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Mary Roberts Rinehart

Author

Bio

Mary Roberts Rinehart (1876–1958) was one of the United States’s most popular early mystery authors. Born in Pittsburgh to a clerk at a sewing machine agency, Rinehart trained as a nurse and married a doctor after her graduation from nursing school. She wrote fiction in her spare time until a stock market crash sent her and her young husband into debt, forcing her to lean on her writing to pay the bills. Her first two novels, The Circular Staircase (1908) and The Man in Lower Ten (1909), established her as a bright young talent, and it wasn’t long before she was one of the nation’s most popular mystery novelists.
Among her dozens of novels are The Amazing Adventures of Letitia Carberry (1911), which began a six-book series, and The Bat (originally published in 1920 as a play), which was among the inspirations for Bob Kane’s Batman. Credited with inventing the phrase “The butler did it,” Rinehart is often called an American Agatha Christie, even though she began writing much earlier than Christie, and was much more popular during her heyday. 

Mary Roberts Rinehart Books

Tish: The Chronicle Of Her Escapades And Excursions book cover

Tish: The Chronicle Of Her Escapades And Excursions

Mary Roberts Rinehart
The Street of Seven Stars book cover

The Street of Seven Stars

Mary Roberts Rinehart
The Window At The White Cat book cover

The Window At The White Cat

Mary Roberts Rinehart
The Case of Jennie Brice book cover

The Case of Jennie Brice

Mary Roberts Rinehart
The Circular Staircase book cover

The Circular Staircase

Mary Roberts Rinehart
The Confession book cover

The Confession

Mary Roberts Rinehart
The Man In Lower Ten book cover

The Man In Lower Ten

Mary Roberts Rinehart
The Hilda Adams Mysteries book cover

The Hilda Adams Mysteries

Mary Roberts Rinehart
The Broken Quarantine book cover

The Broken Quarantine

Mary Roberts Rinehart
The Window at the White Cat book cover

The Window at the White Cat

Mary Roberts Rinehart
The Circular Staircase book cover

The Circular Staircase

Mary Roberts Rinehart
Miss Pinkerton book cover

Miss Pinkerton

Mary Roberts Rinehart
Episode of the Wandering Knife book cover

Episode of the Wandering Knife

Mary Roberts Rinehart
The Haunted Lady book cover

The Haunted Lady

Mary Roberts Rinehart
The Case of Jennie Brice book cover

The Case of Jennie Brice

Mary Roberts Rinehart
The Window at the White Cat book cover

The Window at the White Cat

Mary Roberts Rinehart
The Man in Lower Ten book cover

The Man in Lower Ten

Mary Roberts Rinehart
More Tish book cover

More Tish

Mary Roberts Rinehart
Tish book cover

Tish

Mary Roberts Rinehart
The Amazing Adventures Of Letitia Carberry book cover

The Amazing Adventures Of Letitia Carberry

Mary Roberts Rinehart
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