Otto Penzler
Encyclopedia
Otto Penzler is an editor of mystery fiction in the United States, and proprietor of The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City, where he lives.
, is the co-author the "Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection: for which he won an Edgar Allan Poe Award in 1977. He also wrote 101 Greatest Movies of Mystery and Suspense (2000). For the New York Sun, he wrote The Crime Scene, a popular weekly mystery fiction column that ran for five years. He has worked with authors including Elmore Leonard
, Nelson DeMille
, Joyce Carol Oates
, Sue Grafton
, Mary Higgins Clark
, Robert Crais
, Michael Connelly
, James Lee Burke
and Thomas H. Cook
.
He founded The Mysterious Press, a publishing house devoted entirely to mystery and crime fiction, in 1975. Among the authors it published (works published in America for the first time, not reprints) are Eric Ambler
, Kingsley Amis
, Isaac Asimov
, Robert Bloch
, James M. Cain
, Raymond Chandler
, Len Deighton
, James Ellroy
, Patricia Highsmith
, P.D. James, H.R.F. Keating, Peter Lovesey
, Ed McBain, Ross Macdonald
, Ellis Peters, Ruth Rendell
, Mickey Spillane
, Ross Thomas
, Donald E. Westlake
and Cornell Woolrich
. In the 1980s it was publishing more than 100 books a year and the imprint was affiliated with major publishers in England (Century-Hutchinson-Arrow), Japan (Hayakwa Publishing), Italy (Mondadori) and Sweden (Bra Bocker). The Mysterious Book Club became a division of the Book of the Month Club
and Mysterious Audios an imprint with Dove Audio.
After selling The Mysterious Press to Warner Books in 1989, he created an Otto Penzler Books imprint for Macmillan
(later Scribner). He moved the imprint to Carroll & Graf, then to Harcourt
(later Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). He also established the Otto Penzler Books imprint in London, first with Quercus
, now with Atlantic/Corvus. He reacquired The Mysterious Press name from Hachette
in 2009; it is now an imprint at Grove Atlantic.
Penzler founded The Mysterious Bookshop in mid-town Manhattan and after twenty-seven years moved to Tribeca
. It is now the oldest and largest mystery specialist bookstores in the world.
In 2002, he hosted a television series of great mystery films for the Turner Classic Movies
channel.
He has edited more than fifty anthologies of crime fiction of both reprints and newly commissioned stories, including the prestigious Best American Mystery Stories since 1997.
Penzler served on the Board of Directors of the Mystery Writers of America
for fourteen years and was awarded the organization's Ellery Queen Award and a Raven (its highest non-writing award. He won a second Edgar
for editing "The Lineup," a collection of profiles of famous detectives, written by their creators.
On April 8, 2010 Swann Galleries
auctioned The Otto Penzler Collection of British Espionage and Thriller Fiction. The sale represented a select portion of Penzler's private library with works by Eric Ambler
, Ian Fleming
, Graham Greene
, John Le Carre
, William Le Queux
, H. C. McNeile
, E. Phillips Oppenheim
, and Dennis Wheatley
. Penzler also befriended many noted authors including Ambler, Ken Follett
, John Gardner
and others, who inscribed copies of their works. “British spy novels are among the greatest of all works in the mystery genre,” Penzler said in the introduction to the Swann auction catalogue. “This is the first auction ever devoted entirely to this important literary genre.”
Penzler lives in New York City and in Connecticut with his wife, Lisa Atkinson.
Biography
Penzler, who graduated from the University of MichiganUniversity of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
, is the co-author the "Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection: for which he won an Edgar Allan Poe Award in 1977. He also wrote 101 Greatest Movies of Mystery and Suspense (2000). For the New York Sun, he wrote The Crime Scene, a popular weekly mystery fiction column that ran for five years. He has worked with authors including Elmore Leonard
Elmore Leonard
Elmore John Leonard Jr. , better known as Elmore Leonard, is an American novelist and screenwriter. His earliest published novels in the 1950s were westerns, but Leonard went on to specialize in crime fiction and suspense thrillers, many of which have been adapted into motion pictures.Among his...
, Nelson DeMille
Nelson DeMille
Nelson Richard DeMille is an American author of thriller novels. His works include Word of Honor , The Charm School, The Gold Coast, Plum Island, and The General's Daughter .DeMille has also written under the pen names Jack Cannon, Kurt...
, Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates is an American author. Oates published her first book in 1963 and has since published over fifty novels, as well as many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction...
, Sue Grafton
Sue Grafton
Sue Taylor Grafton is a contemporary American author of detective novels. She is best known as the author of the 'alphabet series' featuring private investigator Kinsey Millhone in the fictional city of Santa Teresa, California. The daughter of detective novelist C. W...
, Mary Higgins Clark
Mary Higgins Clark
Mary Theresa Eleanor Higgins Clark Conheeney , known professionally as Mary Higgins Clark, is an American author of suspense novels...
, Robert Crais
Robert Crais
Robert Crais is an American author of detective fiction. Crais began his career writing scripts for television shows such as Hill Street Blues, Cagney & Lacey, Quincy, Miami Vice and L.A. Law. He lists amongst his literary influences the authors Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Ernest...
, Michael Connelly
Michael Connelly
Michael Connelly is an American author of detective novels and other crime fiction, notably those featuring LAPD Detective Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch and criminal defense attorney Mickey Haller. His books, which have been translated into 36 languages, have garnered him many awards...
, James Lee Burke
James Lee Burke
James Lee Burke is an American author of mysteries, best known for his Dave Robicheaux series. He has won an Edgar Award for Black Cherry Blues and Cimarron Rose . The Robicheaux character has been portrayed twice on screen, first by Alec Baldwin and then Tommy Lee Jones...
and Thomas H. Cook
Thomas H. Cook
Thomas H. Cook is an American author, whose 1996 novel The Chatham School Affair received an Edgar award from the Mystery Writers of America.Thomas H...
.
He founded The Mysterious Press, a publishing house devoted entirely to mystery and crime fiction, in 1975. Among the authors it published (works published in America for the first time, not reprints) are Eric Ambler
Eric Ambler
Eric Clifford Ambler OBE was an influential British author of spy novels who introduced a new realism to the genre. Ambler also used the pseudonym Eliot Reed for books co-written with Charles Rodda.-Life:...
, Kingsley Amis
Kingsley Amis
Sir Kingsley William Amis, CBE was an English novelist, poet, critic, and teacher. He wrote more than 20 novels, six volumes of poetry, a memoir, various short stories, radio and television scripts, along with works of social and literary criticism...
, Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov was an American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. Asimov was one of the most prolific writers of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000...
, Robert Bloch
Robert Bloch
Robert Albert Bloch was a prolific American writer, primarily of crime, horror and science fiction. He is best known as the writer of Psycho, the basis for the film of the same name by Alfred Hitchcock...
, James M. Cain
James M. Cain
James Mallahan Cain was an American author and journalist. Although Cain himself vehemently opposed labeling, he is usually associated with the hardboiled school of American crime fiction and seen as one of the creators of the roman noir...
, Raymond Chandler
Raymond Chandler
Raymond Thornton Chandler was an American novelist and screenwriter.In 1932, at age forty-five, Raymond Chandler decided to become a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive during the Depression. His first short story, "Blackmailers Don't Shoot", was published in...
, Len Deighton
Len Deighton
Leonard Cyril Deighton is a British military historian, cookery writer, and novelist. He is perhaps most famous for his spy novel The IPCRESS File, which was made into a film starring Michael Caine....
, James Ellroy
James Ellroy
Lee Earle "James" Ellroy is an American crime fiction writer and essayist. Ellroy has become known for a so-called "telegraphic" prose style in his most recent work, wherein he frequently omits connecting words and uses only short, staccato sentences, and in particular for the novels The Black...
, Patricia Highsmith
Patricia Highsmith
Patricia Highsmith was an American novelist and short-story writer most widely known for her psychological thrillers, which led to more than two dozen film adaptations. Her first novel, Strangers on a Train, has been adapted for stage and screen numerous times, notably by Alfred Hitchcock in 1951...
, P.D. James, H.R.F. Keating, Peter Lovesey
Peter Lovesey
Peter Lovesey is a British writer of historical and contemporary crime novels and short stories. His best-known series characters are Sergeant Cribb, a Victorian-era police detective based in London, and Peter Diamond, a modern-day police detective in Bath...
, Ed McBain, Ross Macdonald
Ross Macdonald
Not to be confused with John D. MacDonaldRoss Macdonald is the pseudonym of the American-Canadian writer of crime fiction Kenneth Millar...
, Ellis Peters, Ruth Rendell
Ruth Rendell
Ruth Barbara Rendell, Baroness Rendell of Babergh, CBE, , who also writes under the pseudonym Barbara Vine, is an English crime writer, author of psychological thrillers and murder mysteries....
, Mickey Spillane
Mickey Spillane
Frank Morrison Spillane , better known as Mickey Spillane, was an American author of crime novels, many featuring his signature detective character, Mike Hammer. More than 225 million copies of his books have sold internationally...
, Ross Thomas
Ross Thomas
Ross Thomas was an American writer of crime fiction. He is best known for his witty thrillers that expose the mechanisms of professional politics. He also wrote several novels under the pseudonym Oliver Bleeck about professional go-between Philip St...
, Donald E. Westlake
Donald E. Westlake
Donald Edwin Westlake was an American writer, with over a hundred novels and non-fiction books to his credit. He specialized in crime fiction, especially comic capers, with an occasional foray into science fiction or other genres...
and Cornell Woolrich
Cornell Woolrich
Cornell George Hopley-Woolrich was an American novelist and short story writer who sometimes wrote under the pseudonyms William Irish and George Hopley....
. In the 1980s it was publishing more than 100 books a year and the imprint was affiliated with major publishers in England (Century-Hutchinson-Arrow), Japan (Hayakwa Publishing), Italy (Mondadori) and Sweden (Bra Bocker). The Mysterious Book Club became a division of the Book of the Month Club
Book of the Month Club
The Book of the Month Club is a United States mail-order book sales club that offers a new book each month to customers.The Book of the Month Club is part of a larger company that runs many book clubs in the United States and Canada. It was formerly the flagship club of Book-of-the-Month Club, Inc...
and Mysterious Audios an imprint with Dove Audio.
After selling The Mysterious Press to Warner Books in 1989, he created an Otto Penzler Books imprint for Macmillan
Macmillan Publishers (United States)
Macmillan Publishers USA, also known as Macmillan Publishing, is a privately held American publishing company owned by the Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group. It has offices in 41 countries worldwide and operates in more than 30 others....
(later Scribner). He moved the imprint to Carroll & Graf, then to Harcourt
Harcourt (publisher)
Harcourt was a United States publishing firm with a long history of publishing fiction and nonfiction for children and adults. The company was based in San Diego, California, with an Editorial / Sales / Marketing / Rights offices in New York City and Orlando, Florida.In 2007, the U.S...
(later Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). He also established the Otto Penzler Books imprint in London, first with Quercus
Quercus (publisher)
Quercus Publishing Plc is an independent publishing house, based in London.It was founded in 2004 by Mark Smith and Wayne Davies, who had previously worked together at the Orion Publishing Group.It is known for its lists in crime Quercus Publishing Plc (PLUS Markets: ) is an independent publishing...
, now with Atlantic/Corvus. He reacquired The Mysterious Press name from Hachette
Hachette
- People :* Jean Nicolas Pierre Hachette, French mathematician* Jeanne Hachette, French heroine* Louis Christophe François Hachette, French publisher- Entities :* a French group of publishing companies, see Hachette and Hachette Filipacchi Médias...
in 2009; it is now an imprint at Grove Atlantic.
Penzler founded The Mysterious Bookshop in mid-town Manhattan and after twenty-seven years moved to Tribeca
TriBeCa
Tribeca is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York in the United States. Its name is an acronym based on the words "Triangle below Canal Street", and is properly bounded by Canal Street, West Street, Broadway, and Vesey Street...
. It is now the oldest and largest mystery specialist bookstores in the world.
In 2002, he hosted a television series of great mystery films for the Turner Classic Movies
Turner Classic Movies
Turner Classic Movies is a movie-oriented cable television channel, owned by the Turner Broadcasting System subsidiary of Time Warner, featuring commercial-free classic movies, mostly from the Turner Entertainment and MGM, United Artists, RKO and Warner Bros. film libraries...
channel.
He has edited more than fifty anthologies of crime fiction of both reprints and newly commissioned stories, including the prestigious Best American Mystery Stories since 1997.
Penzler served on the Board of Directors of the Mystery Writers of America
Mystery Writers of America
Mystery Writers of America is an organization for mystery writers, based in New York.The organization was founded in 1945 by Clayton Rawson, Anthony Boucher, Lawrence Treat, and Brett Halliday....
for fourteen years and was awarded the organization's Ellery Queen Award and a Raven (its highest non-writing award. He won a second Edgar
Edgar Award
The Edgar Allan Poe Awards , named after Edgar Allan Poe, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America...
for editing "The Lineup," a collection of profiles of famous detectives, written by their creators.
On April 8, 2010 Swann Galleries
Swann Galleries
Swann Galleries is a New York auction house founded in 1941. It is a specialist auctioneer of antique and rare works on paper, and it is considered the oldest continually operating New York specialist auction house....
auctioned The Otto Penzler Collection of British Espionage and Thriller Fiction. The sale represented a select portion of Penzler's private library with works by Eric Ambler
Eric Ambler
Eric Clifford Ambler OBE was an influential British author of spy novels who introduced a new realism to the genre. Ambler also used the pseudonym Eliot Reed for books co-written with Charles Rodda.-Life:...
, Ian Fleming
Ian Fleming
Ian Lancaster Fleming was a British author, journalist and Naval Intelligence Officer.Fleming is best known for creating the fictional British spy James Bond and for a series of twelve novels and nine short stories about the character, one of the biggest-selling series of fictional books of...
, Graham Greene
Graham Greene
Henry Graham Greene, OM, CH was an English author, playwright and literary critic. His works explore the ambivalent moral and political issues of the modern world...
, John Le Carre
John le Carré
David John Moore Cornwell , who writes under the name John le Carré, is an author of espionage novels. During the 1950s and the 1960s, Cornwell worked for MI5 and MI6, and began writing novels under the pseudonym "John le Carré"...
, William Le Queux
William Le Queux
William Tufnell Le Queux was an Anglo-French journalist and writer. He was also a diplomat , a traveller , a flying buff who officiated at the first British air meeting at Doncaster in 1909, and a wireless pioneer who broadcast music from his own station long...
, H. C. McNeile
H. C. McNeile
Cyril McNeile MC was a British author, who published under the pen name Sapper.He was one of the most successful British popular authors of the Interwar period; his principal character was Bulldog Drummond.-Biography:Cyril McNeile was born in 1888 at Bodmin in Cornwall...
, E. Phillips Oppenheim
E. Phillips Oppenheim
Edward Phillips Oppenheim , was an English novelist, in his lifetime a major and successful writer of genre fiction including thrillers.-Life:...
, and Dennis Wheatley
Dennis Wheatley
Dennis Yates Wheatley was an English author. His prolific output of stylish thrillers and occult novels made him one of the world's best-selling authors from the 1930s through the 1960s.-Early life:...
. Penzler also befriended many noted authors including Ambler, Ken Follett
Ken Follett
Ken Follett is a Welsh author of thrillers and historical novels. He has sold more than 100 million copies of his works. Four of his books have reached the number 1 ranking on the New York Times best-seller list: The Key to Rebecca, Lie Down with Lions, Triple, and World Without End.-Early...
, John Gardner
John Gardner
John Champlin Gardner, Jr. was an American novelist, essayist, literary critic and university professor. He is perhaps most noted for his novel Grendel, a retelling of the Beowulf myth from the monster's point of view....
and others, who inscribed copies of their works. “British spy novels are among the greatest of all works in the mystery genre,” Penzler said in the introduction to the Swann auction catalogue. “This is the first auction ever devoted entirely to this important literary genre.”
Penzler lives in New York City and in Connecticut with his wife, Lisa Atkinson.
Publisher
- Otto Penzler Books. An imprint at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (2005-2010).
- The Armchair Detective Library. Reprinted classic crime fiction for collectors and libraries.
- The Mysterious Press. Established in 1975. Sold to Time/Warner in 1989; reacquired by Penzler in 2009 and now an imprint at Grove/Atlantic.
- The Armchair Detective. A quarterly journal for studies of mystery and suspense fiction (17 years).
Series Editor
- The Best American Mystery Stories. Annual series since 1997, with guest editors. Writer Robert B. Parker wrote "Otto Penzler knows more about crime fiction than most people know about anything, and proves it once more in this brilliant anthology."
- The Best American Crime Writing. Annual series since 2002, with Thomas H. Cook and guest editors.
Editor (Recent Books)
- The Big Book of Adventure Stories (2011)
- "Christmas at the Mysterious Bookshop" (2010)
- "The Greatest Russian Stories of Crime and Suspense" (2010)
- "The Best American Noir of the Century" (2010)
- "The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories: (2010)
- "Agents of Treachery" (2010)
- The Lineup: The World's Greatest Crime Writers Tell the Inside Story of Their Greatest Detectives (2009)
- The Vampire Archive (2009)
- Black Noir: Mystery, Crime, and Suspense Stories by African-American Writers (2009)
- The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps (2007)
- Dead Man's Hand: Crime Fiction at the Poker Table (2007)
- The Vicious Circle: Mystery and Crime Stories by Members of the Algonquin Round Table (2007)
- Murder in the Rough (2006)
- Murder at the Racetrack (2006)
- Murder at the Foul Line (2006)
- Murder is My Racquet (2005)
- Dangerous Women (2005)
- Murderer's Row (2001)
- Murder On the Ropes (2001)
- Best American Mystery Stories of the Century. Edited with Tony Hillerman. (2000)
- Murder and Obsession (1999)
- The 50 Greatest Mysteries of All Time (1998)
- Murder For Revenge (1998)
- Murder For Love (1996)
- The Crown Crime Companion : The Top 100 Mystery Novels of All Time. Edited with Mickey Friedman. (1995)
Guest appearances
- Author Lawrence BlockLawrence BlockLawrence Block is an acclaimed contemporary American crime writer best known for two long-running New York–set series, about the recovering alcoholic P.I. Matthew Scudder and gentleman burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr, respectively...
wrote a Christmas story, “The Burglar Who Smelled Smoke”, set in The Mysterious Bookshop, where Otto Penzler appeared in character.
- Author Elmore LeonardElmore LeonardElmore John Leonard Jr. , better known as Elmore Leonard, is an American novelist and screenwriter. His earliest published novels in the 1950s were westerns, but Leonard went on to specialize in crime fiction and suspense thrillers, many of which have been adapted into motion pictures.Among his...
’s novel, Up In Honey’s Room, features an escaped World War IIWorld War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
German soldier, a Waffen SS major named Otto Penzler.
Awards
- 2010. Edgar Award from Mystery Writers of America. For The Lineup. Best Biographical/Critical Work
- 2003. Raven Award from Mystery Writers of AmericaMystery Writers of AmericaMystery Writers of America is an organization for mystery writers, based in New York.The organization was founded in 1945 by Clayton Rawson, Anthony Boucher, Lawrence Treat, and Brett Halliday....
. As owner of Mysterious Bookshop. - 1994. Ellery Queen Award from Mystery Writers of AmericaMystery Writers of AmericaMystery Writers of America is an organization for mystery writers, based in New York.The organization was founded in 1945 by Clayton Rawson, Anthony Boucher, Lawrence Treat, and Brett Halliday....
. Contributions to mystery publishing. - 1977. Edgar AwardEdgar AwardThe Edgar Allan Poe Awards , named after Edgar Allan Poe, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America...
from Mystery Writers of AmericaMystery Writers of AmericaMystery Writers of America is an organization for mystery writers, based in New York.The organization was founded in 1945 by Clayton Rawson, Anthony Boucher, Lawrence Treat, and Brett Halliday....
. For The Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection. Best Critical/Biographical Work.