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Fredric Brown
1906-1972
 

Fredric William Brown was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. After finishing high school in 1925, he attended Hanover College and the University of Cincinnati. In 1929, he married Helen Ruth Brown. They moved to Milwaukee where their two sons were born. Brown attempted several jobs before joining the Milwaukee Allied Authors Club and started writing for trade magazines. From 1937 until 1945, he was a proofreader for the Milwaukee Journal. In 1937, he sold his first detective story 'Monday's Off Night'. His breakthrough came a year later with the publication of 'The Moon for a Nickel' in Detection Story. In the Forties, he sold hundreds of stories to the detective and science fiction pulp magazines.In 1947, his first novel was published which brought him fame and money. He quit his job to become a full-time writer. He divorced Helen and soon remarried. In 1949, the Browns moved to Tucson, Arizona where they stayed for three years. In 1952, they moved to the Los Angeles area, but in 1954, on the advice of Brown's doctors, they moved back to Tucson. Brown was suffering from asthma. In 1961, they went to California where Fredric wrote screenplays and scripts. In the late Sixties, his health was declining fast and he drank heavily. His first wife died in 1970 and Brown passed away two years later in hospital.

 

Titles and year of publication:  

 1) The Fabulous Clipjoint (Edgar Award)  1947
 2) The Dead Ringer  1948
 3) Murder Can Be Fun (Also published as: A Plot for Murder [1949])  1948
 4) The Bloody Moonlight (UK Title: Murder in Moonlight [1950])  1949
 5) The Screaming Mimi  1949
 6) Compliments of a Fiend  1950
 7) Here Comes a Candle  1950
 8) Night of the Jabberwock  1950
 9) The Case of the Dancing Sandwiches  1951
10) Death Has Many Doors  1951
11) The Far Cry  1951
12) We All Killed Grandma  1952
13) The Deep End  1952
14) Madball  1953
15) Mostly Murder: Eighteen Stories (short stories)  1953
16) His Name Was Death  1954
17) The Wench Is Dead  1955
18) The Lenient Beast  1956
19) One for the Road  1958
20) The Late Lamented  1959
21) Knock Three-One-Two  1959
22) The Murderers  1961
23) Nightmares and Geezenstacks (short stories)  1961
24) The Five-Day Nightmare  1963
25) Mrs. Murphy's Underpants  1963
26) The Shaggy Dog and Other Murders (UK Title: The Shaggy Dog and Other Stories [1964]) (short stories)  1963
27) Before She Kills (short stories)  1984
28) Homicide Sanitarium (short stories)  1984
29) Carnival of Crime (short stories)  1985
30) The Freak Show Murders (short stories)  1985
31) Madman's Holiday (short stories)  1985
32) Pardon My Goulish Laughter (short stories)  1986
33) Red Is the Hue of Hell (short stories)  1986
34) Sex Life on the Planet Mars (short stories)  1986
35) Thirty Corpses Every Thursday (short stories)  1986
36) And the Gods Laughed (short stories)  1987
37) Brother Monster (short stories)  1987
38) Nightmare in Darkness (short stories)  1987
39) Who Was That Blonde I Saw You Kill Last Night? (short stories)  1987
40) Selling Death Short (short stories)  1988
41) Three Corpse Parlay (short stories)  1988
42) Whispering Death (short stories)  1989
43) The Water Walker (short stories)  1990
44) Happy Ending (short stories)  1990

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