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Rex Todhunter Stout (; December 1, 1886 – October 27, 1975) was an American writer noted for his detective fiction. His best-known characters are the detective Nero Wolfe and his assistant Archie Goodwin, who were featured in 33 novels and 39 novellas or short stories between 1934 and 1975.
In 1959, Stout received the Mystery Writers of America's Grand Master Award. The Nero Wolfe corpus was nominated Best Mystery Series of the Century at Bouchercon XXXI, the world's largest mystery convention, and Rex Stout was nominated as Best Mystery Writer of the Century.
In addition to writing fiction, Stout was a prominent public intellectual for decades. Stout was active in the early years of the American Civil Liberties Union and a founder of the Vanguard Press. He served as head of the Writers' War Board during World War II, became a radio celebrity through his numerous broadcasts, and was later active in promoting world federalism. He was the long-time president of the Authors Guild and sought to benefit authors by lobbying for improvement of authors' rights under the copyright laws. He also served a term as president of the Mystery Writers of America in 1958.
His father was a teacher who encouraged his son to read, leading to Rex having read the entire Bible twice by the age of four. At age thirteen he was the state spelling bee champion. Stout attended Topeka High School, Kansas, and the University of Kansas, Lawrence. His sister, Ruth Stout, also authored several books on no-work gardening and some social commentaries.
He served in the U.S. Navy from 1906 to 1908 (including service as a yeoman on Theodore Roosevelt's presidential yacht) and then spent about the next four years working at a series of jobs in six states, including cigar-store clerk.
In 1910–11, Stout sold three short poems to the literary magazine The Smart Set. Between 1912 and 1918, he published more than forty works of fiction in various magazines, ranging from literary publications such as Smith's Magazine and Lippincott's Monthly Magazine to pulp magazines like the All-Story Weekly.
Stout invented a school banking system around 1916, which he promoted with his brother Robert. About 400 U.S. schools adopted his system for keeping track of the money that school children saved in accounts at school. Royalties from this work provided Stout with enough money to travel in Europe extensively during the 1920s.
In 1916, Stout married Fay Kennedy of Topeka, Kansas. They divorced in February 1932 and, in December 1932, Stout married Pola Stout, a designer who had studied with Josef Hoffmann in Vienna.
By 1916, Stout grew tired of writing a story whenever he needed money. He decided to stop writing until he had made enough money to support himself through other means, so he would be able to write when and as he pleased. He wrote no fiction for more than a decade, until the late 1920s, when he had saved substantial money through his school banking system. Ironically, just as Stout was starting to write fiction again, he lost most of the money that he had made as a businessman in the Great Depression of 1929.
In 1929, Stout wrote his first published book, How Like a God, an unusual psychological story written in the second person. The novel was published by the Vanguard Press, which he had helped to found. Stout published a total of four psychological novels between 1929 and 1933, the first three with Vanguard and the fourth at Farrar & Rinehart, to which he was recruited by editor John C. Farrar.
In the 1930s, Stout turned to writing detective fiction, a genre that he and Farrar thought might be more financially rewarding than his previous novels. In 1933, he wrote Fer-de-Lance, which introduced Nero Wolfe and his assistant Archie Goodwin. The novel was published by Farrar & Rinehart in October 1934, and in abridged form as "Point of Death" in The American Magazine (November 1934). The same year, Stout also published a political thriller The President Vanishes (1934), which was originally published anonymously.
Fer-de-Lance was the first of 72 Nero Wolfe stories (33 novels and 39 novellas) that Stout published from 1934 to 1975. Stout continued writing the Nero Wolfe series for the rest of his life. Beginning in 1940, Nero Wolfe began to appear in novellas as well as full-length novels, at the behest of his editors at The American Magazine. Stout wrote at least one Nero Wolfe story every year through 1966 (except in 1943, when war-related activities took priority). Stout's rate of production declined somewhat after 1966, but he still published four further Nero Wolfe novels prior to his death in 1975, at the age of 88.
The characters of Wolfe and Goodwin are considered among Stout's main contributions to detective fiction. Wolfe was described by reviewer Will Cuppy as "that Falstaff of detectives". (2025). 9780824201128, H. W. Wilson Co.. ISBN 9780824201128
Stout also wrote several non-Wolfe mystery novels during the 1930s, but none approached the success of the Nero Wolfe books. In 1937, Stout's novel The Hand in the Glove introduced the character of Theodolinda "Dol" Bonner, a female private detective who is an early and significant example of the female PI as fictional protagonist. Bonner would also appear as a character in some later Nero Wolfe stories. Stout also created two other detective protagonists, Tecumseh Fox (who appeared in three books) and Alphabet Hicks (one book). His novel Red Threads featured Inspector Cramer, a familiar character from the Wolfe books, working on his own. After 1938, Stout wrote no fiction but mysteries, and after 1941, almost entirely Nero Wolfe stories.
During World War II, Stout cut back on his detective writing to focus on war-related activities. For four years, he chaired the Writers' War Board, which coordinated the volunteer services of American writers to help the war effort. He also joined the Fight for Freedom organization and hosted three weekly radio shows. After the war, in addition to continuing to write the Nero Wolfe books, Stout supported democracy and world government. He served as president of the Authors Guild and of the Mystery Writers of America, which in 1959 presented Stout with the Grand Master Award – the pinnacle of achievement in the mystery field.
Stout was a longtime friend of British humorist P. G. Wodehouse, writer of the Jeeves novels and short stories. Each was a fan of the other's work, and parallels are evident between their characters and techniques. Wodehouse contributed the foreword to Rex Stout: A Biography, John McAleer's Edgar Award-winning 1977 biography of the author (reissued in 2002 as Rex Stout: A Majesty's Life). Wodehouse also mentions Rex Stout in several of his Jeeves books, as both Bertie and his Aunt Dahlia are fans.
Stout was one of the officers and directors of the Vanguard Press, a publishing house established with a grant from the Garland Fund to reprint left-wing classics at an affordable cost and publish new books otherwise deemed "unpublishable" by the commercial press of the day. He served as Vanguard's first president from 1926 to 1928, and continued as vice president until at least 1931. During his tenure, Vanguard issued 150 titles, including seven books by Scott Nearing and three of Stout's own novels— How Like a God (1929), Seed on the Wind (1930), and Golden Remedy (1931).
In 1942, Stout described himself as a "pro-Labor, pro-New Deal, pro-Roosevelt left liberal".
During World War II, he worked with the advocacy group Friends of Democracy, chaired the Writers' War Board (a propaganda organization), and supported the embryonic United Nations. He lobbied for Franklin D. Roosevelt to accept a fourth term as president. He developed an extreme anti-German attitude and wrote the provocative essay "We Shall Hate, or We Shall Fail"" We Shall Hate, or We Shall Fail" (PDF), The New York Times, January 17, 1943, with response by Walter Russell Bowie and reply from Rex Stout; at The Wolfe Pack. Retrieved 2013-10-18. which generated a flood of protests after its January 1943 publication in The New York Times. (1980). 9780824094799, Garland Publishing, Inc.. ISBN 9780824094799 The attitude is expressed by Nero Wolfe in the 1942 novella "Not Quite Dead Enough".
On August 9, 1942, Stout conducted the first of 62 wartime broadcasts of Our Secret Weapon on CBS Radio. The idea for the counterpropaganda series had been that of Sue Taylor White, wife of Paul White, the first director of CBS News. Research was done under White's direction. "Hundreds of Axis propaganda broadcasts, beamed not merely to the Allied countries but to neutrals, were sifted weekly", wrote Stout's biographer John McAleer. "Rex himself, for an average of twenty hours a week, pored over the typewritten yellow sheets of accumulated data ... Then, using a dialogue format – Axis commentators making their assertions, and Rex Stout, the lie detective, offering his refutations – he dictated to his secretary the script of the fifteen-minute broadcast." By November 1942, Berlin Radio was reporting that "Rex Stout himself has cut his own production in detective stories from four to one a year and is devoting the entire balance of his time to writing official war propaganda." Newsweek described Stout as "stripping Axis short-wave propaganda down to the barest nonsensicals ... There's no doubt of its success."
In September 1942, Stout defended FDR's policy of sending Japanese-Americans to concentration camps in a debate with the Socialist civil libertarian Norman Thomas. Stout charged "that Japanese-Americans include more fifth columnists than any other comparable group in the United States." When Thomas condemned the military's role as a "disgrace to our democracy" and comparable to "the powers of totalitarian dictators," Stout responded that moving "Japanese-Americans inland hardly constitutes Totalitarianism.".
During the later part of the war and the post-war period, he also led the Society for the Prevention of World War III which lobbied for a harsh peace for Germany. When the war ended, Stout became active in the United World Federalists.Steven Casey, "The campaign to sell a harsh peace for Germany to the American public, 1944–1948." History 90.297 (2005): 62–92. online
House Committee on Un-American Activities chairman Martin Dies called him a Communist, and Stout is reputed to have said to him, "I hate Communists as much as you do, Martin, but there's one difference between us. I know what a Communist is and you don't."
Stout was one of many American writers closely watched by J. Edgar Hoover's FBI. Hoover considered him an enemy of the bureau and either a Communist or a tool of Communist-dominated groups. Stout's leadership of the Authors Guild during the McCarthyism was particularly irksome to the FBI. About a third of Stout's FBI file is devoted to his 1965 novel The Doorbell Rang.
Stout continued writing until just before his death. He died on October 27, 1975, at the age of 88 at his estate, High Meadow, on the New York/Connecticut border.
Stout is also mentioned in Ian Fleming's James Bond book On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1963).
The comprehensive archive at Burns Library also includes the extensive research files of Stout's official biographer John J. McAleer, the Rex Stout collection of bibliographer Judson C. Sapp, and a collection of Nero Wolfe's magazine appearances donated by Ed Price.
| February 28, 1939 | Blue Network | 30 min. | Information Please | Cast: Clifton Fadiman (host), John Kieran, Franklin P. Adams, Heywood Broun, Rex Stout | |
| March 28, 1939 | NBC | 30 min. | Information Please | Cast: Clifton Fadiman (host), John Kieran, Franklin P. Adams, Rex Stout, Moss Hart | |
| August 29, 1939 | NBC | 30 min. | Information Please | Cast: Clifton Fadiman (host), John Kieran, Franklin P. Adams, Rex Stout, Wilfred J. Funk | |
| September 26, 1939 | NBC | 30 min. | Information Please | Cast: Clifton Fadiman (host), John Kieran, Franklin P. Adams, Rex Stout, Carl Van Doren | |
| September 27, 1940 | Democratic Women's Day | Radio address from a dinner sponsored by the Women's National Democratic Club Speakers: Eleanor Roosevelt, Thornton Wilder, Robert Sherwood, Edna Ferber, Rex Stout, Alice Duer Miller, Dr. Frank Kingdon, Katharine Hepburn, Marc Connelly, Elmer Rice, Frank Sullivan, Henry Curren | |||
| April 17, 1941 | NBC | 15 min. | Speaking of Liberty | Stories of memorable events in the lives of America's foundersHickerson, Jay, The Ultimate History of Network Radio Programming and Guide to All Circulating Shows. Hamden, Connecticut: Jay Hickerson, Box 4321, Hamden, CT 06514, second edition December 1992 First of an estimated 29 weekly broadcasts continuing through December 11, 1941, produced in cooperation with the Council for Democracy Guests include Louis Adamic, Herbert Agar, Pearl S. Buck, Erskine Caldwell, Carl Carmer, Stuart Chase, Frank Craven, Carl Crow, Ève Curie, Max Eastman, Edward Ellsberg, Clifton Fadiman, Louis Fischer, Dorothy Canfield Fisher, Frank Gervasi, Florence Jaffray Harriman, Fannie Hurst, Margaret Leech, Walter Millis, Bertrand Russell, John R. Tunis, Carl Van Doren, Pierre van Paassen, Thornton Wilder, Alexander Woollcott, Lin Yutang Cast: Rex Stout (host), Milton Cross and others (announcers) | |
| April 18, 1941 | NBC | 30 min. | Information Please | Cast: Clifton Fadiman (host), John Kieran, Franklin P. Adams, Rex Stout, Henry H. Curran (chief magistrate of Manhattan) | |
| September 26, 1941 | NBC | 30 min. | Speaking of Books | Discussion of Jan Valtin's Out of the Night, from the 51st annual conference of the New York Library Association Cast: Irita Van Doren, Lewis Gannett, Rex Stout, Jan Valtin | |
| January 1942 | CBS Radio | 30 min. | Invitation to Learning | Discussion of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Cast: Mark Van Doren (moderator), Rex Stout, Jacques Barzun, Elmer Davis | |
| April 5, 1942 | Blue Network | 15 min. | Behind the Mike | Stout is interviewed by host Graham McNamee | |
| April 8, 1942 | WMCA | 15 min. | The Voice of Freedom | Broadcasting anonymously, Stout inaugurates this weekly commentary series presented by Freedom House "Program packs plenty of punch … handled expertly by 'Mister X'" ( Billboard) | |
| August 9, 1942 | CBS | 15 min. | Our Secret Weapon | Counterpropaganda series in which "lie detective" Stout rebuts the most entertaining Axis powers shortwave lies of the week First of 62 weekly broadcasts continuing through October 8, 1943, produced by Paul White for CBS and Freedom House Cast: Rex Stout, Paul Luther, Guy Repp, Ted Osborne, John Dietz (director) | |
| January 23, 1943 | CBS | 30 min. | The People's Platform | "Is Germany Incurable?" Writers' War Board panel discussion marking the tenth anniversary of Adolf Hitler's rise to power Cast: Rex Stout, Alexander Woollcott, Marcia Davenport, Hunter College president George Shuster, Brooklyn College president Harry Gideonse Woollcott is stricken midway through the broadcast and dies a few hours later | |
| March 30, 1943 | Mutual | 30 min. | This Is Our Enemy | Series produced by Frank Telford for the United States Office of War InformationDunning, op. cit., "This Is Our Enemy" p. 666 "Axis Propaganda Methods" Stout introduces dramatizations that show how the enemy uses propaganda to weaken American morale Cast: Rex Stout, Jackson Beck, Arnold Moss, Charlotte Holland, Irene Hubbard, Lenny Hoffman, Peter Capell, Ian Martin, Bill Martin, Ed Latimer, Ted Jewett, Guy Repp, Nathan Van Cleve (composer, conductor) | |
| April 27, 1943 | Mutual | 30 min. | This Is Our Enemy | "March to the Gallows" Stout addresses the audience at the end of a program dramatizing the stories of well-known traitors including Vidkun Quisling | |
| October 13, 1943 | WHN | 30 min. | Author Meets the Critics | A discussion with John Roy Carlson, author of Under Cover: My Four Years in the Nazi Underworld of America Cast: Max Lerner, Victor Riesel, Rex Stout | |
| February 2, 1944 | WHN | 30 min. | Author Meets the Critics | A discussion with Louis Nizer Cast: John K. M. McCaffrey (host), Russell Hill, Rex Stout | |
| March 5, 1944 | ABC | 30 min. | Wake Up America | "What Should Be Done With Defeated Germany?" Debate between Rex Stout and Paul Hagen, author of Germany After Hitler | |
| October 24, 1944 | ABC | 30 min. | Wake Up America | "Does Any National Emergency Justify a Fourth Term?" Rex Stout and commentator Upton Close take questions | |
| March 24, 1945 | CBS | 30 min. | A Report to the Nation | Program includes an interview with Rex Stout after his return from Europe, where he asked Germans what they thought about democracy Cast: John Daly (host), Richard C. Hottelet, Rex Stout, Brian Aherne, Clare Boothe Luce | |
| 1945 | Synd | 30 min. | Win the Peace | Wartime roundtable discussion about the proposals for a United Nations organization Cast: Edgar Ansel Morra (foreign correspondent), Harry Gideonese, Rex Stout, Virginia Gildersleeve, William Agar (acting president of Freedom House) | |
| December 5, 1946 | Mutual | 30 min. | Author Meets the Critics | Cast: John K. M. McCaffrey (host), Paul Gallico, Virgilia Peterson, Rex Stout | |
| January 2, 1949 | NBC | 30 min. | Author Meets the Critics | A discussion of Larks in the Popcorn with guest author H. Allen Smith Cast: John K. M. McCaffrey (host), Eloise McElhone, Rex Stout | |
| October 12, 1950 | 30 min. | United World Federalists | Report on the fourth annual meeting of the United World Federalists Cast: Jean Putnam, Rex Stout, William O. Douglas, Raymond Gram Swing | ||
| July 30, 1951 | NBC | 45 min. | The Eleanor Roosevelt Program | Program includes an interview with Rex StoutDunning, op. cit., "Eleanor Roosevelt" pp. 230-231 | |
| March 11, 1965 | WNYC | 30 min. | Authors and Critics Gathering | "What do I think about book reviews and book reviewers?" Stout discusses his concerns about the copyright act and asks critics to write about it Cast: Rex Stout (moderator), C. D. B. Bryan, Ralph Ellison, Muriel Resnick, Barbara Tuchman, Edward Albee | |
| February 14, 1966 | WNYC | 60 min. | Book and Author Luncheon | Program includes Rex Stout discussing The Doorbell Rang Cast: Maurice Dolbier (host), Helen Hayes, William O. Douglas |
| February 16, 1949 | ABC | 30 min. | Critic at Large | "Are Detective Stories Getting Better or Worse?" Moderator John Mason Brown; guests Clifton Fadiman, Howard Haycraft, Rex Stout and J. Scott Smart |
| November 8, 1951 | DuMont | 30 min. | Crawford Mystery Theatre | "The Case of the Devil's Heart" Mystery writers and other guests watch a 20-minute filmed episode of the 1947–48 series Public Prosecutor and guess the solution Moderator Warren Hull; guest panelists Rex Stout, Glenn Langan and Betty Buehler |
| December 9, 1956 | ABC | 90 min. | Omnibus | "The Fine Art of Murder" (40 minutes) "A homicide as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Allan Poe and Rex Stout would variously present it" ( Time) Cast: Alistair Cooke (host), Gene Reynolds (Archie Goodwin), Robert Eckles (Nero Wolfe), James Daly (narrator), Dennis Hoey (Arthur Conan Doyle), Felix Munro (Edgar Allan Poe), Herb Voland (M. Dupin), Jack Sydow, Rex Stout Writer Sidney Carroll received the 1957 Edgar Award for Best Episode in a TV Series Edgar Awards Database ; retrieved December 3, 2011 Episode is in the collection of the Library of Congress (VBE 2397–2398) |
| February 3, 1957 | CBS | 60 min. | Odyssey | "The Baker Street Irregulars" A program devoted to Sherlock Holmes that includes the first look inside The Baker Street Irregulars, with film of the organization's annual dinner January 11, 1957 Includes remarks by Stout, and a dramatization of "The Red Headed League" recorded at a special BSI meeting December 14, 1956, at Cavanagh's Restaurant, New York City Preserved on kinescope Cast: Charles Collingwood (host), Rex Stout, Richard H. Hoffmann, Edgar W. Smith, Red Smith, Michael Clarke Laurence (Sherlock Holmes), Donald Marye (Wilson), Harry Gresham (Hargreave) |
| September 16, 1957 | CBS | 60 min. | Studio One | "First Prize for Murder" At the annual banquet of the Mystery Writers of America, novelist Nathaniel Arch fails to appear to receive his award. A stranger shows up who is anxious to find the writer, who is suspected of murder. Live drama by Phil Reisman, from an idea by John D. MacDonald Cast: Darren McGavin (Johnny Quigg), Robert Simon, Barbara O'Neil (Mrs. Cory), Jonathan Harris (Master of Ceremonies), Philip Coolidge (Severns), Colleen Dewhurst, Larry Hagman, Ross Martin Appearing as themselves are Rex Stout, George Harmon Coxe, Brett Halliday, Frances and Richard Lockridge and Georges Simenon |
| April 5, 1959 | CBS | 30 min. | The Last Word | Cast: Bergen Evans (host), Rex Stout, editor Russell Lynes |
| September 2, 1969 | ABC | 60 min. | The Dick Cavett Show | Dick Cavett's guests include Rex Stout |
| 1973 | WTTW | 30 min. | Book Beat | "Book Beat On Tour" Chicago journalist Robert Cromie records an interview with Stout at his home in Brewster, New York, on April 24, 1973 Program airs on PBS stations nationwide beginning in November 1973 |
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