Literary Significance & Criticism
(See Ellery Queen.) After nine popular mystery novels and the first of many movies, the character of Ellery Queen was at this point firmly established. This novella was among the first shorter fictional pieces to feature Ellery Queen. This period in the Ellery Queen canon signals a change in the type of story told, moving away from the intricate puzzle mystery format that had been a hallmark of the nine previous novels, each with a nationality in their title and a "Challenge to the Reader" immediately before the solution was revealed. Both the "nationality title" and the "Challenge to the Reader" disappear at this point in the canon.
"The best of (Ellery Queen's) short stories belong to the early intensely ratiocinative period, and both The Adventures of Ellery Queen (1934) and The New Adventures of Ellery Queen (1940) are as absolutely fair and totally puzzling as the most passionate devotee of orthodoxy could wish. ... (Every) story in these books is composed with wonderful skill."
The "Dell 10¢ Book" series, of which this was #23, was a short-lived experiment by Dell Books in 1951. At 64 pages and a cover price of US10¢, this is a typical entry in the 36-title series. This novella has never again been published separately and is usually found contained in The New Adventures of Ellery Queen (1940), a collection of shorter works.
This novella was included by John Dickson Carr in 1946 among the ten best mystery stories ever written.
Read more about this topic: The Lamp Of God
Famous quotes containing the words literary, significance and/or criticism:
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—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“History is the interpretation of the significance that the past has for us.”
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“When you overpay small people you frighten them. They know that their merits or activities entitle them to no such sums as they are receiving. As a result their boss soars out of economic into magic significance. He becomes a source of blessings rather than wages. Criticism is sacrilege, doubt is heresy.”
—Ben Hecht (1893–1964)