What do you think?
Rate this book
Masterpieces of Mystery: The Golden Age - II
Part of the Masterpieces of Mystery series.
- GenresMysteryAnthologies
351 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1977
1 person is currently reading
33 people want to read
About the author
Ellery Queen
1,785 books490 followersaka Barnaby Ross.
(Pseudonym of Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee)
"Ellery Queen" was a pen name created and shared by two cousins, Frederic Dannay (1905-1982) and Manfred B. Lee (1905-1971), as well as the name of their most famous detective. Born in Brooklyn, they spent forty two years writing, editing, and anthologizing under the name, gaining a reputation as the foremost American authors of the Golden Age "fair play" mystery.
Although eventually famous on television and radio, Queen's first appearance came in 1928 when the cousins won a mystery-writing contest with the book that would eventually be published as The Roman Hat Mystery. Their character was an amateur detective who used his spare time to assist his police inspector father in solving baffling crimes. Besides writing the Queen novels, Dannay and Lee cofounded Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, one of the most influential crime publications of all time. Although Dannay outlived his cousin by nine years, he retired Queen upon Lee's death.
Several of the later "Ellery Queen" books were written by other authors, including Jack Vance, Avram Davidson, and Theodore Sturgeon.
(Pseudonym of Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee)
"Ellery Queen" was a pen name created and shared by two cousins, Frederic Dannay (1905-1982) and Manfred B. Lee (1905-1971), as well as the name of their most famous detective. Born in Brooklyn, they spent forty two years writing, editing, and anthologizing under the name, gaining a reputation as the foremost American authors of the Golden Age "fair play" mystery.
Although eventually famous on television and radio, Queen's first appearance came in 1928 when the cousins won a mystery-writing contest with the book that would eventually be published as The Roman Hat Mystery. Their character was an amateur detective who used his spare time to assist his police inspector father in solving baffling crimes. Besides writing the Queen novels, Dannay and Lee cofounded Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, one of the most influential crime publications of all time. Although Dannay outlived his cousin by nine years, he retired Queen upon Lee's death.
Several of the later "Ellery Queen" books were written by other authors, including Jack Vance, Avram Davidson, and Theodore Sturgeon.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
November 13, 2017
Great collection of some well known and now obscure writers of murder and detective fiction from the Forties.
June 24, 2022
14 short stories and two novellas, collected here by Ellery Queen as part of their 20-volume anthology of short mysteries.
Some of the stories in this volume are hardly worth reading. I include in that assessment Ellery Queen's own contribution--a story called "Mind Over Matter" which reminded me what a truly bad writer Ellery Queen could be.
But others are quite good. In particular, the novella "The Gun With Wings" by Rex Stout was so fun it motivated me to dig up some of the old Nero Wolfe novels again.
My favorite in the collection was "The Man on the Iron Palings" by David Frome, a pseudonym for Zenith Jones Brown, an American woman who wrote as an English man and did quite well for herself.
Some of the stories in this volume are hardly worth reading. I include in that assessment Ellery Queen's own contribution--a story called "Mind Over Matter" which reminded me what a truly bad writer Ellery Queen could be.
But others are quite good. In particular, the novella "The Gun With Wings" by Rex Stout was so fun it motivated me to dig up some of the old Nero Wolfe novels again.
My favorite in the collection was "The Man on the Iron Palings" by David Frome, a pseudonym for Zenith Jones Brown, an American woman who wrote as an English man and did quite well for herself.
October 28, 2020
Good but not great compilation of mid-20th century mystery stories.
September 19, 2014
I read Volume I of the set last month and just finished this one which did not disappoint. It contains short stories from the Golden Age of mystery and contains works by Ngaio Marsh, Rex Stout, Michael Innes, Clayton Rawson, and many more. I had only read a few of these short tales so it was a joy to find new stories from old friends. I would recommend this to any lover of the history of the mystery!!
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews