Mary Roberts Rinehart

In today’s episode, Brook and Sarah discuss Mary Roberts Rinehart’s lasting impact on mystery fiction, even if readers aren’t directly familiar with her work.

Discussed and mentioned

The Circular Staircase (1908) Mary Roberts Rinehart

The Bat (1920) Mary Roberts Rinehart with Avery Hopwood

The Window at the White Cat (1910) Mary Roberts Rinehart

Mary Roberts Rinehart’s papers at University of Pittsburgh

Correspondence with Ellery Queen

References

Improbable Fiction: The Life of Mary Roberts Rinehart  (1980) Jan Cohn

Had She But Known: A Biography of Mary Roberts Rinehart (1994) Charlotte MacLeod

On Project Gutenberg

On Librivox

For more information

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Transcript

This transcript is generated by a computer and there may be some mis-spellings and strange punctuation. We try to catch these before posting, but some things slip through.

Sarah	Welcome to Clued in Mystery. I’m Sarah.
Brook	And I’m Brook and we both love mystery.
Sarah	Hi, Brook.
Brook	Hi, Sarah. Today, today we’re taking on another Golden Age mystery author.
Sarah	That’s right. We are speaking about, well, I don’t know if she would be considered Golden Age. She started publishing a little before the golden age, but we are speaking about Mary Roberts Rinehart, who until you suggested her, quite honestly, was unknown to me.
Brook	Exactly. She is sometimes coined the American Agatha Christie, but she has fallen into rather obscurity, hasn’t she?
Sarah	She has. I’ll give a little bio and then we can talk a little bit about why that might be, Brook.
Sarah	Mary Roberts was born in 1876 in what is now Pittsburgh. She was the eldest of two daughters in a middle-class household. She met Dr. Rinehart, whose surname she adopted when they married, while she was working as a nurse at the Pittsburgh Homeopathic Hospital.
Sarah	Mary began writing seriously after she married, thinking that she might supplement her husband’s income. They had three young boys and she looked after running much of the household and part of his medical practice, even though they had some domestic help, as was common at the time.
Sarah	After the Rineharts lost thousands of dollars in a stock market crash, Mary began submitting writing to local publications, focusing largely on short stories and poetry. In 1907, her first novel, The Circular Staircase, was published serially before being issued as a book and would go on to sell over a million copies during her lifetime.
Sarah	In 1915, during the First World War, Mary’s writing was by now familiar to many readers in the U.S., and she went to the front to report for Saturday Evening Post. While she was there, she was granted unusual access to interview the Belgian king and the English queen.
Sarah	She returned overseas again to report on what was going on and was in Paris when the war ended. She also traveled extensively within the U.S., keeping homes in multiple states.
Sarah	After her husband died in 1932, she remained living in Washington, where they had moved when he had been appointed to a high-profile government role. She also summered in Bar Harbor, Maine, and in 1947 was involved in a violent incident when her gardener of 25 years attacked her with a knife. That same year, she revealed that she had breast cancer, which was a disclosure that was relatively rare for the time, but she felt was necessary because of her profile.
Sarah	Despite suffering ill health throughout her life, Mary lived until 82 and died in 1956 in New York, where she was living at the time. During her lifetime and and writing career, she published many short stories and novels. A lot of her work ah was adapted for plays as well. And some of them were quite successful. So Brook, I look forward to speaking with you a little bit more about her.
Brook	Yeah, Sarah, thank you for that ah summary of her life. Well, like I said, at the top, she’s sometimes referred to as the American Agatha Christie. And I think that they have some similarities, but a lot of differences too.
Brook	On the one hand, they’re both mothers. They both enjoy the outdoors a lot. They were the breadwinners of their family writing ah their stories. But I think that Mary Roberts Reinhart also had this kind of tragic and gritty life that I think shines through in her stories and the way that some some of the things that happened to her characters.
Sarah	Yeah, I would agree. Her early life, her dad, he invented a lot of things um and was never really successful in his inventions, even though he invented things that, i you know, i read something about he invented like the self-winding bobbin for sewing machines. But wasn’t successful in, he either didn’t patent it soon enough or whatever it was, he did not end up being credited with that. And so did not benefit from that invention, which now appears on every sewing machine.
Brook	Yes, he was just a tragic figure. And I think that that kind of set the tone for what was lot of tragedies that happened in her life.
Sarah	Mm hmm. Yeah. I mean, i I would agree with you about your earlier comment about the parallels to Agatha Christie’s life. She was she was prolific in the same way that that Agatha was.
Sarah	They both worked in a hospital and drew on that experience in their writing.
Brook	Right.
Sarah	So we we see that, you know, her medical knowledge, I think, is is something that she she draws on. Um, and her first book, The Circular Staircase, uh, features an older woman sleuth, which I thought was absolutely wonderful.
Sarah	Um, and unfortunately I don’t think she wrote any more featuring that character, but she could have easily been someone that she built a series around. Unlike Christie she did not have a signature detective or a signature sleuth, whereas Christie had a few. We’ve we’ve talked about them.
Brook	Yeah, that’s a great point, Sarah. And I think part of why her work and her name get lost because she didn’t build, she didn’t build any series. She didn’t build any, as you said, signature sleuth, this recurring character that people could kind of hold onto.
Brook	I don’t know how much it played into the fact that she was really writing serials. I mean, a lot of her stories read, this week I’m reading The Circular Staircase, and they read almost like a soap opera or telenovela where some big, amazing thing happens. [Sarah: Mm-hmm.]
Brook	and You’ve got this cliffhanger and that you know, okay you readers would have had to wait a day or a week. I’m not sure the timing of her serialization, but they’re definitely set up that way. And I don’t know if that how much that played into the fact that she wasn’t always necessarily set out to write a novel. She was writing these serialized stories that were very lucrative, and then she would package them. And, you know, that’s something she did, too, is repackaging things. The Circular Staircase became The Bat, ah became a play. um She definitely had her finger on how to continue to use her intellectual property to continue to make money.
Sarah	Definitely. And at the time, she was incredibly popular, right? Like she did sell a lot of her writing. um And The Bat, when it was a stage production, um it was in New York, it was in London for weeks, right?
Sarah	Years, in fact. um And so, you know, and incredibly popular. ah But yeah, the the story for The Bat is… um very heavily inspired by The Circular Staircase.
Brook	Yes, it’s nearly the same story. ah And it’s important to note that while in her story, the bat is the bad guy, kind of this burglar, ah it did morph into and end up inspiring Batman from DC Comics.
Sarah	I saw that as well. And and while readers may not be necessarily familiar with her work, they are familiar with her legacy. So Batman is an example. [Brook: Yes.]
Sarah	The, you know, she’s credited with the had I but known style of writing, where we see this in The Circular Staircase, um where, you know, she ends a chapter by saying, had I known, ah you know, that moving into this house would have caused the things that it did, I wouldn’t have done that, right?
Brook	Mm-hmm.
Sarah	And that goes back to what you were saying about it kind of feeling like a soap opera because she did those kind cliffhangers, I think because it was originally serialized, um but really is credited with that device in writing.
Brook	Yes, yes. And we see it. It’s very popular in contemporary thrillers. You know, one of my favorite thriller authors that I mentioned a lot is Ruth Ware, and she heavily uses that narrative device. Even if readers don’t recognize the name Mary Roberts Rinehart, they do enjoy some of the style and tropes that she popularized.
Sarah	So ,she was in her thirties when, um she started writing or started, her writing started, started to be published. Um, she’d been married by that time for, you know, for several years.
Sarah	She had to work, essentially. In the biographies that I read, talks about her having to balance this role of being a mother with the role of being an author and the role of being a wife. And, you know, a lot of the struggles that I think people who are writing now still experience, right? She was managing her husband’s medical practice, um, managing the household. She didn’t have this life of luxury.
Brook	I think it’s so relatable to think it’s so relatable to add the way authors continue to live. Because it’s very much what many of us who are writing these days experience where you’re juggling multiple roles and in essentially multiple jobs. And so that’s really an interesting, I hadn’t come across that in reading about her, Sarah.
Sarah	Another legacy that she’s credited with is the “butler did it trope”, um which so I haven’t I i didn’t read the story that’s um associated with that. ah But I thought that that was an interesting thing. She also, you know, because she was writing and was popular at a time when film was really just emerging, it was the early days of cinema, a lot of her stories were adapted for movies.
Brook	And I believe she was very much involved in writing the adaptations, which I read she didn’t really love because she’d already written that story and now she was rewriting that story. But it was had to be very lucrative and a great way to continue her continue her career.
Brook	She didn’t just stay in one lane either. She wrote mystery romance and even social novels. Um, and there again, that could be a reason why, her name has sort of become watered down because she was spread a little bit thinner than somebody who was, you know, just writing detective fiction.
Sarah	Yeah, I think that’s a good point. And even, you know, in The Circular Staircase, for example, see definitely there’s ah mystery, but there’s also that romance and, you know, you can you can see that, those threads in in that work.
Brook	I don’t think she was particularly happy to be known as a detective fiction author either. I read that she really would have rather be remembered for her commentaries on you know societal issues [Sarah: mmhmm] and some of her more serious articles.
Brook	And in that way, it reminded me of Arthur Conan Doyle because we know he wasn’t exactly thrilled with his legacy being mysteries either.
Sarah	I don’t know if she really likes detective fiction because her earlier poems, the ones that were first published, some of them were satirical takes on on detective fiction, which I think is is interesting.
Brook	Oh, that’s so interesting.
Brook	And kind of plays into this ah trope that she is credited with popularizing, which is had I been known, because that can become very satirical.
Brook	yeah And I mean, I think we see that, right? um So that’s super interesting that she maybe had a little dislike for the genre, but knew that it was a popular one to write in.
Sarah	You know, I think maybe her… reluctance to write detective fiction is possibly why she didn’t have a single detective sleuth, right? Even though she had a few stories that featured this older woman sleuth that were based on were adaptations of The Circular Staircase. I, I don’t think you could say that there was a series featuring that that character.
Sarah	When she died her papers were given to the University of Pittsburgh and they are available digitally ah I spent a little bit of time looking through them they are really interesting there’s um you can see her correspondence with um Ellery Queen which I thought was really interesting. So Ellery Queen contacts her and asks you know do you have any stories that we could we could published anything more featuring Tish, which is a character that she had published a few stories in the Saturday Evening Post.
Sarah	And, ah you know, they have a little exchange about that. It was just really interesting to kind of see… some of her personality come through in these um in these letters. Um I can’t remember which of the cousins it was that was writing to her. But as well you also get a glimpse into Ellery Queen’s personality as well.
Brook	Oh, that’s fantastic, Sarah. I um think that it speaks to her, both her popularity and her skill, because Ellery Queen, you know, is not going to just reach out to anyone in the mystery space. So I think that says a lot and is a big compliment for Rinehart.
Sarah	You know, when she died, her books had sold and over 10 million copies. So, you know, i mean, that’s that’s a lot. She was she would have been at the time of her death quite comfortable despite the early portion of her life.
Brook	Exactly. She was also honored with a special Edgar Award by the Mystery Writers of America in 1954, so just shortly before she passed away. And this award is given to recognize lifetime achievements and contributions to authors.
Sarah	And so I think that definitely makes her worth us discussing, you know, because of the legacy that her writing has left, even if it’s not something that is really familiar with readers. But um a lot of her works are available on Project Gutenberg or audio versions are available for free through LibriVox. And that’s how I listened to The Circular Staircase and The Window at the White Cat. Both of those were great productions.
Sarah	So, what did you think about her writing, Brook?
Brook	There were things I really liked about it. And then there were things that I didn’t care for so much. I honestly am kind of a sucker for the had I been known idea. um And I think once you realize what you’re reading, you’re going to see it everywhere. It’s this sense of this narrator’s regret that I wish I would have known then what I know now. And we see it all over the place. And I’m a big sucker for that. I enjoy that.
Brook	But similarly to the way that we discussed that The Seven Dials Mystery by Agatha Christie got rather wild, I feel like we have that happening in these books too, where, you know, it’s just one tragedy after another that gets to feel a little bit wild. However, again, once you think about the fact that these were written to be serialized, there really has to be a big adventure in each and every one of them to keep readers going. So, I can appreciate it.
Brook	What about you, Sarah?
Sarah	I liked The Circular Staircase. There’s a lot that goes on in it. And one of the things that I read about her is that, you know, she was never formally trained as a writer. She was a voracious reader and was trying to mimic ah the styles that were popular at the time. So Anna Katharine Green would have been really popular. And in fact, when she compiled some of her writing and wanted to see if she could get it published as a book, she sent it to Anna Katharine Green’s publisher, I am assuming because she really respected Anna Katharine Green. um And so I think, you know, if, if we were to read some of her later work, we might see a bit of an evolution in her writing as she became um as she figured out how to how to do it.
Sarah	But yeah I mean, The Circular Staircase was popular right off the bat. So, you know, audiences responded well to it. I thought she was really funny.
Brook	She is really funny. And her take on that older sleuth character that you mentioned is really cute and really funny. I enjoyed her very much.
Sarah	Yeah. But as is true with a lot of authors from that time, there are some terms and phrases and the way some characters are treated um because of their race or their background in in ways that just we wouldn’t see in books today. um and so if you are going to read her, just just be aware.
Brook	Exactly and you’re absolutely right you run into it in that era of writing it’s certainly not just Rinehart but just I think that’s a great thing to be aware of if you’re going to pick up one of these stories.
Brook	The circular staircase might be a fun read along to do with our Chronicle subscribers.
Sarah	I think that’s a great idea, Brook. And so, yeah, let’s do that.
Brook	We’ll get that planned.
Brook	So listeners, today we have a question for you. Prior to this episode, were you aware that Batman was inspired by a Mary Roberts Rinehart book? Let us know. You can reach out to us by email or social media, and we want to know if this is something you were aware of before. But thank you for joining us today on Clued in Mystery.
Brook	I’m Brook.
Sarah	And I’m Sarah, and we both love mystery.