Frederick van Rensselaer Dey (February 10, 1861 – April 25, 1922) was an American

dime novel The dime novel is a form of late 19th-century and early 20th-century U.S. popular fiction issued in series of inexpensive paperbound editions. The term ''dime novel'' has been used as a catchall term for several different but related forms, r ...

ist and

pulp fiction ''Pulp Fiction'' is a 1994 American crime film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, who conceived it with Roger Avary.See, e.g., King (2002), pp. 185–7; ; Starring John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Willis, Tim Roth, Vin ...

writer A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Writers produce different forms of literary art and creative writing such as novels, short stories, books, poetry, travelogues, p ...

Early life and marriages

He was born on February 10, 1861 in

Watkins Glen, New York Watkins Glen is a village and census-designated place in and the county seat of Schuyler County, New York, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,829. Watkins Glen lies within the towns of Dix and Reading. To the southwest ...

, to David Peter Dey and Emma Brewster Sayre. He attended the Havana Academy, and later graduated from the

Columbia Law School Columbia Law School (Columbia Law or CLS) is the law school of Columbia University, a private Ivy League university in New York City. Columbia Law is widely regarded as one of the most prestigious law schools in the world and has always ranked i ...

. He practiced law and was a junior partner of William J. Gaynor. Dey took up writing while recovering from an illness. His first full-length story was written for

Beadle and Adams Erastus Flavel Beadle (September 9, 1821 – December 18, 1894) was an American printer and pioneer in publishing pulp fiction. Biography Erastus was born in Otsego County, New York, United States, in 1821, and had a brother, Irwin Pedro Be ...

in 1881. Dey married Annie Shepard Wheeler, of

Providence, Rhode Island Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts ...

, on June 4, 1885 and they had two children, Harriet and Kinsley. After a divorce he married Haryot Holt (c. 1857–June 16, 1950) on April 1, 1898.

Career

In 1891,

Street & Smith Street & Smith or Street & Smith Publications, Inc. was a New York City publisher specializing in inexpensive paperbacks and magazines referred to as dime novels and pulp fiction. They also published comic books and sporting yearbooks. Among t ...

hired him to continue the series begun by John R. Coryell, on the adventures of Nick Carter. Most of his Nick Carter stories appeared under the pseudonyms "A Celebrated Author" and "The Author of 'Nick Carter'". He wrote over a thousand Nick Carter novelettes, comprising over forty million words, all written longhand. Dey also worked as a

newspaper reporter A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

. Writing as "Varick Vanardy", he created "The Night Wind", which appeared in stories from 1913 to the early 1920s. Collected into 4 books, these have been recently reprinted by Wildside Press: ''Alias The Night Wind'' (1913), ''Return of the Night Wind'', ''The Night Wind's Promise'', ''The Lady of the Night Wind'' (1918).

Death

Dey shot himself in his room in the Hotel Broztell in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, during the night of April 25, 1922 or the morning of April 26, 1922. The body was found either by Charles E. MacLean, the managing editor for

, or by Deputy Police Commissioner Joseph Faurot.Van Raalte, Joseph. "Nick Carter: The Picturesque Career of the Man Who Made Him." ''Century: A Popular Quarterly'' 114 (Nov 1927): 91-97. Print.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Dey American male writers 1861 births 1922 suicides Street & Smith Suicides by firearm in New York City People from Watkins Glen, New York Dime novelists