Jacques Futrelle Biography and List of Works

American journalist, theatrical manager, and mystery writer, whose most famous detective character was professor Van Dusen, the 'Thinking Machine,' who solved impossible crimes. Futrelle died on the Titanic 15 April 1912. Before the ship sank, Futrelle made sure that his wife had a safe place on a lifeboat.

"As a general rule, the greatest crimes never come to light because the greatest criminals, their perpetrators, are too clever to be caught."
(Van Dusen in 'The Scarlet Thread')

Jacques Futrelle was born in Pike County, Georgia, as the descendant of French Huguenots. He was educated in public and private schools. Futrelle worked as a young man on a newspaper and as a theatrical manager. Futrelle then joined the staff of the Boston American, which published several of his short stories. In 1895 Futrelle married the writer L. May Peel. She later expanded Futrelle's THE SIMPLE CASE OF SUSAN (1908) into LIEUTENAT WHAT'S-HIS-NAME (1915). The Ellery Queen Magazine published in 1949-50 some uncollected stories.

His best-known character was Professor Augustus S.F.X. Van Dusen, the 'Thinking Machine', who was small, nearsighted, had a huge head, arrogant behaviour, and possessed superior mental powers. This eccentric scientist had as an assistant the clever newspaper reporter Hutchinson Hatch - a model of team work copied later in many mystery writers, among them Rex Stout in his books about Archie Goodwin and Nero Wolfe.

Van Dusen's adventures appeared in book from first time in the novel THE CHASE OF THE GOLDEN PLATE (1906), where the Professor was still a minor character. This was followed a short story collection, THE THINKING MACHINE (1907). Its lead story, "The Problem of Cell 13", have gained status as the most popular tale in mystery literature, with the exception of certain adventures of Sherlock Holmes. The story involves no murder, no crime at all but centres on the theme that 'mind is the master of all things': professor Van Dusen thinks this time himself out of a maximum-security prison cell by observing the habits of rodents and his jailers.

In 1912 Futrelle was returning with his wife to New York on the Titanic in the first class. After the ship had collided with the iceberg, her husband escorted her to lifeboat 9, which was filled almost to capacity. When Mrs Futrelle hesitated, an officer forced her into the boat, and she survived the disaster. Jacques Futrelle and several of his stories, which he had written during his stay in England, went down with the ship.

About Jacques Futrelle: World Authors 1900-1950, ed. by Martin Seymour-Smith and Andrew C. Kimmens (1996); The Oxford Book of American Detective Stories, ed. by Tony Hillerman and Rosemary Herbert (1996); Twentieth-Century Crime and Mystery Writers, ed. by John M. Reilly (1985)

For further reading about Titanic:

Literary coincidences: Morgan Robertson's novel The Wreck of the Titan, which appeared in 1898, told a story where a ship was sunk by ice. American poet Celia Thaxter described in her work from 1874 a collision between a ship and an iceberg.

Journalist William Thomas Stead, who was a first class passenger on the Titanic, had written in 1886 a fictional article for the Pall Mall Gazette, in which a ship collided with another ship. Great loss of life resulted because there were not enough lifeboats. In 1892 Stead wrote an article for the Reviews of Reviews, depicting a journey from England to the United States on White Star liner Majestic. During the voyage the liner rescues survivors from a ship that was sunk after collision with the ice. - Stead himself died on the Titanic.

Films: Saved from the Titanic (1912); Titanic, dir. by Herbert Selpin (1943); Titanic, dir. by Jean Negulesco; A Night to Remember, dir. by Roy Baker, screenplay Eric Ambler, based on Walter Lord's book with the sama title (1958); The Unsinkable Molly Brown, dir. by Charles Walters (1964); SOS Titanic, dir. by Billy Hale (1979, television series); Raise the Titanic!, dir. by Jerry Jameson (1980); Titanica (1991, document film); Titanic (1996, four-hour TV mini-series), Titanic, dir. by James Cameron (1997)

THE CHASE OF THE GOLDEN PLATE, (1906)
The Loss of the Titanic by L. Beesley, (1912)