Black Orchids
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Black Orchids
''Black Orchids'' is a Nero Wolfe double mystery by Rex Stout published in 1942 by Farrar & Rinehart, Inc. Stout's first short story collection, the volume is composed of two novellas that had appeared in abridged form in ''The American Magazine'': * "Black Orchids" (August 1941, abridged as "Death Wears an Orchid") * " Cordially Invited to Meet Death" (April 1942, abridged as "Invitation to Murder") Reviews and commentary * Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor, ''A Catalogue of Crime'' — In the first, Wolfe and Archie are in fine form, and murder at a flower show provides a suitable background for Wolfe's talents and predatory instincts. Archie himself innocently pulls the trigger. The second story is less satisfactory, involving as it does a highly debatable move by the murderer to disarm suspicion. Besides, too many animals.Barzun, Jacques and Taylor, Wendell Hertig. ''A Catalogue of Crime''. New York: Harper & Row. 1971, revised and enlarged edition 1989. * ''Time' ...
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Rex Stout
Rex Todhunter Stout (; December 1, 1886 – October 27, 1975) was an American writer noted for his detective fiction. His best-known characters are the detective Nero Wolfe and his assistant Archie Goodwin, who were featured in 33 novels and 39 novellas between 1934 and 1975. In 1959, Stout received the Mystery Writers of America's Grand Master Award. The Nero Wolfe corpus was nominated Best Mystery Series of the Century at Bouchercon XXXI, the world's largest mystery convention, and Rex Stout was nominated Best Mystery Writer of the Century. In addition to writing fiction, Stout was a prominent public intellectual for decades. Stout was active in the early years of the American Civil Liberties Union and a founder of the Vanguard Press. He served as head of the Writers' War Board during World War II, became a radio celebrity through his numerous broadcasts, and was later active in promoting world federalism. He was the long-time president of the Authors Guild, during which ...
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A Catalogue Of Crime
''A Catalogue of Crime'' is a critique of crime fiction by Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor, first published in 1971. The book was awarded a Special Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America in 1972. A revised and enlarged edition was published in 1989. Barzun and Taylor both graduated in the class of 1924 from Harrisburg Technical High School. Purpose In the preface to the 1989 second edition of ''A Catalogue of Crime'', Jacques Barzun credits the contributions of Wendell Hertig Taylor, who died in November 1985. "He had finished, I am happy to say, his half of the substantive work ndis therefore as fully co-author of this edition as of the first. Had he lived, it would have appeared much sooner." Layout The work contains 952 pages. It is divided as follows: *''Part I Novels of Detection, Crime, Mystery, and Espionage'' (pages 1–566) *''Part II Short Stories, Collections, Anthologies, Magazines, Pastiches, and Plays'' (pages 569-698) *''Part III Studie ...
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1942 Short Story Collections
Year 194 ( CXCIV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Septimius and Septimius (or, less frequently, year 947 ''Ab urbe condita''). The denomination 194 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years. Events By place Roman Empire * Emperor Septimius Severus and Decimus Clodius Septimius Albinus Caesar become Roman Consuls. * Battle of Issus: Septimius Severus marches with his army (12 legions) to Cilicia, and defeats Pescennius Niger, Roman governor of Syria. Pescennius retreats to Antioch, and is executed by Severus' troops. * Septimius Severus besieges Byzantium (194–196); the city walls suffer extensive damage. Asia * Battle of Yan Province: Warlords Cao Cao and Lü Bu fight for control over Yan Province; the battle lasts for over 100 days ...
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E-book
An ebook (short for electronic book), also known as an e-book or eBook, is a book publication made available in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices. Although sometimes defined as "an electronic version of a printed book", some e-books exist without a printed equivalent. E-books can be read on dedicated e-reader devices, but also on any computer device that features a controllable viewing screen, including desktop computers, laptops, tablets and smartphones. In the 2000s, there was a trend of print and e-book sales moving to the Internet, where readers buy traditional paper books and e-books on websites using e-commerce systems. With print books, readers are increasingly browsing through images of the covers of books on publisher or bookstore websites and selecting and ordering titles online; the paper books are then delivered to the reader by mail or another delivery service. With e-b ...
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The Silent Speaker
''The Silent Speaker'' is a Nero Wolfe detective novel by Rex Stout, first published by the Viking Press in 1946. It was published just after World War II, and key plot elements reflect the lingering effects of the war: housing shortages and restrictions on consumer goods, including government regulation of prices, featuring the conflict between a federal price regulatory body and a national business association, paralleling the conflicts between the Office of Price Administration and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers. ''The Silent Speaker'' was Stout's first full-length Nero Wolfe novel since '' Where There's a Will'' in 1940. "Thereafter, though he would continue writing for another thirty years, his stories would all be Nero Wolfe stories," wrote biographer John McAleer. "He liked Wolfe and Archie. After all, they were an essential part of himself. 'During the war years I missed them,' he told me." Plot introduction The head of a Federa ...
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Saul Rubinek
Saul Hersh Rubinek (born July 2, 1948) is a German-born Canadian actor, director, producer, and playwright. He is widely known for his television roles, notably Artie Nielsen on '' Warehouse 13,'' Donny Douglas on ''Frasier'', Lon Cohen on ''A Nero Wolfe Mystery'', and Louis B. Mayer on ''The Last Tycoon.'' He also starred in the films '' Against All Odds'' (1984), ''Wall Street'' (1987), ''The Bonfire of the Vanities'' (1990), ''Unforgiven'' (1992), ''Nixon'' (1995), ''True Romance'' (1993), '' The Express'' (2008), '' Barney's Version'' (2010), and ''The Ballad of Buster Scruggs'' (2018). Rubinek is a five-time Genie Award nominee, winning Best Supporting Actor for ''Ticket to Heaven'' (1981), and a two-time Gemini Award nominee. His directorial film debut, ''Jerry and Tom'' (1998), was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival. He was previously a stage actor and director, working with the Stratford Shakespeare Festival and Theatre Passe Muraille ...
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Collins Crime Club
Collins Crime Club was an imprint of British book publishers William Collins, Sons and ran from 6 May 1930 to April 1994. Throughout its 64 years the club issued a total of 2,012in "The Hooded Gunman -- An Illustrated History of Collins Crime Club", by John Curran, both in the dust jacket, and in page 388 first editions of crime novels and reached a high standard of quality throughout. In the field of crime book collecting, Collins Crime Club is eagerly sought, particularly pre-war first editions in dustwrappers with their vivid and imaginative images. History Customers registered their name and address with the club and were sent a newsletter every three months which advised them of the latest books which had been or were to be issued. Collins' intention was to publish three new crime books on the first Monday of every month. All three books were supposedly picked by a panel of experts (only one of whom seems to have been named — Cyril Alington) and they chose for each mon ...
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Edition (book)
The bibliographical definition of an edition includes all copies of a book printed from substantially the same setting of type, including all minor typographical variants. First edition According to the definition of ''edition'' above, a book printed today, by the same publisher, and from the same type as when it was first published, is still the ''first edition'' of that book to a bibliographer. However, book collectors generally use the term ''first edition'' to mean specifically the first print run of the first edition (aka "first edition, first impression"). Since World War II, books often include a number line (printer's key) that indicates the print run. A "first edition" per se is not a valuable collectible book. A popular work may be published and reprinted over time by many publishers, and in a variety of formats. There will be a first edition of each, which the publisher may cite on the copyright page, such as: "First mass market paperback edition". The first edit ...
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Otto Penzler
Otto Penzler (born July 8, 1942) is a German-born American editor of mystery fiction, and proprietor of The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City. Biography Born in Germany to a German-American mother and a German father, Penzler moved to The Bronx at age five after the death of his father. Penzler graduated from the University of Michigan, having studied English literature. He is the co-author the "Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection" for which he won an Edgar Award in 1977. He also wrote ''101 Greatest Movies of Mystery and Suspense'' (2000). For ''The New York Sun'', he wrote ''The Crime Scene'', a popular weekly mystery fiction column that ran for five years. He has worked with authors including Elmore Leonard, Nelson DeMille, Joyce Carol Oates, Sue Grafton, Mary Higgins Clark, Stanley Ellin, Robert Crais, Michael Connelly, James Lee Burke and Thomas H. Cook. He founded The Mysterious Press, a publishing house devoted entirely to mystery and crime fiction, in 1975. Amo ...
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Time (magazine)
''Time'' (stylized in all caps) is an American news magazine based in New York City. For nearly a century, it was published Weekly newspaper, weekly, but starting in March 2020 it transitioned to every other week. It was first published in New York City on March 3, 1923, and for many years it was run by its influential co-founder, Henry Luce. A European edition (''Time Europe'', formerly known as ''Time Atlantic'') is published in London and also covers the Middle East, Africa, and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition (''Time Asia'') is based in Hong Kong. The South Pacific edition, which covers Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands, is based in Sydney. Since 2018, ''Time'' has been published by Time USA, LLC, owned by Marc Benioff, who acquired it from Meredith Corporation. History ''Time'' has been based in New York City since its first issue published on March 3, 1923, by Briton Hadden and Henry Luce. It was the first weekly news magazine in the United St ...
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Jacques Barzun
Jacques Martin Barzun (; November 30, 1907 – October 25, 2012) was a French-American historian known for his studies of the history of ideas and cultural history. He wrote about a wide range of subjects, including baseball, mystery novels, and classical music, and was also known as a philosopher of education. In the book ''Teacher in America'' (1945), Barzun influenced the training of schoolteachers in the United States. A professor of history at Columbia College for many years, he published more than forty books, was awarded the American Presidential Medal of Freedom, and was designated a knight of the French Legion of Honor. The historical retrospective '' From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, 1500 to the Present'' (2000), widely considered his ''magnum opus'', was published when he was 93 years old. Life Jacques Martin Barzun was born in Créteil, France, to and Anna-Rose Barzun, and spent his childhood in Paris and Grenoble. His father was a member ...
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Nero Wolfe
Nero Wolfe is a brilliant, obese and eccentric fictional armchair detective created in 1934 by American mystery writer Rex Stout. Wolfe was born in Montenegro and keeps his past murky. He lives in a luxurious brownstone on West 35th Street in New York City, and he is loath to leave his home for business or anything that would keep him from reading his books, tending his orchids, or eating the gourmet meals prepared by his chef, Fritz Brenner. Archie Goodwin, Wolfe's sharp-witted, dapper young confidential assistant with an eye for attractive women, narrates the cases and does the legwork for the detective genius. Stout published 33 novels and 41 novellas and short stories featuring Wolfe from 1934 to 1975, with most of them set in New York City. The stories have been adapted for film, radio, television and the stage. The Nero Wolfe corpus was nominated for Best Mystery Series of the Century at Bouchercon 2000, the world's largest mystery convention, and Rex Stout was a nomine ...
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