The League of Frightened Men

infobox Book |
name = The League of
Frightened Men
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption =
author = Rex Stout
cover_artist =
country = United States
language = English
series = Nero Wolfe
genre = Detective fiction
publisher = Farrar & Rinehart
release_date = August 14, 1935
media_type = Print (Hardcover)
pages = 308 pp. (first edition)
isbn = NA
preceded_by = Fer-de-Lance
followed_by = The Rubber Band

"The League of Frightened Men" is the second Nero Wolfe detective novel by Rex Stout. The story was serialized in six issues of "The Saturday Evening Post" (June 15–July 20, 1935) under the title "The Frightened Men". The novel was published in 1935 by Farrar & Rinehart, Inc.

Plot introduction

An author, Paul Chapin, is on trial for alleged obscenity in his popular novel, and Archie is telling Wolfe the scurrilous details as found in the newspaper. Wolfe and Archie have an argument about obscenity law, and its upshot is that Wolfe tells Archie to have the book sent over in the morning.

Wolfe reads the book, then tells Archie that Andrew Hibbard, a potential client, had visited while Archie was away on another case, and that Hibbard had asked Wolfe to arrange to protect him from a man whose name he would not disclose. However, Hibbard did include other particulars,
# many years earlier, a "boyish prank" upon his friend (now nemesis) had had a lasting and tragic outcome
# in Hibbard's opinion the man was a psychopath
# following the deaths of two their mutual friends at gatherings (reunions), they had received lengthy typewritten unsigned masterfully word poems/threats each saying, among other things that "he had embarked on a ship of vengeance"
# the man had had recent commercial success

At the time, Wolfe sent Hibbard away with two recommendations
# Get some life insurance
# Find another agency specializing in personal protection

Now, after reading the Chapin cited in the court case, Wolfe has found the curious phrase "embark on a ship of vengeance" twice in that novel, and from that and other considerations forms the surmise that Paul Chapin was the man Andrew Hibbard feared but would not name.

Wolfe considers his surmise to have been validated by confirmation that Chapin had been crippled in a hazing accident at a Harvard dorm many years before, and also by knowledge that Chapin has a new successful play on Broadway.

Hibbard has been missing for a week or two -- but Wolfe locates some the other members of the "League of Atonement" through Hibbard's niece -- and as already told by Hibbard in the first attempt to engage Wolfe, some of the League have begun dying, though from the actions of Paul Chapin, other menaces, or simply the ordinary course of life is not yet known.

Therefore surviving members of the League enter into an agreement with Wolfe that he should provide the League removal of threats and apprehensions from the following sources
* Paul Chapin
* Person, possibly Chapin, who has sent typewritten poetic taunts/threats members of the League have recently received (and caused the League of Atonement set up after the hazing accident to be recently dubbed The League of Frightened Men)
* Person or persons responsible for the recent deaths of two of their number (and possibly Hibbard as well, as noted earlier)

The effectiveness of Wolfe's work is to be decided by a majority vote of the League members.

The unfamiliar word

In most Nero Wolfe novels and novellas, there is at least one unfamiliar word, usually spoken by Wolfe.
* "Viva voce", chapter 2. Wolfe refers Archie to a conversation in the office that was transcribed by a stenographer hired while Archie was away::I nodded, glancing over the typewritten pages. "Andrew Hibbard. Instructor in psychology at Columbia. It was on October twentieth, a Saturday, that’s two weeks ago today.":"Suppose you read it.":"Viva voce"?":"Archie." Wolfe looked at me. "Where did you pick that up, where did you learn to pronounce it, and what do you think it means?":"Do you want me to read this stuff out loud, sir?":"It doesn't mean out loud. Confound you." Wolfe emptied his glass, leaned back in his chair, got his fingers to meet in front of his belly, and laced them. "Proceed."

* "Juridical," chapter 21. Wolfe urges objectivity from the assembled League members:: "You cannot be at the same time juridical and partisan, at least not with any pretense at competence."

Reviews and commentary

* Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor, "A Catalogue of Crime" — Archie gets some rough handling and even cries in this longish and complicated story of threatened and actual violence embracing two and a half dozen men of various occupations and characters, who in the past have injured a youth whose revenge they now fear.Barzun, Jacques and Taylor, Wendell Hertig. "A Catalogue of Crime". New York: Harper & Row. 1971, revised and enlarged edition 1989. ISBN 0-06-015796-8]

* Clifton Fadiman, "The New Yorker" — The second book about Nero Wolfe, newest of eccentric detectives, and good enough to prove that his success isn't just a fluke. An excellent story about thirty men scared to death by a cripple, told out of the side of the mouth. ["The New Yorker", August 17, 1935, p. 60]

The prominent American man of letters Edmund Wilson wrote in a review in "The New Yorker" that the book "makes use of a clever psychological idea."

Adaptations

"The League of Frightened Men"

Columbia Pictures adapted the novel for its 1937 film "The League of Frightened Men". Lionel Stander reprised his "Meet Nero Wolfe" role as Archie Goodwin, and Walter Connolly starred as Nero Wolfe.

Publication history

*1935, "The Saturday Evening Post", June 15–July 20, 1935, as "The Frightened Men"
*1935, New York: Farrar & Rinehart, August 14, 1935, hardcover:In his limited-edition pamphlet, "Collecting Mystery Fiction #9, Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe Part I", Otto Penzler describes the first edition of "The League of Frightened Men": "Black cloth, gold lettering on front cover and spine; rear cover blank. Issued in a mainly black, white and gray pictorial dust wrapper … The first edition has the publisher's monogram logo on the copyright page. The second printing, in September 1935, is identical to the first except that the logo was dropped." [Penzler, Otto, "Collecting Mystery Fiction #9, Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe Part I" (2001, New York: The Mysterious Bookshop, limited edition of 250 copies), p. 10] :In April 2006, "Firsts: The Book Collector's Magazine" estimated that the first edition of "The League of Frightened Men" had a value of "$15,000 and up." [Smiley, Robin H., "Rex Stout: A Checklist of Primary First Editions." "Firsts: The Book Collector's Magazine" (Volume 16, Number 4), April 2006, p. 32]
*1935, Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1935, hardcover
*1935, London: Cassell, 1935, hardcover
*1937, New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1937, hardcover
*1940, New York: Triangle, January 1940, hardcover
*1942, New York: Avon, 1942, paperback
*1944, Cleveland, Ohio: World Publishing Company, "The Nero Wolfe Omnibus" (with "The Red Box"), January 1944, hardcover
* New York: Lawrence E. Spivak, Jonathan Press Mystery #J-33, not dated, abridged, paperback
*New York: Lawrence E. Spivak, Mercury Mystery #48, not dated, abridged, paperback
*1955, New York: Viking Press, "Full House: A Nero Wolfe Omnibus" (with "And Be a Villain" and "Curtains for Three"), May 15, 1955, hardcover
*1961, London: Penguin, 1961, paperback
*1963, New York: Pyramid (Green Door), October 1963, paperback
*1979, New York: Jove, June 1979, paperback
*1995, New York: Bantam Books ISBN 0553762982 January 1995, paperback
*1996, Burlington, Ontario: Durkin Hayes Publishing, DH Audio ISBN 0886464188 September 1996, audio cassette (read by Saul Rubinek)
*2004, Auburn, California: The Audio Partners Publishing Corp., Mystery Masters ISBN 1572704047 July 2004, audio CD (unabridged, read by Michael Prichard)
*2008, New York: Bantam Dell Publishing Group (with "Fer-de-Lance") ISBN 0553385453 June 2008, paperback

References

External links

*imdb title|id=0029127|title=The League of Frightened Men

The unfamiliar word
*Wiktionary-inline|viva voce
*Wiktionary-inline|juridical