Clayton Rawson
Clayton Rawson (* 1906 in Elyria, Ohio, † 1971) was an American writer and illustrator.
Career
Rawson was a son of Clarence Rawson and his wife Clara Smith. He studied, among others at Ohio State University Art and got after his successful completion of a job in 1929 as an advertising artist and illustrator. In the same year he married Catherine Stone and got to her four children.
Later he settled in Chicago (Illinois ) and was there in 1938 with " Death from a Top Hat " very successful debut.
On March 26, 1945, he founded in New York along with Anthony Boucher, Lawrence Treat, and Brett Halliday literary association Mystery Writers of America ( MWA).
Since his childhood, Rawson was fascinated by magic and magic tricks; since the age of eight, he conjured himself why he paid his protagonists with magic tricks; and provided them with relevant professions. Under the pseudonym Stuart Trowne he invented " Don Diavolo ", a magician, and was about 1940 four stories published in the journal Red Star Mystery.
Honors
Works (selection)
- Ghost of the undead.
- Death out of thin air.
- Death of a Top Hat. In 1938.
- The footprints on the ceiling. , 1939.
- The headless lady. 1940.
- No coffin for the corpse. , 1942.
- Hocus-Pocus. The Big Book for Wizard ( "The golden book of magic" ). Neuausg. Tessloff Verlag, Hamburg 1984, ISBN 3-7886-0765-3 (former title The big book of magic from the Great Merlini ).
- The complete play production handbook. For schools, colleges, little theater, community theater, summer stock fo anyone staging a play. Neuausg. Harper & Row, New York 1982, ISBN 0-06-4635-58-9.