Rex Stout Books

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Rex Stout was an American author born in 1886 and best known for creating the Nero Wolfe detective series. The sixth child amongst nine, Rex was born in Noblesville, Indiana. The family eventually moved to Kansas before finally settling down on a farm near Wakarusa in 1889. There, Rex had nothing else to do besides chores and reading voraciously.

Order of Nero Wolfe Series by Rex Stout

# Read Title Published Details
1 Fer-de-Lance / Meet Nero Wolfe 1934 Description / Buy
2 The League of Frightened Men 1935 Description / Buy
3 The Rubber Band / To Kill Again 1936 Description / Buy
4 The Red Box / Case of the Red Box 1937 Description / Buy
5 Too Many Cooks 1938 Description / Buy
6 Some Buried Caesar / The Red Bull 1939 Description / Buy
7 Over My Dead Body 1940 Description / Buy
8 Where There's a Will 1940 Description / Buy
9 Black Orchids 1942 Description / Buy
10 Not Quite Dead Enough 1944 Description / Buy
11 The Silent Speaker 1946 Description / Buy
12 Too Many Women 1947 Description / Buy
13 And Be a Villain / More Deaths Than One 1948 Description / Buy
14 Trouble in Triplicate 1949 Description / Buy
15 The Second Confession 1949 Description / Buy
16 Even in the Best Families / In the Best Families 1950 Description / Buy
17 Three Doors to Death / Door to Death 1950 Description / Buy
18 Curtains for Three 1951 Description / Buy
19 Murder by the Book 1951 Description / Buy
20 Prisoner's Base / Out She Goes 1952 Description / Buy
21 Triple Jeopardy 1952 Description / Buy
22 The Golden Spiders 1953 Description / Buy
23 The Black Mountain 1954 Description / Buy
24 Three Men Out 1954 Description / Buy
25 Before Midnight 1955 Description / Buy
26 Might as Well Be Dead 1956 Description / Buy
27 Three Witnesses 1956 Description / Buy
28 If Death Ever Slept 1957 Description / Buy
29 Three for the Chair 1957 Description / Buy
30 And Four to Go / Crime and Again 1958 Description / Buy
31 Champagne for One 1958 Description / Buy
32 Plot it Yourself / Murder in Style 1959 Description / Buy
33 Three at Wolfe's Door 1960 Description / Buy
34 Too Many Clients 1960 Description / Buy
35 The Final Deduction (Short Story) 1961 Description / Buy
36 Homicide Trinity 1962 Description / Buy
37 Gambit 1962 Description / Buy
38 The Mother Hunt 1963 Description / Buy
39 Trio for Blunt Instruments 1964 Description / Buy
40 A Right to Die 1964 Description / Buy
41 The Doorbell Rang 1965 Description / Buy
42 Death of a Doxy 1966 Description / Buy
43 The Father Hunt 1968 Description / Buy
44 Death of a Dude 1969 Description / Buy
45 Please Pass The Guilt 1973 Description / Buy
46 A Family Affair 1975 Description / Buy
47 Death Times Three 1985 Description / Buy

Order of Nero Wolfe Mysteries Series by Robert Goldsborough with Robert Goldsborough

# Read Title Published Details
1 Murder in E Minor ( By: Robert Goldsborough) 1986 Description / Buy
2 Death on Deadline ( By: Robert Goldsborough) 1987 Description / Buy
3 The Bloodied Ivy ( By: Robert Goldsborough) 1988 Description / Buy
4 The Last Coincidence ( By: Robert Goldsborough) 1989 Description / Buy
5 Fade to Black ( By: Robert Goldsborough) 1990 Description / Buy
6 Silver Spire ( By: Robert Goldsborough) 1992 Description / Buy
7 The Missing Chapter ( By: Robert Goldsborough) 1993 Description / Buy
8 Archie Meets Nero Wolfe ( By: Robert Goldsborough) 2012 Description / Buy
9 Murder in the Ball Park ( By: Robert Goldsborough) 2014 Description / Buy
10 Archie in the Crosshairs ( By: Robert Goldsborough) 2015 Description / Buy
11 Stop the Presses! ( By: Robert Goldsborough) 2016 Description / Buy
12 Murder, Stage Left ( By: Robert Goldsborough) 2017 Description / Buy
13 The Battered Badge ( By: Robert Goldsborough) 2018 Description / Buy
14 Death of an Art Collector ( By: Robert Goldsborough) 2019 Description / Buy
15 Archie Goes Home ( By: Robert Goldsborough) 2020 Description / Buy
16 Trouble at the Brownstone ( By: Robert Goldsborough) 2021 Description / Buy
17 The Missing Heiress ( By: Robert Goldsborough) 2023 Description / Buy

Order of Nero Wolfe Short Stories/Novellas

# Read Title Published Details
1 Bitter End (Short Story) 1997 Description / Buy
2 Disguise for Murder / The Twisted Scarf 2000 Description / Buy
3 Booby Trap (Short Story) 2013 Description / Buy
4 Cordially Invited to Meet Death (Short Story) 2014 Description / Buy
5 The Last Drive: And Other Stories (Short Story) 2015 Description / Buy
6 Eeny, Meeny, Miney, Mo, and FLO! / Eeny Meeny Murder Mo (Short Story) 2015 Description / Buy

Order of Tecumseh Fox Series

# Read Title Published Details
1 Double for Death 1939 Description / Buy
2 Bad for Business 1940 Description / Buy
3 The Broken Vase (Short Story) 1941 Description / Buy

Order of Rex Stout Standalone Novels

# Read Title Published Details
1 Her Forbidden Knight 1913 Description / Buy
2 Under the Andes 1914 Description / Buy
3 A Prize for Princes 1914 Description / Buy
4 The Great Legend 1916 Description / Buy
5 How Like a God 1929 Description / Buy
6 Seed on the Wind 1930 Description / Buy
7 Golden Remedy 1931 Description / Buy
8 Forest Fire 1933 Description / Buy
9 The President Vanishes 1934 Description / Buy
10 O Careless Love! 1935 Description / Buy
11 The Hand in the Glove / Crime on Her Hands 1937 Description / Buy
12 Mr. Cinderella 1939 Description / Buy
13 The Mountain Cat Murders / The Mountain Cat 1939 Description / Buy
14 Red Threads 1939 Description / Buy
15 The Sound of Murder / Alphabet Hicks 1941 Description / Buy

Order of Rex Stout Short Story Collections

# Read Title Published Details
1 Corsage 1977 Description / Buy
2 Justice Ends At Home and Other Stories 1977 Description / Buy
3 Target Practice 1997 Description / Buy
4 An Officer and a Lady and Other Stories 2000 Description / Buy

Order of Rex Stout Non-Fiction Books

# Read Title Published Details
1 The Nero Wolfe Cookbook 1969 Description / Buy

Rex Stout Anthologies

# Read Title Published Details
1 Nero Wolfe Mystery Magazine Volume 1 Number 1, January 1954 1954 Description / Buy
2 Hound Dunnit 1989 Description / Buy
3 The Oxford Book of American Detective Stories 1996 Description / Buy
4 A Century of Great Suspense Stories 2001 Description / Buy
Print: Print PDF

With their father’s work as superintendent of the schools in Shawnee County eventually forcing them to move, Rex Stout took to reading with fervor. The author also stood out because of his talent in math, spelling and reading. And even though he was only thirteen, Rex Stout was shepherded into Topeka high school.

Rex’s writing career, which seemed so promising, appeared to die when he was seventeen. Rex Stout wrote a poem and he even managed to get it sold. However, The Smart Set, the magazine that bought it never published it, and this left Rex feeling infuriated and disgusted with the field of writing. He destroyed everything he had ever written and gave up on writing altogether.

A stint in the university did little to give Rex any direction. He quickly found that he knew more than his peers, so he dropped out of college and traversed the various states doing odd jobs. Writing did not come back into the picture until 1911. Rex reached out to The Smart Set and trusted them with another poem, and this one they published.

While this development left Rex elated, he wouldn’t go into the writing field just yet. Instead, Rex Stout decided that he would take a bookkeeping job until he made enough money to survive while writing full-time. Financial independence came in 1926 after the author developed a school savings program.

With his money problems settled, Rex Stout took some time to visit Europe. He only sat down to do some serious writing when he got to Paris. How Like a God was Rex’s first novel and it was received well by the critics. In fact, almost all the books Rex ever wrote were critically acclaimed works.

However, they never made any money, and that was problematic because Rex’ finances eventually fell apart, this along with his first marriage to Faye Kennedy. After concluding that his psychological works simply held no appeal for most readers, Rex changed tact and began to produce more mainstream books. In this, Rex succeeded. His marriage to his second wife Pola Weinbach Hoffman also produced fruit.

Rex Stout died in 1975.

Rex Stout Awards

Rex received many accolades for his work during his lifetime, with the most prominent including the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America and a Crime Writers Association Silver Dagger Award.

Rex’s Nero Wolfe books also received nominations for Best Mystery Series of the Century and Best Mystery Writer of the Century.

Rex Stout Books into Movies/TV

Fer-de-Lance and The League of Frightened Men were Rex’s first and second Nero Wolfe novels and they were turned into two movies by Columbia Pictures, namely: Meet Nero Wolfe and The League of Frightened Men in 1936 and 1937 respectively.

CBS toyed with the idea of making a television series based on Nero Wolfe in 1959. They even made a highly successful pilot episode. However, the project never went anywhere.

Another plan by Paramount Television to produce a Nero Wolf TV show in 1967 failed to take off, though they eventually produced a Television movie titled Nero Wolfe in 1981.

A successful Television show did not manifest until 2000 with A New Wolfe Mystery. The show lasted two years.

Lesser known adaptations include a German TV Miniseries in 1961, an Italian Television series in 1969, a Russian TV series between 2001 and 2005, and another Italian TV series in 2012.

Best Rex Stout Books

Rex Stout is considered by many to have created the greatest literary detective of all time, with some of the best books from the author including the following:

Fer-de-Lance: After an immigrant and a college president are murdered, Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin only realize that certain parties might not want them to solve the case when someone sends Nero Wolfe one of the deadliest snakes in the world.

But Nero Wolfe isn’t afraid, not even in the face of a killer with a deadly bite.

The League of Frightened Men: Paul Chapin and his friends did a bad thing. During their college days, the gang pulled a prank that left a friend of theirs crippled. Paul hoped that he had left that particular sin in the past. But then a class reunion brought with it sudden death and Nero Wolfe was drawn into a deadly game that would test his brilliance.

When Does The Next Rex Stout book come out?

Rex Stout doesn't seem to have an upcoming book. Their newest book is Eeny, Meeny, Miney, Mo, and FLO! / Eeny Meeny Murder Mo and was released on June, 9th 2015. It is the newest book in the Nero Wolfe Short Stories/Novellas.

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