Talk:Nero Wolfe

message: Just out of curiosity, does anyone else find this sum inadequate by today's standards? Rex Stout, by his pictures, was fairly skinny. The entire American population was smaller back in the mid-20th century. Philip Marlowe and other heroes were in the 180 lb range, and this was considered somewhat formidable. I realize this is not a chat room, but it just seems like a discrepancy in the overall gestalt of the series. Needless to say I am a fan...  Guernseykid 04:46, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: When I was a kid, more than half a century ago, I was fascinated by the question of Wolfe's weight.  286 didn't seem grotesquely fat to me, but it sure seemed adequately fat.  Particularly for a guy who was probably about 5'10".  You gotta remember that people in the 1930s-1950s who weighed 285 weren't necessarily built like today's NFL linebackers on steroids and weight training.  Today there are probably lotsa football players who are 5'10 and 285 and who *aren't* fat.  But in Wolfe's day, that was fat.  Or so I still believe.  It all depends on how we're built and how we train.  Pancho Gonzales and Arthur Ashe, the great tennis players, were probably around 6'1 and anywhere from 160 to 185 lbs, depending on when you weighed them.  They were *strong*, powerful guys, but slim.  Add 100 lbs to them and it would be *flab* -- they would be *fat*, like Wolfe.  So I think that for his day and age, weighing in at "a seventh of ton", makes Wolfe a genuine fatty.... Hayford Peirce 05:27, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: One Seventh of a Ton

message: Don't know if Stout took inspiration from Doyle, but he could have: Holmes quips, if it were possible to be a detective without leaving his club, Mycroft could be the greatest detective in all England. Can anybody verify & include?  Trekphiler 17:49, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The only way that we could know what was in Stout's mind would be if he wrote or spoke his thoughts. However, it seems very probable that M. Holmes's characteristics were some kind of  influence on the character of N. Wolfe.Lestrade (talk) 23:36, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Mycroft Wolfe?

message: "Nero Wolfe is probably the second best-known consulting detective after Sherlock Holmes"
What about Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot? Or Sam Spade from the Maltese Falcon? I suppose it is a matter of opinion/personal experience, but a statement like that is difficult to qualify. I'm gonna make that statement less specific. Great Green Arkelseizure 05:01, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Second Best known? 

message: Wolfe is a private detective, not a consulting detective.  The first sentence reads as if if Sherlock Holmes might be an American.
:I agree on both points. The editor above you was trying to clartify this, but it seems more confusing now than before. Kafziel 05:41, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Consulting Detective?

message: Lately, I have been creating plot summaries of Wolfe novels: very brief descriptions on the Nero Wolfe page, and more extensive descriptions in individual articles. 
I'm unlcear whether people would favour brief descriptions, just enough to whet their appetite to read the book, or a more extensive summary.  Also, the Wolfe books are of uneven quality, and so maybe others want to help ... Modus Vivendi 12:01, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think they might be useful, depending on how they're written.  I would definitely avoid the gushy "One of Wolfe's finest efforts, Archie is in danger as never before!" blurb-type fan-talk.  Anything else would probably be interesting.  And it's not as if Wiki doesn't have enough space for it.  Go for it! Hayford Peirce 18:10, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See Nero Wolfe novels category and the Nero Wolfe category.   Modus Vivendi 20:32, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh, I see.  I thought you meant those 1-line summaries that follow a couple of the items listed in *this* article, not the others.  The other summaries look pretty good to me.  Keep it up! Hayford Peirce 22:39, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Summaries

message: I removed the reference to Wolfe being an "aristologist".  In "Poison à la Carté", he is invited to dinner by the group "Ten For Aristology", but is not a member (and is unaware of the group's current status a few years later in "The Doorbell Rang").  Wolfe's dictionary apparently defined "aristology" solely as "the science of dining", and he called the group "witlings", since dining was an art.  Even with a definition of "art or science", presumably Wolfe would still have disliked the term!    David Oberst 00:24, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Aristologist 

message: I just stumbled onto this article, and I'm struck both by the erudition of its contributors and by the small errors that are sprinkled throughout. (BTW, I absolutely agree with contributors who have objected to the overblown blurb-speak that has been used here and there. It's jarring as hell.)
One difficulty posed by a series as long-lived as the Wolfe corpus is the presence of inconsistencies in the original source. Cramer's first name, for example, is given as Fergus early on but there's the problem of LTC in The Silent Speaker (Bantam page 4), and he's called "Lionel" in  TV credits. (According to McAleer, Stout attributed that particular inconsistency to "laziness.") So I think that some extra care is needed in editing existing contributions. For example, one contributor, according to a History comment, apparently struck out a reference to Horstmann's status as a live-in employee. I think that an early book suggests that Horstmann sleeps elsewhere, but the majority of the books that refer to the matter at all have him sleeping in a small room attached to the greenhouse. (I've restored the "live-in.") 
Even within a particular book there are inconsistencies; page 59 of the Bantam edition of And Be A Villain gives Nancylee Shepherd "light yellow hair and gray eyes" but by page 81 she has "lots of medium-brown hair . . . and blue eyes."
So let's try not to be quite so cavalier in our edits -- it's easy to be misled when the source material stretches over so many pages and so many years.
And greater care is needed with very specific references, because specific errors jump out at the reader. For example, in the reference discussion of Wolfe's weight, I saw it mentioned that he lost "about 50 pounds" during his metamorphosis into Roeder in In The Best Families. But on page 149 of my Bantam edition, shortly after Archie recognizes Roeder, Wolfe says "I've lost a hundred and seventeen pounds." AFAIK, this is the only reference to the amount of weight that Wolfe lost, but it's certainly possible that Stout cited it elsewhere as 50 pounds. (I changed "about 50" to "117".) Xlmvp 15:33, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Accuracy

message: Someone has badly screwed up the "Wolfe's attitude towards women" section.  He/she did a rewrite of what was there a month or so ago, and has really loused it up.  In fact, it makes no sense.  I am feeling grouchy these days about dumb Wiki edits and don't feel like taking the time to repair it myself, but it would be nice if someone in a calmer state of mind would do so. Hayford Peirce 23:34, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Women

message: Yes, Wolfe definitely wears yellow PJs.  I was about to add "silk" to the description when I sudden began to wonder if it were his sheets that were yellow silk.  Or are both his PJs and his sheets yellow silk? Hayford Peirce 22:35, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmmm, on at least one occasion it was black sheets on his bed. Hayford Peirce 22:49, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, it's a long time after it was brought up, but Wolfe generally wears canary yellow shirts, and I belive PJs as well, and the sheest are black.  IMHO (talk) 21:14, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Yellow PJs

message: Hi there. I've been busily creating an individual article for each of the Rex Stout NW titles that hasn't had one up until now. I'm about 18 titles shy of finishing this endeavor, and then I'll link the unlinked titles in this bibliography to those individual articles, for further development. Each article has a consistent (I hope) structure, including an infobox that describes the first edition and provides the ISBN, and there's room for an image of the first-edition jacket; I found one on The Black Mountain page, and that got me going. 
In creating the article, I've either copied the text (The League of Frightened Men, for example) from this bibliography, or come up with something on my own, as a point of departure for anyone who cares to jump in.
Once all the articles are created and linked from here, it's a matter of deciding whether to continue with the brief summaries on this page, or whether the bibliography should revert to a simple chronological list that links to the individual articles. I'm of two minds, because some of these brief summaries (Some Buried Caesar) are different and decidedly pithy. Not all of the titles have a summary, though, and the article is getting rather long; but being new here I'm not sure whether that's a big deal or not. I hesitate to whack anything of any substance here without checking with those of you who have contributed so much here already. Please ponder and comment if you like.
WFinch 15:55, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it's a fine project that you have underway.  But why don't we wait until you've finished with all the individual titles before we worry about where all the info should go.  Sometimes it doesn't hurt to have the same info (more or less) in two related articles.  So keep up the good work! Hayford Peirce 03:35, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm interested in this subproject as well. If you want to "assign" me a few books/stories to write up, I'll be glad to help out. Newyorkbrad 03:36, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, and it's good to hear from you both. I'll keep plugging away and finish with the separate titles (only 18 to go!), and we'll see what's what after that. Once all of the individual pages are in position it'll be easier to whittle here and add there to balance things out. I agree, it's nice to see a small summary next to the title -- I get these stories mixed up, to tell the truth, and can use something to jog my memory. And it was very good to see that section "Wolfe's home" added today -- that's an important one. So, onward.WFinch 00:30, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bibliography - book summaries and individual articles 

message: I've been busy elsewhere and only now realized how much better the page has become since 1st December 2006.  A big thank you and kudos to everyone who has been a part of this improvement.
Special thanks go to ImmortalWombat for what he humbly called "tidying", but which really was a radical re-organizing and changed a top-heavy, hard-to-read pile of "infostuff" into an easy-to-navigate article.  Belated thanks for the 12 Dec 2006 version (how does one link to the old versions internally?), and for all the good work since.
--Ronja Addams-Moring 19:52, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  So, are you going for Featured Article status? You should! 

message: I wanted to note here that I believe a section on orchids would be a valuable addition to the article — something parallel to the section on food, Wolfe's other passion. I'm completely out of my depth when it comes to those plants. — WFinch 19:26, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Vanilla comes from an orchid, and it seems reasonable that Wolfe would have grown them, even if he didn't fertilize them, but I don't think they're ever mentioned.  Does anybody else remember them being mentioned?  JDZeff (talk) 19:43, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Orchids 

message: That phrase used in Archie's section, " ... has become very knowledgeable about food, 'sandwiched,' as it were, between the experts Wolfe and Fritz," has grated on me since I first saw it some months ago. I have replaced it. Here's what Fowler says about that sort of construction: "Much misplaced ingenuity in finding forms of apology is shown by writers with a sense of their own superiority who wish to safeguard their dignity and yet be vivacious ... Among them are: in the vernacular, so to speak, as they say, in the jargon of today, or the use of deprecatory inverted commas. Such writers should make up their minds whether their reputation or their style is such as to allow of their dismounting from the high horse now and again without compromising themselves." TurnerHodges 21:54, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I haven't been shy about rewriting or reworking anything that's here — I think it's expected. Much of what I've reworked dates back a year or more and invites revision. Just note in the edit summary that you've tightened the language, and that's enough to draw the attention of the previous editors (if they're still active here). Given what I've seen you edit so far, I'm sure they'll appreciate that their work is being improved. If not, well, they'll probably pop in here. — WFinch 18:04, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I see. I have seen some weighty explanations for edits, and the norm isn't especially clear. I suppose this entire section could just as well go away. Thanks for the tip.TurnerHodges 22:54, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Style

message: I see from the edit history that contributors require even more care in the topic of Wolfe's eccentricities than in other topics. So I'm powering up my flame deflectors by explaining the changes I made today:
* I revised the Amis quote to dispense with the jarring square brackets. 
* I added some material clarifying the issue of the number and location of TV sets. 
* I requested a citation for the "last vestiges of barbarism" remark -- and on that topic, I recall that somewhere Wolfe and Saul (I believe) discuss at the dinner table whether music can have any intellectual content. Does anyone know the source? 
:"Blood Will Tell" Trio For Blunt Instruments, chapter 2, (Viking p. 182), "When I mentioned the title of the privately printed book he made a noise - he says all music is a vestige of barbarism..."  (I think "vestige of barbarism" appeared in another story as well.)
:The Saul and Wolfe music discussion is found in The Father Hunt, chapter 12, (Viking p. 134), "The next hour, at the lunch table, provided nourishment for both my stomach and brain.  For the stomach, sweet-breads amandine in patty shells and cold green-corn pudding.  For the brain, a debate on the question whether music, any music, has, or can have, any intellectual content.  Wolfe said no and Saul said yes.  I backed Saul because he weighs only about half as much as Wolfe, but I thought he made some very good points, which impressed me because one recent Thursday evening at his apartment he had been playing a piece by Debussy, I think it was, on the piano for Lon Cohen and me while we waited for the others to come for poker, and Lon had said something about the piece's intelletual force, and Saul had said no music could possibly have intellectual force.  As the woman said to the parrot,it depends on who you're talking to." Amy Duncan 13:52, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah! That's very helpful. I've incorporated it. Thank you, Amy Duncan. TurnerHodges 15:26, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: On Eccentricities

message: I see, from my vantage point at Citizendium, where knowledge and learning are actually appreciated, that the dumbing down of Nero Wolfe, and indeed, all of Wikipedia, continues apace.  Soon it will all be suitable material for a second-grader to read, worthless for anyone older.  Keep up the good work! Hayford Peirce 04:29, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dumbing down 

message: I agree with RRRRowcliff that collecting the inconsistencies in one place would spoil the fun for most of us. But there's something intriguing about WFinch's thought, even if it was pure speculation. It's hard to enjoy the fun if you don't have access to a particular book where the other side of a contradiction occurs. And then there's the question of which inconsistencies are due to Stout's laziness (his own word, I believe, in discussing the Fergus/LTC conundrum) and which are due to those Norse typesetters -- I was surprised at one point to learn that Bua came not from Albania but Alabama. I wonder if there could be some kind of "teaser" article, alerting the reader to topics on which a contradiction exists, without revealing details about just what the contradiction is. TurnerHodges 17:49, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: BTW, the idea that Bua was an Alabaman comes from Plot It Yourself, chapter 17. In the same graf we read that "The Marley .38 with which I had short [sic] Bua was in a drawer of my desk." In case those typos are edition-specific, the one I'm looking at is the 4th Bantam printing, October 1981. TurnerHodges 16:57, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Rowcliff(e), cont'd

message: I'm glad to see that NYB added material on Nat Parker to the associates section. He had gotten the shortest shrift possible.  But, to quote Monk, here's the thing: Parker's an anomaly and an interesting one. Of the many lawyers that populate the stories, nearly all of them are utter jerks (making the books just that much more realistic, of course). There are a few counter-examples, like Dan Kalmus. But Parker is actually cool. He speaks French. Archie admires his taste in the selection of social companions. He neatly and concisely dissects Perry Helmar in PB. He knows to call in local counsel because the officials in the boonies won't appreciate a New York slicker. He plays bridge. In short, he's cool, and he deserves more than a couple of lines in a section shared with Del Bascom and Bill Gore.
But I don't know where he should go. The real difficulty is that there's a continuum of importance, rather than a dichotomy, among the irregularly appearing characters.  Maybe the way to handle it is to give Brady, Gore, Bascom, Parker, et al. a line or two on the main page, as is presently the case, and a separate page on which they could each be described according to how fully Stout fleshed them out. Thoughts?  TurnerHodges 00:15, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Nat Parker

message: Amy Duncan has provided the reference for the "Beer is slop" quote from Fred Durkin. (Thanks!) I can't believe I missed that: I've been searching for it and one of the places I looked carefully was 2nd Confession. Ah well -- it's a good thing I wasn't sent to look for the Stenophone cylinder. TurnerHodges 21:09, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You're most welcome.  The Zecks are my favorites.  And thank you for turning my reference into a proper footnote. Amy Duncan 22:19, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Beer/Slop

message: In the Wolfe-and-women section I've reverted the revised quote from Death of a Doxy. The quote was correct: Wolfe insists upon using Julie Jaquette's real name, Amy Jackson. The revision, though, points up a matter brought up by Hayford Peirce some time back -- that this section needs work, and the name Julie Jaquette would be an important component. — WFinch (talk) 14:35, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed, and RRR seems to have doubts about citing Amis. So do I, partly because the quote is unattributed (that might be my fault) and partly because I feel sure I've run across that "frenzy of negation" phrase in the corpus -- did Amis himself use it without attribution? TurnerHodges (talk) 03:49, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: More on Eccentricities

message: This is a minor quibble, but I believe Fritz is Alsatian, not Swiss.  This would also be consistent with him hunting in the Vosges. --- Charlie (Colorado) (talk) 01:18, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Fritz is most assuredly Swiss, by his own words.  In The Red Box, Chapter 15, Archie to Fritz:  "You ought to be ashamed.  I guess all Frenchmen are sardonic."  Fritz:  "I am not a French!  I'm a Swiss." And in Murder By The Book, Chapter 7, when Archie is planning his party, Fritz tells him, "If you need any help with all the ladies, Archie, for my age I am not to be ignored.  A Swiss has a long usefulness." Amy Duncan (talk) 17:45, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fritz 

message: I modified some wrong news. I've the whole series released in DVD which includes: 1) Veleno in Sartoria (from "The Red Box") in two episodes (1969); 2) Circuito Chiuso (from "If Death Ever Slept")in two episodes (1969); 3) Per la Fama di Cesare (from "Some Buried Caesar")in one episode (1969); 4) Il Pesce più Grosso (from "The Doorbell Rang") in two episodes (1969); 5) Un Incidente di Caccia (from "Where There's a Will") in two episodes (1969); 6) Il Patto dei Sei (from "The Rubber Band") in two episodes (1969); 7) La Casa degli Attori (from "Counterfeit for Murder") in two episodes (1970); 8) La Bella Bugiarda (from "Murder is Corny") in two episodes (1971); 9) Sfida al Cioccolato (from "Gambit") in two episodes (1971); 10) Salsicce Mezzanotte (from "Too Many Cooks") in one episode (1971).
I could send DVD covers, but I technically don't know how.
Max from Italy,EU  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.49.135.23 (talk) 16:52, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Nero Wolfe Italian Series

message: The Nero Wolfe article's section on his eccentricities notes that the rule about conducting business at the brownstone only is frequently broken. This can happen when a murder occurs while Wolfe -- and, thus, Archie -- is on a personal errand and the authorities require that they remain in the vicinity. The original list of stories in which this happens does not include "Black Orchids," and it should not. Whether the reference is to the collection or to its title story, there is no suggestion that Cramer & Co. require that Wolfe remain at the garden show or at Miss Huddleston's estate. The stories originally cited, such as "Too Many Detectives" and "Immune to Murder," do involve that requirement. Actually there are several stories in which Wolfe and Archie are present when a murder occurs, but Wolfe manages to go home or to stay there: "Fourth of July Picnic," for example, or "The Rodeo Murder." TurnerHodges (talk) 20:50, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Black Orchids and legal authorities' requirements 

message: This is such a great, and well written and organized article and then someone comes along and drops what looks like a bit of personal review into it.  TurnerHodges has put a "fact" tag on the offending portion and I put a "Who?" tag since it was a wheasel-fest.  How long do the wikipedia guidelines say we must wait before cleaing that up? Fish Man (talk) 14:52, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: See the Template:Fact article for more, but it says in part "Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material about living persons should be removed immediately. Do not tag it— remove it." It wasn't clear to me, at the time that I tagged it, that it was contentious, but Fish Man's contribution here is prima facie evidence that it is. So I'm removing it, and let Dunlough take issue with that. (The hell of it is, I thought Chaykin's portrayal was over the top.) TurnerHodges (talk) 01:21, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I too, thought that Chaykin's portrayal sometimes got a little too loud and ruffled.  When reading the stories, my mind's eye never imagined Wolfe allowing his voice to reach a shout, regardless how angry he was getting.  However, that being said, when he would depict Wolf as shouting and getting a little ruffled, Chaykin's portrayal is not a totally invalid reading of the source material, it just isn't exactly mine.  There were other times, however, that Chaykin's portrayal, was *perfect*.  His use of the word "ptfui" was perfection.  The scene in prisoner's base, where Wolf has been hauled down to police headquarters by Rowcliff was played as calm, controlled fury.  Exactly as my mind's eye imagined it in the novel!  In place of the "weasel words" that were added, if someone put a sentence, after the statement about the program getting generally positive reviews to the effect of: "However, some critics saw Chaykin's portrayal of Wolfe as somewhat too emotional.", or something like that, followed by a citation of at least one review, by a credible, known, reviewer, that supported it, that would be completely fine and encyclopedic. Fish Man (talk) 14:45, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  Funny, Chaykin's pfui was the one thing I remember disliking: an exaggeratedly literal spelling pronunciation of a non-verbal noise that Archie transcribed as pfui – like saying tisk! in place of a dental click.  —Tamfang (talk) 17:54, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wheasel bomb dropped into section about "A Nero Wolfe Mystery" 

message: "He is both a gourmand and a gourmet, dining on generous helpings of Fritz's cuisine three times a day." I doubt it... Wolfe would weigh more than a seventh of a ton if he dined three times a day. I've changed it to "enjoying generous helpings". Bishonen | talk 22:56, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: This is not the best possible correction.  All of the books clearly mentions that he eats three meals a day per his very regimented schedule.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.196.102.28 (talk) 23:10, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

text: Is "generous helpings" specified?  We don't often witness the meals themselves.  How about something like "never allowing business to interfere with regular meals"?  — In "Eeny Meeny Murder Mo" Archie remarks (during a visit to the orchid room) that he weighs 270, exactly twice as much as Theodore.  Standards have changed, as was noted in a previous discussion.  —Tamfang (talk) 17:48, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

text: Some people use "dining" to refer specifically to dinner (the evening meal), others to eating any meal. Changing "dining on" to "consuming" in the original sentence would probably suffice to address Bishonen's concern. For what it's worth, I believe some of the precise mealtimes changed slightly over time. Newyorkbrad (talk) 17:50, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Dining three times a day

message: In a very few very early novels (see, e.g., The Rubber Band) Archie's bedroom is located on the second floor, as is Wolfe's. I do not have his move to the third floor pinned to a particular book, but as early as Not Quite Dead Enough (1944; see chapter 3) and thereafter Archie's bedroom is on the third floor, while Wolfe's remains on the second floor. Since Archie's is located one floor up from Wolfe's in roughly 80% of the books, and possibly more, it seems proper to locate it there in this article. TurnerHodges (talk) 04:27, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: In The Brownstone House of Nero Wolfe, Ken Darby has Archie state, "I was bounced around a good bit." Darby places Archie's bedroom on the second floor from 1934 to 1950, and on the floor above from 1950 to 1975 — but with the consistency that is the endearing hallmark of Rex Stout. John Clayton finds reference to Archie's room being on the third floor as early as Where There's a Will (1940), on page 150 of an edition I don't have. His drawings put it there. I'll find a way to modify the flat statement about which floor Archie's room is on if you don't beat me to it. — WFinch (talk) 16:24, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I'll defer to you. The earliest reference I found to Archie's bedroom on the 3rd floor is in Cordially Invited to Meet Death, 1942. So you found one 2 years earlier and have the honors. Now, I'd be really interested to know whether Stout moved him back down in a subsequent novel, as your reference to Darby suggests might have occurred. TurnerHodges (talk) 18:22, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I've included your citation of NQDE, CITMD and others in a note I've added to the statement that Archie's room is on the third floor. I can't find another instance of its being on the second floor after Where There's a Will, chapter 6: "I kept on going, up two flights of stairs, to my own room." I regarded it best to leave the statement as you had it, and cite the first three novels as inconsistent. — WFinch (talk) 21:46, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Floors and bedrooms 

message: The reason for using the "cquote" style for the cookbook quote and the quote of Barzun escapes me, particularly because other quotes use the "quotation" style. Can someone please tell me what I'm missing? (Regarding the styles, I mean.) TurnerHodges (talk) 02:47, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The boxed quote appears directly under the section head. The "cquote" style is for quotes within subsections. See The Teers section of the supporting characters article (although there's no relevant quote for Fred there). That's the reason I've done it, to avoid boxes on top of boxes; but if you see a better way, sing out. — WFinch (talk) 03:03, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Nope, nothing better occurs to me. (Anyway, it's not a good idea for me to try to help out with visual design.) I didn't perceive the pattern. TurnerHodges (talk) 04:34, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Quotation style 

message: I have a nagging feeling that sometimes this is a picture of George Washington instead of a waterfall, but the book I currently have has the waterfall.  Does anyone else remember a painting of Washington? --Badger151 (talk) 21:23, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Good memory, and you're close. In Not Quite Dead Enough, chapter 5 (which I had to look up), Archie describes the picture as one of the Washington Monument. Interestingly, the panel/peephole plays no part in the plot. But it's located near a shelf where Archie spots a grenade that hadn't been there before. TurnerHodges (talk) 03:44, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Oops, I should have said ". . . in chapter 5 of Booby Trap, which is in Not Quite Dead Enough . . ." While I'm at it, I suppose it's worth mentioning that structures associated with George Washington get a lot of play on West 35th. In Fer-de-Lance, Archie mentions that he has a picture of Mount Vernon in his bedroom. Interestingly, the back matter of several Wolfe paperbacks includes a description by Stout of Wolfe's office, dated 9/15/1949, with this excerpt: "The only wall decorations are three pictures: a Manet, a copy of a Corregio, and a genuine Leonardo sketch." I'm pretty sure that none of those three gentlemen painted the Washington Monument, but either Manet or Corregio might have painted a waterfall. Archie never says, but perhaps it's the Reichenbach falls.  TurnerHodges (talk) 18:46, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  The one-way waterfall picture in Wolfe's office 

message: Over the years, according to WFinch's citations, Wolfe goes from addressing two men by their first names to ten. In 1938, in TMC, there were two. Sixteen years later, per the main article's references, there were ten. So it's not too much of a stretch to conclude that in 1942 Wolfe was still at two. Marko, of course. The second would then have been Joseph Martingale, no? TurnerHodges (talk) 18:03, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: "Archie. Put him out." Wastrel Way (talk) 21:25, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  First name basis 

message: I have added a paragraph in the Food section describing the relapse. As far as I know, the relapse makes its final appearance in The Red Box, but my collection of the books is incomplete. If anyone knows of subsequent books in which the relapse occurs as such, I'd appreciate a correction. (I'm speaking here of the true relapse -- not an episode, as in And Be a Villain, in which Wolfe simply turns the work over to Cramer to finish for him.) TurnerHodges (talk) 14:12, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I'll try to check this during the week. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:24, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: The relapse paragraph has been trimmed today. The beginning words, "In the earliest books," have been removed. So has the last sentence — deleting citations of two novels in which the relapse appears. The deletion of the entire last sentence seems to have been made because of its conclusion, that the relapse disappears from the corpus after the early novels; the edit summary states that "It [the relapse] recurs a good deal later than that, well into the 1960s." Since I don't remember the relapse being mentioned beyond the earliest novels, I'd like to see the stories cited. And because I find the citations of the two novels valuable, I believe the paragraph should be restored to its previous version. The last sentence is written to leave open the possibility that stories beyond The Red Box use the relapse as a plot device. — WFinch (talk) 17:25, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree and I have reverted the graf in question. Perhaps the editor who trimmed the graf will cite relapses that occur in Wolfe novels that appear in the 1960s, or at any rate subsequent to The Red Box; then we could improve the article by mentioning them. Let's be clear, though: this is about a relapse, so named, and described as Stout did in Fer-de-Lance, not the simple disinclination to work that Wolfe displays well into the 1970s. TurnerHodges (talk) 19:18, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Relapse 

message: I've restored the original edit to the section on the various addresses given for the brownstone, information that I contributed. It was not meant to be a comprehensive list of all of the occurrences of addresses in the corpus; it was a list of the different addresses, with their first (and sometimes only) use, cited with chapter. Some addresses are given more than once in the corpus. I thought it notable that the most frequently given address is 918, which is the reason I added those additional occurrences to the footnote. — WFinch (talk) 14:56, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Brownstone address list 

message: An anonymous editor added a graf, now removed, to the Origins section, stating that Fer-de-Lance contradicts the notion that Wolfe was born in Montenegro. The edit cites Archie's statement in FDL (chapter 13) that he sends a monthly remittance to Wolfe's mother in Budapest. The edit goes on to state that Wolfe was therefore either born in Hungary or his mother moved. Well, that's good scholarship, but in light of all subsequent books (with the noted exception of OMDB) in which the topic arises, Wolfe is identified as Montenegrin. Clearly, his mother moved -- after all, Budapest is only a few hundred kilometers from Montenegro. More seriously, FDL is regarded by most authorities as an anomaly in the Wolfe series: minor oddities are typical of the first entry in an ongoing series when the author is still learning about the characters' personalities, traits and backgrounds. Not surprising to find a reference there that is never repeated and that does not in fact contradict the usual take on Wolfe's birthplace. TurnerHodges (talk) 14:30, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wolfe's mother in Budapest 

message: I have reverted a good faith edit that removed content from the Adaptations section, in the subsection on A Nero Wolfe Mystery. I contributed that content myself, in October 2007. The information I contributed indicates the impact that the A&E TV series had on used book sales for specific Nero Wolfe titles, verifiable through Bookfinder reports that are cited. The paragraph that I have restored, and the subsequent paragraph about Bantam paperbacks and audiobooks that are TV show tie-ins, demonstrate that the A&E series made Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe novels bestsellers once more after many years. — WFinch (talk) 00:52, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Link spam and Bookfinder information 

message: The recipe goes like this (to be absolutely safe of getting it by December 1, I'd give it at least 4 months...):
#: add everything one can think of for comprehensiveness grounds, especially critique/commentary etc.
#.ensure all referenced with inline reliable sources
#. copyedit (ideally wait until all material added, but often tidying along the way is unavoidable)
#. ask 1-2 uninvolve folks to take a squiz.
#. GAN
#. See in GA reviewer suggested "bonus stuff" to work on before FAC
#. FAC and presto, one Featured Article...
Simple really....Casliber (talk · contribs) 09:17, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  My recipe for FAC 

message: : Salsicce a mezzanotte / Sausages at Midnight (Too Many Cooks)
Following a footnote link, I see that the title on the DVD case is "Salsicce Mezzanotte", i.e. "Midnight Sausages", sausages of the type called Midnight, apparently a translation of saucisse minuit invented by a character — not a mezzanotte. —Tamfang (talk) 05:14, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  sausages 

message: I once led much of my family, including my Grandma and several aunts, in preparing Oyster Pie Nero Wolfe. It was a resounding success!!  Das Baz, aka Erudil 19:27, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  A Happy Memory 

message: Was Nero wealthy because he inherited or because his business was that good?
--187.147.59.220 (talk) 01:20, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nero's weath 

message: He made himself rich with his brains.  Das Baz, aka Erudil 19:28, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: He was a poor boy, but ambitious 

message: Random House discovered in 2011 that most of the Bantam paperback editions of Prisoner's Base lack the final chapter (17), which is 1.5 pages in length in the hardcover editions. The Wolfe Pack, the Nero Wolfe literary society, took the liberty of providing the final chapter in PDF format on its website. —Lacreighton (talk) 12:33, 30 June 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Missing Chapter 17 in Prisoner's Base (for sure in Bantam 1963 New Edition, and probably in others) 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: This line -- "Wolfe's most remarkable departure from the brownstone is due to personal reasons, not to business, and thus does not violate the rule regarding the conduct of business away from the office" -- seems heavy with OR (emphasis mine). I'm a relative newcomer to eyeballing this article, so before I make an edit over prose that I think has been stable for a while, I just want to check: was there a citation or attribution, perhaps, for this assertion that was errantly deleted? If not, I'm happy to take a pass at this. --EEMIV (talk) 12:48, 26 September 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  OR line 

message: The current description about beer and Fer-de-Lance says, "With the end of Prohibition..."  Although the book was published after repeal, the internal evidence is that it was set in the time of prohibition.
The discussion about beer refers to "legal 3.2."  And later, when Archie is talking to Manuel Kimball for the first time, he says (in reference to an offer of another highball), "They won't come any better than that even after repeal."  It was clearly on the horizon, but not accomplished yet. Rickwise (talk) 00:14, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Timing of Fer-de-Lance