The minute those two little particles inside a woman’s womb have joined together billions of decisions have been made. A thing like that has to come from entropy. All men are reasoning animals more than any other animal. Of course they are. That’s perfectly obvious. They have a bigger brain and a better brain. And we reason with our brain. But to say that man is a reasoning animal is a very different thing than to say that most of man’s decisions are based on his rational process. That I don’t believe at all. But of course he’s a rational animal. He damn well better be in this complicated world, believe me, or he isn’t going to last very long.

                                             Rex Stout From an Interview with John and Andrew McAleer

That about sums up the underlying philosophy of this week’s author, Rex Stout. As you’ll see, he was not only a genius but a shrewd businessman and skilled storyteller. Read on to learn about the life and work of Rex Stout.

Click here to download or print a pdf version of this lesson.

Rex was something of a child prodigy. He read the entire Bible twice by the time he was four years old. He was the state spelling bee champion at age 13. Stout was educated at Topeka High School, Kansas, and later at University of Kansas, Lawrence. However, according to one biography, he left after a couple of weeks because he thought “he could learn nothing new there” (Biles, 2003).

He served from 1906 to 1908 in the U.S. Navy (as a yeoman on President Teddy Roosevelt's official yacht). According to Jan Biles’ article in Publisher’s Weekly, he bought himself out of the military with money he won playing bridge (Biles, 2003). He then spent about the next four years working at about thirty different jobs (in six states), including cigar store clerk, while he sold poems, stories, and articles to various magazines.

It was not his writing but his invention of a school banking system in about 1916 that gave him enough money to travel in extensively  in Europe. About 400 U.S. schools adopted his system for keeping track of the money school children saved in accounts at school, and he was paid royalties (earning about $400,000).

Also in 1916, Stout married Fay Kennedy of Topeka, Kansas. They separated in 1933 and Stout married Pola Hoffman of Vienna, Austria in the same year.

After he returned to the U.S. Stout turned to writing detective fiction. He was 47 in 1934 when he published the first Nero Wolfe story--Fer-de-Lance. In 1937, Stout created Dol Bonner, a female private detective who would reappear in his Nero Wolfe stories and who is an early and significant example of the woman PI as fictional protagonist, in a novel called The Hand in the Glove. After 1938 Stout focused solely on the mystery field. Stout continued writing the Wolfe series -- at least one adventure per year -- until his death in 1975.

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 the British humorist P. G. Wodehouse, writer of the Jeeves novels and short stories. Each was a fan of the other's work, and there are evident parallels between their characters and techniques. Wodehouse contributed the foreword to Rex Stout: A Majesty's Life, the 2002 reissue of John McAleer's Edgar Award-winning 1977 biography of the author.

Stout died in 1975, at his home in Danbury, Conn., which he had built in 1930. He was survived by his second wife, Pola, a fabric artist (his first wife was Fay Kennedy, of Topeka; they divorced in 1933), and their two daughters, Rebecca and Barbara (Biles, 2003).

The seeds for Stout's interest in crime solving were sown in April 1905, when the Stout home in Topeka was burglarized and Rex's Edison phonograph and a collection of 100 records were stolen.

"A week passed without a trace of the stolen property. Then one day the police received a very hot tip from Mrs. Alonzo Thomas, who with her husband owned and operated the Santa Fe Watch Co., where Rex had purchased the machine," a November 1975 article in The Topeka Journal said. "A suspicious looking character who was then in the store, wanting to buy a crank for a phonograph that, from the description, could be the one stolen from Rex, as being detained by Mrs. Thomas on the pretext of hunting for the particular crank. The customer's confession led to the recovery of the phonograph and landed the culprit in jail to await trial and, finally, conviction."

It is likely that Nero Wolfe's sidekick, Archie Goodwin, got his name from the Topeka police chief, A.G. Goodwin, who worked the case. The police chief was a music lover and played the phonograph daily until it could be presented as evidence in police court.

Stout, however, insisted his characters were fictional. "Most decisions are made below the level of consciousness," he told Publishers Weekly in November 1975. "Your frontal lobes think up reasons for things your guts have told you to do."

Stout took less than six weeks to write each book. He wrote them without doing any research, using an outline, or doing rewrites.

Raised with a powerful social conscience, Stout served on the original board of the American Civil Liberties Union and helped start the radical magazine The New Masses during the 1920s.

During the Great Depression, he was an enthusiastic supporter of the New Deal. During World War II, he worked with the advocacy group Friends of Democracy and figured prominently on the Writers War Board, particularly in support of the embryonic United Nations. He lobbied for Franklin D. Roosevelt to accept a fourth term as President. When the war ended, Stout became active in the United World Federalists.

Stout was active in liberal causes. When the anti-Communist hysteria of the late 1940s and 1950s began, Stout found himself targeted by members of the American Legion. He ignored a subpoena from the House Un-American Activities Committee at the height of the McCarthy era.

In later years Stout alienated some readers with his hawkish stance on the Vietnam War and with the contempt for Communism expressed in his works.

Public activities
Rex Stout was one of many American writers closely watched by J. Edgar Hoover's FBI, journalist Herbert Mitgang discovered when he requested Stout's file for his 1988 book, Dangerous Dossiers.

Stout's faithful readers knew him best as the genial author of detective novels featuring Nero Wolfe, gourmet, connoisseur, and orchid grower, who, with the help of his assistant, Archie Goodwin, could solve crimes without leaving his Manhattan brownstone. The Federal Bureau of Investigation files show that J. Edgar Hoover considered Stout anything but genial: as an enemy of the FBI, as a Communist or a tool of Communist-dominated groups, someone whose novels and mail had to be watched, and whose involvement with professional writers organizations was not above suspicion. In the vague, bizarre phrase of one of the documents in his dossier, Stout was described as 'an alleged radical.'

MANY GREAT ARTICLES ABOUT REX STOUT! Check out a few of them...

...and this is also a fun Nero Wolfe website.

n 33 novels and 39 novellas between 1934 and 1975, Stout did something unique: he married the British Golden Age, puzzle-solving school of mystery fiction with the street-smart, hardboiled, thoroughly American detective novels of Chandler and Hammett to come up with a seamless blend of thought and action, narrated in a prose that was unfailingly literate, witty, and engaging.

His two heroes made the perfect odd couple: Nero Wolfe, in his late 50s, is fat, imperious, pedantic, brilliantly deductive, devoted to both his meals and his orchids, famously loath to leave his brownstone on West 35th Street, and upon occasion, capable of extraordinary nimbleness and passion. Archie Goodwin, in his 30s, is his smart-mouthed legman, tough, intuitive, tenacious, decent, possessed of a photographic memory, highly appreciative of the opposite sex, and the narrator of all the books, the voice that keeps us coming back for more.

Archie is the self-admitted “heart, liver, lungs and gizzard of the private detective business of Nero Wolfe, Wolfe being merely the brains” (Too Many Women, 1947). “I know pretty well what my field is. Aside from my primary function as the thorn in the seat of Wolfe’s chair to keep him from going to sleep and waking up only for meals, I’m chiefly cut out for two things: to jump and grab something before the other guy can get his paws on it, and to collect pieces of the puzzle  for Wolfe to work on” (The Red Box, 1937).

He is also Wolfe’s bookkeeper, and that “thorn” function means that he is constantly reminding Wolfe that the house is low on money and so he’d better accept that case that just walked in the door, or he won’t be able to pay the weekly salaries of his nonpareil cook Fritz Brenner, his orchid specialist Theodore Horstmann, or, ahem, Archie himself.

The two men have a funny relationship. They quip and argue. Archie gets worried sick when he thinks something might happen to Wolfe. When Wolfe disappears suddenly from an orchid show, he’s beside himself: “The damn hippopotamus. He’ll get lost. He’ll be kidnapped. He’ll fall in a hole….I spat a snowflake as it sailed by. Our little Nero, I thought, on such a night and no coat. The big fat flumpus” (“Black Orchids,” Black Orchids, 1942).

Archie doesn’t have much backstory. In the novella “Fourth of July Picnic” (And Four To Go, 1958), Stout describes it succinctly: “Born in Ohio. Public high school, pretty good at geometry and football, graduated with honor but no honors. Went to college two weeks, decided it was childish, came to New York and got a job guarding a pier, shot and killed two men and was fired, was recommended to Nero Wolfe for a chore he wanted done, did it, was offered a full-time job by Mr. Wolfe, took it, still have it.” He has been with Wolfe for seven years as the series opens.

When the U.S. entered the war, Nero Wolfe walked 600 miles to join them. He describes this period and what followed laconically in “Fourth of July Picnic”: “At the age of sixteen, I decided to move around, and in fourteen years I became acquainted with most of Europe, a little of Africa, and much of Asia, in a variety of roles and activities,” before moving to New York City in 1930. 

He also has a daughter from that period, an orphan girl he adopted and hasn’t seen since she was three, until she pops up suddenly as an adult in Over My Dead Body and starts causing trouble. Then, in The Black Mountain (1954), she and Wolfe’s friend Marko Vukcic are murdered by “Tito cutthroats and Albanian thugs,” in separate incidents related to Montegro’s struggle to become independent of Yugoslavia, spurring a furious Wolfe to fly to Montenegro with Archie to track down the killers. But that was an unusual move for our inspector.

Nero Wolfe does not like to leave home. He says, “I am not immovable, but my flesh has a constitutional reluctance to sudden, violent or sustained displacement” (The Red Box). Sometimes, though, he has no choice. He might have the opportunity to view rare orchids presents itself (“Black Orchids”) or to attend a culinary extravaganza (Too Many Cooks, 1938).

Wolfe uses a variety of methods to solve his cases. There is logical deduction, of course, often signaled by some of Wolfe’s facial tics: his lips pushing out and back, just a tad; his eyelids raising and lowering slowly in a sign of approval; and, in a sign of total abandon, “the folds of his cheeks pulled away a little from the corners of his mouth; when he did that he thought he was smiling”.

Archie’s legwork is key, of course, as well as that of three other detectives that Wolfe likes to use to supplement Archie: “One of the reasons they are better than most is that none of them look it. Saul Panzer, under-sized and wiry, with a big nose, could be a hackie. Fred Durkin, broad and burly and bald, could be a piano mover. Orrie Cather, tall and trim and dressy, could be an automobile salesman” (“Counterfeit for Murder,” Homicide Trinity, 1962).

And then there’s trickery. Wolfe loves to set up traps by withholding information or evidence, or by pretending to know more than he does, and this often prompts drastic, desperate actions by the murderer. Sometimes these actions take place in the brownstone itself, after Wolfe has assembled a covey of suspects and witnesses together and picked apart the case in front of them, causing much consternation and occasional violence.

Wolfe also has a contentious relationship with the police, especially one particular Inspector Cramer. Cramer’s “big, round, red face” (The Silent Speaker) is often even redder because he’s yelling at Wolfe and Archie, but there’s still an odd kind of respect among them. Cramer tends to jump to conclusions prematurely, but he’s a decent policeman and no thug (unlike a few of his colleagues), and he knows Wolfe and Archie are good at what they do. But they do tick him off: “You know, son, you have one or two good qualities. In a way, I even like you. In another, I could stand and watch your hide peeling off and not shed any tears. You have undoubtedly got the goddamnedest nerve of anybody I know except Nero Wolfe” (Over My Dead Body).

This version of “Disguise for Murder” was a 2001 television show for A&E. The teleplay was written by Sharon Elizabeth Doyle, and it was directed by John L’ecuyer.

Point of View: Notice Archie’s narrative voice.  How does this influence the story for you? How would you compare this narrative style to others we have read this semester?

Setting: This is a typical story where Nero Wolfe does not leave his Manhattan home. But it is unusual that the crime occurs in his office. Notice the high society guests in the Manhattan Flower Club. And orchids are not exactly what you’d consider a working class blossom!

Characters: You’ll meet Nero and Archie; what do you think of the actors who were cast to portray them?  How would you compare Nero to other eccentric detectives you’ve come across?

Notice the characters and the parts they play:

• Nero himself: eccentric and brilliant (not exactly hard-boiled)

• Archie, his right-hand man: hard-boiled

• Nero’s helpers: Fritz and Saul

The victim: mysterious “Cynthia Brown”—con woman

• Mimi Orwin--victim of Cynthia Brown’s con

• Percy Brown—con man partner of Cynthia Brown

• Doris Hattan—Cynthia’s friend/murder victim (mention of mysterious man)

• Inspector Cramer and Police (notice their relationship to Nero and team)

Orchid show guests:

• Mimi Orwin (Cynthia had been swindling her)

• Homer and Mrs. Carlisle, wealthy couple in the orchid loving circle

Also:

Skinny and W-J—toughies working for mysterious murderer

Plenty of red herrings in the cast of characters; which false clues did you fall for?

Plot: It’s a classic “Locked Room” formula! The house was closed off and no one could enter or exit.  That implies the perpetrator must have been one of the guests.  But who?

Before her murder, Cynthia confided her fears to Archie. SOMEONE observed this meeting and was worried about what Cynthia might have revealed.  This is important, since Nero uses the information in his (rather manipulative note) to the suspected killer.  If Nero’s hunch is right, the killer will call Archie to arrange a meeting…. And  [spoiler alert] “he” does.

The story’s climax comes in the confrontation scene where Archie is tied up by Skinny and W-J, but not before he announces Mrs. Carlisle as the murderer of Doris and Cynthia.

How did Nero come to his conclusion about the murderer?

Themes: what were the motivations of the various players in this story?

Overall, why do you think the Nero Wolfe series was so successful in its time?

We will discuss these questions and more next Tuesday!

Biles, J. (2003). Nero Wolfe Character Created by THS Alum.  Retrieved from https://www.nerowolfe.org/pdf/stout/author/Media_Coverage/2003_09_21_Topeka_Capital_Journal.pdf

Disguise for Murder. (2024). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disguise_for_Murder

Nyren, N. (2019). Nero Wolfe, Archie Goodwin, and a Crime Fiction Legend. Retrieved from https://crimereads.com/rex-stout-a-crime-readers-guide-to-the-classics/

Rex Stout. (2007). Retrieved from https://infinitesphere.blogspot.com/2007/11/rex-stout-full-name-rex-todhunter-stout.html

Snider, D. (2001). Closing the Book on One of Topeka’s Famous Authors.  Retrieved from https://www.nerowolfe.org/pdf/stout/author/Media_Coverage/2001_05_11_Topeka_Capital_Journal.pdf