Description

Description: In this 1952 typed letter signed, Manfred B. Lee, as Ellery Queen, writes to a fan in part: “It was kind of you to think of an idea for a mystery for Ellery, but long ago we made it a hard-and-fast rule never to accept ideas offered by outsiders, and we have stuck to this rule for well over 20 years.” Lee put his initials beneath the Ellery Queen signature.

Typed on a 10 1/2″ x 7 1/4″ sheet of “Ellery Queen” imprinted stationery. Accompanied by original transmittal envelope. Item #A01941

Ellery Queen is a pseudonym created in 1928 by the American detective fiction writers Frederic Dannay (1905–1982) and Manfred Bennington Lee (1905–1971). It is also the name of their main fictional detective, a mystery writer in New York City who helps his police inspector father solve baffling murder cases. From 1929 to 1971, Dannay and Lee wrote around forty novels and short story collections in which Ellery Queen appears as a character. During the 1940s, Ellery Queen was probably the most popular American mystery writer. 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.

Condition: Mailing fold lines, otherwise very good condition.