Editing Steve Allen (section)

=== Author ===
Allen was a comedy writer and author of more than 50 books, including several volumes of autobiography; children's books; a series of mystery novels; and numerous volumes of essays and opinions. Twenty of his books were concerned with his views about religion.<ref name=god />

Among his better-known non-fiction works are ''Dumbth'', a commentary on the American educational system, and ''Steve Allen on the Bible, Religion, and Morality''. Allen also ostensibly authored a long-running series of mystery novels in the 1980s and '90s "starring" himself and Meadows as amateur sleuths. They later were revealed to have been ghostwritten by Walter J. Sheldon and, later, by [[Robert T. Westbrook|Robert Westbrook]].

Despite his lifelong reputation for political liberalism, morally, Allen was highly critical of vulgarity on both television and radio, and particularly strident in criticizing [[Howard Stern]] and other [[shock jock]]s. At the time of his death, he was completing a book on the subject called ''Vulgarians at the Gate,'' about what he saw as "the rising tide of smut on television."<ref name=NYT />