author
Rodrigues Ottolengui
1861–1937
A dentist by profession and a storyteller by instinct, he became one of the early American writers of detective fiction while also making a name for himself in orthodontics. His books mix puzzle-like plots with the brisk, curious energy of the late nineteenth century.
3 Audiobooks
A Modern Wizard
by Rodrigues Ottolengui
Final Proof; Or, The Value of Evidence
by Rodrigues Ottolengui
An Artist in Crime
by Rodrigues Ottolengui
About the author
Born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1861, Rodrigues Ottolengui later moved to New York City, where he spent most of his adult life. He built an unusual career across several fields, working as a dentist and orthodontic writer while also publishing fiction.
As an author, he is best remembered for early detective and mystery stories, including An Artist in Crime, A Conflict of Evidence, A Modern Wizard, and The Crime of the Century. His work appeared in the 1890s, placing him among the early experimenters in American crime fiction.
Ottolengui was also a major figure in dental journalism and professional writing, editing Items of Interest for many years and publishing books on dentistry. Beyond literature and medicine, he was known as an entomologist as well, which adds to the sense of a restless, wide-ranging mind behind his fiction.