In a recent article, I discussed the fact that one of the things I like to do in my spare time is read fiction – both novels and short stories. And while I like some of the great works that are discussed in college literature classes, I also enjoy tales that have little literary value.

I especially appreciate mystery short stories, and in this I am not alone. While many magazines and journals that once published short stories have either ceased publication or no longer feature fiction in their pages, mystery magazines are still with us.

The two mystery periodicals that have perhaps the best reputations in the industry are published by the same company. They are Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine and the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine.

Alfred Hitchcock (who died in 1980) was, of course, the British movie director who specialized in suspense films and who also hosted for several years two popular anthology series on American television.

Ellery Queen is a fictional character with a convoluted and complicated history that confused his fans, who often thought he was a real person.

The idea of creating Ellery Queen came from the minds of two cousins, Daniel Nathan and Emanuel Lepofsky. Both of the men were born in New York City in 1905; Nathan lived until 1982 while Lepofsky died in 1971.

Partners from the beginning, they adopted pen names and embarked upon careers as mystery writers. Nathan first became Frederic Dannay while Lepofsky was Manfred Lee. Their partnership included co-writing numerous novels and short stories using their pseudonyms.

Then, in 1929, they created their fictional Ellery Queen character who was a mystery writer in New York City (surprise!) who often helped his father, a police inspector, solve murders.

Queen then published novels and shorter versions of his various sleuthing adventures. So, not only was Queen the reputed author of the stories he told, he was also the central character in them!

We will look further at the “life” of Ellery Queen next week in part 2 of this mysterious story.