Fer-de-Lance was published by Farrar & Rinehart in 1934 and introduced Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin — the detective partnership that would sustain seventy-three novels and novellas over the next forty-one years. Wolfe is a genius of almost pathological self-indulgence: he weighs a seventh of a ton, cultivates orchids on the roof of his West 35th Street brownstone, employs a personal chef named Fritz Brenner, drinks five quarts of beer daily, and refuses under virtually any circumstances to leave his house. Archie Goodwin — younger, handsome, street-smart, irreverent — is his legs, his eyes, his connection to the messy world outside.
The case involves the death of a college president on a golf course — killed not by the obvious (heart attack) but by a lethal needle concealed in his golf club, propelled by a spring mechanism. The intended victim was actually someone else, and Wolfe must untangle a conspiracy involving Italian immigrants, feuding families, and a murder weapon of diabolical ingenuity.
The book established the formula that Stout would refine across four decades: Archie narrates in a wisecracking first person; Wolfe pontificates, demands, and deduces from his leather chair; the clients come to the brownstone because Wolfe will not go to them; and the solution emerges from Wolfe’s ability to see patterns that everyone else has missed.
Collecting Fer-de-Lance
First edition (Farrar & Rinehart, New York, 1934): Cloth with dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition, fine/fine: $5,000–$15,000
- Very good/good jacket: $2,000–$5,000
- Without jacket: $200–$500
- The most valuable Nero Wolfe first edition by a wide margin