Mary Roberts Rinehart - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Mary Roberts Rinehart was an American writer, often called the American Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie

Dame Agatha Christie DBE was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections , and her successful West End plays.According to...

. She is considered the source of the phrase "The butler

Butler

A butler is a domestic worker in a large household. In great houses, the household is sometimes divided into departments with the butler in charge of the dining room, wine cellar, and pantry. Some also have charge of the entire parlour floor, and housekeepers caring for the entire house and its...

did it", although she did not actually use the phrase. She is considered to have invented the "Had-I-But-Known

Had I but known

"Had I but known" is a form of prolepsis or foreshadowing that hints at some looming disaster in which the first-person narrator laments his or her course of action which precipitates some or other unfortunate series of actions. Classically, the narrator never makes explicit the nature of the...

" school of mystery writing. She also created a costumed supercriminal called "the Bat," who was cited by Bob Kane as one of the inspirations for his "Batman."

Biography

She was born in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

, now a part of Pittsburgh. Her father was a frustrated inventor, and throughout her childhood, the family often had financial problems. Left-handed

Left-handed

Left-handedness is the preference for the left hand over the right for everyday activities such as writing. In ancient times it was seen as a sign of the devil, and was abhorred in many cultures...

at a time when that was considered inappropriate, she was trained to use her right hand instead.

She attended public schools and graduated at age 16, then enrolled at the Pittsburgh Training School for Nurses

UPMC Shadyside School of Nursing

The UPMC Shadyside School of Nursing, established in 1884, is a diploma-granting nursing program affiliated with UPMC Shadyside Hospital. It is located in the East Liberty neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania...

at Homeopathic Hospital, where she graduated in 1896. She described the experience as "all the tragedy of the world under one roof." After graduation, she married Stanley Marshall Rinehart (1867–1932), a physician she had met there. They had three sons and one daughter: Stanley Jr., Frederick, Alan, and Elizabeth Glory.

During the stock market crash of 1903 the couple lost their savings, and this spurred Rinehart's efforts at writing as a way to earn income. She was 27 that year, and produced 45 short stories. In 1907, she wrote The Circular Staircase, the novel that propelled her to national fame. According to her obituary in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, also known simply as the "PG," is the largest daily newspaper serving metropolitan Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.-Early history:...

, that book sold a million and a quarter copies. Her regular contributions to the Saturday Evening Post were immensely popular and helped the magazine mold American middle-class taste and manners. Rinehart’s commercial success sometimes conflicted with her domestic roles of wife and mother, yet she often pursued adventure, including a job as the first woman war correspondent at the Belgian front during World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

.

In the early 1920s, the family moved to Washington, DC when Dr. Rinehart was appointed to a post in the Veterans Administration

United States Department of Veterans Affairs

The United States Department of Veterans Affairs is a government-run military veteran benefit system with Cabinet-level status. It is the United States government’s second largest department, after the United States Department of Defense...

. He died in 1932, but she continued to live there until 1935, when she moved to New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

. There she helped her sons found the publishing house Farrar & Rinehart

Farrar & Rinehart

Farrar & Rinehart was a United States book publishing company founded in New York. Farrar & Rinehart enjoyed success with both nonfiction and novels, notably, the landmark Rivers of America Series and the first ten books in the Nero Wolfe corpus of Rex Stout...

, serving as its director.

She also maintained a vacation home in Bar Harbor, Maine

Bar Harbor, Maine

Bar Harbor is a town on Mount Desert Island in Hancock County, Maine, United States. As of the 2010 census, its population is 5,235. Bar Harbor is a famous summer colony in the Down East region of Maine. It is home to the College of the Atlantic, Jackson Laboratory and Mount Desert Island...

, where she was involved in a real-life drama in 1947. Her Filipino chef, who had worked for her for 25 years, fired a gun at her and then attempted to slash her with knives, until other servants rescued her. The chef committed suicide in his cell the next day.

Rinehart suffered from breast cancer

Breast cancer

Breast cancer is cancer originating from breast tissue, most commonly from the inner lining of milk ducts or the lobules that supply the ducts with milk. Cancers originating from ducts are known as ductal carcinomas; those originating from lobules are known as lobular carcinomas...

, which led to a radical mastectomy. She eventually went public with her story, at a time when such matters were not openly discussed. The interview "I Had Cancer" was published in a 1947 issue of the Ladies' Home Journal

Ladies' Home Journal

Ladies' Home Journal is an American magazine which first appeared on February 16, 1883, and eventually became one of the leading women's magazines of the 20th century in the United States...

and in it Rinehart encouraged women to have breast examinations.

"The Rinehart career was crowned with a Mystery Writers of America Special Award a year after she published her last novel ... and by the award, as early as 1923, of an honorary Doctorate in Literature from George Washington University."

She died at age 82 in her Park Avenue home in New York City.

Writing

Rinehart wrote hundreds of short stories, poems, travelogues and articles. Many of her books and plays were adapted for movies, such as The Bat

The Bat (1926 film)

The Bat is a silent film based on the 1920 hit Broadway play by Mary Roberts Rinehart and Avery Hopwood, directed by Roland West and starring Jack Pickford and Louise Fazenda...

(1926), The Bat Whispers

The Bat Whispers

The Bat Whispers is a mystery film directed by Roland West, produced by Joseph M. Schenck, and released by United Artists.-Plot:A mysterious criminal by the name of "The Bat" eludes police and then finally announces his retirement to the country, while a wealthy Cornelia Van Gorder takes up...

(1930), and The Bat (1959 remake). In 1933 RCA Victor released The Bat as one of the earliest talking book

Talking Book

Talking Book is the fifteenth album by Stevie Wonder, released on October 28, 1972. A signal recording of his "classic period", in this one he "hit his stride"...

recordings.

While many of her books were best sellers, critics were most appreciative of her murder mysteries

Crime fiction

Crime fiction is the literary genre that fictionalizes crimes, their detection, criminals and their motives. It is usually distinguished from mainstream fiction and other genres such as science fiction or historical fiction, but boundaries can be, and indeed are, blurred...

. Rinehart, in The Circular Staircase (1908), is credited with inventing the "Had-I-But-Known

Had I but known

" school of mystery writing. In The Circular Staircase "a middle-aged spinster is persuaded by her niece and nephew to rent a country house for the summer. The house they chose belonged to a bank defaulter who had hidden stolen securities in the walls. The gentle, peace-loving trio is plunged into a series of crimes solved with the help of the aunt." The Had-I-But-Known mystery novel is one where the principal character (frequently female) does things in connection with a crime that have the effect of prolonging the action of the novel. Ogden Nash

Ogden Nash

Frederic Ogden Nash was an American poet well known for his light verse. At the time of his death in 1971, the New York Times said his "droll verse with its unconventional rhymes made him the country's best-known producer of humorous poetry".-Early life:Nash was born in Rye, New York...

parodied the school in his poem Don't Guess Let Me Tell You: "Sometimes the Had I But Known then what I know now I could have saved at least three lives by revealing to the Inspector the conversation I heard through that fortuitous hole in the floor."

The phrase "The butler did it", which has become a cliché

Cliché

A cliché or cliche is an expression, idea, or element of an artistic work which has been overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect, especially when at some earlier time it was considered meaningful or novel. In phraseology, the term has taken on a more technical meaning,...

, came from Rinehart's novel The Door, in which the butler actually did do it

Murder

Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...

, although that exact phrase does not appear in the work. Tim Kelly

Tim Kelly (playwright)

-Biography:Kelly was born in Saugus, Massachusetts in 1937. His first stage play was Widow's Walk, published in the 1960s. At the same time, three of his plays opened: A Darker Flower at New York's Pocket Theatre, The Trunk and All That Jazz at Boston's Image Theatre, and Die Blum in Germany.He...

adapted Rinehart's play into a musical "The Butler Did It, Singing." This play includes five lead female roles and five lead male roles.

Novels and plays

The Man in Lower Ten (1906)
The Circular Staircase (1908)
Seven Days (Broadway comedy, 1909)
The Window at the White Cat (1910)
When A Man Marries (1910)
Where There's a Will (1912)
The Cave on Thundercloud (1912)
Mind Over Motor (1912)
The Case of Jennie Brice
The Case of Jennie Brice
The Case of Jennie Brice is a crime novel by the American writer Mary Roberts Rinehart set in 1904 in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania ....

(1913)
Street of Seven Stars (1914)
The After House : a story of love, mystery and a private yacht (1914)
K.
K. (novel)
K. is a crime novel by the American writer Mary Roberts Rinehart set in post-Victorian era Allegheny City, Pennsylvania ....

(1915)
Bab, a Sub-Deb (1916)
Long live the King! (1917)
The Amazing Interlude (1918)
23½ Hours Leave (1918)
Dangerous Days (1919)
Salvage (1919)
A Poor Wise Man (1920)
The Bat (with Avery Hopwood
Avery Hopwood
James Avery Hopwood , was the most successful playwright of the Jazz Age, having four plays running simultaneously on Broadway in 1920.-Biography:...

, 1920)
The Breaking Point (1922)
The Red Lamp (1925)
The Mystery Lamp (1925)
Lost Ecstasy (1927)
This Strange Adventure (1928)
Two Flights Up (1928)
The Truce of God (1930)
The Door (1930)
The Double Alibi (1932)
The Album (1933)
The State vs Elinor Norton (1933)
The Doctor (1936)
The Wall (1938)
The Great Mistake (1940)
The Yellow Room (1945)
A Light in the Window (1948)
The Episode of the Wandering Knife (1950)
The Swimming Pool (1952)
The Frightened Wife (1953) (Special Edgar Award
Edgar Award
The Edgar Allan Poe Awards , named after Edgar Allan Poe, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America...

, 1954)

Travelogues

Miss Cornelia Van Gorder
- The Bat (1920)
Letitia (Tish) Carberry
- The Amazing Adventures of Letitia Carberry (1911)
- Tish (1916)
- More Tish (1921)
- The Book of Tish (1926)
- Tish Plays the Game (1926)
- Tish Marches On (1937)
Hilda Adams
- The Buckled Bag (1914)
- Locked Doors (1914)
- Miss Pinkerton (1932)
- Haunted Lady (1942)
- The Secret (1950

Collections

Love Stories (1919)
Affinities : and other stories (1920)
Sight Unseen / The Confession (omnibus) (1921)
Temperamental People (1924)
Nomad's Land (1926)
The Romantics (1929)
Mary Roberts Rinehart 's Crime Book (1933)
Married People (1937)
Familiar faces; stories of people you know (1941)
Alibi for Isabel (1944)
The Confession / Sight Unseen (1959)

External links

Sources

Works by Mary Roberts Rinehart at Internet Archive
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...