Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, Ph.D.

Doctor of Philosophy

Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...

, LL.D.

Legum Doctor

Legum Doctor is a doctorate-level academic degree in law, or an honorary doctorate, depending on the jurisdiction. The double L in the abbreviation refers to the early practice in the University of Cambridge to teach both Canon Law and Civil Law, the double L indicating the plural, Doctor of both...

, F.R.S.

Royal Society

The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...

, M.D.

Doctor of Medicine

Doctor of Medicine is a doctoral degree for physicians. The degree is granted by medical schools...

, M.D.S.

Dental degree

There are a number of first professional degrees in dentistry offered by schools in various countries around the world. These include the following:* Doctor of Dental Surgery * Doctor of Dental Medicine * Bachelor of Dentistry...

is a fictional character in a series of detective

Detective fiction

Detective fiction is a sub-genre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator , either professional or amateur, investigates a crime, often murder.-In ancient literature:...

 short stories

Short story

A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...

 and two novels by Jacques Futrelle

Jacques Futrelle

Jacques Heath Futrelle was an American journalist and mystery writer. He is best known for writing short detective stories featuring Professor Augustus S. F. X...

. Some of the short stories were originally published in The Saturday Evening Post

The Saturday Evening Post

The Saturday Evening Post is a bimonthly American magazine. It was published weekly under this title from 1897 until 1969, and quarterly and then bimonthly from 1971.-History:...

and the Boston American.

In the stories Professor Van Dusen solves a variety of different mysteries together with his friend Hutchinson Hatch, reporter of a fictional newspaper called "The Daily New Yorker". The professor is known as the "Thinking Machine", solving problems by the remorseless application of logic.

Futrelle, then age 37, died on April 15, 1912 when, as a passenger on the RMS Titanic, he refused to board a lifeboat, insisting his wife board instead.

Van Dusen in the media

The professor appeared in two episodes of the 1970s Thames Television

Thames Television

Thames Television was a licensee of the British ITV television network, covering London and parts of the surrounding counties on weekdays from 30 July 1968 until 31 December 1992....

 series The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes

The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes (television series)

The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes is a British television series that was co-produced by Thames Television and originally broadcast on the ITV Network...

. Douglas Wilmer

Douglas Wilmer

-Early life:Wilmer was born in London and educated at King's School, Canterbury and Stonyhurst College. He trained at RADA but was called up to the Army in World War II. Posted to an antitank battery in the Royal West African Frontier Force, he was invalided out after he acquired tuberculosis. He...

 portrayed Van Dusen in "Cell 13" and "The Superfluous Finger."

Between 1978 and 1999 the German radio station RIAS

Rundfunk im amerikanischen Sektor

RIAS was a radio and television station in the American Sector of Berlin during the Cold War. It was founded by the US occupational authorities after World War II in 1946 to provide the German population in and around Berlin with news and political reporting and was initially only broadcast on...

 produced and broadcasted 79 Augustus Van Dusen-based radio plays. A few of them were based on original stories by Futrelle, but most of the scripts were new creations by German author Michael Koser. The role of Hutchinson Hatch is a lot more prominent in the radio plays than it was in the original; Hatch was made into the fictional narrator in the radio version.

In 2011, the BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...

 series The Rivals featured Paul Rhys

Paul Rhys

Paul Rhys is a British television, film and theatre actor.Rhys was born in Wales and studied at RADA, leaving with the Bancroft Gold Medal in 1987. While there, he obtained his first major screen role, in Absolute Beginners . Since then he has seldom been off the stage and screen...

 as Professor Van Dusen in Chris Harrald's adaptation of "The Problem of Cell 13", which was directed by Sasha Yevtushenko.

Short Stories featuring Van Dusen

• The Problem of The Auto Cab
• The Problem of The Broken Bracelet
• The Brown Coat
• The Case of the Life Raft
• The Case of the Mysterious Weapon
• The Case of the Scientific Murderer
• Convict #97
• The Problem of The Cross Mark
• The Crystal Gazer
• The Disappearance of Baby Blake
• A Dressing Room
• The Deserted House
• The Fatal Cipher
• The Flaming Phantom
• The Ghost Woman
• The Golden Dagger
• The Green Eyed Monster
• The Haunted Bell
• The House That Was (written as companion piece to May Futrelle's "The Grinning God")
• The Problem of The Hidden Million
• The Interrupted Wireless
• The Jackdaw Girl
• The Knotted Cord
• The Leak
• The Lost Radium (which takes place in a laboratory at the fictional "Yarvard," a combination of Yale
  Yale University
  Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
  
   and Harvard
  Harvard University
  Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
  
  
• The Man Who Was Lost
• The Missing Necklace
• The Motor Boat
• The Mystery of a Studio
• The Mystery of Room 666
• The Opera Box
• The Organ Grinder
• A Perfect Alibi
• The Phantom Motor
• A Piece of String
• Prince Otto
• The Private Compartment
• The Problem of Cell 13
  The Problem of Cell 13
  "The Problem of Cell 13" is a short story by Jacques Futrelle first published in 1905 and later collected in The Thinking Machine , which was featured in crime writer H. R. F. Keating's list of the 100 best crime and mystery books ever published...
  
  
• The Ralston Bank Burglary
• The Red Rose
• The Roswell Tiara
• The Scarlet Thread
• The Silver Box
• The Problem of The Souvenir Cards
• The Problem of The Stolen Rubens
• The Superfluous Finger
• The Thinking Machine Investigates
• The Three Overcoats
• The Problem of The Vanishing Man
• The Yellow Diamond Pendant

External links

• Selected stories and bibliographical information about Futrelle
• BBC Radio 4 - The Rivals: The Problem of Cell 13