Moving the site contents over to a WordPress.com hosted site at http://neroandarchie.wordpress.com/.

Am in the process of getting all of the images at the new site linked properly as quite a few of them got broken in the transfer for some reason. All new posts will be on the new site. Am hoping I can get the domain names I own to point to that site soon, but for now they will point here. Any comments or problems will be better handled if posted to the new site.

Thanks,
Dave
AKA Albert Freyer

Thanks for dropping by. Pull up a chair, have a beer (Remmers of course), and browse around a while. Becoming a user is free and we do NOT send email or give or sell your address to anyone, so sign up, and comment to your hearts content. No need to phone ahead for an appointment, because unlike Wolfe’s office, we are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365/366 days a year, so come by any time.

In the archives and listed in the categories there is at least one scan of the covers of each book in the corpus as well as a bit of information about the book. There are also a fair number of parodies as well as other things lurking in the dark corners around here.

I (known on the Wolfe list as Albert Freyer) come in from time to time to dust and make sure things are still in order. Time has been a problem lately, but I am going to try to get the rest of the covers in my collection scanned or rescanned and up sometime soon.

If you have any covers not shown here, I always appreciate donations of scans of editions that I am missing. You may email me using “depatty@gmail.com” for particulars or just scan, attach, and email, with an explanation of edition, publishing date and such like in the body of the email and I will get it up as soon as time allows.

Until next time,
Dave AKA Albert

Link to the post is The Nero Wolfe Cookbook

I’ve spent quite a bit of time browsing around and have read all the Wolfe related recipes and must say I’ve learned a lot! I tried the scrambled eggs in a double boiler last night and they were good. However as the only double boiler I have is glass and the stove (electric) doesn’t regulate well, they cooked too hot/fast so am going to have to try again. The sauisse minuit recipe sounds (and looks!) quite good! Going to see if I can find a source for Pheasant and Goose here in East Central Alabama and give it a try.

Very Satisfactory!!!

Ain’t that the truth!

Wonderful bit of word play!

Till next time, Folks…

While rereading Man Alive today, I noticed that another hint about Archie’s age shows up in this one.

Page numbers taken from Three Doors To Death – the Bantam Reissue Edition paperback first published March 1995, 8th printing.

————

First clue is on page 38 where Wolfe is talking to Cynthia and telling her he wants the folks that have keys to the business there in his office that evening.  She replies as follows:

 ”But good lord.”  She was flabbergasted.  “I can’t just order them around!  What can I say?  I can’t say I want them to help find out who killed my uncle because they don’t know it was my uncle?  You must consider they’re much older than I am – all but Bernard – and they think I’m just a fresh kid.  Even Bernard is seven years older.  After all, I’m only twenty-one – that is I will be – my God!”

And she goes on to say that her birthday is the next day.

The next clue is on page 41 where Archie is in Bernard Daumery’s office just after being introduced to Bernard.

Cynthia’s statistics had informed me that he was four years younger than me, and I might as well concede them to him.

So Cynthia is 21, Bernard is 7 years older than her, or 28, and 4 years younger than Archie, which would put Archie at 32.  Unless the ever literal Archie is figuring her age at 20 due to her birthday being the next day which would put him at 31. 

To link this to my previous post about Archie’s age, I noticed that “Man Alive” was written in 1947 and “In The Best Families” was written in 1950.  So if he was 31 or 32 in MA then he would be “about” 34 in ITBF.

Though I do agree that Stout has Archie’s age pegged at somewhere around 30 throughout the corpus, I find it interesting that he kept the time-line consistent through these two stories.

Hello All,

Even though I know that today (8/23/09) we are supposed to start (not) discussing “Man Alive” from “Three Doors to Death “, I thought I would post this about the book we just finished (not) discussing.

Just reread In the Best Families and noted a couple of points that I thought were interesting. I seem to remember at least some of this coming up in discussion before but a quick search in my very limited email archives didn’t show anything so thought I would post this.

The copy I read this time was the Bantam paperback 8th printing printed in Sept 1984, and that’s what the page numbers I am giving are based on.

—————–

The first bit I noted was on the first page of the first chapter and is related to Archie’s salary. The person Archie is talking about is Mrs. Barry Rackham, who has called and wants to see Wolfe on business. The relevant text is as follows:

On the main point of interest, could she and did she pay her bills, the news was favorable: she was worth a good four million and maybe five. Calling it four, and assuming that Wolfe’s bill for services rendered would come to only half of it, that would be enough to pay my current salary – as Wolfe’s secretary, trusted assistant and official gnat – for a hundred and sixty-seven years; and in addition to that, living as I did there in Wolfe’s house, I also got food and shelter. So I was fixed for life if it turned out that she needed two million buck’s worth of detective work.

So in a round about way he tells us how much he makes a year. 2 million divided by 167 is $11976.05 if we round up and $11976.04 if rounding down. From that I am assuming he means he makes $12,000.00 a year which breaks down to an even $1,000.00 a month but if taken even further and divided by weeks is not quite so even and comes to $230.77 a week. Any way you figure it, in 1950 dollars that is a nice little pay check.

I used the Consumer Price Index based financial calculator at http://www.minneapolisfed.org/ to do a bit of figuring on what he would be bringing in today. According to the site the following is how they do the calculation.

The CPI for 1950 = 24.1
The CPI for 2009 = 213.2

And they use the following formula to compute the calculation:
2009 Price = 1950 Price x (2009 CPI / 1950 CPI)

So that means his weekly pay now would be $2041.50 = $230.77 x (213.2/24.1)

Which would put his yearly salary at $106,157.68. Not bad for a gum shoe! And that’s NOT figuring in room and board which in New York City would be a hefty sum!

—————–

The second bit that jumped out at me this time through the book is that Archie tells his age! Or at least comes as close as any time “I” remember in the Corpus. On page 17 Leeds is talking about the folks they will meet at the Mrs. Rackham’s house, and says:

“You and me,” he said, “and my cousin and her husband, and Mrs. Frey, whom you have met, and Hammond, and the statesman, that’s seven-”
“Who’s the statesman?”
“Oliver A. Pierce.”
“I’m intimate with lots of statesmen, but I never heard of him.”
“Don’t let him know it.” Leeds chuckled. “It’s true that at thirty-four he has only got as far as state assemblyman, but the war made a gap for him the same as for other young men. Give him a chance. One will be enough.”

Then on page 19 Archie tells us:

Pierce was a smooth article. His manner was, of course, based on the law of nature regulating the attitude of an elected person toward everybody old enough to vote, but his timing and variations were so good that it was hard to recognize it, although he was only about my age.

And goes on with Pierce’s description, but the above was the part that interested me. Archie is telling us that he is about 34 years old. Now the first book in the series, Fer-de-Lance, was written in 1933 and this one, In the Best Families, was written in 1950, which gives us 17 year’s between them. Extrapolating from the above statements that he is 34, he would have been 17 when the first story came out and would have been born in 1916, neither of which fit in with other bits from elsewhere in the corpus. So either he is not telling the truth about his age (Not that Archie would EVER prevaricate!) or as has been discussed in far greater depth than I am prepared to go into here, Stout changed their ages to suit his self as the series progressed. As I said just a point I found interesting.

All in all a very good read and I quite enjoyed rereading it.

Comments, corrections, and discussion welcomed.

Dave
AKA Albert Freyer

Black Orchids – June 1992 Bantam Reissue
Copyright 1941 and 1942 By Rex Stout
A Bantam Book
Bantam Reissue… June 1992
This is a 4th printing.
Creasing to spine and front cover. Some corner and edge bumping. Inside covers browning. Pages tight. Some corners turned. No stamps or markings. Good copy.

Contents
Introduction by Lawrence Block
Black Orchids
Cordially Invited To Meet Death

Rear Cover Intro:

BLACK ORCHIDS

Nero Wolfe has left his comfortable brownstone for the promise of a remarkably black orchid at a flower show — but before Wolfe and his perennially hardy sidekick, Archie Goodwin, have a chance to stop and smell the roses, a diabolically daring murder takes place right under their noses and puts a blight on the proceedings. Now Wolfe’s fancy turns to thoughts of weeding out a murderer — one who’s definitely not a garden-variety killer. Only then will Wolfe be ready to throw his weight into a second thorny case, involving a rich society widow bedeviled by poison-pen letters — and a poisonous plot as black as Wolfe’s orchids… with roots that are even more twisted.