Rodrigues Ottolengui

Rodrigues Ottolengui (1861 - July 11, 1937) was an American writer and dentist of Sephardic descent. Born in Charleston, South Carolina, he moved to New York, where he would spend most of his adult life, in 1877.

Table of contents

1 Biography 2 Bibliography 2.1 Novels 2.2 Stories 2.3 Non-fiction 3 References

Biography

One of three children, Ottolengui was a son of Daniel Ottolengui and Helen Rosalie Rodrigues Ottolengui; he had a sister, Helen, and a brother, Lee. He was the editor of Items of Interest: A Monthly Magazine of Dental Art, Science, and Literature for thirty-five years, which he continued to edit after retiring from dentistry; he compiled Table Talks on Dentistry, drawing from articles in Items of Interest. A dental pioneer, Ottolengui was one of the first to use X-rays and was a specialist in orthodontics and root canal therapy. He was also interested in entomology, taxidermy, and photography.

His wife, May C. Hall Ottolengui, died on July 10, 1936; he died at his New York residence the next year of a heart ailment and a stroke caused by a long illness. His sister died on July 22, 1938.

Bibliography

Novels

• An Artist in Crime (1892)
• A Conflict of Evidence (1893)
• A Modern Wizard (1894)
• Final Proof; or, the Value of Evidence (1898)

Stories

• "The Azteck Opal"
• "The Montezuma Emerald"
• "The Nameless Man"
• "A Novel Forgery"
• "A Singular Abduction"

Non-fiction

• Methods of Filling Teeth
• Table Talks on Dentistry

References

• "Dr. Ottolengui, 76, Dentist 50 Years." New York Times. 13 July 1937: 19.
• Greene, Douglas G. Classic Mystery Stories. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, 1999.