Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine came on the scene in the fall of 1941 under the ownership of Lawrence E. Spivak of The Mercury Press (who subsequently founded and hosted the popular TV show Meet the Press). It was heralded as the brainchild of Ellery Queen himself, really the two-cousin writing team of Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee. Dannay assumed primary editorial responsibility for the magazine, serving as its editor-in-chief from 1941 until his death in 1982. He sent the magazine into the world with this message to readers: “This first issue is frankly experimental. Our belief that a large public exists which impatiently awaits such publication can only be confirmed by that public.” Response to the magazine was enthusiastic, with the first issue selling over 90,000 copies. EQMM quickly established a place as the leading periodical in the genre—a place it has retained for more than three-quarters of a century.