American writer, editor, and publisher (1905–1991)
Howard Haycraft (July 25, 1905 – November 12, 1991) was an American writer, editor, and publisher.
Haycraft was born on July 24, 1905, in Madelia, Minnesota, to Marie (Stelzer) and Julius Everett Haycraft.[1] He received a bachelor's degree from the University of Minnesota in 1928.[1]
Haycraft began working at the H. W. Wilson Company in 1929 after a brief stint at the University of Minnesota Press.[1] He was president of H. W. Wilson from 1953 to 1967 and chairman of its board of directors thereafter.[2]
At H. W. Wilson, Haycraft edited and contributed to reference works about writers and literature.[3] He was fascinated by mysteries and detective fiction.[4] His book Murder for Pleasure: The Life and Times of the Detective Story (1941)—described in a profile published that year as the "first full-length history and survey of police fiction"[5]—laid out an early critical view of the mystery genre and its theory. Murder for Pleasure identifies the origins of detective fiction in the work of Edgar Allan Poe, surveys the work of authors Haycraft identified as being of great quality or historical importance, and provides an overview of the critical literature on detective fiction up to its publication.[6]
Haycraft received a special citation in 1976 at the centennial of the American Library Association.[7]
A resident of Hightstown, New Jersey, Haycraft died there on November 12, 1991.[4]
^ abcHarte, Barbara; Riley, Carolyn, eds. (1970). Contemporary Authors. Gale. pp. 191–192. ISBN 0-8103-0021-4.
^Burke, William Jeremiah; Howe, Will David; Weiss, Irving; Weiss, Anne (1972). American Authors and Books, 1640 to the Present Day. Crown Publishing Group. p. 285. ISBN 978-0-517-50139-9. OCLC 956659256.
^Herzberg, Max J., ed. (1966). The Reader's Encyclopedia of American Literature. Thomas Y. Crowell Co. p. 442. ISBN 0-690-67341-8. OCLC 269151.
^ abGrimes, William (November 13, 1991). "Howard Haycraft Is Dead at 86; A Publisher and Mystery Scholar". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on July 24, 2022. Retrieved July 29, 2022.
^Block, Maxine, ed. (1941). "Haycraft, Howard". Current Biography. H. W. Wilson Company. pp. 371–372.
^Ascari, Maurizio (2007). A Counter-History of Crime Fiction. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 3. doi:10.1057/9780230234536. ISBN 978-0-230-59462-3.
^"Special Centennial Citation". American Library Association. Archived from the original on January 20, 2024. Retrieved March 13, 2024.
HowardHaycraft (July 25, 1905 – November 12, 1991) was an American writer, editor, and publisher. Haycraft was born on July 24, 1905, in Madelia, Minnesota...
innovative twist ending having a significant impact on the genre. HowardHaycraft included it in his list of the most influential crime novels ever written...
this model, declaring: "It is the ladies and gentlemen of what Mr. HowardHaycraft (in his book Murder for Pleasure) calls the Golden Age of Detective...
his seminal 1941 work, Murder for Pleasure, crime fiction historian HowardHaycraft included the first two Nero Wolfe novels, Fer-de-Lance and The League...
membership in the "Guild of Former Pipe Organ Pumpers." Stanley Kunitz, HowardHaycraft and Wilbur Crane Hadden (eds.), Authors Today and Yesterday, New York:...
however, H.M. had been regarded more favorably by a number of critics. HowardHaycraft, author of the seminal Murder for Pleasure: The Life and Times of the...
on File, 2007); see entry on Radcliffe, p. 578. Stanley Kunitz and HowardHaycraft, eds, British Authors Before 1800: A Biographical Dictionary (NY: H...
Dine's classic whodunnit, second in the Philo Vance series, is said by HowardHaycraft to have broken "all modern publishing records for detective fiction...
book Murder for Pleasure: The Life and Times of the Detective Story, HowardHaycraft noted that Sayers has been called by some critics the greatest of living...
Authors: A Biographical Dictionary of Modern Literature, Stanley Kunitz, HowardHaycraft, Wilson, 1976, p. 106 The Readers' Companion to Twentieth-century Writers...
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Ellery Queen (Frederic Dannay), Anthony Boucher, Vincent Starrett, and HowardHaycraft. In his 1944 volume The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes, Ellery Queen...
Mrs. Gabrielle Margaret Vere (Campbell)", in Stanley J. Kunitz and HowardHaycraft, Twentieth Century Authors, A Biographical Dictionary of Modern Literature...
his seminal 1941 work, Murder for Pleasure, crime fiction historian HowardHaycraft included Fer-de-Lance and The League of Frightened Men in his definitive...
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Sir Thomas Wagstaffe Haycraft (5 October 1858 – 16 July 1936) was an English barrister of the British Colonial Service. Haycraft served as Chief Justice...
Biographical Dictionary of Modern Literature, edited by Stanley J. Kunitz and HowardHaycraft, New York, The H. W. Wilson Company, 1942. Hirsch, Pam (2010). 'The...
Monthly in December 1944. A revised, expanded version was included in HowardHaycraft's 1946 anthology The Art of the Mystery Story. The second is a separate...
book English Music in the XIXth Century. References Stanley Kunitz; HowardHaycraft (1973). Twentieth Century Authors: A Biographical Dictionary of Modern...
biographical dictionary of modern literature, edited by Stanley J. Kunitz and HowardHaycraft; (Third Edition). New York, The H.W. Wilson Company, 1950 (p.1393-94)...
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