Ellery Queen

Ellery Queen is a pseudonym created in 1928 by the American detective fiction writers Frederic Dannay (1905–1982) and Manfred Bennington Lee (1905–1971). It is also the name of their main fictional detective, a mystery writer in New York City who helps his police inspector father solve baffling murder cases. From 1929 to 1971, Dannay and Lee wrote around forty novels and short story collections in which Ellery Queen appears as a character.

Under the pseudonym Ellery Queen, they also edited more than thirty anthologies of crime fiction and true crime. Dannay founded, and for many years edited, the crime fiction magazine Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, which has been published continuously from 1941 to the present. From 1961 to 1972, Dannay and Lee commissioned other authors to write around thirty thrillers using the pseudonym Ellery Queen, but not featuring Ellery Queen as a character and from 1941 to 1966, they commissioned other authors to write eleven juvenile mysteries under the pseudonym Ellery Queen Jr. In 1932 and 1933, they wrote four novels under the pseudonym Barnaby Ross, which featured the detective Drury Lane. Several movies, radio shows, and television shows were based on their works.

Dannay and Lee were cousins, who were better known by their professional names. Frederic Dannay was the professional name of Daniel Nathan and Manfred Bennington Lee that of Emanuel Benjamin Lepofsky. Since 2013, the complete works of Ellery Queen have been represented by JABberwocky Literary Agency.