Today in History: American mystery writer Rex Stout was born on this day in 1886. His best-known characters are the detective Nero Wolfe and his assistant Archie Goodwin, who were featured in 33 novels and 39 novellas between 1934 and 1975. Nero Wolfe is a fictional character, a brilliant, oversized, eccentric armchair detective who lives in a luxurious brownstone on West 35th Street in New York City, and he is loath to leave his home for business or anything that would keep him from reading his books, tending to his orchids, or eating the gourmet meals prepared by his chef, Fritz Brenner.
The Nero Wolfe corpus was nominated Best Mystery Series of the Century at Bouchercon 2000, the world's largest mystery convention, and Rex Stout was nominated Best Mystery Writer of the Century. However, Nero Wolfe often lags behind others in the genre, like Sherlock Holmes, Hercules Poirot, Miss Marple, Sam Spade, Phliip Marlowe and Alex Cross. Interestingly, Columbo, according to many lists, is named as the most original detective.
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