8/15/1929 Roman hat trick

August 15, 1929.  This date saw the beginning of one of the longest and most distinguished careers in mystery fiction.  It saw the publication of The Roman Hat Mystery, the first mystery written by Ellery Queen, featuring, of course, the detective Ellery Queen.

Cousins Manfred Lee and Frederic Dannay wrote the book for a contest and won, but the sponsoring organization promptly went out of business.  Fortunately Frederick Stokes published it and the Queen career was on its way.

5/24/192? Ellery Queen takes a powder

May 25, 192?.  On this date a model in the show window of a New York City department store pushed a button on a folding bed, which unfolded, revealing a dead body.  Thus began The French Powder Mystery, the second novel written by Ellery Queen, starring mystery writer Ellery Queen, who is not the mystery writer who wrote the book... Oh, you know what I mean.

3/25/1951 Lady, You're Dead!

March 25, 1981.  Ellery Queen's story "Lady, You're Dead!" appeared in This Week magazine on this day.  When it appeared in an Ellery Queen book the title changed to "Driver's Seat,"  which was presumably the one they preferred.

Perhaps this was karma striking back at Frederic Dannay, one half of the writing team, since he had a reputation for ruthlessly changing titles of stories  that appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, which he edited.

1/26/1952 The Black Ledger appears

January 26, 1952.  The issue of This Week magazine with this cover date featured "The Mysterious Black Ledger," a short story by Ellery Queen, based on one of their radio scripts. Ellery (the detective, not the writer... well, the detective is a writer, but... oh, you know what I mean) is serving as a courier and the bad guys catch him and try to find the ledger he is carrying...

10/20/1905 Half of Ellery Queen is born

October 20, 1905.  Daniel Nathan was born on this day in Brooklyn, New York.  Writing under the name Frederick Dannay, with his cousin Manfred Lee, they created the author Ellery Queen, who wrote about the character Ellery Queen.  Complicated names, huh?  And I didn't even mention that Lee's real name was Emanuel Lepofsky.

They wrote more than thirty books, sometimes bringing in a ghost writer to do part of the work.  Ellery Queen, the author, loved complicated fair play plots in the early days, with Challenges To The Reader:  You know what Ellery knows.  Can you solve the puzzle?  Their style changed over the decades, as they were willing to experiment  more than many of their era.

The character went onto movies, radio, and television, not to mention comic books.  But the half of Queen whose birth we celebrate today was also the main force behind Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, which he edited for forty years.  Now in its seventies, EQMM is one of the oldest surviving magazines in the U.S., and has been a steering force in mystery fiction,e specially the short story. 

6/18/1939 Ellery Queen comes to the radio

June 18, 1939.  This date saw the premiere of The Adventures of Ellery Queen on CBS radio.  The first episdoes were written by Ellery Queen himself.  Uh, themselves.  Later Anthony Boucher (for whom the Bouchercon is named) took over the scripting.  Hugh Marlowe led the cast.  The show ended in 1940 but appeared on NBC in '42 and showed up on various networks through most of the decade.   You can hear some of the episodes here.