Nero Wolfe of West 35th Street

by William S. Baring-Gould

Book Overview

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• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0140061940
• Release Date: June 1982
• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Length: 202 Pages
• Weight: 0.37 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 1.0" x 1.0"

Customer Reviews

The First, The Best

I read this book shortly after it first came out and loved it. Baring-Gould, the man who deconstructed Sherlock Holmes so well and creatively, takes on Sherlock's "illegitimate son" here. The speculations (like the above) are extravagant but great fun. The characterizations are better, though. As much loved as Archie is throughout the series, he is even livlier here. Despite "proportional inaccuracies" about the brownstone's floorplan, Baring-Gould really makes us feel like we've walked through the front door. In order to tell the Wolfe story well, you just have to have a hyphenated last name!

Flawed by a Bad Floor Plan

This is, of course, the seminal book on everybody's favorite fatty. Even 35 years ago, however, when scholarly studies of Nero Wolfe were in their infancy, I was stuck by how badly proportioned the page-192 first-floor plan of the brownstone house was. It had all the correct rooms, true, but the scale was clearly grotesque -- for instance, the dining room was apparently 3 times the size of the office. Compare it to the infinitely more exact (and realistic) plan on page 100 of Ken Darby's book "The Brownstone House of Nero Wolfe." Perhaps Baring-Gould merely had a bad draftsman; if not, he clearly had no understanding of the elements of architecture -- or of what was fairly clearly spelled out by Stout in the Canon....

"Nothing corrupts a man as deeply as writing a book"

The title of this review is the lead quote from chapter 27, "The Philosophy of Nero Wolfe." :)Originally published in 1969, the bibliography, though not the internal chronology, are complete up to _The Father Hunt_ (i.e., the last 4 novels and _Death Times Three_ had not been published as yet), and naturally Rex Stout's own name graces the top of the dedication list. Both Stout and Baring-Gould were noted Baker Street Irregulars; Baring-Gould gave the world his excellent Annotated Sherlock Holmes, while Stout authored the infamous "Watson Was a Woman" theory.It's a pity that Baring-Gould couldn't give Wolfe the full annotation treatment that he gave Holmes; apart from the problem of copyrights, Wolfe has a far larger canon than Holmes did. Part Two of this volume devotes chapters 12 - 26 to Wolfe's cases in chronological order, up to _Death of a Doxy_. Each case's salient points are briefly outlined without giving too much away; those which weren't explicitly dated are analyzed to place them in time. I personally found this of less interest than the rest of the book; some extra material giving the flavour of the time in which the stories were set would have seasoned it more to my taste.The rest of the book, though, gives Baring-Gould more scope. Chapter 1, "The Private Detective", lovingly analyzes the quirks that make Wolfe fun to watch (e.g. "Contact is not a verb under this roof"; as you may recall, a client once paid an extra $1000, though he never knew it, for using it that way in the office). This is followed, of course, by "The Man of Action" (analyzing Archie), "An Old Brownstone House" (hey, it's practically a character itself, and a floorplan is provided at the end of the book), and "The Major Domo" (Fritz, of course; we also get "Wining and Dining with Nero Wolfe" later on). Theodore never got enough time on stage to provide enough material for a chapter of his own, but we do get "A Wolfean Guide to the Orchidaceae" (I wish the publisher had sprung for colour illustrations). Zeck, however, does get a chapter, as do the homicide squad and the irregulars (Saul, Fred, Orrie, et al.)Chapters 9 - 11 - Baring-Gould's theories about how Wolfe might be a blood relative of Holmes, Wolfe and Marko might be brothers, and Archie might be Wolfe's nephew - can be best appreciated if you think about them as poetic justice for that "Watson Was a Woman" business Stout pestered the Baker Street Irregulars with; I don't take them seriously, myself.All in all, good stuff, as any serious treatment of Wolfe should be. The final case-by-case chronology (starting with Wolfe's probable birthdate, and including cases mentioned by Archie but never published) is *very* nice.

A Must For Any Wolfe Fan

Baring-Gould has written the essential reference book for any and all fans of Rex Stout's wonderful creation. Not only does he provide a superb career summary of Wolfe's adventures, he gives a plan of the first floor of the famous Brownstone on West 35th Street, a summary of each of the mysteries and a chronological sequence for the mysteries. This book tells you everything you want to know about the great detective, his assistant (and gadfly) Archie Goodwin, and all of Stout's wonderful cast of characters.

Nero Wolfe of West Thirty-Fifth Street

Excellent "bed-side" companion to anyone interested in Nero Wolfe "history." This "biography" is told in three parts: the characters, the stories, and a short, final part, with the philosophy & library of Nero Wolfe and other random thoughts "from the files of Archie Goodwin." I especially like the map of the ground floor of Wolfe's house and the chronology time-line at the end.