Black Widowers
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Starting in 1971, Isaac Asimov wrote a series of mystery short stories about a men-only dinner club called the Black Widowers. Most of the stories were first published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, with a few in Fantasy & Science Fiction, Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, and the various books.
The stories always follow the same convention: the six club members and a guest sit down to dinner, served by the incomparable waiter, Henry. During the meal it always comes out that the guest has a problem which the club members try to solve, but only Henry sees the correct (and usually very simple) answer.
The Black Widowers were based on an all-male club Asimov belonged to, the Trap Door Spiders. Members of the Widowers were based on real life Spiders, some of them famous writers in their own right.
- Geoffrey Avalon (L. Sprague de Camp)
- Emmanuel Rubin (Lester del Rey)
- James Drake (Doc Clark)
- Thomas Trumball (Gilbert Cant)
- Mario Gonzalo (Lin Carter)
- Roger Halsted (Don Bensen)
Henry was based upon P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves.
Books
The books each contained twelve stories. In most cases, nine stories were first published in various magazines while three were first published in the book. As was usual with Asimov's collections, many stories had chatty forewords or afterwords.
- Tales of the Black Widowers
- More Tales of the Black Widowers
- Casebook of the Black Widowers
- Banquets of the Black Widowers
- Puzzles of the Black Widowers
- Return of the Black Widowers (published posthumously)
External link
- List and index of Black Widowers stories (http://www.asimovonline.com/oldsite/short_fiction_bw_index.html)