Friday's "Forgotten" Books - Four and Twenty Bloodhounds

It's hard to underestimate how much Anthony Boucher contributed to the world of crime fiction. In addition to being an author himself, he was a prolific reviewer and critic, a columnist for the New York Times Book Review (more than 850 weekly review columns under the heading "Criminals at Large"), a writer and producer of radio dramas, and president of the Mystery Writers of America. And of course, the mighty Bouchercon conference is named after him.

He also edited several anthologies, including Four and Twenty Bloodhounds, published in 1950. As the title suggests, the work features 24 stories of fictional sleuths, ranging from senator whose hobby is magic to a former cop whose address is Skid Row in San Francisco, to icons like Ellery Queen and Dr. Gideon Fell. Boucher contributed a preface and brief editorial introductions to each story, and each detective is given his only "biography" in he book. As Kirkus noted, it's "A sure entertainment bet which will be of special interest to the mystery market."

The stories were chosen by Boucher and feature members of the Mystery Writers of America. In addition to Boucher, the authors include Verne Chute; Joseph Commings; W T Brannon; John Dickson Carr; Ken Crossen; Matthew Head; Lillian De La Torre; Harold Q Masur; Frank Kane; Jerome & Harold Prince; James M Fox; Clayton Rawson; D B Olsen; Robert Arthur; Lawrence G Blochman; Stewart Sterling; August Derleth; Ellery Queen; Brett Halliday; Fredric Brown; George Harmon Coxe; Q Patrick; Kelley Roos; and Stuart Palmer.

Comments

[Todd Mason]

Hey, was my comment deleted?

[BV Lawson]

I never delete comments unless they are spam (and I got far too many of those!). This might be some sort of Typepad glitch, Todd. I'll have to check into it. Maybe it's happening to other folks, too. Sigh. If you feel like trying again (and I understand if you don't), let me know if you continue to have problems ([email protected]).

[Todd Mason]

It ran along the lines of:

(Though I'd suggest it's hard to Overestimate Boucher's influence)...

While he was the crime-fiction reviewer for the NEW YORK TIMES as Boucher, he was the cf reviewer for the NY HERALD-TRIBUNE as H. H. Holmes, and famously was the only "major-paper" reviewer critiquing paperback originals at the height of Fawcett Gold Medal, Lion, etc....he was co-founding editor of EQMM's (and AMERICAN MERCURY's) stablemate THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION, and after the first five years, edited it solo for several more years...he was a consultant on the tv series KRAFT SUSPENSE THEATRE aka SUSPENSE THEATER aka CRISIS...while also editing BEST DETECTIVE STORIES OF THE YEAR, then the only boty in cf, for Dutton...Boucher had been the first translator of Jorge Luis Borges into English, with a couple of stories for EQMM (sadly, one of AB's blind spots was for Borges's fantasy, so he never ran any JLB stories in F&SF). Up to near the end of his too-short life, he was running relatively formal and informal writers' workshops and salons, often out of his home...

This book was one of MWA's anthologies to help fund itself, iinm...Randy Johnson today reviews another, that one published by Lion and edited by Harold Q. Masur...