"Judging the film as a film and dismissing questions of fidelity to the source material, Meet Nero Wolfe is an above average minor A picture, a solid mystery, and unfailingly entertaining," the magazine reported. "No, at bottom, it's not Rex Stout's Nero and Archie, but it's a well-developed mystery (thanks to Stout's plot) with compensations all its own—and an interesting piece of Wolfeana." Nero Wolfe (Radiotelevisione italiana S.p.A.) On April 5, 2012, the RAI network in Italy began a Nero Wolfe television series starring Francesco Pannofino as Nero Wolfe and Pietro Sermonti as Archie Goodwin. Produced by Casanova Multimedia and Rai Fiction, the eight-episode first season opened with "La traccia del serpente," an adaptation of Fer-de-Lance set in 1959 in Rome, where Wolfe and Archie reside after leaving the United States. Additional cast include Andy Luotto as Wolfe's chef, Nanni Laghi; Giulia Bevilacqua as reporter Rosa Petrini; and Dajana Roncione as Anna Fiore. The story was adapted by Piero Bodrato; Riccardo Donna directed.Episodes, Nero Wolfe (TV series 2012), Italian Wikipedia; retrieved May 27, 2012 Publication history 1934, The American Magazine, abridged as "Point of Death," November 1934 1934, New York: Farrar & Rinehart, October 24, 1934, hardcoverIn his limited-edition pamphlet, Collecting Mystery Fiction #9, Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe Part I, Otto Penzler describes the "notoriously rare" first edition of Fer-de-Lance: "Black cloth, front cover and spine stamped with gold lettering; rear cover blank. Issued in a mainly black, pink and green pictorial dust wrapper … As is true of all the Nero Wolfe novels published by Farrar & Rinehart, the first edition may be identified by the appearance of the publisher's monogram logo on the copyright page. If no logo appears on the copyright page the book is a later printing."Farrar & Rinehart issued a second printing in December 1934, and a third printing in October 1935.In April 2006, Firsts: The Book Collector's Magazine estimated that the first edition of Fer-de-Lance had a value of $15,000 and up. The estimate is for a copy in very good to fine condition in a like dustjacket. 1934, Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1934, hardcover 1934, Brooklyn, NY: Junior Book Club, 1934, hardcover 1935, London: Cassell, 1935, hardcover 1936, New York: Grosset and Dunlap, June 1936, hardcover 1941, New York: Pocket Books, July 1941, paperback New York: Lawrence E. Spivak, Mercury Mystery #37, not dated, abridged as "Meet Nero Wolfe," paperback 1953, Verdict, June–October