A short life of the author
S.S. Van Dine was the pen name of Willard Huntington Wright (1888–1939), an American art critic, literary editor, and author of twelve detective novels featuring Philo Vance — an erudite, affected amateur detective whose knowledge of art, music, psychology, and forensic science enables him to solve murders that baffle the New York police. The first six Vance novels (1926–1930) were among the bestselling mysteries of the late 1920s, and they established many conventions of the American whodunit.
Career
Wright had been a serious literary and art critic — editor of The Smart Set, author of works on Nietzsche and modern painting — before a physical and nervous breakdown in the early 1920s led him to study detective fiction during his convalescence. He emerged with both a theory of the detective novel (published as “Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories,” 1928) and a new career. The Benson Murder Case (1926, Scribner’s), The Canary Murder Case (1927), and The Greene Murder Case (1928) were enormous hits, and Philo Vance became one of the most famous fictional detectives in America, adapted into a long series of films.
The later novels — from The Scarab Murder Case (1930) onward — declined sharply, and Ogden Nash’s famous couplet (“Philo Vance / Needs a kick in the pance”) captured the growing irritation with the character’s pretentiousness. Wright died in 1939.
Collecting Van Dine
The Philo Vance novels were published by Scribner’s in handsome editions with dust jackets. The Benson Murder Case (1926) and The Canary Murder Case (1927) first editions in fine condition with jackets bring $500–$2,000. The complete twelve-novel set in first editions is a desirable but achievable collection. Signed copies are uncommon.