Black Widowers
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The Black Widowers is a fictional men-only dining club created by Isaac Asimov for a series of mystery stories he wrote starting in 1971. Most of the stories were first published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, though a few first appeared in Fantasy & Science Fiction, Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, and the various book collections into which the stories were eventually gathered.
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 a literary dining club Asimov belonged to known as 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 (Dr. John D. Clark)
- Thomas Trumbull (Gilbert Cant)
- Mario Gonzalo (Lin Carter)
- Roger Halsted (Don Bensen)
The deceased founder of the club, Ralph Ottur, on whom the plot of the story "To the Barest" turned, was based on the real-life founder of the Trap Door Spiders, Fletcher Pratt. The stage magician The Amazing Larri, from the story "The Cross of Lorraine", was based on James Randi. The arrogant science fiction writer Mortimer Stellar, from the story "When No Man Pursueth", was based on Asimov himself. According to Asimov, Henry, who was completely fictional, might have been inspired in large part by P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves.
[edit] 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, with additional material by Charles Ardai and Harlan Ellison)
