Ellery Queen was created in 1928 when Dannay and Lee entered a writing contest sponsored by "McClure's" magazine for the best first mystery novel. They decided to use as their collective pseudonym the same name that they had given their detective. Inspired by the formula and style of the Philo Vance novels by S.S. Van Dine, their entry won the contest, but before it could be published, the magazine closed. Undeterred, the cousins took their novel to other publishers, and "The Roman Hat Mystery" was published in 1929. According to H.R.F. Keating, "Later the cousins took a sharper view of the Philo Vance character, Manfred Lee calling him, with typical vehemence, 'the biggest prig that ever came down the pike'."