Encyclopedia Brown
Who is the main character in the Encyclopedia Brown series?
How are the mysteries in Encyclopedia Brown books structured?
How many books are in the Encyclopedia Brown series?
Encyclopedia Brown, series of children’s mystery novels written by American author Donald J. Sobol, featuring the 10-year-old detective Leroy (“Encyclopedia”) Brown, who has tremendous knowledge of trivia and powers of deduction. The series features 29 books published from 1963 to 2012, each including multiple mysteries. The solutions are provided at the end of each book as a way to get young readers to see if they can solve the mysteries along with Brown. The Encyclopedia Brown stories have been adapted as a comic strip and a TV series.
Author and background
Donald J. Sobol, the author of the Encyclopedia Brown books, was born in 1924 in New York; he served in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in World War II. He then worked as a newspaper reporter for the New York Sun and the Long Island Daily Press, and in 1959 started a syndicated fiction column called “Two-Minute Mysteries.” His first Encyclopedia Brown book, titled Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective, was rejected by two dozen publishers before being published in 1963.
Sobol continued to write the series until his death in July 2012. The last book in the series, Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Soccer Scheme, was published posthumously later that year.
Story structure
The protagonist, Leroy Brown, is a 10-year-old boy who lives in the fictional town of Idaville and solves mysteries in his neighborhood. Brown does not age across the books and charges 25 cents a day for his services (plus expenses). His father is the town’s chief of police. Mysteries that Brown investigates in the books include theft, property damage, and cheating. Brown has a sidekick, Sally Kimball, who also acts as his protector, primarily from the town bully, Bugs Meany.
The books follow a set structure. There are ten stories per book, each featuring a mystery that Brown solves using his knowledge of obscure facts and powers of observation. He helps his father solve some of his police cases as well. The solutions to the mysteries are provided at the end of each book, prompting readers to try to solve them themselves. Each book stands alone, and the series does not have an overarching storyline. Sobol did this by design, so that his young readers could start the series with any book before reading the others.
List of books
The books in the Encyclopedia Brown series are listed here:
- Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective (1963)
- Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Secret Pitch (1965)
- Encyclopedia Brown Finds the Clues (1966)
- Encyclopedia Brown Gets His Man (1967)
- Encyclopedia Brown Solves Them All (1968)
- Encyclopedia Brown Keeps the Peace (1969)
- Encyclopedia Brown Saves the Day (1970)
- Encyclopedia Brown Tracks Them Down (1971)
- Encyclopedia Brown Shows the Way (1972)
- Encyclopedia Brown Takes the Case (1973)
- Encyclopedia Brown Lends a Hand (1974)
- Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Dead Eagles (1975)
- Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Midnight Visitor (1977)
- Encyclopedia Brown Carries On (1980)
- Encyclopedia Brown Sets the Pace (1982)
- Encyclopedia Brown Takes the Cake! (1982)
- Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Mysterious Handprints (1985)
- Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Treasure Hunt (1988)
- Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Disgusting Sneakers (1990)
- Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Two Spies (1994)
- Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of Pablo’s Nose (1996)
- Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Sleeping Dog (1998)
- Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Slippery Salamander (1999)
- Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Jumping Frogs (2003)
- Encyclopedia Brown Cracks the Case (2007)
- Encyclopedia Brown, Super Sleuth (2009)
- Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Secret UFOs (2010)
- Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Carnival Crime (2011)
- Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Soccer Scheme (2012)
Recognition and adaptations
The Encyclopedia Brown series has been translated into 12 languages and sold millions of copies worldwide. The series has been credited with influencing many children to read books. At the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Awards (named for legendary mystery writer Edgar Allan Poe) in 1976, Sobol was awarded a special Edgar for the Encyclopedia Brown series.
Encyclopedia Brown was adapted into a comic strip and syndicated by the Universal Press Syndicate. It ran from December 3, 1978, to September 20, 1980. The illustrations were by Frank Bolle, with Sobol credited as the writer. However, the actual writing for the strip is believed to have been done by Elliot Caplin, who is credited as the writer of the two published compilations of the comic strips. Sobol also wrote multiple related works, such as Encyclopedia Brown’s Book of the Wacky Outdoors (1987) and Encyclopedia Brown’s Record Book of Weird and Wonderful Facts (1979).
Sobol sold the movie, TV show, and video game rights to his books to producer Howard Deutsch in 1979. He later contested this agreement, and the suit was settled out of court; Deutsch retained only the movie rights. Encyclopedia Brown was adapted into a seven-episode TV series for HBO in 1989–90.