The Crime Fiction Kings Behind Ellery Queen | The Lineup Promoted by Open Road Media The Crime Fiction Kings Behind Ellery Queen Two boys from Brooklyn create one of the toughest sleuths of crime fiction's Golden Age. StumbleUpon stumbles Legendary editor Otto Penzler of Mysterious Press believes, “after Poe, I think it’s true that Ellery Queen was the most significant and important writer of mystery fiction in America.” Ellery Queen was actually the pen name of 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 and editing under the pseudonym, gaining a reputation as the foremost American authors of the Golden Age “fair play” mystery. Besides producing multiple Queen novels – including Calamity Town and The Greek Coffin Mystery – Dannay and Lee co-founded Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, one of the most influential crime publications of all time. In this video, Penzler and the authors’ sons, Richard Dannay and Rand Lee, speak about the enduring influence of the Ellery Queen mystery series.

Book Genre: Welcome to Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine! from Ellery Queen Shop Now! Celebrate 70 years of mystery with a year of monthly features highlighting intriguing aspects from the pages of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. Click on an article title below to read more. About Jon L. Breen and Our Cover For more than thirty years (with only a short break in the 1980s), Jon L. Breen, a novelist, short-story writer, librarian, anthologist, and college English teacher, has written The Jury Box for EQMM with integrity, insight, and style. Covering a dozen books each month for three decades is a remarkable achievement in itself, but that's the least of his contributions to the field. EQMM's Earlier Reviewers For more than thirty years (with only a short break in the 1980s), Jon L. Breen, a novelist, short-story writer, librarian, anthologist, and college English teacher, has written The Jury Box for EQMM with integrity, insight, and style. Covering a dozen books each month for three decades is a remarkable achievement in itself, but that's the least of his contributions to the field.

2010 Readers Award This year's Readers Award results are notable for the fictional time spectrum they span: both forward in time with first-place winner Dave Zeltserman's "Archie's Been Framed," whose technology requires a bit of suspension of disbelief to imagine put in practice in the here and now, and backward in time in Doug Allyn's second and third place stories "The Scent of Lilacs" and "Days of Rage," which, respectively, look at the American Civil War and revisit the turbulent 1960s. A Global Focus Seventy years ago, when Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee were deciding how to orient their new magazine, there could not have been any question that its outlook would be global. Both men had cosmopolitan tastes and a knowledge of world literature. It has become part of EQMM lore that Dannay, who soon took over the editing of the magazine, aimed to prove, in its pages, that every great writer in history had written at least one story that could be considered a mystery.

HOWARD HAYCRAFT By the time Howard Haycraft's "Speaking of Crime" column began appearing in EQMM, with the magazine's February 1946 issue, his name was already synonymous with detective fiction scholarship. After editing several collections of detective stories for boys, Haycraft composed his 1941 masterwork, Murder for Pleasure, an in-depth history and analysis of the mystery story, which Otto Penzler once called "the most important single work of mystery-fiction scholarship ever produced." The book included a list of 108 titles that Haycraft believed comprised the definitive mystery library. That list grew into a long collaboration with EQMM founding editor Frederic Dannay and resulted in a final list referred to as the "Haycraft-Queen Cornerstones," which today remains the standard for mystery collectors. In 1946, Haycraft edited The Art of the Mystery Story. His "Speaking of Crime" column ran in EQMM every other month for ten issues between February 1946 and October 1948.

ANTHONY BOUCHER Before taking over Haycraft's "Speaking of Crime" column for the February 1949 issue, Anthony Boucher (the pen name of William Anthony Parker White) served as mystery reviewer for the San Francisco Chronicle and had written seven mystery novels and over one hundred episodes of The Adventures of Ellery Queen radio program. Boucher's "Speaking of Crime" column appeared in eight issues in 1949 and 1950. After a hiatus, he returned to the pages of EQMM in November, 1957, with a one-page review column called "Best Mysteries of the Month." His stated goal was "to select each month a few books with more to offer than the one-a-day routine." In his first column he reviewed five novels, giving each a star rating, a tradition that Jon Breen would later carry on. The column ran until February 1968, just a few months before his death. In 1970, mystery fans gathered in Santa Monica, California for the first World Mystery Convention, named "Bouchercon" in honor of Anthony Boucher.

JOHN DICKSON CARR Already a legend in the mystery field as the "master of the locked room," and author of nearly seventy novels (under his own name and as Carter Dickson), John Dickson Carr took over the "Best Mysteries of the Month" column with the January 1969 issue. Carr introduced himself in that first column as an "old devotee of blood and thunder." In May 1970, Carr's column was expanded from one to three pages and was renamed "The Jury Box." During his first few years, Carr typically reviewed four titles in each issue (usually three new titles, and one classic reprint), but in his blustery, jovial style, Carr had little problem filling three pages with entertaining exposition. As years went by, Carr varied the number of reviews, often looking at a dozen titles—in other words, a jury box of books. Carr continued to be foreman of the Jury Box through the October 1976 issue, shortly before his death. ALLEN J. HUBIN During a five-year hiatus that gave him a chance to focus on his own writing, Jon L.

Breen's seat in the Jury Box (which followed on Carr's) was filled by mystery reviewer, collector, historian, and fan Allen J. Hubin. This was the second time Hubin had filled a position previously held by Anthony Boucher: In 1968 he replaced Boucher as mystery reviewer for the New York Times. Hubin was also the founder and first editor of The Armchair Detective, the preeminent mystery fan magazine, and editor of several annual Best Detective Stories anthologies. Hubin is perhaps best known for his mammoth reference book, The Bibliography of Crime Fiction 1749-1975, a periodically updated catalog of every mystery written in English, referred to among collectors and historians simply as "The Hubin." Al Hubin began his tenure in "The Jury Box" in the December 1983 issue and continued through most of 1988. 2010 Readers Award THE CHANGING FACE OF EQMM During this 70th anniversary year we've talked about various aspects of EQMM's entry onto the mystery stage and its subsequent run. A place in all of this should be given to the magazine's physical appearance, in particular its covers.

For many years now, EQMM has been printed on newsprint, but it wasn't always so. Founding editor Frederic Dannay boasted that his new magazine would come out on book-quality paper. He was inspired, no doubt, by the release in the U.S., only two years earlier, of the first paperback books. The impact that first Pocket Books line had was profound, and it's easy to see why it should have inspired Dannay to use paper and art of a caliber that would complement the quality stories he intended to publish. It is worth noting that Dannay himself had once been an art director, and he also had the incredible good fortune to have available to him the talents of one of the best book designers and illustrators of the day, George Salter. A refugee from Nazi Germany, Salter had been doing covers for Simon & Schuster and Alfred A. Knopf since 1937, for the books of writers like Faulkner and Steinbeck. In 1939 he became art director for Lawrence Spivak at The Mercury Press, the first publisher of EQMM. Still on board when EQMM was launched, Salter used airbrush technique to create mood and atmosphere with simple, streamlined illustrations.

This and his innovative use of type earned him a permanent place in the history of his profession; in fact, many consider him the most important book designer of the twentieth century. Salter was the predominant illustrator of EQMM covers from 1941 until he resigned as art director in 1957—although illustration wasn't always employed. From 1949 until the mid fifties, photographs of scantily clad women sometimes fronted newsstand copies, while plain type covers went to subscribers (presumably out of regard for domestic sensibilities). In 1954, Salter commissioned a cover from Milton Glaser, a young artist and designer who would become the co-founder of New York Magazine and Pushpin Studios. Glaser's first published work was his cover for EQMM. He went on to design the I ™ NY logo and continues to be one of this country's most famous graphic designers, with exhibits in galleries such as the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. Another illustrious artist brought to EQMM by art director Salter is Edward Emshwiller, who signed himself "Emsh" and created covers for science fiction and comic books before becoming famous as an experimental filmmaker and expressionist painter.

Those glory days of EQMM art gave way, in the late fifties, to covers that were mostly type mixed with readymade clip art, full illustration of a cover becoming the exception, not the rule. By the end of the fifties, all-type covers (without clip art) had come to dominate, sometimes with background patterns such as falling leaves or the famous Ellery Queen Q (a Q with a double cross representing the two men behind the Queen name). Art continued to be absent from EQMM covers all through the sixties and into the early seventies, when it began to creep in again, type often ceding half the space to a small illustration. By 1978, that illustration space, usually the right half of the cover, had come to be framed by a giant Ellery Queen Q. This neat picture-frame effect was tied into depiction of a single face per issue, often that of a famous mystery writer or a famous character from mystery fiction, such as November 1978's rendering of Philip Marlowe.

By the end of the seventies, the Q was more often the frame for a photograph than for a painting, and therefore the covers more often depicted a real person—usually an author—than a fictional one, for which an actor would be required. But these covers, with their stock photos, made a nice segue to the studio photography that was to take over from it. Beginning in 1986, EQMM hired its own photographers and studios to shoot well-known mystery writers, and sometimes actors, in scenarios devised by the art director and editor. Costumes were sometime elaborate, as when Ellis Peters, elderly and suffering from a back injury, nevertheless donned full medieval garb and held a smoking goblet full of dry ice up for the shot after shot requested by a perfectionist photographer. Others, like Doug Allyn, submitted to the vagaries of animal companions in the shoot, in his case a large crow EQMM rented in lieu of a raven to sit, in threatening posture, on his shoulder. Perhaps most memorable was the photo shoot of Andrew Vachss, who agreed to appear only if his pit pull, Honey, could share the frame.

Since Honey had to be transported from the Vachss home in Queens, EQMM hired a car service to pick up what had been described to the driver only as "a dog." A brief moment of conflict ensued when the terrified driver spotted Honey, but she was finally allowed to get in the car—and she proved, throughout the long ride and shoot, to be as sweet as her name. By 1992, EQMM had been sold to a new owner, Dell Magazines, who disliked both the expense and the results of these elaborate photo shoots. Photos were gradually eased out in favor of full-page art that was sometimes full-bleed, but more often capped by a sold logo panel. Art styles varied over the next decade from generically cozy to consciously "retro," until, in mid 2003, EQMM decided to try more accurately to recreate the feel of the early days of pulp fiction. A series of hardboiled covers, some by contemporary artists but many reprints of pulp-novel covers of the forties and fifties, continued until the middle of the following year.

They were interrupted by the release of the movie Secret Window, which features a fictional writer for EQMM and was celebrated by EQMM, on several covers, with movie stills and actor photographs. The following year, the centenary of Ellery Queen dominated EQMM's covers with photographs of the two men behind the name and their book covers, radio publicity shots, and movie posters. When EQMM returned to its pulp look in 2006, a decision was made to reprint not only classic book covers but some of the early covers of EQMM itself. Salter featured most prominently in the series, but in the course of clearing rights to other covers, EQMM discovered where one of its original artists from the 1950s was living. And not only was he still painting, he was willing to do new work for the magazine in his original style. After an absence of fifty years, Barry Waldman returned to EQMM! With this issue, we debut that new concept. It involves, as you see, a shift to black and white photography, which we will employ to broaden our range of subject matter.

This first photo harkens back to film noir, but all types of black and white images are candidates for the series, as long as they involve an intriguing element of mystery. In fact, we welcome photographic submissions from anyone accomplished in the art. Please consider submitting, and enjoy our gallery of covers. Janet Hutchings Scroll down to view our gallery of covers. To submit photographs to be considered for our cover, please e-mail them to elleryqueenmm@dellmagazines.com or send them to our editorial offices at 267 Broadway, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10007. by Steve Steinbock Fall 1941 EQMM began in an attempt to fill a literary void. It was a noble experiment launched with great hope. As founding editor Frederic Dannay explained in his introduction to that first issue (Fall 1941), the world lacked "a quality publication devoted exclusively to the printing of the best in detective-crime short-story literature." At the time, a number of pulp magazines featured crime short stories, and mysteries often appeared in other periodicals: weeklies, slick magazines, and newspapers.

With that first issue, Dannay and publisher Lawrence Spivak sought to establish a periodical anthology—not quite a book, not quite a magazine. It was printed on book-quality paper and during its first year of publication contained no advertisements. But Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine had the convenience, size, and price of a magazine. The first three issues came out quarterly, then, beginning with the May 1942 issue, every other month. In 1946, EQMM became a monthly. The cover of issue number one showed a painting by illustrator George Salter, an immigrant from Germany who would design most of the covers for the next dozen years, more than a hundred in all. Inside issue one were seven short stories, all reprints, representing the full spectrum of crime literature: two hard-boiled tales (by Dashiell Hammett and Cornell Woolrich), a traditional British story (Margery Allingham's "The Question Mark"), three American whodunits (by T.S. Stribling, Anthony Abbott, and Ellery Queen), and a humorous crime story written entirely in hillbilly dialect ("Wild Onions" by Frederick Hazlitt Brennan).

Editorial comments were kept to a minimum, with each story introduced in one or two short sentences. The issue opened with a two-page editorial: editor ellery queen explains: why—who—how—when. In that essay, Dannay promised "to give you stories by big-name writers, by lesser-known writers, and by unknown writers. But no matter what their source, they will be superior stories." EQMM has kept that promise for seventy years. October 1951 Labeled the "Tenth Anniversary Issue," issue number ninety-five contained ten stories, evenly divided between reprints and stories making their first appearance in print. The cover, designed by Dirone Photography, shows a woman happily reading a letter, while the shadow in the background tells a different story. Is it her shadow, or someone else's?

Dannay introduced a crime story by George Bernard Shaw with an essay entitled "Caviar to the General Public" in which he proclaimed that, "it hardly seems possible that a full decade has passed since we feverishly, and with fear and trembling, put together the contents of Volume 1, Number 1; nor does it seem possible that we have purchased more than a thousand stories since that golden day." The authors featured in that issue included EQMM favorites Viola Brothers Shore, Erle Stanley Gardner, and Roy Vickers, as well as Stephen Leacock and Newton Newkirk with "short-shorts." One of the highlights, carrying the long title "The 51st Sealed Room; or, The MWA Murder," is an impossible-crime story set at a meeting of the Mystery Writers of America and includes among its characters several real-life mystery writers of the day. It was by Robert Arthur, creator of the juvenile book series Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators and The Mysterious Traveler radio series.

1951 marked not only the ten-year anniversary of EQMM, but a decade since the publication of Howard Haycraft's Murder for Pleasure, a monumental study of the detective story that included his "Detective Story Bookshelf," listing what he thought belonged in the definitive detective fiction collection. To celebrate the dual decennial, Dannay (Queen) gave Haycraft a forum in which to update his list by adding a dozen or so more titles, and then appended to it his own choices, resulting in the nine-page "Haycraft-Queen Cornerstones" list. The list is preceded by comments from Haycraft and Dannay. On page 122 readers found a terse invitation: "Watch EQ on TV." Although the number of homes with televisions in 1951 was still small, lucky families could tune in to the Dumont Television Network to see The Adventures of Ellery Queen, which by then starred Lee Bowman as Ellery Queen (Richard Hart having played the part until his untimely death earlier that year). October 1961 This issue's cover listed seven stories inside a large "Q," in a tradition that had begun a few months earlier and would continue for another year.

The simpler cover design reflected no decline in the quality of what was contained between the covers. Featured were stories by Robert Bloch, O. Henry, and Phyllis Bentley, among others. A story by Theodore Mathieson starred Galileo. Vincent Starrett's sonnet, "The Adventure of the Cat and the Fiddle," tipped its hat to Conan Doyle's "Silver Blaze." Black Mask magazine, considered the greatest of the detective pulps, had ceased independent publication in 1951 and became a department of EQMM in 1953. Ellery Queen included hard-edged new stories as well as reprints in this department. This issue's selection was "The Singing Hat" by Cornell Woolrich, which first appeared in a 1939 issue of Detective Fiction Weekly. In lieu of the long introductions that had become his custom, Dannay switched to brief "Editor's File Card" introductions in the mid-1950s and they continued for this issue and beyond. These summaries listed author, title, locale, and subgenre among other things, as well as whatever short comment the editor felt necessary.

The issue also contained Anthony Boucher's review column, "Best Mysteries of the Month," in which Boucher gave a short look at six novels and two true-crime books. For the convenience of readers, issues of EQMM at this time included checklists of "Mystery Hardcovers of the Month" and "Mystery Paperbacks of the Month." October 1971 EQMM's thirtieth anniversary issue proclaimed itself to be an "All New All-American Issue." In it were eleven stories, all appearing for the first time in print. Despite being "all new," the issue is filled with stories that would become true classics, including a novelette by Lawrence Blochman featuring Drs. Coffee and Mookerji, an African adventure by Joan Richter, and an amusing tale of two Brooklyn spinsters by Avram Davidson. There is a beautiful story by Evan Hunter (a.k.a. Ed McBain) entitled "Someone at the Door," as well as Lawrence Treat's police procedural, "R as in Rookie." There are two especially remarkable stories in this issue. The first is Edward D.

Hoch's "The Leopold Locked Room," the second-most-reprinted "Captain Leopold" story (after "The Oblong Room"). Jon Breen's "Diamond Dick" is the other one that stands out. A dying-message story set on the baseball diamond, "Diamond Dick" was the first in a series of stories featuring Major League umpire Ed Gorgon. At the time, Breen had already contributed nearly a dozen pastiches to the pages of EQMM. He would later fill John Dickson Carr's place in The Jury Box, a position he would hold for a total of thirty years. Eleanor Sullivan was listed, this issue, as Managing Editor, having taken over for Clayton Rawson, who had served from 1963 until the August 1970 issue. Sullivan would later become EQMM's editor-in-chief, taking the post after Dannay's death. October 1981 EQMM was now published thirteen times a year, as it would be through 1995. Thus the cover shows the full date of October 7, 1981.

In the cover photograph, a splatter of blood is dripping down a page pressed against a typewriter platen; on the page is an unfinished dying message about the location of cash and jewels. The other mention of cash on the cover is the price of the magazine, which had almost doubled in the past decade, from 75¢ to $1.35. But it was under the cover that jewels were hidden: twelve new stories and one reprint, as well as six "Detectiverse" poems. This time there were two stories in the "Department of First Stories," marking the 585th and 586th "first stories" published in EQMM. There was also a "Department of Second Stories" in this issue, as well as stories by Michael Gilbert, William Bankier, Jack Ritchie, Clark Howard, James Powell, and Donald Olsen. As of this issue, EQMM had published an unbroken string of stories by Edward D. Hoch for 103 consecutive issues. A special section called "Ellery Queen's Mystery Newsletter" had begun appearing in December 1975 and ran through March 1985. Augmenting the regular Jury Box column by Jon L.

Breen, the "Mystery Newsletter" featured interviews, movie reviews, and other mystery-related news, such as Otto Penzler's "Crime Dossier." In this issue, Chris Steinbrunner discussed Steven Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark and John Carpenter's Escape from New York in his "Bloody Visions" column. In the "EQMM Interview," William Bankier discussed his fears and how they shaped his writing. The "Crime Beat" column bears the byline "R.E. Porter" (who was none other than Edward D. Hoch). In it he discusses a number of nonfiction works about mystery writing and writers. October 1991 Celebrating fifty years, EQMM served up a 288-page double issue while on the cover, managing editor Russell Atwood served tea and T.N.T. to the seated Andrew Klavan. From Atwood's smile, it's clear that he enjoys his job. As editorial assistant, and later as managing editor, Atwood worked with editor Eleanor Sullivan, and then helped with the transition when Janet Hutchings took over the post in mid 1991.

The double-sized 288-page issue contained fifteen stories, including six "distinguished reprints" by P.D. James, Joyce Porter, Stanley Ellin, Jack Finney, and spymasters Graham Greene and John Le Carre, and new stories by Doug Allyn, James Powell, and Andrew Klavan. Also featured was a 4-page poem by Roald Dahl retelling the Goldilocks story as a "tale of crime" that could only emerge from a mind like Dahl's. The issue is dedicated to Clark Howard, celebrating his continued and popular contributions to EQMM. His short novel "Dark Conception" appears in the issue, along with excerpts from his 1981 interview with EQMM. Every issue in 1991 bore a "50th Anniversary" tag on the cover. To help celebrate the year, EQMM ran a "50th Anniversary Contest." From January through October, a total of fifty EQMM trivia questions were presented to readers. Prizes included EQMM mugs, posters, and copies of Eleanor Sullivan's Fifty Years of the Best of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine.

The answers and a list of winners would appear six months later in the March 1992 issue. September/October 2001 Three years earlier EQMM had altered its shape, growing one inch taller. The increase in size made up for the reduction in page-count and allowed EQMM to provide its readers with the same amount of fiction in fewer pages. Authors included Clark Howard, David Handler, Ruth Rendell, Joyce Carol Oates, and Michael Z. Lewin. Also included was the 1950 dying-message story "A Lump of Sugar" by Ellery Queen, and Jeffery Deaver's "Beautiful," a hauntingly twisted tale about a woman coping with a stalker. The issue featured one of the most unusual exchanges between two contributors ever to appear in EQMM or any other magazine. A few years earlier, at a joint conference on literature by The Sorbonne and Ball State University, Professor Francois Gallix quoted Umberto Eco's observation that no detective story had ever been written in which the reader was the killer. French writer Max Dorra and British writer Peter Lovesey were both in the audience, and both, in fact, had written such stories.

The Sixtieth Anniversary issue of EQMM reprinted both of those stories, Lovesey's "Youdunnit" and Dorra's "Thou Shalt Kill." Immediately following those stories, Lovesey and Dorra each contributed a new story—"Murdering Max" and "Two Little Indians"—in which the victims were Dorra and Lovesey, respectively. The issue also contains "A Deal in Horses" by Edward D. Hoch, his 26th story featuring the Gypsy king Michael Vlado. For those keeping score, it was the 353rd consecutive issue to contain a Hoch story. Sadly, he died three years before the latest decennial issue, September/October 2011, which you hold in your hand, was compiled. Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine: Ellery Queen (Author of The Roman Hat Mystery) aka Barnaby Ross . "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 Quee aka Barnaby Ross . "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. 12 Modern Writers Who Use a Pen Name - Amex Essentials 12 Modern Writers Who Use a Pen Name 12 Modern Writers Who Use a Pen Name We all learnt about George Eliot, but did you know that many contemporary authors have written under pseudonyms? Try guessing their reasons while leafing through our selection. By Livia Formisani 12 Modern Writers Who Use a Pen Name John le Carré John le Carré: A pen name is a necessity when identity is a matter of national security. Author David Cornwell started publishing his acclaimed espionage novels as John le Carré while serving the British intelligence in the 1960s.

He left his job in 1964, one year after The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, to devote himself full-time to writing. 1/13 12 Modern Writers Who Use a Pen Name Elena Ferrante Elena Ferrante: Recently nominated as one of Time’s “100 Most Influential People of the Year”, shortlisted for the Man Booker prize 2016, the multi-awarded Italian author of the successful My Brilliant Friend cycle (aka the Neapolitan novels) has always kept her identity secret, as she claims that “books, once they are written, have no need of their authors.” 2/13 12 Modern Writers Who Use a Pen Name E. L. James E.L. James: The record-breaking author of Fifty Shades of Grey was born Erika Mitchell (Leonard is her married name). Before her bestselling Fifty Shades series, the English writer also penned adult Twilight fan fiction under the pseudonym Snowqueens Icedragon. 3/13 12 Modern Writers Who Use a Pen Name J.K. Rowling J.K.

Rowling: Both the Harry Potter series and the The Casual Vacancy were published by the English author under her real name – or almost, as she has no actual middle name. But the world-famous writer went on to author three books as Robert Galbraith, in an attempt to “work without hype or expectation”, she revealed. 4/13 12 Modern Writers Who Use a Pen Name Ellery Queen Ellery Queen: American cousins Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee wrote over 30 novels together as Ellery Queen, with Dannay also editing Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. They published another four novels under the name Barnaby Ross. What’s more, both Dannay and Lee were pseudonyms, too. [Photo: Al Aumuller, Library of Congress] 5/13 12 Modern Writers Who Use a Pen Name Patricia Highsmith Patricia Highsmith: Her short stories were first published on Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, but the multi-award winning American author would go on to write 22 novels, including Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr. Ripley.

She published The Price of Salt (later retitled Carol) as Claire Morgan in 1952 to avoid being labelled for her sexual orientation. [Photo: Open Media Ltd ] 6/13 12 Modern Writers Who Use a Pen Name Eckhart Tolle Eckhart Tolle: The author of self-help volumes The Power of Now and A New Earth, both of which have been no. 1 on the New York Times Bestsellers list, was born Ulrich Leonard Tölle. Reports on the reasons for adopting the first name Eckhart vary from a powerful coincidence in his life to an homage to German philosopher Meister Eckhart. 7/13 12 Modern Writers Who Use a Pen Name Ray Bradbury Ray Bradbury: Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles, among others, rightfully earned Bradbury a prominent place in the history of science fiction and a Pulitzer Citation, but the American author also published short stories under several pseudonyms, “often because two of his stories were scheduled for the same issue of a magazine”, as reported by his biographer.

[Photo: Alan Light] 8/13 12 Modern Writers Who Use a Pen Name Isaac Asimov Isaac Asimov: The iconic science fiction writer revealed in Opus 100 that, when asked to write the Lucky Starr novels, his publisher had a TV adaptation in mind. Already well-known at the time, Asimov worried about the TV series diverging too much from his books and published them as Paul French instead. [Photo: Andrew Kitzmiller/ flickr.com ] 9/13 12 Modern Writers Who Use a Pen Name Stephen King Stephen King: That Stephen King is a prolific author is a known fact; so much, in fact, to write for two. As it was believed that an author shouldn’t publish more than one book per year, he started to simultaneously write as Richard Bachman. A bookstore clerk recognised King’s style in Bachman’s production and contacted the author, who came out just in time to publish Misery as King.

10/13 12 Modern Writers Who Use a Pen Name Michael Crichton Michael Crichton: The author of Jurassic Park, The Andromeda Strain as well as the ER screenplays is internationally famous, having sold over 200 million books. Remarkably, Crichton started writing to support himself while attending Harvard Medical School, using the names John Lange and Jeffrey Hudson. According to his website, “he found that he could write one book in one week and sell it for $2.500”. 11/13 12 Modern Writers Who Use a Pen Name Sophie Kinsella Sophie Kinsella: Sophie Kinsella is the author of the bestselling Shopaholic book series, of which her first title Confessions of a Shopaholic, published in 2000, went on to be adapted into the eponymous film. Prior to the series, the author had successfully published five novels under her real name, Madeleine Wickham. She submitted her first Shopaholic manuscript as Kinsella for fear of embarrassment.

[Photo: Elena Torre/ flickr.com ] 12/13 The Door Between by Ellery Queen · OverDrive: eBooks, audiobooks and videos for libraries Fiction Mystery When Ellery Queen first meets the award-winning novelist Karen Leith, it is at a party held to celebrate her most recent prize in literature. The next time he hears of her, she is dead — murdered, so the police suspect, by the daughter of her fiancé, the eminent cancer researcher Dr. John MacClure. With no other suspects and only circumstantial evidence at hand, master detective Ellery Queen delves into the reclusive writer's past to uncover the startling method and motive of an intricate crime. BEING AN AUTHOR, BY ANY OTHER NAME - NYTimes.com BEING AN AUTHOR, BY ANY OTHER NAME By EDWIN McDOWELL Published: October 14, 1984 Having bucked the odds of getting published, most writers are only too happy to see their names in print. But throughout literary history, some authors have adopted pseudonyms, which include such famous names as Mark Twain, Moli ere, Saki, Lewis Carroll, Stendhal and Joseph Conrad.

The reasons for adopting pen names are as varied as the talents of the authors. Some writers use them to make a point, many have something they want to hide and others go by assumed names for no real reason at all. Although there are exceptions, few pseudonyms are intended to preserve an author's anonymity forever. Doris Lessing, for example, recently wrote two novels under the name of Jane Somers, because she said she wanted to dramatize the difficulties faced by unknown writers and offer them encouragement. After rejection by her longtime British publisher, Jonathan Cape, the books were published with little fanfare and sold poorly. ''I wanted to highlight that whole dreadful process in book publishing that 'nothing succeeds like success,' '' said Mrs. Lessing, the acclaimed author of ''Golden Notebook'' and two dozen other books. Another literary stir occurred recently when it was discovered that Daniel James, a native of Kansas City, Mo. and a Yale graduate, was Danny Santiago, the author of the highly praised ''Famous All Over Town,'' a novel about growing up in a Los Angeles barrio. Some critics accused Mr. James of trying to pass himself off as Hispanic.

The 73-year- old author said he began using a pseudonym because he thought he had been blacklisted in the 1950s, and more recently because he had lost confidence in his writing ability. Blacklists of 1950'sWriters who had been blacklisted often used pen names and some continued to do so even after that era had passed. In the 1950's, Howard Fast's publisher sold him back his unsold books plus the plates for printing them. But long after the blacklist disappeared, Mr. Fast chose the pseudonym E.V. Cunningham for his novels about a Japanese-American detective. For one thing, Mr. Fast's literary output - he has written about 65 novels - exceeds the one-book- a-year schedule that most publishers think the market will bear. Some writers adopt pen names to establish a reputation outside their usual genre, a practice that is fairly common among mystery and thriller writers. As Evan Hunter once put it, ''The mystery writer is still considered a stepchild.'' Mr. Hunter, author of ''The Blackboard Jungle,'' writes his mysteries under the name Ed McBane.

Erle Stanley Gardner wrote scores of books in his own name, but used the pen name A. A. Fair for his other novels. Pen names often are used so that the books will not be dismissed merely because the author's name fails to conform to a particular sexual stereotype. This is partly the reason why several writers have chosen names that could belong to a man or a woman. The mystery writer Phyllis Dorothy James White goes by P. D. James, and a team of thriller writers, Howard and Susan Kaminsky, use the pseudonym Brooks Stanwood. In the Names of Men There is, of course, a distinguished literary tradition of women using men's names. Baroness Karen Blixen, a Danish aristocrat, wrote ''Out of Africa'' as Isak Dinesen; Amandine Aurore Lucie Dupin wrote some 80 novels as George Sand, and Mary Ann (sometimes Marian) Evans chose the name George Eliot because George was the name of her literary agent and lover and Eliot was an easy name to pronounce. Biographers have debated why the three women used men's names, and their reasons appear to have been complex.

Nevertheless, they almost certainly did so in part to avail themselves of the greater freedom available to men. Sometimes, a writer has something to hide. William Sidney Porter, who began writing while he was in prison, was seeking anonymity when he chose the pseudonym O. Henry. Mr. Porter had fled to Honduras when he was indicted for bank embezzling and was prosecuted after he returned to the United States. Ellery Queen is the pen name on several dozen mystery novels by both the late Frederic Dannay and his cousin Manfred B. Lee, who began their 43-year collaboration by entering a writing contest that required stories to be submitted under a pseudonym. Early in that collaboration, ''Ellery Queen'' showed up for college lectures and autographing parties wearing a mask to protect his identity. Some authors use pen names to protect their non-literary careers. It is known, for example, that John le Carre, author of ''The Little Drummer Girl,'' is the pseudonym of David Cornwell. In the 1960's, Mr. Cornwell adopted the name when he was serving with the British diplomatic corps and had to seek anonymity to comply with Foreign Office rules.

Emma Lathen, the author of about 20 crime novels on financial topics, is really two people: Mary Jane Latsis, an economist, and Martha Henissart, a lawyer. They adopted their pen name more than 20 years ago because they did not want their fiction to be associated with their business careers. The pseudonym Andrej Jawien never became a household word in the United States, although it did appear on at least one collection of free verse published here a few years ago. It was the pen name used for a quarter century by a Polish poet and dramatist named Karol Wojtyla, better known today as Pope John Paul II. drawing Famous Name Changes - Writers Writers Writer best known for "The Butcher's Wife". Nicholas Blake Irish born poet and father of popular actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Al Capp US cartoonist, originator of "Li'l Abner" strip. Lewis Carroll England Died: 14 July 1898 (bronchitis) Writer of famous works such as "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Alice Through the Looking Glass". Joseph Conrad Lived and worked in England.

Aleister Crowley Leamington Spa, England Died: 2 December 1947 Writer of philosophical and occult writings that form the backbone of the contemporary movement called "magick". Best knows as icon of contemporary occultists. Referring to himself as "The Great Beast", and "The Wickedest Man Alive". George Eliot Mary Ann (or Marion) Evans Born: 22 November 1819 Warwickshire, England Died: 22 December 1880 Writer. George Eliot was the pen name of the writer Mary Ann Evans, one of Victorian England's leading novelists. Robert Jordan Writer of fantasy novels, best known for "The Wheel of Time" series. John Le Carre Born: 19 October 1931 Dorset, England Author of "Call for the Dead", "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold", (the film starred Richard Burton), "The Little Drummer Girl", "The Russia House". Stan Lee Co-creator of Spiderman, The Hulk, X-Men, Fantastic Four, Ironman, Thor.

Astrid Lindgren Motihari, India Died: 21 January 1950 Author of "Animal Farm" a modern beast-fable attacking Stalin (ism) and "1984", a novel setting forth his fears of an intrusively bureaucratised state of the future. Ellery Queen Joint pseudonym of the American crime novelists whose names are usually given as Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee, originally Daniel Nathan and Manford Lepofsky. Patrick Quentin American detective fiction writers hide behind this name. JK Rowling Pen name P Pen name A pen name, nom de plume, or literary double, is a pseudonym adopted by an author . A pen name may be used to make the author's name more distinctive, to disguise his or her gender, to distance an author from some or all of his or her works, to protect the author from retribution for his or her writings, or for any of a number of reasons related to the marketing or aesthetic presentation of the work. The author's name may be known only to the publisher, or may come to be common knowledge.

Western literature An author may use a pen name if his or her real name is likely to be confused with that of another author or notable individual. Some authors who regularly write in several genres use different pen names for each genre. Romance writer Nora Roberts writes erotic thrillers under the pen name J.D. Robb, and Samuel Langhorne Clemens used the aliases "Mark Twain" and "Sieur Louis de Conte" for different works. Similarly, an author who writes both fiction and non-fiction (such as the mathematician and fantasy writer Charles Dodgson, who wrote as Lewis Carroll , or the American television commentator Bill O'Reilly, who wrote a thriller under a pen name) may use a pseudonym for fiction writing. Occasionally a pen name is employed to avoid overexposure. Prolific authors for pulp magazines often had two and sometimes three short stories appearing in one issue of a magazine; the editor would create several fictitious author names to hide this from readers. Robert A. Heinlein wrote stories under pseudonyms so that more of his works could be published in a single magazine.

Stephen King published four novels under the name Richard Bachman because publishers didn't feel the public would buy more than one novel per year from a single author. Eventually, after critics found a large number of style similarities, publishers revealed Bachman's true identity. Sometimes a pen name is used because an author believes that his name does not suit the genre he is writing in. Western novelist Pearl Gray dropped his first name and changed the spelling of his last name to become Zane Grey , because he believed that his real name did not suit the Western genre. Romance novelist Angela Knight writes under that name instead of her actual name (Julie Woodcock) because she felt that her real name was a little too fitting for the genre. Edward Gorey had dozens of pseudonyms, apparently for his own amusement, each one an anagram of his real name. C. S. Lewis used two different pseudonyms for different reasons. Before his conversion to Christianity , he published a collection of poems (Spirits in Bondage) and a narrative poem (Dymer) under the pen name "Clive Hamilton", to avoid harming his reputation as a don at Oxford University .

His book entitled A Grief Observed, which describes his experience of bereavement, was originally released under the pseudonym "N. W. Clerk". Eric Blair also adopted the pseudonym George Orwell for several books, including Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty Four. Female authors Some female authors have used pen names to ensure that their works were accepted by publishers and/or the public. Such is the case of Peru's famous Clarinda, whose work with published in the early 17th Century. More often, women have adopted masculine pen names. This was common in the 19th century, when women were beginning to make inroads into literature but, it was felt, would not be taken as seriously by readers as male authors. Mary Ann Evans wrote under the pen name George Eliot , and Amandine Aurore Lucile Dupin, Baronne Dudevant, used the pseudonym George Sand . Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë published under the names Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell respectively. Karen Blixen 's very successful Out of Africa was originally published under the pen name Isak Dinesen.

Victoria Benedictsson, one of the most famous Swedish authors of the 19th century, wrote under the name Ernst Ahlgren. More recently, women who write in genres normally written by men sometimes choose to use initials or a neutral pen name, such as D. C. Fontana, J. K. Rowling, K. A. Applegate, and S. E. Hinton. Author Robin Hobb chose that unisex pen name when she set out to write a fantasy trilogy featuring a male leading character. An example of the opposite situation is Ian Fleming 's experimental James Bond novel The Spy Who Loved Me, which is written in the first person from the perspective of the female protagonist, Vivienne Michel, and purports to be written by her and merely presented by Fleming who 'found' the manuscript. Even at the time of publication the reality of the situation was clear, however. Collective names In some forms of fiction, the pen name adopted is the name of the lead character, to suggest to the reader that the book is a (fictional) autobiography. Daniel Handler used the pseudonym Lemony Snicket to present his A Series of Unfortunate Events books as memoirs by an acquaintance of the main characters.

Some series fiction is published under one pen name even though more than one author may have contributed to the series. In some cases the first books in the series were written by one writer, but subsequent books were written by ghost writers. For instance, many of the later books in the The Saint adventure series were not written by Leslie Charteris, the originator of the series. Similarly, Nancy Drew mystery books are published as though they were written by Carolyn Keene, The Hardy Boys books are published as the work of Franklin W. Dixon, and The Bobbsey Twins series are credited to Laura Lee Hope, although several authors have been involved in each series. Collaborative authors may have their works published under a single pen name. Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee published their mystery novels and stories under the pen name Ellery Queen (as well as publishing the work of ghost-writers under the same name). Cheryth Baldry, Kate Gary, and Victoria Holmes wrote the Warriors series under the pseudonym of Erin Hunter to keep their readers from searching all over the library for their books. The writers of Atlanta Nights, a deliberately bad book intended to embarrass the publishing firm PublishAmerica, used the pen name Travis Tea.

Sometimes multiple authors will write related books under the same pseudonym; examples include Nicolas Bourbaki in non-fiction and T. H. Lain in fiction. Nicolas Bourbaki is the collective pseudonym under which a group of (mainly French ) 20th-century mathematicians wrote a series of books presenting an exposition of modern advanced mathematics , beginning in 1935. With the goal of founding all of mathematics on set theory , the group strove for utmost rigour and generality, creating some new terminology and concepts along the way.In 2007 three Slovenian artists legally changed their names to Janez Janša the Slovenia’s economic-liberal, conservative prime minister at the time. When publicly asked whether this gesture was of an affirmative or subversive nature, they claimed they did it for "personal reasons". All their works, including art exhibitions, theatrical pieces, and publications, have been signed under this name ever since. With this gesture they introduced the concept of namesake as a collective name. The three artists now occasionally use their original names as a pen name. Concealment of identity A pseudonym may also be used to protect the writer for exposé books about espionage or crime.

Andy McNab, a former SAS soldier used a pseudonym for his book about a failed SAS mission titled Bravo Two Zero. Ibn Warraq has been used by dissident Muslim authors. Author Brian O'Nolan used the pen names "Flann O'Brien" and "Myles na gCopaleen" for his novels and journalistic writing from the 1940s to the 1960s because Irish civil servants were not allowed at that time to publish works under their own names. The identity of the enigmatic twentieth century novelist B. Traven has never been revealed, in spite of thorough research. The Histoire d'O (The Story of O), an erotic novel of sadomasochism and sexual slavery, was written by an editorial secretary with a reputation of near-prudery who used the pseudonym Pauline Réage.

Alice Bradley Sheldon had a multiplicity of reasons to write under the pen name of James Tiptree, Jr.: she was a woman writing in the heavily male-dominated genre of science fiction ; she was a bisexual woman who may have wanted to avoid the inherent biases of her readers; and she was a career intelligence officer, first in the Army Air Corps and then in the early years of the CIA , for whom concealment was a way of life.'' Eastern cultures Persian and Urdu poetry Note: List of Urdu language poets provides pen names for a range of Urdu poets. A shâ'er (a poet who writes she'rs in Urdu or Persian) almost always has a takhallus, a pen name, traditionally placed at the end of the name when referring to the poet by his full name. For example Hafez is a pen-name for Shams al-Din, and thus the usual way to refer to him would be Shams al-Din Hafez or just Hafez. Mirza Asadullah Beg Khan (his official name and title) is referred to as Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib, or just Mirza Ghalib.

India In Indian Languages, writers put it at the end of their names, like Ramdhari Singh 'Dinkar'. Sometimes they also write under their pen name without their actual name like Firaq Gorakhpuri. In early Indian literature, we find authors shying away from using any name considering it to be egotistical. Due to this notion, even today it is hard to trace the authorship of many earlier literary works from India. Later, we find that the writers adopted the practice of using the name of their deity of worship or Guru's name as their pen name. In this case, typically the pen name would be included at the end of the prose or poetry. For instance, the famous Lady Saint of India, Meerabai used 'Giridhar' a name of her beloved Lord Krishna. Great Saint and Social reformer Basavanna used the pen name 'Kudalasangamadeva' addressing the Supreme Lord in the memory of the place where he attained his divine communion. It is interesting to see how these authors twain the name of the God in their works. Japan Japanese poets who write haiku often use a haiga or penname.

The famous haiku poet Matsuo Bashō had used fifteen different haiga before he became fond of a banana plant (bashō) that had been given to him by a disciple and started using it as his penname at the age of 38. Similar to a pen name, Japanese artists usually have a gō or art-name, which might change a number of times during their career. In some cases, artists adopted different gō at different stages of their career, usually to mark significant changes in their life. One of the most extreme examples of this is Hokusai , who in the period 1798 to 1806 alone used no fewer than six. Manga artist Ogure Ito uses the pen name 'Oh! great' because his real name Ogure Ito is roughly how the Japanese pronounce "oh great." Etymology Despite the use of French words in the name Nom de plume, the term did not originate in France. H. W. Fowler and F. G.

Fowler, in The King's English state that the term nom de plume "evolved" in Britain, where people wanting a "literary" phrase, failed to understand the term nom de guerre , which already existed in French. Since guerre means war in French, nom de guerre did not make sense to the British, who did not understand the French metaphor. The term was later exported to France (H. W. Fowler's Modern English Usage). See French-language expression, although amongst French speakers pseudonyme is much more common. References and further reading Room, Adrian (editor). Dictionary of Pseudonyms: 11,000 Assumed Names and Their Origins. McFarland, 2004. ISBN 0786416580 (Wikipedia)

Question: What was the pen name of US crime writer Frederic Dannay?
Answer: Ellery Queen