Stanley Ellin

Who was Stanley Ellin?

Stanley Bernard Ellin was an American mystery writer. Ellin was born in Brooklyn, New York. After a brief tenure in the Army, at the insistence of his wife, Ellin began writing full-time. While his novels are acclaimed, he is best known for his short stories. In May 1948, his first sale, and one of Ellin's most famous short stories, "The Specialty of the House", appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine.

In the years to come, Ellin's fame as an author grew. He was awarded three Edgar Allan Poe Awards. His first Edgar was for the short story "The House Party" in 1954, then for the short story "The Blessington Method" in 1956, and his third for the novel The Eighth Circle in 1959. Several episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents were based on Ellin short stories, and his novels Dreadful Summit, House of Cards, and The Bind were adapted into feature films. Charles Silet writes that Ellin "did much toward erasing the distinctions between traditional genre and mainstream fiction by writing novels more concerned with character and locale than with plot."

Ellin was a long-time member and past president of the Mystery Writers of America. In 1981, he was awarded with the MWA's highest honor, the Grand Master Award. Writing in The Times, Marcel Berlins said, "Stanley Ellin is the unsurpassed master of the short story in crime fiction."