Ellery Queen isn’t just the pseudonym of a pair of writers but also the name of a fictional character. The name is also used as the title of a magazine and a television series from the mid 1970’s.
Daniel Nathan, who’s alias was Frederic Dannay, was half of the team that used the name Ellery Queen. Manford Lepofsky, whose alias was Manfred Bennington Lee, was the other. Together these two cousins from Brooklyn, New York created one of the most widely known mystery series that spanned more than 40 years. The name Ellery Queen served not only as the writers’ pseudonym, but also as the name of the detective-hero, who was the main character of the books.
The hugely popular character of Ellery Queen was made into a television show and also spawned a monthly magazine called Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. This digest size magazine featured detective and mystery fiction stories. The magazine is one of the few left that still accepts unsolicited submissions from writers. The “over the transom” submissions go to the “department of first stories” and the magazine has introduces several new artists to the genre this way.
For the first 50 years of the magazine, it was actually edited by one of the cousins, Frederic Dannay. The magazine is still published today. So while many people think that Ellery Queen was simply the name of a mystery writer, those who are true fans of the series know that Ellery Queen is so much more.
