Otto Penzler owns The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City and founded the Mysterious Press and Otto Penzler Books. He has written and edited several books, including the Edgar Award-winning Encyclopaedia of Mystery and Detection, and is the series editor of the annual Best American Mystery Stories of the Year.
Anthony Boucher (Contributor)
Anthony Boucher (1911-1968) was an American author, editor, and critic, perhaps best known today as the namesake of the annual Bouchercon convention, an international meeting of mystery writers, fans, critics, and publishers. Born William Anthony Parker White, he wrote under various pseudonyms and published fiction in a number of genres outside of mystery, including fantasy and science fiction.
Fredric Brown (Contributor)
Fredric Brown was a prolific writer of multiple genres, including mystery, sci-fi, poetry, and non-fiction, whose work has been championed by Stephen King, Philip K. Dick, Umberto Eco, and many more literary luminaries. In the mystery world, he is best remembered today for his long-running series of mysteries featuring Ed and Am Hunter, who made their first appearance in the Edgar Award winner, The Fabulous Clipjoint.
John Dickson Carr (Contributor)
John Dickson Carr (1906-1977) was one of the greatest writers of the American Golden Age mystery, and one of the only American authors to be included in England's legendary Detection Club. Though he was born and died in the United States, Carr began his writing career while living in England, where he remained for nearly twenty years. Under his own name and various pseudonyms, he wrote more than seventy novels and numerous short stories, and is best known today for his locked-room mysteries. His beloved series character, Dr. Gideon Fell, was based on author G. K. Chesterton and appeared in twenty-four novels.
Mignon G. Eberhart (Contributor)
Mignon G. Eberhart (1899-1996) wrote dozens of mystery novels over nearly sixty years. Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, she published her first novel, The Patient in Room 18, in 1929 and by the end of the 1930s she was one of the most popular mystery writers on the planet. Eight of her books-including Murder by an Aristocrat-were adapted for film; later in her career, she was awarded the Grand Master Award by the Mystery Writers of America for lifetime achievement.
Erle Stanley Gardner (Contributor)
Erle Stanley Gardner (1889-1970) was a prolific American author best known for his works centred on the lawyer-detective Perry Mason. At the time of his death in March of 1970, in Ventura, California, Gardner was "the most widely read of all American writers" and "the most widely translated author in the world," according to social historian Russell Nye. The first Perry Mason novel, The Case of The Velvet Claws, published in 1933, had sold twenty-eight million copies in its first fifteen years. In the mid-1950s, the Perry Mason novels were selling at the rate of twenty thousand copies a day. There have been six motion pictures based on his work and the hugely popular Perry Mason television series starring Raymond Burr, which aired for nine years and 271 episodes.
C. Daly King (Contributor)
C. Daly King (1895-1963) was an American psychologist and detective story writer. He was born in New York City and educated at Yale University. After fighting in World War I, he worked in textiles and in advertising before returning to school to study psychology, with a particular focus on sleep and consciousness. In the 1930s, King published nine books that quickly established him as a master of the Golden Age mystery, but ceased writing fiction with the advent of World War II.
Stuart Palmer (Contributor)
Stuart Palmer (1905-1968) was an American author of mysteries.
