Though best known as a writer of fantasies, John Collier wrote enough mysteries to become almost as famous in that genre. His short-story collection, Fancies and Goodnights (1951), though only ten of its fifty stories are mysteries, was selected by Ellery Queen for the "Queen's Quorum," generally acknowledged to be the definitive list of outstanding mystery short-story collections. Collier was honored with a Mystery Writers of America award in 1952 for these short stories.

John Henry Noyes Collier was born in London, 3 May 1901, to John George and Emily Noyes Collier. He was educated privately and never attended school after kindergarten. He began writing poetry at the age of nineteen and first was published in 1920. His novels and short stories during the early 1930s earned him a reputation for whimsy and caustic with which carried across the Atlantic, and in 1935 he came to the United States under contract to RKO Pictures...