Jacques Futrelle
Jacques Heath Futrelle (April 9, 1875 - April 15, 1912), born in Pike County, Georgia, was an American writer. He is best known for writing short mystery stories featuring the "Thinking Machine", Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen.
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A newspaperman, Futrelle worked for the Atlanta Journal, where he began their sports section, the New York Herald, the Boston Post, and the Boston American, where, in 1905, his Thinking Machine character first appeared in a serialized version of "The Problem of Cell 13". In 1895, he married fellow writer Lily May Peel with whom he had two children, Virginia and Jacques "John" Jr.
Staying with the Boston American until 1906, Futrelle left the newspaper business to focus his attention on writing novels. He had a house built in Scituate, Massachusetts, which he called "Stepping Stones", spending most of his time there until his untimely death in 1912.
Returning from Europe aboard the RMS Titanic, Futrelle, a first cabin passenger, refused to board a lifeboat insisting his wife board instead, according to his wife, with the belief that her boarding would give him a better chance of surviving; he perished in the Atlantic. On July 29, 1912 his mother, Linnie Futrelle, died in her Georgia home; her death was attributed to grief over her son's death.
Futrelle is used as the protagonist in The Titanic Murders, a novel about two murders aboard the Titanic, by Max Allan Collins.
Biography
Selected works
Novels
Stories
References
External links
