Literary Significance & Criticism
(See Ellery Queen.) The character of Ellery Queen and the locked room mystery aspect were probably initially suggested by the novels featuring detective Philo Vance by S.S. Van Dine, which were very popular at the time. At this point in time, however, Van Dine's sales were dropping and Queen's were beginning to rise. This novel was the eighth in a long series of novels featuring Ellery Queen, the first nine containing a nationality in the title.
This particular novel is much cited in reference works discussing ways and means of the locked room mystery because of its unusual solution. It is also unusual because it is one of the few murder mysteries in which the victim's name is never known—and it doesn't really matter to the solution.
The introduction to this novel contained a detail which is now not considered part of the Ellery Queen canon. The introduction is written as by the anonymous "J.J. McC.", a friend of the Queens. Other details of the lives of the fictional Queen family contained in earlier introductions have now disappeared and are never mentioned again; the introductory device of "J.J. McC." lasts only through the tenth novel, Halfway House, then vanishes (though J.J. appears onstage in Face to Face in 1967).
The "nationality" mysteries had the unusual feature of a "Challenge to the Reader" just before the ending is revealed—the novel breaks the fourth wall and speaks directly to the reader. "I maintain that at this point in your reading of The Chinese Orange Mystery you have all the facts in your possession essential to a clear solution of the mystery."
This was the only Ellery Queen novel to be included in a list of the top ten "impossible crime" mysteries of all time (created by noted locked-room mystery writer Edward D. Hoch). The Chinese Orange Mystery was eighth on the list.
Read more about this topic: The Chinese Orange Mystery
Famous quotes containing the words literary, significance and/or criticism:
“It is a good lesson—though it may often be a hard one—for a man who has dreamed of literary fame, and of making for himself a rank among the world’s dignitaries by such means, to step aside out of the narrow circle in which his claims are recognized, and to find how utterly devoid of all significance, beyond that circle, is all that he achieves, and all he aims at.”
—Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864)
“Politics is not an end, but a means. It is not a product, but a process. It is the art of government. Like other values it has its counterfeits. So much emphasis has been placed upon the false that the significance of the true has been obscured and politics has come to convey the meaning of crafty and cunning selfishness, instead of candid and sincere service.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“The critic lives at second hand. He writes about. The poem, the novel, or the play must be given to him; criticism exists by the grace of other men’s genius. By virtue of style, criticism can itself become literature. But usually this occurs only when the writer is acting as critic of his own work or as outrider to his own poetics, when the criticism of Coleridge is work in progress or that of T.S. Eliot propaganda.”
—George Steiner (b. 1929)