Robert Arthur Jr. | |
---|---|
Born | Robert Arthur Jr. November 10, 1909 Corregidor, Philippines |
Died | May 2, 1969 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States | (aged 59)
Occupation | Writer |
Alma mater | University of Michigan |
Genre | Crime fiction, speculative fiction, mystery fiction |
Robert Arthur Jr. (November 10, 1909 – May 2, 1969) was a writer and editor of crime fiction and speculative fiction[1] known for his work with The Mysterious Traveler radio series and for writing The Three Investigators, a series of young adult novels.[2][3]
For his radio work, Arthur—together with writing partner David Kogan—was honored with three Edgar Awards by the Mystery Writers of America.[4][5][6] He also adapted at least one story, and had several of his own adapted by others, for Alfred Hitchcock's TV show, Alfred Hitchcock Presents.[7]
Arthur (Nov. 10, 1909 - May 2, 1969), whose credits include co-creation of the radio program The Mysterious Traveler; and editing or ghost-editing various Alfred Hitchcock short story anthologies, wrote 10 books in the series before his death; including the first Three Investigators book I read, in fourth grade: The Mystery of the Talking Skull.
Even the title of the opening episode (Dead Man's Hand) feels straight out of junior mystery literature. It could have been a Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew title, or better yet Robert Arthur Jnr's The Three Investigators, which, of the three franchises, was always the one that felt most enmeshed in the American 'burbs.
At their annual awards banquet last week the Mystery Writers of America bestowed busts of Edgar Allan Poe (known to writers as 'Edgars' and to publishers' cliche experts as 'much-coveted Edgars') upon the authors of the following 1952 books [...] The other Edgars (to 'The Mysterious Traveler' in radio, to 'Dragnet' in TV and to 'Five Fingers' in films) lie outside the scope of this department, but I must observe that in the last eight years of M.W.A. awards, I can't recall a more completely unarguable batch of winning books.