Nero Wolfe

Nero Wolfe is a fictional detective created by American author Rex Stout in the 1930s and was featured in dozens of novels and novellas for more than 40 years.

In the stories, Wolfe is one of the most famous private detectives in the United States. He weighs "a seventh of a ton" (about 286 pounds or 130 kg) At the time (1934), this was intended to indicate extreme obesity, especially by the use of the word "ton" as the unit of measure. In the 1953 book In the Best Families, Wolfe temporarily returns to "normal" body weight, using the description in that book, by losing about 50 pounds., in Archie Goodwin's words, and is 5'11" tall. He raises orchids in a roof-top greenhouse in his New York City brownstone on West 35th Street near Penn Station and Madison Square Garden, helped by his gardener, Theodore Horstmann. Wolfe drinks beer throughout the day and is a gourmand. He employs a Swiss French live-in chef, Fritz Brenner, with whom he confers frequently about up-coming meals. He is multilingual and brilliant, though apparently self-educated, with reading being his third passion after food and orchids. He works from his book-lined office on the ground floor of his brownstone and almost never leaves home, even to pursue the detective work that finances his expensive lifestyleHis orchid raising could also be a business, considering that several stories in the books attach great cost to repairing just the damage to a few of them, but Wolfe steadfastly refuses to sell orchids, although he is not averse to Archie using them to gain the cooperation of women in their investigations, a technique used to great effect in the early Wolfe book The Red Box and much later in Murder by the Book. The orchids are also much admired by Archie's "companion" (the books never quite specify their relationship) Lily Rowan, a fact that Nero Wolfe uses in the story Not Quite Dead Enough when Lily and Goodwin are having a tiff to calm the situation because in that particular situation Lily, as in a few other stories, is central to the mystery itself . Instead, his leg work is done by another live-in employee, Archie Goodwin, who is also the first-person narrator of the Wolfe adventures. While both Wolfe and Goodwin are licensed detectives, Goodwin is more of the classic fictional gumshoe, tough, wise-cracking, and skirt-chasing.Archie's rough edges become less and less evident over the years. In a heated exchange with Wolfe near the beginning of one of the early novels, he pointedly insists on his right to use a very long list of racially charged words such as "kike" and "wop". By the time that A Right to Die was published in the mid-1960s, all that has disappeared from his language, along with colloquial slang. Archie's literary style (in which the books are written) has markedly improved, even occasionally using rather than disdaining some of the longer words that his boss likes. He tells the stories in a breezy semi-hard-boiled styleSome commentators saw this as a conscious device by Stout to fuse the hard-school of Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade (1930) with the urbanity of Sherlock Holmes or Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot (1920). In fact, sole operative Tecumseh Fox, who is perhaps a fusion of the best qualities Wolfe and Goodwin into a real person without Wolfe's collection of idiosyncracies, is arguably a better and more effective fictional character, as evidenced in the novel The Broken Vase, but that was never translated into commercial success, and only 3 books with this character were written, one of which was later adapted in a Wolfe story at the urging of Stout's publisher..

Wolfe was born in 1892 or 1893 in MontenegroThis is inferred from assorted information in the earlier stories but never stated. In point of fact, as the years went by, Stout pointedly allowed Wolfe and Archie's ages to advance much less than real time, if at all, except as in the case of the books A Right To Die or The Black Mountain, the books are sequels to books written many years before.. He is reticent about his youth, but clearly was slim, fit, and daring. Before World War I, he spied for the Austrian Empire, but had a change of heart when the war began. He joined the Montenegrin army and fought the Austrians and Germans in some of the grimmest combat of the war. After time in Europe and North Africa, he came to the United States.

In 1956, John D. Clark put forth a theory in the Baker Street Journal that Wolfe was the offspring of an affair between Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler (a character from A Scandal in Bohemia). Clark suggested that the two had had an affair in Montenegro in 1892, and that Nero Wolfe was the result. The idea was later co-opted by William S. Baring-Gould, but there is no evidence that Rex Stout had any such connection in mind. Certainly there is no mention of it in any of the stories. Some commentators, noting both physical and psychological resemblances, suggest Sherlock's brother Mycroft Holmes as a more likely father for Wolfe. There is a curious coincidence: in the names "Sherlock Holmes" and "Nero Wolfe", the same vowels appear in the same order.

In the course of the stories, Wolfe displays a pronounced, even pathological, dislike for the company of women. Although some readers interpret this attitude as misogyny, various details in the stories, particularly the early ones, suggest it has more to do with an unfortunate encounter in early life with a femme fatale. He avoids not so much women as their perceived frailties, especially a woman having hysterics. In an early Wolfe novel Over My Dead Body, we learn that he has a daughter, albeit adopted, who plays an important part in the 1954 novel The Black Mountain.

Bibliography

Nero Wolfe books by Rex Stout

The Nero Wolfe stories are browsable by title on the Nero Wolfe novels page, and most of the individual Nero Wolfe titles are part of the Category:Rex Stout books page (except those written by Robert Goldsborough).

Fer-de-Lance (1934) — 1st Nero Wolfe mystery & 1936 movie: Meet Nero Wolfe
The League of Frightened Men (1935) — 1937 movie: The League of Frightened Men — An author, Paul Chapin, is on trial in Manhattan for alleged obscenity in his popular novel. Wolfe reads the book, then tells Archie that Chapin is the man from whom a potential client that Wolfe saw when Archie was on vacation wanted protection. The potential client, along with some classmates, had taken part in a hazing incident years before at Harvard in which Chapin was crippled. Now some of the "League of Frightened Men" who chipped in to help Chapin after the accident have begun dying, whether because Chapin is killing them or by happenstance is unclear, and the surviving members of the League are interested in collectively hiring Wolfe. The prominent American man of letters Edmund Wilson wrote in the New Yorker that the book "makes use of a clever psychological idea."
The Rubber Band (1936) — Archie books two new clients on the same day, and before the day is over Wolfe has to choose which to keep and there are more than 2 crimes to untangle. The client he keeps in the end is a beautiful young woman, but it's Wolfe who reads her Hungarian poetry, not Archie. In the course of this novel, Lieutenant Rowcliffe, not one of the NYPD's finest (in the opinion not only of Wolfe but Cramer), earns Wolfe's enmity that lasts until the final Wolfe novel in 1975. * The Red Box (1937) — In the midst of a murder investigation, one of the suspects visits Wolfe and begs Wolfe to handle his estate and especially the contents of a certain Red Box. Wolfe is at first concerned about a possible conflict of interest, but feels unable to refuse when the man then dies in his office before telling Wolfe where to find the red box. The police naturally think that he told Wolfe somewhat more before dying. Some people feel it is one of the very best Wolfe stories. Edmund Wilson, however, wrote that it was "somewhat padded", was "full of long episodes that led nowhere," and left him with the feeling that he "had to unpack large crates by swallowing the excelsior in order to find at the bottom a few bent and rusty nails." Readers who remember their French and Latin may find the solution more successfully than Archie.
Too Many Cooks (1938) — Wolfe, a knowledgeable gourmet as well as a detective, attends a meeting of great chefs, The Fifteen Masters, at a resort in West Virginia, and jealousies among them soon lead to death. Wolfe sustains his own injury in the course of finding the culprit but also obtains the secret recipe for saucisse minuit.
Some Buried Caesar (1939) — While going to an agricultural fair somewhere north of the city, Wolfe's car has an entanglement with a tree and Wolfe and Archie are stranded at the home of the owner of a chain of fast-food cafés. Here Archie meets Lily Rowan, his occasional companion/girlfriend for the rest of the series, but a prize bull's death also leads to murder. Wolfe has to solve the crime in order to rescue Archie from jail, among other annoyances.
Over My Dead Body (1940) This novel and its much later sequel The Black Mountain, have as a background Montenegrin (Yugoslavian) politicsThe dissolution of the Turkish and Astro-Hungarian empire created an opporunity for the "South Slavs" (Yugoslavs), previously in separate spheres, to unite in a single country, but over the centuries of separation they had adopted three different religions (Orthodox, Catholic, and Muslim) and there was much intrigue both within the region and instigated by outside powers for control of the area.
Where There's a Will (1940) -
Black Orchids (1942) Book version of two novellas previously published separately: "Black Orchids" and "Cordially Invited To Meet Death."
Not Quite Dead Enough (1944) Book version of two novellas previously published separately: "Not Quite Dead Enough" and "Booby Trap" (see below).
The Silent Speaker (1946)
Too Many Women (1947)
And Be a Villain (1948) (British: More Deaths than One). This novel, The Second Confession, and In the Best Families (see below) were later published together in the book Triple Zeck: A Nero Wolfe Omnibus (1974) and concern Nero Wolfe's struggle with Arnold Zeck, an organized crime kingpin.
The Second Confession (1949) — James Sperling, a wealthy industrialist hires Wolfe to prove that Louis Rony, the handsome young lawyer his daughter wants to marry, is a Communist. Wolfe's expenses increase dramatically when several men destroy his rooftop greenhouses using automatic rifles from across the street, which is more like the Mob than Communists. But the latter can't be completely ignored because Archie has earlier discovered a Communist Party membership card in Rony's possession.
Trouble in Triplicate (1949)
Curtains for Three (1950)
In the Best Families (1950) (British: Even in the Best Families)
Three Doors to Death (1950) Viking Press edition of three Wolfe stories that had previously appeared in the The American Magazine: "Man Alive", "Omit Flowers", and "Doors to Death" (appearing in the Viking volume under the title Door to Death).
Murder by the Book (1951) — A man asks Wolfe to investigate the murder of his daughter in Van Cortlandt Park, which the police have given up on. Before long it becomes clear that an unpublished novel is a nexus of evil link the dead woman and several other deaths -- and that the murderer is by no means finished killing.
Prisoner's Base (1952) (British: Out Goes She)
Triple Jeopardy (1952)
The Golden Spiders (1953) — A squeegie kid, Pete Drossos, tells his neighbor and hero, Nero Wolfe, how he saw a woman being held at gunpoint at a nearby intersection. It isn't long before Pete is murdered and Wolfe investigates his death for a fee of $4.35 that Pete had managed to save from washing windshields.
The Black Mountain (1954) — Wolfe's best friend Marko Vukcic is murdered by a Yugoslavian agent who has already made his escape from New York. Wolfe and Archie are therefore obliged to clandestinely go to Yugoslavia in order to avenge his death — which means bringing the killer back to American justice.
Three Men Out (1954)
Before Midnight (1955) — A national literary contest to promote a new brand of perfume leads to murder and more.
Might As Well Be Dead (1956) — Wolfe is hired to find a missing person, who soon turns up — under a new name — as a newly convicted murderer in a sensational crime.
Three Witnesses (1956)
If Death Ever Slept (1957)
Three for the Chair (1957) A collection of three novellas: "Window for Death", "Immune to Murder", and "Too Many Detectives", each published separately earlier.
And Four to Go (1958) — A collection of four novellas, the first three of which are connected with a holiday. One involves Wolfe leaving home — without Archie even knowing about it until long after it has happened.
Champagne for One (1958)
Plot It Yourself (1959) (British: Murder in Style)
Three at Wolfe's Door (1960)
Too Many Clients (1960)
The Final Deduction (1961) — In a departure from most other Wolfe books, Wolfe is initially hired to solve a kidnapping, but deaths soon crop up.
Gambit (1962)
Homicide Trinity (1962)
The Mother Hunt (1963)
A Right To Die (1964)
Trio for Blunt Instruments (1964)
The Doorbell Rang (1965) — 1977 movie (pilot for TV series): Nero Wolfe
Death of a Doxy (1966) — Orrie Cather, one of Wolfe's operatives, has been secretly seeing a wealthy man's kept mistress at her secret lovenest, but is arrested when she turns up dead.
The Father Hunt (1968)
Death of a Dude (1969)
Please Pass the Guilt (1973)
Three Trumps (1973)
A Family Affair (1975) — last Nero Wolfe novel by Rex Stout
Death Times Three (1985) Posthumous collection reprinting the 1940 novella "Bitter End" and rewritten versions of two other stories.

Nero Wolfe novellas or novelettes by Rex Stout

"Bitter End" (1940)
"Black Orchids" (1941)
"Cordially Invited to Meet Death" (1942)
"Not Quite Dead Enough" (1942) — How Archie joined Army Intelligence in WWII and got Wolfe involved in it. This story was later published, along with "Booby Trap" (see below) in an eponymously named book, in which form it is still available today.
"Booby Trap" (1944) — Another story about Archie in uniform, this time involving attempts by the munitions industry to bribe Congress in order to steal industrial secrets for use after the war.
"Help Wanted, Male" (1945)
"Instead of Evidence" (1946)
"Before I Die" (1947)
"Man Alive" (1947)
"Bullet for One" (1948)
"Omit Flowers" (1948)
"Gun with Wings" (1949)
"Disguise for Murder" (1950)
"Door to Death" (1949) First appeared in 1949 in the American Magazine with the title "Doors to Death"; later included in the Viking books Three Doors to Death (1950) (see above) and Five of a Kind: The Third Nero Wolfe Omnibus (1961)
"Cop-Killer" (1951)
"Home to Roost" (1951)
"Invitation to Murder" (1952)
"Squirt and the Monkey" (1952)
"Zero Clue" (1952)
"This Won't Kill You" (1953)
"Next Witness" (1954)
"When a Man Murders" (1954)
"Die like a Dog" (1955)
"Immune to Murder" (1955) — Wolfe is invited by the State Department, at the behest of an ambassador from an oil-rich country, to cook a special meal for him at an oil baron's private retreat in the Adirondacks. This naturally results in a death to investigate — now included in the book Three for the Chair.
"Window for Death" (1955)
"Christmas Party" (1956)
"Easter Parade" (1956)
"Too Many Detectives" (1956) — Wolfe and Goodwin are called to Albany, along with all the other licensed private detectives in New York, when there are complaints about how lax the licensing of detectives in the state is and how the detectives violate the rights of private citizens by tapping their phones — originally published separately but now included in the book Three for the Chair.
"Fourth of July Picnic" (1957)
"Murder Is No Joke" (1957)
"Frame-Up for Murder" (1958)
"Method Three for Murder" (1960)
"Poison a la Carte" (1960)
"Rodeo Murder" (1960)
"Assault on a Brownstone" (1961) — earlier version of "Counterfeit for Murder" (not actually published until 1985)
"Counterfeit for Murder" (1961)
"Death of a Demon" (1961)
"Eeny Meeny Murder Mo" (1961)
"Kill Now — Pay Later" (1961)
"Blood Will Tell" (1963)
"Murder Is Corny" (1963) — Now published as part of the Trio for Blunt Instruments collection.

Nero Wolfe books by Robert Goldsborough

Murder in E-Minor (1986) — 1st Nero Wolfe novel by Robert Goldsborough. Wolfe is brought out of de facto retirement by the death of a man who saved his life 50 years before in Montenegro — against a background of politics at a major symphony orchestra.
Death on Deadline (1987) — A deadly fight for control of the narrowly held stock of the New York Gazette, publicizer of many of Wolfe's earlier cases.
The Bloodied Ivy (1988) — A novel about academic intrigue combined with the attractions and pitfalls of having dedicated groupies as graduate students.
The Last Coincidence (1989) — A novel concerning the fallout of the (alleged) date rape of the niece of Lily Rowan, Archie's girlfriend.
Fade to Black (1990) — The second of two Wolfe books about the world of advertising.The first was Rex Stout's Before Midnight.Fade to Black has, among other things, material about the Cherokee Trail of Tears and a realistic opportunity for the reader to zero in on the likely culprit without any extra info supplied later by Wolfe.
Silver Spire (1992) — A novel concerning the politics of a successful televangelism ministry based in Staten Island.
The Missing Chapter (1994) — In retrospect, an explicit farewell to Nero Wolfe by Goldsborough: this novel concerns the murder of a mediocre (at best) continuator of a popular detective series.

Nero Wolfe books by John Lescroart

While not mentioning Wolfe by name, it is strongly hinted in these books that the main character Auguste Lupa (the son of Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler) later becomes Nero Wolfe.

Son of Holmes (Reissued 2003)
Rasputin's Revenge (Reissued 2003)

Books about Nero Wolfe

Nero Wolfe of West Thirty-fifth Street (1969) (biography by William S. Baring-Gould)
The Nero Wolfe Cookbook (1973) (by Rex Stout) (ISBN 1-888952-24-5)
The Brownstone House of Nero Wolfe, as Told by Archie Goodwin (1983) (full-length book by Ken Darby about Wolfe's house, including several very elaborate floor plans) (ISBN 0-316-17280-4)
At Wolfe's Door: The Nero Wolfe Novels of Rex Stout (1991; revised 2003) (bibliography, reviews, and essays, by J. Kenneth Van Dover) (Hardbound: ISBN 0-918736-51-X Paperback: ISBN 0-918736-52-8)

Biographies of Rex Stout

Bourne, Michael, "Rex Stout: An Informal Interview", in Corsage, James A. Rock & Co., Publishers.

McAleer, John J, Rex Stout: A Majesty's Life with foreword by P. G. Wodehouse, James A. Rock & Co., Publishers, 2002. (A reprint, with additional forewords, of Rex Stout: A Biography, Little, Brown, 1977.)

McAleer, John J, Royal Decree - Conversations with Rex Stout, Pontes Press, Ashton, MD, 1983.

McAleer, John J, Queens Counsel - Conversations with Ruth Stout on her brother Rex Stout, Pontes Press, Ashton, MD, 1987.

McAleer, John J, Rex Stout Journals, Pontes Press, Ashton, MD, 1987.

No. 1 - Autumn, 1984 No. 2 - Spring, 1985 No. 3 - Autumn, 1985 No. 3 - Spring, 1986

Townsend, Guy M. (Editor) with McAleer, John, J. and Sapp, Judson C. and Schemer, Arriean, Rex Stout An Annotated Primary and Secondary Bibliography, Garland, 1980

Nero Wolfe Commentaries

The following works may be said to represent Mr. Wolfe's biographies and assessments of his career. They also contain insight into Stout's career.

Anderson, David R., Rex Stout, Frederick Ungar, 1983
Baring-Gould, William S., Nero Wolfe of West Thirty-fifth Street, Viking Press, 1969
Darby, Ken, The Brownstone House of Nero Wolfe, Little, Brown, 1983
Gotwald, Rev. Frederick G., The Nero Wolfe Handbook, Revised, 2000
Gotwald, Rev. Frederick G., Nero Wolfe Commentaries
Kaye, Marvin, Editor The Nero Wolfe Files: From The Wolfe Pack Gazettes Wildside Press, Publishers, 2005 (First of a two volume Anthology)
McBride, O. E., A Stout Fellow iUniverse, Incorporated, 2003
Stout, Rex & The Editors of Viking Press, The Nero Wolfe Cook Book, Viking Press, 1987
Symons, Julian; Adams, Tom (Illustrator) Great Detectives, Harry N. Abrams, Inc. 1981
Van Dover, J. Kenneth, At Wolfe's Door -- The Nero Wolfe Novels of Rex Stout, James A. Rock & Co., Publishers, 2003 (A reprint, with additional material, of the original, Borgo Press, 1991).
Van Dover, J. Kenneth, At Wolfe's Door -- The Nero Wolfe Novels of Rex Stout, Borgo Press, 1991

Wolfe in other media

Cinema

The Nero Wolfe mysteries inspired two feature films in the 1930s. Meet Nero Wolfe (1936) was an adaptation of the first Wolfe novel, "Fer-de-Lance," and starred Edward Arnold as Wolfe and Lionel Stander as Archie Goodwin. The League of Frightened Men (1937), an adaptation of the second Wolfe novel, starred Walter Connolly as Wolfe, with Stander repeating his role as Goodwin. Reviews of these two movies were generally lukewarm, and Rex Stout disliked the way his characters were portrayed. For the rest of his life, he declined to authorize any more Hollywood adaptations.

Radio

A number of radio series have been made based on the Nero Wolfe stories:

Television

Rex Stout, disappointed in the Nero Wolfe movies of the 1930s and unimpressed with television in general, vetoed Nero Wolfe film and TV projects in America until his death in 1975. In 1977, Thayer David, Tom Mason, and Brooke Adams starred in a telemovie based on "The Doorbell Rang." Intended as the pilot episode for a television series that did not eventuate, it was held back for release until 1979 due to the death of Thayer David shortly after filming.

In 1981, William Conrad played Wolfe and Lee Horsley played Goodwin in a short-lived television series.

In 2001, Maury Chaykin (as Wolfe) and Timothy Hutton (as Archie) starred in The Golden Spiders, an A&E telemovie adaptation of the 1953 story of the same name. This led to a series, A Nero Wolfe Mystery, which played for two seasons before being canceled. Both seasons are available on DVD as two boxed sets (the telemovie bundled with the second).

Hutton had a strong creative hand in the A&E series, producing and directing some episodes. Many fans consider the series the most accurate adaptation of the Wolfe stories ever seen on American television. The episodes followed the plots of the stories closely, but unlike previous Wolfe shows, they were not updated to contemporary times. They were colorful period pieces, set in a somewhat vague past (the 1940s to the early '60s). Whether Rex Stout would have liked this approach or not, the production values were high. Media critics and fans of the books generally had good things to say about the show. But people who had not read the books, especially viewers who knew Wolfe only through the William Conrad series, responded less favorably.

One distinguishing feature of the series was the use of an ensemble cast to play non-recurring characters. The same actor who played the murder victim in one episode might play the murderer in another. Sometimes an actor, using a wig or other such disguise, would play two characters in one episode. Kari Matchett had a recurring role as Archie Goodwin's sometime girlfriend Lily Rowan while frequently playing other characters as well. This was intended to mimic the experience of watching a play put on by a repertory company, as might have been done in the early 20th century.

Between 1969 and 1971, the Italian network RAI broadcast a successful series of black and white telemovies starring Tino Buazzelli (Nero Wolfe), Paolo Ferrari (Archie Goodwin), Pupo De Luca (Fritz Brenner) and Renzo Palmer (Inspector Cramer). Ten episodes of this series are currently (2004) available on DVD.

The German-made mini-series of Too Many Cooks (Zu viele Köche, 1961) has some information available on the Internet Movie database: ^*. Heinz Klevenow starred as Nero Wolfe and Joachim Fuchsberger as Archie Goodwin.

The Russian Wolfe TV movies were made in 2001-2002. The teleplay for the series was written by Vladimir Valutskiy who had previously written the Russian Sherlock Holmes TV series (around 1980). The IMDb link for more information: ^*. Nero Wolfe is played by Donatas Banionis and Archie Goodwin by Sergei Zhigunov.

Notes

External links

Fictional detectives | Novel series | Fictional Montenegrins | Fictional immigrants to the United States | Nero Wolfe

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