Author: Mary Roberts Rinehart
Cover artist: William Rose
Yours for: $6
- Little known fact: when frightened, wives produce mysterious jagged white auras.
- I think she's rather beautiful. I especially love her hair, even if it is that weird, champagne-pink color that could only come from a bottle. A bottle from the '50s.
- I get that she was kind of a big deal, but "acknowledged first lady of American fiction?" That's pushing it. Unless this "fact" was simply "acknowledged" by some drunk guy at a Dell Publishing New Year's Eve party.
Page 123~
The detective slid the bottle into his pocket and changed the subject abruptly.
Now that's a sentence.
~RP
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]
11 comments:
If you look at the very, very beginning of the 20th century's bestseller lists, Rinehart was usually on it. (And I do enjoy her work.) So at one time I would say that yes, she was the first lady of American fiction. Of course, that would mean that later on we'd have to acknowledge such "giants" as Jackie Collins and Danielle Steele as also first ladies of fiction. But we don't want to do that, do we.
MRR was the master (mistress?) of the "If I had but known what awaited me when I first set foot in Mrs. Bloggs's boarding house..." school of fiction. Extremely popular in the first half of the 20th century; hardly even remembered today.
Sic transit gloria mundi...
Cover: whatever she's wearing, I hate it
Back: "one of the most powerful mystery writers of all time" -- what was she, a wizard?
Mary Roberts Rhinehart is wearing eyebrows cut out from black construction paper.
Generally I don't hold with criticizing people's appearance, but this must be noted.
Also: head aura is what happens when the art director decides at the last minute to put the artwork on a black, instead of white, background, and 1955 graphic artist grumbles "Hey mofo, Photoshop won't be invented for another 35 years. Screw it."
I learned a lot of new things, even though I already know and read a lot about topics that are discussed in the Article.
Nooooo, it's supposed to be a veil! No, really! It's art.
Coincidentally (if there ARE coincidences), the day after this was posted, Shorpy.com posted a photo of Mary Roberts Rinehart's "media room" ca. 1926.
The link, which should have been posted above, is here: http://www.shorpy.com/node/7744
@Rex
You definitely need to upgrade to better champagne.
Institution, huh? Never heard of her. But I see that the local library has several of her books, most in demographically suggestive large print, as well as a biography of her, a movie based on one of her books, and something called "Tish : Mary Roberts Rinehart's most popular stories made into a gay and exciting comedy in three acts." Couldn't have made THAT up.
In the absence of "The Frightened Wife," I'm going to check out... let's see... "The Circular Staircase." We'll see what happens.
I think that weird, champagne-pink hair color was ubiquitous on the covers of 1950s paperbacks because champagne-pink was the color of Lucille Ball's hair, and she was the star of the most popular TV show of the 1950s.
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