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Bad For Business
''Bad for Business'' is a mystery novel by American write Rex Stout, starring his detective Tecumseh Fox, first published in 1940 in literature, 1940. Private investigator Tecumseh Fox was the protagonist of three mysteries written by Stout between 1939 and 1941. Plot summary Amy Duncan is a private investigator for the firm of Bonner and Raffray (see ''The Hand in the Glove'' for more complete information about Dol Bonner and this company) and the youngest of four women on what is called the "siren squad". Her detective work is based on the theory that most men get careless eventually around pretty women, especially those with chartreuse eyes like hers, and she's been trying to encourage a handsome young man named Leonard Cliff to get careless when she gets knocked down (harmlessly) by a car driven by private investigator Tecumseh Fox. He learns of her assignment, which is to investigate the possibility the company of which Cliff is a vice-president, a large food conglomerate, has ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dell Publishing
Dell Publishing Company, Inc. is an American publisher of books, magazines and comic books, that was founded in 1921 by George T. Delacorte Jr. with $10,000 (approx. $145,000 in 2021), two employees and one magazine title, ''I Confess'', and soon began turning out dozens of pulp magazines, which included penny-a-word detective stories, articles about films, and romance books (or "smoochies" as they were known in the slang of the day). During the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, Dell was one of the largest publishers of magazines, including pulp magazines. Their line of humor magazines included '' 1000 Jokes'', launched in 1938. From 1929 to 1974, they published comics under the Dell Comics line, the bulk of which (1938–68) was done in partnership with Western Publishing. In 1943, Dell entered into paperback book publishing with Dell Paperbacks. They also used the book imprints of Dial Press, Delacorte Books, Delacorte Press, Yearling Books, and Laurel Leaf Library. Dell was acqui ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Novels By Rex Stout
A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itself from the la, novella, a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ''novellus'', diminutive of ''novus'', meaning "new". Some novelists, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Ann Radcliffe, John Cowper Powys, preferred the term "romance" to describe their novels. According to Margaret Doody, the novel has "a continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years", with its origins in the Ancient Greek and Roman novel, in Chivalric romance, and in the tradition of the Italian renaissance novella.Margaret Anne Doody''The True Story of the Novel'' New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996, rept. 1997, p. 1. Retrieved 25 April 2014. The ancient romance form was revived by Romanticism, especially the historica ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1985 In Literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1985. Events * February 25 – Sue Limb's parodic pastiche of the Lake Poets, ''The Wordsmiths at Gorsemere'', begins broadcasting on BBC Radio 4 in the U.K. *March 1 – The GNU Manifesto by Richard Stallman is published for the first time, and becomes a fundamental philosophical source within the free software movement. * August 11 – A memorial to the poet Hugh MacDiarmid is unveiled near his home at Langholm, Scotland. *''unknown dates'' – Three notable novels in English by female authors are published during the year: Margaret Atwood's ''The Handmaid's Tale'', Jilly Cooper's '' Riders'', the first of the Rutshire Chronicles, and Jeanette Winterson's ''Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit''. New books Fiction * Isaac Asimov – ''Robots and Empire'' * Margaret Atwood – ''The Handmaid's Tale'' *Jean M. Auel – ''The Mammoth Hunters'' *Iain Banks – ''Walking on Glass'' *Clive Barker – '' The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1977 In Literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1977. Events *February 20 – An episode of '' Doctor on the Go'', co-written by Douglas Adams and Graham Chapman, marks the beginning of Adams' career as a writer for BBC radio. *March 4 – Andrés Caicedo commits suicide by overdose, aged 25, about a month after the publication of his novel '' ¡Que viva la música!'' ("Let Music Live!", translated as ''Liveforever'') is published in his hometown of Cali, Colombia. * April 27 – Héctor Germán Oesterheld, Argentine comic book writer born 1919), is kidnapped by the military authorities; he is believed to have died in detention a few months later. *July 11 – The English magazine ''Gay News'' is found guilty of blasphemous libel for publishing a homoerotic poem, "The Love That Dares to Speak Its Name" by James Kirkup, in a case (''Whitehouse v Lemon'') at the Old Bailey in London, on behalf of Mary Whitehouse's National Viewers and Listeners Ass ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bitter End (novella)
"Bitter End" is the first Nero Wolfe mystery novella by Rex Stout, originally published in the November 1940 issue of ''The American Magazine''. The story is a re-working of Stout's Tecumseh Fox story '' Bad for Business'', published later that year. "Bitter End" first appeared in book form in the posthumous limited-edition collection ''Corsage: A Bouquet of Rex Stout and Nero Wolfe'' edited by Michael Bourne, published in 1977 by James A. Rock & Co., Publishers. It subsequently appeared in ''Death Times Three'', published by Bantam Books in 1985. Plot summary The story starts with detective Nero Wolfe and his assistant, Archie Goodwin, being forced to dine on food from a delicatessen as Fritz, Wolfe's private chef and housekeeper, has been in bed for several days, ill with influenza. A jar of liver pâté made by ''Tingley's Tidbits'' is found to have a foul taste. Poison is suspected as there are a number of people who would like to see Wolfe dead. He is outraged and vows ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bantam Books
Bantam Books is an American publishing house owned entirely by parent company Random House, a subsidiary of Penguin Random House; it is an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group. It was formed in 1945 by Walter B. Pitkin, Jr., Sidney B. Kramer, and Ian and Betty Ballantine, with funding from Grosset & Dunlap and Curtis Publishing Company. It has since been purchased several times by companies including National General, Carl Lindner's American Financial and, most recently, Bertelsmann; it became part of Random House in 1998, when Bertelsmann purchased it to form Bantam Doubleday Dell. It began as a mass market publisher, mostly of reprints of hardcover books, with some original paperbacks as well. It expanded into both trade paperback and hardcover books, including original works, often reprinted in house as mass-market editions. History The company was failing when Oscar Dystel, who had previously worked at Esquire and as editor on Coronet magazine was hired in 1954 t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Death Times Three
''Death Times Three'' is a collection of Nero Wolfe novellas by Rex Stout, published posthumously by Bantam Books in 1985. It is the only collection of Stout's Nero Wolfe stories not to have appeared first in hardcover. The book contains three stories, one never before published: * " Bitter End", first printed in the November 1940 issue of '' The American Magazine'', and collected in the limited-edition volume ''Corsage: A Bouquet of Rex Stout'' (1977). The story is a re-working of Stout's Tecumseh Fox story ''Bad for Business''. * " Frame-Up for Murder", an expanded rewrite of the 1958 novella " Murder Is No Joke" that was serialized in three issues of '' The Saturday Evening Post'' (June 21, June 28 and July 5, 1958) but never published in book form. * " Assault on a Brownstone", an early draft of the 1961 novella " Counterfeit for Murder"; in this draft, Hattie Annis, who would become one of the most carefully drawn and favorite non-recurring Nero Wolfe characters in the revise ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sumner Blossom
Sumner N. Blossom (June 25, 1892 – March 1977) was an American magazine editor. During the 1920s, Blossom worked as editor for Popular Science magazine. In 1929 he joined ''The American Magazine'' as its editor, a position he held until the magazine's closure in August 1956. Blossom was a graduate of Westport High School in Kansas City, Missouri, where he played football.Lee Shippey, ''Luckiest Man Alive,'' Los Angeles, Westernlore Press (1959) While editor of '' The American Magazine'', Sumner Blossom published short stories by many outstanding writers of the day but also adopted policies that provided opportunities for unknown writers to have their work published. Blossom arranged to hide the author's name on all works of fiction during the selection process. The magazine's staff only learned the author's identity once they accepted or rejected a manuscript. Hence, an unknown writer whose unsolicited work had been drawn from the slush pile, could be selected for publication b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The American Magazine
''The American Magazine'' was a periodical publication founded in June 1906, a continuation of failed publications purchased a few years earlier from publishing mogul Miriam Leslie. It succeeded ''Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly'' (1876–1904), ''Leslie's Monthly Magazine'' (1904–1905), ''Leslie's Magazine'' (1905) and the ''American Illustrated Magazine'' (1905–1906). The magazine was published through August 1956. History Under the magazine's original title, ''Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly'', it had begun to be published in 1876 and was renamed ''Leslie's Monthly Magazine'' in 1904, and then was renamed again as ''Leslie's Magazine'' in 1905. From September 1905, through May 1906, it was entitled the ''American Illustrated Magazine''; then subsequently shortened as ''The American Magazine'' until publication ceased in 1956. It kept continuous volume numbering throughout its history. In June 1906, muckraking journalists Ray Stannard Baker, Lincoln Steffens and Ida M. Tar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hamish Hamilton
Hamish Hamilton Limited was a British book publishing house, founded in 1931 eponymously by the half-Scot half-American Jamie Hamilton (''Hamish'' is the vocative form of the Gaelic Seumas eaning James ''James'' the English form – which was also his given name, and ''Jamie'' the diminutive form). Jamie Hamilton was often referred to as ''Hamish Hamilton''. The Hamish Hamilton imprint is now part of the Penguin Random House group. History and current publishing Hamish Hamilton Limited originally specialized in fiction, and was responsible for publishing a number of American authors in the United Kingdom, including Nigel Balchin (including pseudonym: Mark Spade), Raymond Chandler, James Thurber, J.D. Salinger, E. B. White and Truman Capote. In 1939 Hamish Hamilton Law and Hamish Hamilton Medical were started but closed during the war. Hamish Hamilton was established in the literary district of Bloomsbury and went on to publish many promising British and American authors, m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mapback
Mapback is a term used by paperback collectors to refer to the earliest paperback books published by Dell Books, beginning in 1943. The books are known as mapbacks because the back cover of the book contains a map that illustrates the location of the action. Dell books were numbered in series. Mapbacks extend from #5 to at least #550; then maps became less of a fixed feature of the books and disappeared entirely in 1951. (Numbers 1 through 4 had no map, although a later re-publication of #4, ''The American Gun Mystery'' by Ellery Queen, added a map.) The occasional number in the series between #5 and #550 contains no map, but some sort of full-page graphic or text connected with the book's contents. The artwork of the maps began with quite detailed maps, and later numbers contain more stylized ones. "The back cover map was very popular with readers and remains popular with collectors ... the Dell 'mapbacks' are among the most well known vintage paperbacks." "Dell's most ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
