Editing Ellery Queen (section)

== Pseudonym==
[[File:Ellery Queen NYWTS.jpg|thumb|Frederic Dannay (left) with EQMM contributor James Yaffe in 1943.]]
Ellery Queen was created in the fall of 1928 when Dannay and Lee entered a mystery novel writing contest offering a prize of $7500 ({{Inflation|index=US|value=7500|start_year=1928|r=-3|fmt=eq}}) jointly sponsored by ''[[McClure's]]'' magazine and [[Frederick A. Stokes Company]]. They decided to use as their collective pseudonym the same name they had given to their detective as they believed readers tended to remember the names of detectives but forget those of their creators. They were informed that they had won the contest, but ''McClure's'' magazine went bankrupt and was absorbed by ''[[The Smart Set]]'' magazine before they received any money.<ref name=":5" /><ref>{{Cite web |title=McClure's magazine v.61 no.2 Aug. 1928. |url=https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uva.x030751674?urlappend=%3Bseq=1 |access-date=2023-09-23 |website=HathiTrust | hdl=2027/uva.x030751674?urlappend=%3Bseq=1 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=12 August 1928 |title=Books and Authors |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1928/08/12/archives/books-and-authors.html |access-date=2023-09-23 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Blottner |first=Gene |title=Columbia Pictures Movie Series, 1926-1955: The Harry Cohn Years |publisher=McFarland |year=2011 |isbn=978-0786433537}}</ref>

''The Smart Set'' magazine rejudged the contest and awarded the prize to an entry by the writer [[Isabel Briggs Myers]] but in 1929, Frederick A. Stokes Company agreed to publish Dannay and Lee's story under the title ''[[The Roman Hat Mystery]].'' Buoyed by its success, they were contracted to write more mysteries and they went on to write a successful series of novels and short stories that lasted 42 years.<ref name=":5" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Queen |first=Ellery |url=https://archive.org/details/pg000161/pg000002.jpg |title=The Roman Hat Mystery |publisher=Frederick A. Stokes Company |year=1929}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Norris |first=J. F. |date=2012-12-01 |title=Pretty Sinister Books: The Enigma of the New McClure's Mystery Contest |url=https://prettysinister.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-enigma-of-new-mcclures-mystery.html |access-date=2023-09-23 |website=Pretty Sinister Books}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=15 August 1954 |title=Whodunit? Theydunit, the Team of Dannay and Lee; THE GLASS VILLAGE. By Ellery Queen. 281 pp. Boston: Little, Brown & Co. $3.50. |language=en |work=The New York Times |url=http://timesmachine.nytimes.comhttp//timesmachine.content-tagging.us-east-1-01.prd.dvsp.nyt.net/timesmachine/1954/08/15/92599175.html |access-date=2023-09-23}}</ref>

During the 1940s, Ellery Queen was probably the most popular American mystery writer.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UjgE_CRiIW4C&q=%22ellery+queen%22&pg=PA161 |title=Herbert, ''Who's Who in Crime'', p.161 |isbn=9780195157611 |access-date=2012-02-21|last1=Herbert |first1=Rosemary |year=2003 |publisher=Oxford University Press }}</ref><ref name=":2" /> More than 150 million copies of Queen's books were sold globally and 'he' remained the best-selling mystery writer in [[Japan]] till the end of the 1970s.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Grossberger |first=Lewis |date=1978-03-16 |title=Ellery Queen |language=en-US |newspaper=Washington Post |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1978/03/16/ellery-queen/e39b7102-5943-440b-8016-347875aaebda/ |access-date=2023-09-19 |issn=0190-8286}}</ref><ref>[https://www.proquest.com/openview/631c175d6cfda8a428ade6888f4c8bd8/1 Image: Dannay and Lee, 1967]</ref>

Many short stories were also published under the Queen name, which were mostly well-received. The novelist and critic [[Julian Symons]] called them "as absolutely fair and totally puzzling as the most passionate devotee of orthodoxy could wish" and said they were "composed with wonderful skill"<ref>{{Cite book |last=Symons |first=Julian |title=Bloody Murder: From the Detective Story to the Crime Novel |publisher=Mysterious Press |year=1993 |isbn=978-0892964963 |edition=3rd |pages=181}}</ref> whereas the historian [[Jacques Barzun|Jaques Barzun]] said they were "full of ingenious gimmicks and adorned with excellent titles".<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Barzun |first1=Jaques |url=https://archive.org/details/catalogueofcrime00barz |title=A Catalogue of Crime |last2=Taylor |first2=Wendell Hertig |publisher=Harper & Row |year=1989 |isbn=9780060157968 |edition=2nd |pages=665}}</ref>

Dannay, without much involvement from Lee, founded the crime fiction magazine ''Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine'' in 1941, and served as its [[editor-in-chief]] until his death in 1982. However, they together edited numerous collections and anthologies of crime fiction such as ''[[The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes]]'' and ''101 Years' Entertainment, The Great Detective Stories, 1841–1941.'' They were awarded the [[MWA Grand Master Award|Grand Master Award]] by the [[Mystery Writers of America]] in 1961 for their work under the Ellery Queen pseudonym.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Nevins |first=Francis M. |title=Royal bloodline: Ellery Queen, author and detective |publisher=Bowling Green University Popular Press |year=1974 |isbn=978-0892964963}}</ref><ref name=":5" /><ref>{{Cite news |last=Mitgang |first=Herbert |date=1988-03-05 |title=Ellery Queen's 'Double Lives' |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1988/03/05/books/ellery-queen-s-double-lives.html |access-date=2023-09-20 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref>

From 1961 onwards, they allowed the 'Ellery Queen' ''nom de plume'' to be used as a [[Pen name#Collective names|house name]] for several crime thrillers written by other authors. Dannay had initially opposed this project but was eventually persuaded by Lee, who was in financial difficulty at that time and wanted the extra royalties it would bring. The editing and supervision of these thrillers was done almost entirely by Lee; Dannay refused to even read these books.<ref name=":5">{{Cite book |last=Nevins |first=Francis M. |title=The Art of Detection: The Story of how Two Fractious Cousins Reshaped the Modern Detective Novel. |publisher=Perfect Crime Books |year=2013 |isbn=978-1935797470}}</ref> 

None of the ghostwritten novels feature Ellery Queen as a character. Three of them star "the governor's troubleshooter" Micah "Mike" McCall and six of them feature Captain Tim Corrigan of the [[NYPD|New York City Police Department]]. The prominent science-fiction writer [[Jack Vance]] wrote three such novels including the 1965 [[locked room mystery]] ''A Room to Die In''.<ref name=":1" />

Dannay and Lee remained reticent about their writing methods.<ref name=":3" /><ref>{{Cite news |last=Shenker |first=Israel |date=1969-02-22 |title=Ellery Queen Won't Tell How It's Done |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1969/02/22/archives/ellery-queen-wont-tell-how-its-done.html |access-date=2023-09-23 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref> Novelist and critic [[H. R. F. Keating|H.R.F. Keating]] wrote, "How actually did they do it? Did they sit together and hammer the stuff out word by word? Did one write the dialogue and the other the narration? ... What eventually happened was that Fred Dannay, in principle, produced the plots, the clues, and what would have to be deduced from them as well as the outlines of the characters and Manfred Lee clothed it all in words. But it is unlikely to have been as clear cut as that."<ref name="KEAT">{{Cite book |last=Keating |first=H.R.F. |title=The Bedside Companion to Crime |publisher=Mysterious Press |year=1989 |isbn=0-89296-416-2 |location=New York |pages=181–182}}</ref>

According to the crime fiction critic [[Otto Penzler]], "As an anthologist, Ellery Queen is without peer, his taste unequalled. As a bibliographer and a collector of the detective short story, Queen is, again, a historical personage. Indeed, Ellery Queen clearly is, after [[Edgar Allan Poe|Poe]], the most important American in mystery fiction."<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Roseman |first1=Mill |title=Detectionary: A Biographical Dictionary of Leading Characters in Mystery Fiction |last2=Penzler |first2=Otto |date=June 7, 1977 |publisher=Overlook Press}}</ref>

British crime novelist [[Margery Allingham]] said that Dannay and Lee had "done far more for the detective story than any other two men put together" and critic [[Anthony Berkeley Cox]] famously quoted "Ellery Queen ''is'' the American Detective Novel".<ref>{{Cite web |title=Ellery Queen |url=https://www.worlds-best-detective-crime-and-murder-mystery-books.com/ellery_queen.html |access-date=2023-09-19 |website=World's Best Detective, Crime, and Murder Mystery Books}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Queen, Ellery {{!}} Encyclopedia.com |url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/media/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/queen-ellery |access-date=2023-09-19 |website=www.encyclopedia.com}}</ref>

Although Dannay outlived Lee by eleven years, the Ellery Queen ''nom de plume'' died with Lee. The last novel featuring the character Ellery Queen, ''A Fine and Private Place'', was published in 1971, the year of Lee's death.<ref name="Hubin2" /> However, ''Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine'' is still in print, now published as six "double issues" per year by [[Dell Magazines]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Current Issue |url=http://www.elleryqueenmysterymagazine.com/current-issue/ |access-date=2023-09-18 |website=Ellery Queen |language=en-US}}</ref>