Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 125, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 763 & 764, March/April 2005

Ellery Queen, Editor

There is probably no famous author in history other than Ellery Queen of whom it could be debated seriously whether the contributions he or she made were greater in the sphere of writing or editing. Though Ellery Queen’s enormous importance as a detective writer inspired critic Anthony Boucher to say “Ellery Queen is the American detective story,” Frederic Dannay (one half of the two-man Queen team) is said to have wondered whether the most enduring part of the Queen legacy might ultimately prove to be the anthologies and critical studies Queen produced, and above all, this magazine. To celebrate the achievements of Ellery Queen — as we will be doing throughout this centenary year — and not give space to Queen’s various editorial roles would be unthinkable.

The earliest appearance of Editor Queen was at the helm of the 1933-34 magazine Mystery League. In the article that leads this issue, Jon L. Breen gives us a glimpse of what was inside the four now very hard to find issues that comprised the full run of that first brave magazine devoted to “quality” detective and crime fiction. The two magazines of which Queen was founding editor, Mystery League and EQMM, grew out of the longstanding scholarly and critical interests of the two men who assumed the Queen pseudonym, Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee. So it is not surprising that at the same time Queen was launching EQMM, he was compiling and editing perhaps the most important anthology of detective fiction ever to see print: 101 Years’ Entertainment: The Great Detective Stories 1841–1941. In the early years of EQMM, Queen drew on the extensive knowledge of detective-fiction history displayed in the drawing together of that volume to introduce the magazine’s readers to forgotten or overlooked gems of mystery fiction. In turn, both Mystery League and EQMM provided the seeds out of which other scholarly, critical, and editorial projects grew.

Editor Queen’s name appears on some one hundred mystery fiction anthologies and collections, many of them consisting primarily of stories from EQMM. One of the more notable of the books is The Golden Thirteen, a collection of the winners of the Worldwide Short Story Contests sponsored by EQMM in its early years. These contests stand as one of Queen’s great editorial accomplishments. They served to bring attention to and help realize his goal of “raising the sights of mystery writers generally” so that mystery fiction might be accorded a highly respected place in the literary world. Nowadays the literary quality of mystery fiction is so often touted we take it for granted that the field attracts many “serious” writers. But Queen was one of the first to articulate the belief that a mystery story could at the same time serve literary ends. And so successful was he in promoting his contests that submissions poured in from all over the globe, not only by mystery-fiction luminaries but by authors of literary renown such as William Faulkner.

Another laudable innovation of Editor Queen was the establishment, in EQMM, of a “Department of First Stories” in which unknown authors could make their debut alongside the likes of Agatha Christie and Dashiell Hammett. Stanley Ellin, subsequent multiple Edgar Allan Poe Award winner, was one of several new talents first published in EQMM who went on to mystery stardom. One would not want to forget, either, in the list of things he was either the first or the best at, Queen’s seminal critical work on short mystery fiction, Queen’s Quorum, a reference sought by fans and scholars to this day.

Much more could be said about Editor Queen, but in these highlights of his career, readers will see, we hope, why many consider him the best editor, critic, and scholar the field has ever produced. To readers interested in pursuing the subject further, we highly recommend Francis M. Nevins’s Royal Bloodlines, and, of course, the following piece by award-winning reviewer and writer Jon L. Breen.

— Janet Hutchings