Clayton Rawson (1906 - 1971) was an American mystery writer, editor, and amateur magician. His four novels frequently invoke his great knowledge of stage magic and feature as their fictional detective The Great Merlini, a professional magician who runs a shop selling magic supplies. He also wrote four short stories in 1940 about a stage magician named Don Diavolo, who appears as a principal character in one of the novels featuring The Great Merlini. "Don Diavolo is a magician who perfects his tricks in a Greenwich Village basement where he is frequently visited by the harried Inspector Church of Homicide, either to arrest the Don for an impossible crime or to ask him to solve it." Rawson was born in Elyria, Ohio, the son of Clarence D.

PropertyValue
p:abstract
  • Clayton Rawson (1906 - 1971) was an American mystery writer, editor, and amateur magician. His four novels frequently invoke his great knowledge of stage magic and feature as their fictional detective The Great Merlini, a professional magician who runs a shop selling magic supplies. He also wrote four short stories in 1940 about a stage magician named Don Diavolo, who appears as a principal character in one of the novels featuring The Great Merlini. "Don Diavolo is a magician who perfects his tricks in a Greenwich Village basement where he is frequently visited by the harried Inspector Church of Homicide, either to arrest the Don for an impossible crime or to ask him to solve it." Rawson was born in Elyria, Ohio, the son of Clarence D. and Clara Rawson. He became a magician when he was 8 years old. He married Catherine Stone in 1929, the same year he graduated from Ohio State University, and they had four children. He moved to Chicago and lived there working as an illustrator. His first novel, Death from a Top Hat, appeared in 1938. He was one of the four founding members of the Mystery Writers of America, which presents the annual Edgar Awards in various categories of mystery writing. All of his novels were written before the founding of this group, but in 1949 and 1967 Rawson received Special Edgar Awards for his various contributions to mystery writing and the MWA, including the founding of the organization's first newsletter, "The Third Degree". Rawson is also credited with writing the organization's first slogan: "Crime Does Not Pay -- Enough". Rawson became managing editor of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine between 1963 and his death in 1971. At least two movies were made based on the Merlini books. One of them, Miracles for Sale (1939), was evidently based on the Merlini exploits in general but had no character named Merlini -- instead, Robert Young played "The Great Morgan". The 1942 movie The Man Who Wouldn't Die, starring Lloyd Nolan, was based on No Coffin for the Corpse, but the Merlini character was replaced by Michael Shayne, a popular fictional private eye at the time, created by the writer Brett Halliday. A 30-minute pilot for a television series was created in 1951, but no further episodes were made. The Transparent Man, written by Rawson, starred Jerome Thor as The Great Merlini -- who in this incarnation was a stage magician -- with Barbara Cook as his assistant Julie and featuring E.G. Marshall as a criminal. (en)
  • クレイトン・ロースン(Clayton Rawson、1906年-1971年)は、アメリカ合衆国のオハイオ州エリリア生まれ。推理作家にして推理雑誌編集者。アマチュア奇術師でもある。別名スチュアート・タウン。 (ja)
  • Clayton Rawson, född 15 augusti 1906, död 1 mars 1971, amerikansk deckarförfattare och illusionist. Rawson skrev även under pseudonymen Stuart Towne. Rawson är en av de skickligaste av de deckarförfattarna från den gyllene eran (på 1930-talet), även om han inte har blivit lika berömd som till exempel Agatha Christie och Ellery Queen, vilket sannolikt beror på att hans produktion är så mycket mindre. Hans variationer främst av det låsta rummets mysterium kan jämföras med John Dickson Carrs, och faktum är att de blev nära vänner, och ofta bytte problem och lösningar med varandra. Rawsons problemlösare illusionisten Merlini, figurerar i fyra romaner och tolv stycken noveller, och åtföljs i allmänhet av berättaren Max Harte och den argsinte poliskommissarien Homer Gavigan. Dessutom skrev Rawson under pseudonymen Stuart Towne fyra långnoveller om en annan problemlösare, Don Diavolo, som även han är magiker. En samling med dessa utkom så sent som 2004, utgiven under Rawsons eget namn. Under stora delar av sitt liv jobbade Rawson som redaktör för olika deckartidningar. Han var även en mycket skicklig trollkarl och har skrivit böcker om detta. (sv)
p:hasPhotoCollection
p:relatedInstance
rdf:type
rdfs:comment
  • Clayton Rawson (1906 - 1971) was an American mystery writer, editor, and amateur magician. His four novels frequently invoke his great knowledge of stage magic and feature as their fictional detective The Great Merlini, a professional magician who runs a shop selling magic supplies. He also wrote four short stories in 1940 about a stage magician named Don Diavolo, who appears as a principal character in one of the novels featuring The Great Merlini. "Don Diavolo is a magician who perfects his tricks in a Greenwich Village basement where he is frequently visited by the harried Inspector Church of Homicide, either to arrest the Don for an impossible crime or to ask him to solve it." Rawson was born in Elyria, Ohio, the son of Clarence D. (en)
  • クレイトン・ロースン(Clayton Rawson、1906年-1971年)は、アメリカ合衆国のオハイオ州エリリア生まれ。推理作家にして推理雑誌編集者。アマチュア奇術師でもある。別名スチュアート・タウン。 (ja)
  • Clayton Rawson, född 15 augusti 1906, död 1 mars 1971, amerikansk deckarförfattare och illusionist. (sv)
rdfs:label
  • Clayton Rawson (en)
  • クレイトン・ロースン (ja)
  • Clayton Rawson (sv)
owl:sameAs
skos:subject
foaf:page
is dbpedia-owl:author of
is p:author of
is owl:sameAs of