Profile of Harry Kemelman on Famous Like Me

Harry Kemelman (1908-1996) was an American mystery writer and a professor of English.

Harry Kemelman was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1908. He was the creator of perhaps one of the most famous of religious sleuths: Rabbi David Small.

After having received a BA in English Literature and a MA at Harvard in English philology, he taught in a number of schools before the Second World War. Afterwards, Kemelman worked as wage administrator for the Army Transportation Corps in Boston and subsequently for the War Assets Administration, and as a free-lance writer and a private businessman. In 1963 he was appointed assistant professor of English at the Franklin Technical Institute in Boston. He was also an assistant professor at Boston State College in the 1960s.

His writing career began with short stories for Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine featuring New England college professor Nicky Welt, the first of which, The Nine Mile Walk, is considered a classic.

The start of the Rabbi Small series begun in 1964. Friday the Rabbi Slept Late became a huge bestseller, a difficult achievement for a religious mystery, and won Kemelman an Edgar Allan Poe Award for best first novel in 1965. He also received $35,000 for the movie rights.

Lanigan's Rabbi, shown as part of NBC's Mystery Movie series in January 1977, was based on the novel. Art Carney played Chief Lanigan and Bruce Solomon was Rabbi Small.

Kemelman died in 1996, at the age of 88, in Marblehead, Massachusetts.

Bibliography

The Nicky Welt Stories

1. The Nine Mile Walk – 1947
2. The Straw Man – 1950
3. The Ten O'Clock Scholar – 1952
4. End Play – 1950
5. Time and Time Again (The Man with Two Watches) – 1962
6. The Whistling Tea Kettle (The Adelphi Bowl) – 1963
7. The Bread and Butter Case (A Winter's Tale) – 1962
8. The Man on the Ladder – 1967

• Bundled in The Nine Mile Walk – 1967

The Rabbi Small Novels

1. Friday the Rabbi Slept Late – 1964
2. Saturday the Rabbi Went Hungry – 1966
3. Sunday, the Rabbi Stayed Home – 1969
4. Monday The Rabbi Took Off – 1972
5. Tuesday the Rabbi Saw Red – 1973
6. Wednesday the Rabbi Got Wet – 1976
7. Thursday the Rabbi Walked Out – 1978
8. Conversations with Rabbi Small – 1981
9. Someday the Rabbi Will Leave – 1985
10. One Fine Day the Rabbi Bought a Cross – 1987
11. The Day the Rabbi Resigned – 1992
12. The Day the Rabbi Left Town – 1996

Non-fiction

• Common Sense in Education – 1970

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