The Mystery Box, by Frederick Highland :: History, Mystery, & Stamps

masters of detection

Continuing our quiz series on famous fictional detectives, inspired by a 1972 Nicaragua airmail set issued to celebrate 50 years of the International Police Organization (INTERPOL), we offer the following challenges to your powers of recollection.

The central design element shows a bookshelf with one book open and facing the reader. The open page reveals a portrait of the detective with the name of the author appearing on the spine of the book directly to the left of the open book. To the left of the author's name a caption in Spanish reads Los Doce Detectives Mas Famosos De La Ficcion (The Twelve Most Famous Fictional Detectives). Interestingly several of the portraits are drawn from American film and television actors who helped to popularize the detectives.

CLICK on the stamp to reveal the answer.

The prolific Erle Stanley Gardner is most remembered for his Perry Mason novels. In which of the following novels did Perry make his first appearance?

A) Owls Don't Blink

B) The Case of the Borrowed Brunette

C) The Case of the Careless Kitten

D) The Case of the Velvet Claws

Rex Stout's sedate, languorous detective Nero Wolfe introduced in Fed-de-Lance (1934) had, outside of solving crimes, two passions in life. They are:

A) Food and postage stamps

B) Food and antiques

C) Food and orchids

D) Incunabula and food

Most of us are aware that Edgar Allen Poe gave the detective story a jump-start by introducing, in 1841, the reclusive French detective C. Auguste Dupin. Dupin appeared in three Poe stories. Which of the following titles is NOT a Dupin tale?

A) Murders in the Rue Morgue

B) The Gold Bug

C) The Mystery of Marie Roget

D) The Purloined Letter

Continue to Part III

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masters of detection