S. S. Van Dine - Detective Fiction

Detective Fiction

Wright continued writing as a critic and journalist until 1923, when he became ill from an ailment that was given out as overwork, but was in reality a secret drug addiction, according to John Loughery's biography Alias S.S. Van Dine. His doctor confined him to bed (supposedly because of a heart ailment, but actually because of a cocaine dependency) for more than two years. In frustration and boredom, he began collecting and studying thousands of volumes of crime and detection. As a direct result of this study, he wrote an early essay which explored the history, traditions and conventions of detective fiction as an art form. In 1926 this concentrated effort paid off with the publication of his first S. S. Van Dine novel, The Benson Murder Case.

Wright took his pseudonym from the abbreviation of "steamship" and from Van Dine, which he claimed was an old family name. According to Loughery, however, "there are no Van Dines evident in the family tree" (p. 176). He went on to write 11 more mysteries. The first few books about his upper-class amateur sleuth, Philo Vance (who shared with Wright a love of aesthetics), were so popular that Wright became wealthy for the first time in his life, and David Shavit's study of WWII POW reading habits revealed that Vance was one of the favorite detectives among officer POWs. However, according to critic Julian Symons:

fate is curiously foreshadowed in that of Stanford West, the hero of his only novel, who sells out by abandoning the unpopular work in which he searched for "a sound foundation of culture and aristocracy" and becoming a successful novelist. The title of an article he wrote at the height of his fame, "I used to be a Highbrow and Look at Me Now", reflects both his pleasure, and his regret that he was no longer regarded seriously as a writer.

His later books declined in popularity as the reading public's tastes in mystery fiction changed. The Detectionary asserts, "Wright, who was much like Vance ... was a poseur and a dilettante, dabbling in art, music and criticism. He lived in an expensive penthouse, was fond of costly clothes and food, and collected art."