author
Sidney Porcelain
A mid-century literary agent and writer with an unusually wide-ranging career, Sidney Porcelain moved between detective fiction, mystery short stories, radio, film, stage work, and writing about extrasensory perception. His Stephen Clay novels offer a glimpse into a distinctive and largely forgotten voice in American popular literature.
1 Audiobook
The malignant jewel
by Sidney Porcelain
About the author
Records identify Sidney Edgar Porcelain as having been born on January 7, 1911, and dying on November 5, 1997. He was based in New York as a literary agent and worked across several forms of entertainment and popular writing.
Porcelain wrote the detective novels The Purple Pony Murders (1945) and The Crimson Cat Murders (1946), featuring investigator Stephen Clay. His other published work included mystery and science-fiction short stories, including “The Last Manuscript” in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, as well as the paperback Office Tramp (1962).
His work also extended to radio, film, theatre, and television. He received credit for an episode of the radio series The Clock, co-wrote the short film From Inner Space, edited the literary magazine Unusual, and published How You Can Heal Yourself and Others, a pamphlet exploring extrasensory perception. Accounts of his career also describe him as an actor, director, cabaret performer, and songwriter.