The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes

Ellery Queen is the pseudonym under which two American cousins from Brooklyn, New York wrote, edited, and anthologized detective fiction: Frederic Dannay (born Daniel Nathan, October 20, 1905 - September 3, 1982) and Manfred Bennington Lee (born Emanuel Benjamin Lepofsky, January 11, 1905 - April 3, 1971).

In a successful series of novels and short stories that covered 42 years, “Ellery Queen” served as a joint pseudonym for the cousins Dannay and Lee, as well as the name of the primary detective-hero they created. During the 1930s and much of the 1940s, that detective-hero was possibly the best known American fictional detective. Movies, radio shows, and television shows were based on Dannay and Lee’s works.

Frederic Dannay, without much involvement from Lee, was founding and directing editor of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, generally considered one of the most influential English-language crime fiction magazines of the last sixty-five years. They were also prominent historians in the field, editing numerous collections and anthologies of short stories such as The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes. Their 994-page anthology for the Modern Library, 101 Years’ Entertainment: The Great Detective Stories, 1841-1941, was a landmark work.

Under their collective pseudonym, the cousins were given the Grand Master Award for achievements in the field of the mystery story by the Mystery Writers of America in 1961.

Although Frederic Dannay outlived his cousin by ten years, the Ellery Queen authorial name died with Manfred Lee. The last Ellery Queen novel, A Fine and Private Place, was published in 1971, the year of Lee’s death.