Isabel Egenton Ostrander (1883–1924) was an American
mystery writer of the early twentieth century who used her own name and the pseudonyms Robert Orr Chipperfield, David Fox, and Douglas Grant.
Christopher B. Booth is sometimes (falsely) credited as a
pseudonym of hers.[1]
She was born in New York City to Thomas E Ostrander and Harriet Elizabeth Bradbrook. Her Ostrander pedigree goes back to seventeenth-century Kingston, New York. She married songwriter
Arthur J. Lamb in June 1907[2] and filed for divorce 11 months later.[3]
In the discussions of which writer invented the
blind detective, Ostrander is one of the candidates.[4]
The first book publication of her
Damon Gaunt is a 1915 novel At One-Thirty, but there might be a misplaced earlier short story: periodical publication of many mystery short story writers is often lost or partial. For example, blind detective
Thornley Colton appeared in some short stories in People's Ideal Fiction Magazine in early 1913 that weren't collected in book form until 1915, while
Max Carrados by
Ernest Bramah reached the periodicals in 1913, but anthologization in 1914. In no case is bibliography complete for periodicals, and either might be the first, though Max Carrados was the first in book publication.
In the 1920s, Ostrander was notable enough that
Agatha Christie parodied her in her
Tommy and Tuppence anthology, Partners in Crime. We find Tommy and Tuppence modeling their detective skills after Ostrander's characters, McCarty and Riordan.
Bibliography
The "Douglas Grant" novel The Fifth Ace was serialized in The Argosy in 1917
"The One Who Knew," The All-Story, Oct, Nov, Christmas 1911, Jan, Feb 1912 [5]
"The Heritage of Cain," The Cavalier, Mar 30, Apr 6, Apr 13, Apr 20, Apr 27, May 4, May 11, 1912
"The Affair Across the Street," The Cavalier, Sep 13, Sep 20 1913
"Eyes That Saw Not," The Cavalier, Feb 14, Feb 21, Feb 28, Mar 7 1914