|
Death Of A Doxy
''Death of a Doxy'' is a Nero Wolfe detective novel by Rex Stout, first published by Viking Press in 1966. Plot introduction Orrie Cather, one of Wolfe's operatives, has been secretly seeing a wealthy man's kept mistress at her secret lovenest. He is arrested when she turns up dead. Orrie is the only one of Wolfe's operatives to have the plot of two Stout books turn on his actions: ''Death of a Doxy'' and Stout's final work, ''A Family Affair''. Plot summary Orrie is finally going to tie the knot. He is engaged to marry Jill Hardy, a stewardess. But for months, Orrie's also been keeping company with Isabel Kerr, an ex-showgirl. Orrie has some time available, because Jill works international flights. Isabel also has time available, because she no longer performs: rather, she occupies a plush apartment that is paid for by another gentleman friend who visits her just two or three times a week. Isabel objects to Orrie's marriage plans. She has taken some of his personal and pr ... [...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] |
Happy Arcadia
''Happy Arcadia'' is a musical entertainment with a libretto by W. S. Gilbert and music originally by Frederic Clay that premiered on 28 October 1872 at the Royal Gallery of Illustration. It was one of four collaborations between Gilbert and Clay between 1869 and 1876. The music is lost. The piece is a satire on the genre of pastoral plays in which the characters, who each wish that they could be someone else, have their wish granted, with unhappy results. Gilbert and Sullivan later produced a popular comic opera, '' Iolanthe'' in which two of the characters, Strephon and Phyllis, are "Arcadian" shepherds. Phyllis, like Chloe, is torn between two suitors. The character of Lycidas also anticipates the character of Archibald Grosvenor in ''Patience'', who is cursed with perfect beauty. Background This work is the fifth in a series of six one-act musical plays written by Gilbert for Thomas German Reed and his wife Priscilla between 1869 and 1875. The German Reeds presented respe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Murder By The Book
''Murder by the Book'' is a Nero Wolfe detective novel by Rex Stout published in 1951 by the Viking Press, and collected in the omnibus volume ''Royal Flush'' (1965). Plot summary Inspector Cramer takes the unprecedented step of approaching Nero Wolfe for his help on a stalled murder investigation. Leonard Dykes, a clerk for a law partnership, was found dead in the East River. The police found in Dykes' apartment a list of men's names and Cramer wishes to have Wolfe's opinion on it. But other than suggesting Dykes may have been trying to invent an alias, Wolfe can't help. A month later Wolfe, is approached by the father of Joan Wellman, a reader for a fiction publisher, who was killed in a hit-and-run incident, late at night in Van Cortlandt Park. After reading a recent letter that Joan had written to her parents, Wolfe realises that the name ‘Baird Archer’, an author whose novel Joan was reading for her employer, had also appeared on the list found in Leonard Dykes’ apartme ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Too Many Women (novel)
''Too Many Women'' is a Nero Wolfe detective novel by Rex Stout, published in 1947 by the Viking Press. The novel was also collected in the omnibus volume ''All Aces'' (Viking 1958). Plot introduction A malcontent at the Naylor-Kerr corporation charges that one of its employees, thought to have been killed in a hit-and-run accident, was actually murdered. The president of the giant New York firm hires Archie to look for proof one way or another, in the guise of a personnel consultant in the corporation's executive offices — where 500 beautiful women are employed. Plot summary When a major engineering corporation conducts a survey into high employee turnover, a report is returned claiming that Waldo Moore, an employee recently killed in what was believed to be a hit-and-run accident, was murdered. The company president, Jasper Pine, approaches Nero Wolfe and hires him to find out whether this claim is true. Archie Goodwin is sent undercover as an outside consultant and assigned ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Some Buried Caesar
''Some Buried Caesar'' is a detective novel by American writer Rex Stout, the sixth book featuring his character Nero Wolfe. The story first appeared in abridged form in ''The American Magazine'' (December 1938), under the title "The Red Bull", it was first published as a novel by Farrar & Rinehart in 1939. In 2000 it was included in the list of the ''100 Favorite Mysteries of the Century'' by the ''Independent Mystery Booksellers Association''. Plot introduction On the way to an agricultural fair north of Manhattan, Wolfe's car runs into a tree, stranding Wolfe and Archie at the home of the owner of a chain of fast-food cafés. A neighbor is later found gored to death; the authorities rule the death an accident but Wolfe deduces that it was murder. Lily Rowan, Archie's longtime girlfriend, makes her first appearance. This is one of several Wolfe plots that break one of Wolfe's cardinal rules, to never conduct business away from the Manhattan brownstone. It involves minor charact ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Terry Teachout
Terrance Alan Teachout (February 6, 1956 – January 13, 2022) was an American author, critic, biographer, playwright, stage director, and librettist. He was the drama critic of ''The Wall Street Journal'', the critic-at-large of ''Commentary'', and the author of "Sightings", a column about the arts in the U.S. that was published biweekly in ''The Wall Street Journal''. He weblogged at About Last Night and wrote about the arts for many other magazines and newspapers, including ''The New York Times'' and ''National Review''. He was a co-host on ''Three on the Aisle'', a monthly podcast about theater in the United States, hosted by ''American Theatre'' magazine, which ran from September 2017 to December 2021. Early life Terrance Alan Teachout was born on February 6, 1956, in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, the oldest son of Herbert H. Teachout, a hardware salesman, and Evelyn Teachout (née Crosno), a secretary. He grew up in Sikeston, Missouri. Teachout attended St. John's College in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist. He was born in British India, which inspired much of his work. Kipling's works of fiction include the ''Jungle Book'' duology ('' The Jungle Book'', 1894; '' The Second Jungle Book'', 1895), ''Kim'' (1901), the '' Just So Stories'' (1902) and many short stories, including "The Man Who Would Be King" (1888). His poems include " Mandalay" (1890), " Gunga Din" (1890), "The Gods of the Copybook Headings" (1919), " The White Man's Burden" (1899), and "If—" (1910). He is seen as an innovator in the art of the short story.Rutherford, Andrew (1987). General Preface to the Editions of Rudyard Kipling, in "Puck of Pook's Hill and Rewards and Fairies", by Rudyard Kipling. Oxford University Press. His children's books are classics; one critic noted "a versatile and luminous narrative gift".Rutherford, Andrew ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chaldea
Chaldea () was a small country that existed between the late 10th or early 9th and mid-6th centuries BCE, after which the country and its people were absorbed and assimilated into the indigenous population of Babylonia. Semitic-speaking, it was located in the marshy land of the far southeastern corner of Mesopotamia and briefly came to rule Babylon. The Hebrew Bible uses the term (''Kaśdim'') and this is translated as ''Chaldaeans'' in the Greek Old Testament, although there is some dispute as to whether ''Kasdim'' in fact means ''Chaldean'' or refers to the south Mesopotamian ''Kaldu''. During a period of weakness in the East Semitic-speaking kingdom of Babylonia, new tribes of West Semitic-speaking migrants arrived in the region from the Levant between the 11th and 9th centuries BCE. The earliest waves consisted of Suteans and Arameans, followed a century or so later by the Kaldu, a group who became known later as the Chaldeans or the Chaldees. These migrations did not affec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prisoner's Base
''Prisoner's Base'' (British title ''Out Goes She'') is a Nero Wolfe detective novel by Rex Stout, first published by Viking Press in 1952. Plot introduction A young woman who will shortly inherit control of a large manufacturing firm wants to rent a room in Nero Wolfe's house. Wolfe, outraged, puts her out; she is found murdered later that night. With no client in sight, Wolfe is not interested, but Archie feels responsible. His first step is to crash a meeting of the manufacturer's board of directors. The 1992 Bantam edition reprints the typewritten title page of Rex Stout's 1952 manuscript, showing that the book's original title was ''Dare-Base.'' Darebase, also called prisoner's base, is a children's game, a variation on Tag (game), tag. "The title on my manuscript was ''Dare-Base'', from a game we played in Kansas when I was a boy," Rex Stout told biographer John McAleer. "My publisher, Harold Guinzburg, said it was better known as prisoner's base." Late one night, Archie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
