Collections : [Rare Book & Manuscript Library]

Correspondence, outlines and drafts, manuscripts, letters of agreement, contracts, photographs, artwork, and memorabilia. The collection is divided into two parts: the Frederic Dannay papers and the files of ELLERY QUEEN'S MYSTERY MAGAZINE (EQMM). The Dannay papers consist of extensive correspondence with most of the notable mystery writers of this century, as well as well-known authors who sometimes wrote in that genre: Isaac Asimov; Lawrence Block; Ray Bradbury; Pearl S Buck; Edgar Rice Burroughs; James M. Cain; Raymond Chandler; Agatha Christie, etc. Most of the novels and short stories written by Dannay and Lee are represented in manuscript form: "The Roman Hat Mystery;" "Ten Day's Wonder;" "Cat of Many Tails;" "The Scarlet Letters;" "The Glass Village;" "The Player on the Other Side;" "And on the Eighth Day" etc. In addition, there are the manuscripts of books edited by Ellery Queen; manuscripts by Ellery Queen Jr.; scripts by Ellery Queen; poetry by Dannay; contracts between Dannay and Lee, as well as between them both as Ellery Queen and numerous parties. There are also manuscripts by such notables as Jorge Luis Borges; Erskine Caldwell; Raymond Chandler; Agatha Christie; Stanley Ellin; William Faulkner; Dashiell Hammett; O Henry; Nigel Morland; Georges Simenon; Muriel Spark; Julian Symons; Roy Vickers; and Cornell Woolrich.

Correspondence, manuscripts and illustrations concerned with Symons' two most important historical works on the detective story, The Great Detectives, 1981, and the 1985 revised edition of Bloody Murder, which received the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Allan Poe Award for the 1972 first edition. Most of the correspondence is concerned with The Great Detectives, including 2 letters from Frederic Dannay, 2 letters from Lady Gregory Bromet (daughter of A. Conan Doyle), and 1 letter from Tom Adams with drafts of his illustrations for this book. There is also a letter from Canadian author Derrick Murdoch, founder of Crime Writers of Canada.