Rodrigues Ottolengui (March 15, 1861 – July 11, 1937) was an American writer and
dentist
A dentist, also known as a dental doctor, dental physician, dental surgeon, is a health care professional who specializes in dentistry, the branch of medicine focused on the teeth, gums, and mouth. The dentist's supporting team aids in provi ...
of
Sephardic
Sephardic Jews, also known as Sephardi Jews or Sephardim, and rarely as Iberian Peninsular Jews, are a Jewish diaspora population associated with the historic Jewish communities of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) and their descendant ...
descent.
Born in
Charleston, South Carolina
Charleston is the List of municipalities in South Carolina, most populous city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. The city lies just south of the geographical midpoint of South Carolina's coastline on Charleston Harbor, an inlet of the Atla ...
, he moved to
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
, where he would spend most of his adult life, in 1877.
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 cousins with
Octavus Roy Cohen, who also wrote crime fiction.
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-ray
An X-ray (also known in many languages as Röntgen radiation) is a form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength shorter than those of ultraviolet rays and longer than those of gamma rays. Roughly, X-rays have a wavelength ran ...
s and was a specialist in
orthodontics
Orthodontics (also referred to as orthodontia) is a dentistry specialty that addresses the diagnosis, prevention, management, and correction of mal-positioned teeth and jaws, as well as misaligned bite patterns. It may also address the modificati ...
and root canal therapy. He was also interested in
entomology
Entomology (from Ancient Greek ἔντομον (''éntomon''), meaning "insect", and -logy from λόγος (''lógos''), meaning "study") is the branch of zoology that focuses on insects. Those who study entomology are known as entomologists. In ...
,
taxidermy
Taxidermy is the art of preserving an animal's body by mounting (over an armature) or stuffing, for the purpose of display or study. Animals are often, but not always, portrayed in a lifelike state. The word ''taxidermy'' describes the proces ...
, and
photography
Photography is the visual arts, art, application, and practice of creating images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is empl ...
.
In addition to his work in dentistry, Ottolengui is remembered as an early exponent of detective fiction, with four novels and a short story collection published during the 1890s. The short story volume, ''Final Proof'', was recognized by Ellery Queen as one of ''Queen's Quorum''—the most important collections of detective short stories. Many years later a second series, ''Before the Fact'', originally published in 1901, was discovered and published in book form edited and introduced by detective fiction scholar
Douglas G. Greene
Douglas G. Greene (born September 24, 1944) is an American historian, editor, and author. He is the son of Margaret Chindahl Greene and the Reverend George L. Greene, He is married to Sandi Greene with whom he has a son, Eric and a daughter, Kathe ...
.
His wife, May C. Hall Ottolengui, died on 10 July 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 22 July 1938.
Bibliography
Novels and short story collections
*''An Artist in Crime'' (
1892
In Samoa, this was the only leap year spanned to 367 days as July 4 repeated. This means that the International Date Line was drawn from the east of the country to go west.
Events
January
* January 1 – Ellis Island begins processing imm ...
)
*''A Conflict of Evidence'' (
1893
Events
January
* January 2 – Webb C. Ball introduces railroad chronometers, which become the general railroad timepiece standards in North America.
* January 6 – The Washington National Cathedral is chartered by Congress; th ...
)
*''A Modern Wizard'' (
1894
Events January
* January 4 – A military alliance is established between the French Third Republic and the Russian Empire.
* January 7 – William Kennedy Dickson receives a patent for motion picture film in the United States.
* Ja ...
)
*''The Crime of the Century'' (1896)
*''Final Proof; or, the Value of Evidence'' (
short story collection; 1898)
*''The Ottolengui Portfolio'' (2005; an omnibus of the 4 novels and the short stories)
*''Before the Fact'' (2012; first book publication of a 1901 series of stories)
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
* Greene, Douglas G. ''Classic Mystery Stories''. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, 1999.
External links
*
*
*
''An Artist in Crime''at manybooks.net
"A Modern Wizard"an
''An Artist in Crime''at Project Gutenberg
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ottolengui, Rodrigues
1861 births
1937 deaths
Writers from Charleston, South Carolina
19th-century American novelists
20th-century American novelists
American male novelists
American dentists
American male short story writers
19th-century American short story writers
19th-century American male writers
20th-century American short story writers
20th-century American male writers
Novelists from South Carolina
20th-century American non-fiction writers
American male non-fiction writers