Rex Stout

Rex Todhunter Stout (1886-1975) was born in Indiana as one of nine children in a Quaker family. By the age of four, he had already learned to read the entire text of the Bible. He graduated from the University of Kansas in Lawrence and served in the U.S. Navy between 1906-1908, on President Roosevelt's yacht. In the following years, he changed approximately thirty professions while attempting to publish his poems and short stories in various magazines until his 1916 patent for a school banking system provided him with enough money to travel abroad. In 1927, he moved to Paris to write literature. His early novels were not detective stories (such as the psychological novel "How Like a God," 1929, or the political thriller "The President Vanishes," 1934). However, in 1934, upon returning to America, he turned definitively to detective fiction by creating Nero Wolfe, a detective with a passion for fine cuisine, savoir vivre, and expensive orchids, who, with the help of his assistant Archie Goodwin, solves mysteries without leaving his apartment ("Fer-de-Lance," 1934). Nero Wolfe quickly became famous among detective fiction enthusiasts. Until his death in 1975, Stout wrote seventy-two novels featuring the duo of Wolfe and Goodwin, publishing at least one new story each year (including "The League of Frightened Men," 1935, which was adapted into a film two years later, "The Rubber Band," 1936, "The Red Box," 1937, "Too Many Cooks," 1938, "Some Buried Caesar," 1939, "Over My Dead Body," 1940, "Where There's a Will," 1940, "Black Orchids," 1942, featuring the novellas "Black Orchids" and "Cordially Invited to Meet Death," "Not Quite Dead Enough," 1944, which includes the novellas "Not Quite Dead Enough" and "Booby Trap," "The Silent Speaker," 1946, "Too Many Women," 1947, "And Be a Villain," 1948, "Trouble in Triplicate," 1949, which includes the novellas "Help Wanted, Male," "Before I Die," and "Instead of Evidence," "The Second Confession," 1949, "Three Doors to Death," 1950, featuring the novellas "Man Alive," "Omit Flowers," and "Door to Death," "In the Best Families," 1950, "Curtains for Three," 1951, which includes the novellas "The Gun with Wings," "Bullet for One," and "Disguise for Murder," "Murder by the Book," 1951, "Triple Jeopardy," 1952, etc.). Raised with liberal values, Rex Stout was one of the founding members of the American Civil Liberties Union in the 1920s and later defended President Roosevelt's New Deal, which led to issues with Senator McCarthy's House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1940s-50s. Notably, the FBI maintained a voluminous file on him, which they refused to disclose—except in a censored form—even 12 years after his death in 1988, for journalist Herbert Mitgang's book "Dangerous Dossiers." At the 31st Bouchercon World Mystery Convention in Denver in 2000, the largest of its kind, the Nero Wolfe book series was nominated for the Best Mystery Series of the Century award (which was ultimately awarded to the Hercule Poirot series), and Rex Stout, along with Raymond Chandler, Agatha Christie, Dashiell Hammett, and Dorothy Sayers, was nominated for the Best Mystery Writer of the Century distinction (which was awarded to Agatha Christie).