S. S. Van Dine

S.S. Van Dine was the pen name of Willard Huntington Wright (1888-1939) an American art critic and novelist. He was an important figure in avant-garde cultural circles in pre-WWI New York, and he created the immensely popular fictional detective Philo Vance, a sleuth and aesthete who first appeared in books in the 1920s, then in movies and on the radio.