SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: MYSTERY LEAGUE #1 (OCTOBER 1933)

Just four years after the publication of their first mystery novel The Roman Hat Mystery, "Ellery Queen)(Frederick Dannay & Manfred B. Lee) launched their first mystery magazine.  Dannay and Lee were the only employees.  Unlike other pulp magazines which would abridge their contents, Mystery League would publish only complete stories in an attempt to maintain th high quality the editors demanded.  Unfortunately, this led to the magazine having a higher price tag -- twenty-five cents -- and with the economic condition of the country, that was unsustainable.  The magazine closed after only four issues.  Dannay had much better luck eight years later when he launched the digest Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine (again, as "Ellery Queen") in 1941, which would carry over the tradition of quality, uncut fiction.  EQMM is still goiing strong, now in its ninth decade.

The first issue of Mystery League carried the fourth and final novel about Druray Lane, Drury Lane's Last Case  by "Barnaby Ross," a pseudonym for Danny and Lee.  The cousins were tired of Barnaby Ross and of Drury Lane, as well as of their relationship with their publisher Viking,  so, with thumb to the nose, they published the complete novel in Mystery League two months before the Viking edition hit the streets.  Although not rudderless, Dannay and Lee sailed into the future Drury Lane-less, Barnaby Ross-less, and Viking-less.

Drury Lane was a retired Shakespearean actor and an amateur detective, getting older and growing deaf.  I hope I'm not spoiling things, but most mystery readers know that he is killed off in this novel.  The plot involves a stolen Shakespeare manuscript, which is replaced by a rarer, more valuable one.  The plot also includes a mysterious rainbow-bearded man, and envelope containing a million dollar secret, and an impossible murder.

Also included in this issue are:

• "Nightshade" by Dashiell Hammett (later included in the Hammett collections The Adventures of Sam Spade and Other Stories, edited by Queen, 1944; Vintage Hammett, 2005; and Lost Stories, 2005)  "Occasionally we shall print non-mysteries by mystery authors."
• "Suspicion" by Dorothy L. Sayers (later included in the Sayers collections In the Teeth of Evidence, 1939; in the anthologies 101 Years' Entertainment [Ellery Queen, 1941], World's Great Mystery Stories [Will Cuppy, 1943]. Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural [Herbert A. Wise & Phyllis Fraser, 1943], Murder Medlay [Hennel Locke Ltd., 1947], The Unexpected! [Bennett Cerf, 1948], Handbook for Poisoners [Raymond T. Bond, 1952], Famous Mysteries [Mary Yost Sandrus, 1955], Wicked Women [Lee Wright, 1959], Shock! [M. C. Allen, 1965], Best Crime Stories 2 [John Welcome, 1966], Great British Short Stories [Reader's Digest, 1974], Tales of Mystery and Suspense [Theodore W. Hipple, 1977], The Best Horror Stories [Hamlyn, 1977], Crimes and Clues [Stepehn P. Clarke, 1977], Masterpieces of Mystery:  Cherished Classics [Ellery Queen, 1978], 65 Great Murder Mysteries [Mary Danby, 1983], The Web She Weaves  [Marcia Muller & Bill Pronzini, 1983], Great Murder Mysteries [Octopus/Chartwell, 1988], The Best Horror Stories [Lynn Picknett, uincredited, 1990], and Murder Short & Sweet [Paul D. Standohar, 2008]; and reprinted in Argosy [UK, July 1942], Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine [#85. December 1950],and The Saint Mystery Magazine [March 1966]; the story has probably been reprinted in many other places, but I'm too lazy to look them up.  "No writer but a Briton and no Brioton but a woman could have conceived such a delightfully piquant study in 'suspicion.'  A gem from the world-famous anthologist of 'The Omnibus of Crime.' "
• "To the Queen's Taste," an unsigned colum designed "as a parturage for the editor's browsing thoughts."  Topics covered include Sherlock Holmes and Conan Doyle, a request for readers to contribute list of what they consider the ten best detective stories of all time, a suggestion by Senator Royal S. Copeland (NY) for a federal police agency similar to England's Scotlnd Yard "To deal with the appalling wave of kidnapping now sweeping the United States" (shortly after this article was written, FDR created the Department of UInvestigation to be headed by J. Edgar), a list of imaginary mystery novels whose author could be determined by the title alone, a discussion on Native Americans as potential heroes of detective stories, a note on the death of Charlie Chan creator Earl Derr Biggers, and the need for higher critissim in the field of detective fiction.  The title has no connection with To the Queen's Taste, an anthology of some of the best short stories from the early years of EQMM.
• "Burlingame, the Magnificent" by John Marvell.  "As the District Attorney said:  'The crooks trim the puiblic and Burlingame trims the crooks!'  We offer you this rollicking story of the gentlest grafter since G. R. Chester's Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford and the imperishable Jeff Peters."  This is the first of two Burlingame stories; the second appeared in the next issue.  I have no idea whether this is the author's true name; his only other credit is a third short story in Mystery League, and his name is not listed in either Hubin's Crime Fiction or in Hawk's Authors' Pseudonyms.  The magaine claimed that he was a new writer and that the editors knew nothing about him.
• "With 
• "Puzzle Department," various puzzles. including a crossword, anagrams, ciphers, a mini-mystery, and more.
• "The Glass-Domed Clock" by Ellery Queen (also reprinted as "The Adevnture of the Glass-Domed Clock" in the Queen collection More Adventures of Ellery Queen, 1940; and in the anthologies The Arbor House Treasury of Mystery and Suspense [Bill Pronzini, 1981], and Sleuths of the Century [Jon L. Breen & Ed Gorman, 2000], and in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Marh 1991.  "One of the strange adventures in deduction in which Ellery Queen, author of 'The American Gun Mystery,' 'The Egyptian Cross Mystery,' and 'The Greek Coffin Mystery,' etc., has demonstrated his analytical method of solving crimes.  Another interesting memoir from the author's criminal casebook will appear in an early issue."

A solid issue, although -- with the exception of the story by John  Marvell -- the fiction may be overly familiar to many modern readers.  Later issues included stories by such noted authors of the time as Phoebe Atwood Taylor, G.D. H. Cole & Margaret Cole, Henry Wade, Thomas Walsh, and Viola Brothers Shore.

Copies of this issue have gone for $500 or more.  Luckily for us, Internet Archive recently made the issue available this issue available.  Check it out:

https://archive.org/details/mystery-league-v-01-n-01-1933-10/mode/1up