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Dey, Frederic Van Rensselaer

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Frederic Van Rensselaer Dey (1865-1922) was a prolific American author of Nick Carter stories which he produced under the 'Nick Carter' house name. He also wrote as Marmaduke Dey, Frederic Ormond and Varick Vanardy. He was born in Watkins Glen, New York, and educated at Havana Academy New York and Columbia University Law School. He married Annie Shephard in 1885 and Hattie Hamblin Cahoon in 1898. He began writing Nick Carter stories in 1881, taking over from John Coryell, and continued till 1913.

Source: http://www.niulib.niu.edu/badndp/dey_frederick.html

Frederick Van Rensselaer Dey, son of David Peter Dey and Emma Brewster (Sayre) Dey (pronounced Dye), was born in Watkins Glen, New York, February 10, 1861. He was educated at the Havana (N. Y.) Academy, and later was graduated from the Law School of Columbia University. For a time he practiced law and was a junior partner of William J. Gaynor (afterwards Mayor of New York and quite famous for having been photographed while being shot in the head). Dey took up story writing for amusement while convalescing from a serious illness, and later made it his life work. His first long story was written for Beadle and Adams in 1881. In 1891, Street & Smith engaged him to continue a series of novelettes, begun by John R. Coryell, relating the adventures of a detective named Nick Carter. It is said that Dey wrote between one thousand and eleven hundred "Nick Carter" stories, but besides these he wrote more serious books, some for adults, and serials. Two of his earlier books, before his dime-novel days, The Magic Word and 'The Magic Story, written in 1899, were extremely popular and are said to have passed through twenty editions, and his "Night Wind" stories, written under the pen name "Varick Venardy," were also sold in large numbers. Dey used various other pseudonyms, but the only ones under which he wrote for Beadle were "Marmaduke Dey" and "Frederick M. Dey." For other publishers he used the names "Ross Beckman," "Dirck Van Doren," and "Frederic Ormund"; and he was one of several writers who used the names "Bertha M. Clay," and "Marian Gilmore.".

Dey was twice married; first to Annie Shepard, of Providence, R. I., June 4, 1885, by whom he had two children, and second to Mrs. Hattie (Hamblin) Cahoon, April 1, 1898. The second Mrs. Dey was herself an author, writing under the name "Haryot Holt Dey." Broke, and with no market for his stories after the passing of the dime-novel era, Dey shot himself in his room in the Hotel Broztell, New York City, some time in the night of April 25-26, 1922.

Dey had a very vivid imagination. A writer in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch said:

Dey, like Harbaugh, had an incorrigible imagination. It made him famous as a writer, but it also had its penalties. . . . He had always indulged a penchant for playing that he was a millionaire and spent his money accordingly. He would pose as a wealthy sportsman, a rich California fruit-grower, a millionaire railroad official—any fiction that seemed to lend glamour to his momentary position was not beyond the reach of his voracious imagination. As for the expense of his posing, that didn't matter. It was worth any price to him just to be regarded for a few minutes as the romantic figure he sought to impersonate.

Dey was always purchasing estates and never completing the transactions. Once he had $200 in his pocket and it was all he had in the world. But he went over to the Erie Basin posing as a millionaire and after looking over several yachts, picked out a craft worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $100,000, and gave the $200 as evidence of good faith to clinch the option until he could arrange the terms of the contract. The dreamer had just those few minutes of being looked upon and pointed out as the purchaser of a yacht. . . .

Before he killed himself he wrote to a friend telling him of what he intended to do. The friend got the letter and hastened to the little hotel where the "Colonel" was staying. As he had not registered under his own name, the visitor could not locate him and described him to the clerk.

"That description fits a gentleman on the seventh floor," said the clerk, "but surely he had no thought of suicide. The man is a wealthy fruit grower in California. Why, last night before he went up to his room, he offered me a position in the fruit business in California."

"That's the man I am looking for," said his friend.

And it was. The hotel clerk probably was the last human being Dey spoke to on earth; he had just posted a letter telling his friend that "everything had gone to smash and he belonged with it" and that he "couldn't stand the gaff," and then on his way up to his room, which as likely as not he couldn't pay for, he stopped to offer the clerk a job on his fruit ranch in California.

Such a tremendous imagination as this it was that lay at the root of his success as a story teller.

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Dey, Frederic Van Rensselaer

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As Nick Carter

As Marmaduke Dey

As Frederic Dey

As Frederic Ormond

As Varick Vanardy

Dey, Frederic Van Rensselaer

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