[1] In the stories, Professor Van Dusen solves a variety of different mysteries with his friend and companion, Hutchinson Hatch, reporter of a fictional newspaper called The Daily New Yorker.
This nickname was given to him after his winning of a match against the fictional chess champion of the day, Tschaikowsky, in a demonstration to show the power of applying pure logic.
His eyes wore a perpetual, forbidding squint—the squint of a man who studies little things—and when they could be seen at all through his thick spectacles, were mere slits of watery blue.
This was a tall, broad brow, almost abnormal in height and width, crowned by a heavy shock of bushy, yellow hair.
Since 2010, the old radio plays are being remastered and made available on CD with comments by Koser, director Rainer Clute and former cast members.
In 2011, the BBC Radio 4 series The Rivals featured Paul Rhys as Professor Van Dusen in Chris Harrald's adaptation of "The Problem of Cell 13", which was directed by Sasha Yevtushenko.
He returned for the first episode of the second series in 2013, in Chris Harrald's adaptation of "The Problem of the Superfluous Finger", produced by Liz Webb.
Gene Weingarten, twice Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist at The Washington Post, named his MacBook Pro "Augustus Van Dusen" after the character.