthouse Murder) Homicide Trinity (1962) includes novellas: Eeny Meeny Murder Mo Death of a Demon (APA: The Gun Puzzle) Counterfeit for Murder (APA: The Counterfeiter’s Knife) Trio for Blunt Instruments (1964) includes novellas: Kill Now — Pay Later Murder Is Corny Blood Will Tell. The Doorbell Rang 10 (1965) Finalist 1966 Gold Dagger Award. Death Times Three (1985) includes novellas: 12 (1940) Frame-Up for Murder 13 (1958) Assault on a Brownstone 14 (1961) Under the Andes (1914) [1985] How Like a God (1929) Seed on the Wind (1930) Forest Fire (1933) The President Vanishes (1934) [published anonymously, reprinted under real name in 1967] The Hand in the Glove: A Dol Bonner Mystery (1937) APA: Crime on Her Hands (1939) Rex Stout. Eleven early tales of mystery, murder, and mayhem from the creator of Nero Wolfe. When Colonel Phillips begins his final game of golf, his greatest problem in life is that he has begun to slice the ball. Playing with his lawyer and nephews, Phillips . Warner & Wife. Warner & Wife was originally published in January 30, 1915 issue of the Pulp magazine All-Story Cavalier Weekly. It is sort of a legal thriller, the story of a partnership fifteen years in the making. This is one of the novella length stories written. Justice Ends at Home. Justice Ends at Home was originally published in the Pulp magazine All-Story Weekly. It is both a legal thriller and a detective story. All scholars of Stout’s work agree that its main characters, the phlegmatic, middle-aged Simon Leg and his youth. The Last Drive. Tales of murder and mayhem from one of the twentieth century's greatest mystery authors When Colonel Phillips begins his final game of golf, his greatest problem in life is that he has begun to slice the ball. Playing with his lawyer and nephews, . Nine Short Stories. An Officer and a Lady The Rope Dance Warner & Wife Jonathan Stannard's Secret Vice A Tyrant Abdicates Rose Orchid The Pay Yeoman An Agacella Or The Mother of Invention "You may call me Major Wentworth," was all the reply he got. "All right, major. Bu. Dark Revenge. An Officer and a Lady and Other Stories. A collection of early stories from the man who created Nero Wolfe Bill Farden is an experienced burglar. He gains entry to the house without effort, and his ears tell him the inhabitants are asleep. He pockets the silver and moves to the kitchen, . Disguise for Murder. Eeny Meeny Murder Mo. This Won't Kill You. Cordially Invited to Meet Death. Target Practice. Collects, for the first time, seventeen of the author's best early short stories, including his first crime story "Secrets" and "Justice Ends at Home," which features a prototype of his famous creation, detective Nero Wolfe. Original. Invitation to Murder. Her Forbidden Knight. Follow the fortunes of the beautiful and naïve Lila Williams, a telegraph operator at New York’s swankiest hotel—the Lamartine—as she becomes unwittingly enmeshed in the operations of a shady counterfeiting ring. By chance, the. The Great Legend. Told in the tradition of this master storyteller, The Great Legend is a historical novel set in Troy during the ninth year of the siege. Full of classical characters, it is the engaging story of a Trojan warrior caught not only between Troy and Greec. Red Threads. Investigating the bludgeoning murder of Val Carew, killed near the tomb of his late wife, also dead under suspicious circumstances, Inspector Cramer finds a single clue in a red thread found in the victim's hand. Reissue. A Prize for Princes. Beautiful and deadly, Aline Solini is a study in pure evil. First encountered in a Balkan convent about to be sacked by marauding Turkish forces, she is rescued by Richard Stetton, a wealthy American who becomes totally captivated by her. His wealth . Canine Crimes. A collection of classic canine capers features Edward D. Hoch's ""The Theft of the Barking Dog,"" Margery Allingham's ""The Chocolate Dog,"" Jean Potts's ""The Withered Heart,"" Rex Stout's ""A Dog in the Daytime,"" and others. The Mountain Cat Murders. Accused of murdering Dan Jackson with her father's .38 in the town of Cody, Wyoming, Delia Brand sets out to find the real killer, and along the way, discovers the truth about her father's unsolved murder. Reissue. Rex 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. Biography. 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 4 years old. He was the state spelling bee champion at age thirteen. Stout was educated at Topeka High School, Kansas, and later at University of Kansas, Lawrence. 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. Raised with a powerful social conscience, he served on the original board of the American Civil Liberties Union & helped start the radical magazine "New Masses" in the 1920s. During the Great Depression, he was an enthusiastic supporter of the New Deal, & lobbied hard for Franklin Roosevelt to accept a fourth term as president. During WWII, he worked with the advocacy group Friends of Democracy , figured prominently on the Writers War Board, particularly in support of the embryonic United Nations. 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 & 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. Stout was one of many writers on Hoover’s private enemies list, as found by journalist Herbert Mitgang when he obtained access to Stout’s FBI files for his book Dangerous Dossiers (1988). Stout’s FBI file ran 300 pages (though the FBI would only release 183 heavily blacked-out pages to Mitgang). But Stout wasn’t afraid, knowing that he could rely on both independent means & the love of the public. In 1965, Stout fought back with his novel The Doorbell Rang , in which Nero Wolfe found himself locked in a duel of wits with the FBI. In later years Stout alienated many with his hawkish stance on Vietnam, and the contempt for communism in his works was denounced frequently. Writings. 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 went to sell articles and stories to a variety of magazines. He 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. After writing three more successful novels, he returned to the U.S. and turned to writing detective fiction. The first one was Fer-de-Lance , which introduced Nero Wolfe and his assistant Archie Goodwin . That novel was first published as a serial in The Saturday Evening Post and then as a book in 1934 . After 1938 he focused solely on the mystery field. Stout continued writing the Wolfe series until shortly before his death in 1975, yielding a total of approximately 33 novels and 39 collected novellas or short stories. Stout wrote prolifically one Nero Wolfe adventure in a year – from the 1940s sometimes several – until the end of his life. 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). 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. In 1959 he received the Grand Master Award from the latter organization. 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 introduction to Rex Stout: A Majesty’s Life , the Edgar Award-winning biography by John McAleer. Nero Wolfe has been featured in film adaptations from the 1930s through the 1980s and was recently the subject of a television series on the A&E Network. An organization of Stout and Wolfe aficionados, , holds events for readers of the series including bimonthly book discussions and an annual Assembly and Banquet in New York, and publishes the biennial "Gazette." In 1937, Stout created Dol Bonner, a female private detective. She would reappear in several Wolfe books. Works. Nero Wolfe Novels. The Nero Wolfe stories are browsable by title on the Nero Wolfe books page, and most of the individual Nero Wolfe titles are part of the Category: Rex Stout books page (except those written by Robert Goldsborough). Fer-de-Lance ( 1934 ) — The first Nero Wolfe mystery and the basis for the 1936 movie: Meet Nero Wolfe. Collections of Nero Wolfe Short Stories. Other Works. Movie Adaptations. The Nero Wolfe mysteries inspired two feature films in the 1930s. Meet Nero Wolfe (1936) was an adaptation of the first Wolfe novel, "Fer-de- Lance," and starred Edward Arnold as Wolfe and Lionel Stander as Archie Goodwin. The League of Frightened Men (1937), an adaptation of the second Wolfe novel, starred Walter Connolly as Wolfe, with Stander repeating his role as Goodwin. Reviews of these two movies were generally lukewarm, and Rex Stout disliked the way his characters were portrayed. For the rest of his life, he declined to authorize any more Hollywood adaptations. Meet Nero Wolfe (1936); starring Edward Arnold as Wolfe and Lionel Stander as Archie Goodwin. Television. Rex Stout, disappointed with the Nero Wolfe movies of the 1930s and unimpressed with television in general, vetoed Nero Wolfe film and TV projects in America until his death in 1975. In 1977, Thayer David, Tom Mason, and Brooke Adams starred in a telemovie based on "The Doorbell Rang." Intended as the pilot episode for a television series that did not happen, it was held back for release until 1979 due to the death of Thayer David shortly after filming. In 1981, William Conrad played Wolfe and Lee Horsley played Goodwin in a short-lived television series. In 2001, (as Wolfe) and Timothy Hutton (as Archie) starred in The Golden Spiders , an A&E telemovie adaptation of the 1953 story of the same name. This led to a series, A Nero Wolfe Mystery , which played for two seasons before being canceled. Both seasons are available on DVD as two boxed sets (the telemovie bundled with the second). Hutton had a strong creative hand in the A&E series, producing and directing some episodes. Many fans consider the series the most accurate adaptation of the Wolfe stories ever seen on American television. The episodes followed the plots of the stories closely, but unlike previous Wolfe shows, they were not updated to contemporary times. They were colorful period pieces, set in a somewhat vague past (the 1940s to the early ’60s). Whether Rex Stout would have liked this approach or not, the production values were high. Media critics and fans of the books generally had good things to say about the show, but people who had not read the books, especially viewers who knew Wolfe only through the William Conrad series, responded less favorably. One distinguishing feature of the series was the use of an ensemble cast to play non-recurring characters. The same actor who played the murder victim in one episode might play the murderer in another. Sometimes an actor, using a wig or other such disguise, would play two characters in one episode. Kari Matchett had a recurring role as Archie Goodwin’s sometime girlfriend Lily Rowan while frequently playing other characters as well. This was intended to mimic the experience of watching a play put on by a repertory company, as might have been done in the early 20th century. Between 1969 and 1971, the Italian network RAI broadcast a successful series of black and white telemovies starring Tino Buazzelli (Nero Wolfe), Paolo Ferrari (Archie Goodwin), Pupo De Luca (Fritz Brenner) and Renzo Palmer (Inspector Cramer). Ten episodes of this series are currently (2004) available on DVD. The German-made mini-series of Too Many Cooks ( Zu viele Köche , 1961) has some information available on the Internet Movie database: [1]. Heinz Klevenow starred as Nero Wolfe and Joachim Fuchsberger as Archie Goodwin. The Russian Wolfe TV movies were made in 2001-2002. The teleplay for the series was written by Vladimir Valutskiy who had previously written the Russian Sherlock Holmes TV series (around 1980). The IMDb link for more information: [2]. Nero Wolfe is played by Donatas Banionis and Archie Goodwin by Sergei Zhigunov.