{{short description|American novelist}} {{use mdy dates|date=February 2023}} '''Nell Columbia Boyer Martin''' (1890–1961), usually known as '''Nell Martin''' and also published under the name '''Columbia Boyer''', was an American author from Illinois specializing in light-hearted mysteries and short stories.
==Biography== Her full name was Nell Columbia Boyer Martin. Having worked as a strawberry picker, newspaper reporter, taxi-cab driver, lawyer's assistant, laundry worker, singer, actress and press agent before becoming a writer, she referred to herself as a "Jill of all trades."<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0552841/bio|title=Nell Martin|website=IMDb|access-date=2016-09-21}}</ref><ref name=":1" /><ref>{{Cite book|title=A Dashiell Hammett Companion|last=Gale|first=Robert L.|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|year=2000|isbn=0313310955|pages=163|url=https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0313310955}}</ref>
In her career as a writer, she also published under the name Columbia Boyer as well as her full name Nell Columbia Boyer Martin.{{citation needed|date=February 2023}}
Her "Maisie" short stories were published in ''Top Notch Magazine'' in 1927–1928, and Dashiell Hammett suggested that they may have later inspired the movie and radio series starring Ann Sothern as the character Maisie Ravier.<ref>Publication details are from ''Yesterday's Faces: Dangerous Horizons'', Robert Sampson.</ref><ref>Hammet links her stories to the movie version of Maisie in letters collected in ''Selected Letters of Dashiell Hammett: 1921-1960''.</ref><ref>{{cite journal| last1=Bawden| first1=James| title=Ann Sothern: Smartest Girl in Town|journal=Films of the Golden Age|date=Fall 2016|issue=86|pages=18–27}}</ref> However, it is recorded elsewhere that the concept for the original ''Maisie'' film came from the novel ''Dark Dame'' by Wilson Collison,<ref name=bawden>{{cite journal| last1=Bawden| first1=James| title=Ann Sothern: Smartest Girl in Town|journal=Films of the Golden Age|date=Fall 2016| issue=86| pages=18–27}}</ref> and Collison is credited as original writer or creator of the character on many of the ''Maisie'' films.<ref>{{IMDb name|0172812| Wilson Collison}}</ref>
Her 1928 novel ''Lord Byron of Broadway'' was made into a movie of the same title by MGM in 1930.<ref>https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=LZIfAAAAIBAJ&sjid=4NMEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5606,5841544&dq=lord-byron-of-broadway&hl=en</ref>
She was at one time the lover of the mystery writer Dashiell Hammett and he dedicated his 1931 novel ''The Glass Key'' to her. She married Ashley Weed Dickinson, a journalist and author.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.philsp.com/homeville/GFI/z15.htm#A1320|title=Biographical Notes|website=www.philsp.com|access-date=7 September 2017}}</ref>
==Works== Martin wrote eight novels and over 200 short stories.<ref name=":0" /> Her novels include:<ref name=":1">Dates and titles are from: ''A Dashiell Hammett companion'', Robert L. Gale</ref>
*''The Constant Simp'' (1927), which was reportedly a parody of the novel, ''The Constant Nymph'' *''The Mosaic Earring'' (1927) *''Lord Byron of Broadway: A Novel'' (1928) *''The Other Side of the Fence: A Novel'' (1929) *''Lovers Should Marry'' (1933), which she dedicated to Hammett.
==References== {{reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Martin, Nell}} Category:1890 births Category:1961 deaths Category:American mystery writers Category:20th-century American novelists Category:20th-century American women novelists Category:American women mystery writers Category:20th-century American short story writers
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