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The book has no illustrations or index. Purchasers are entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Subjects: World War, 1914-1918; Fiction / Historical; Fiction / Mystery ... Read more

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This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

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A TRIPLE HELPING OF CLASSIC MRR SUSPENSE NOVELS IN ONE EBOOK!

Pay one low price for three big Rinehart thrillers. Read her most celebrated work, The Circular Staircase, plus two masterpieces, The Confession and Dangerous Days. Rinehart's mysteries are filled with love and humor, and feature ordinary people in terrifying situations that could happen to anyone.? What if you were mute, couldn't speak, and were trapped in an empty house with a psycho killer determined to add you to his score? And that's only one of the suspenseful situations you will find in these all time greats of suspense and terror - complete and unabridged.? All three complete and unabridged - over 1400 pages in hardcover.? Look for The First and Third Mary Roberts Rinehart Omnibuses with The Bat, The Man in Lower Ten, and other full length tales of mystery and suspense.

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The book has no illustrations or index. Purchasers are entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Subjects: Middle-aged women; Country homes; Murder; Detective and mystery stories; Fiction / Classics; Fiction / Mystery ... Read more

Customer Reviews (13)

Campy fun
The plot of The Circular Staircase is, like the staircase of the title, rather roundabout. There are a lot of elements in this novel--murder, embezzlement, robbery, and arson, just t name a few of the crimes perpetrated by the characters in this book. Rachel Innes is a rather prickly middle-aged spinster and the aunt of Gertrude and Halsey. After renting a house in the countryside one summer, in which ghosts are said to live, a man is shot dead at the foot of the house's circular staircase. The dead man is the son of the owner of the house, and he and Jack Bailey (a friend of Halsey's who also happens to be engaged to Getrude) may or may not have been involved in a bank scandal.

Rachel, who claims that the detecting gene is in her blood, spends the course of the novel pursuing clues, most of which are red herrings. It turns out that every person involved in this story has a piece of the puzzle; and Rachel spends most of the story saying "if only I had known..." The "Had I But Known" plot is apparently pretty characteristic of Rinehart's novels, but in this book I kept feeling that Rachel as just moving in circles, never really solving any part of the mystery until the very last minute. Also, I didn't particularly care for the narrator of the story: Rachel is so sharp-tongued that she's actually rude to pretty much everybody at one point or another. Mr. Jamieson, the detective, is much more likeable, but he sometimes allows Rachel to walk all over him.

Mary Roberts Rinehart has been credited with coining the phrase "the butler did it"--though the phrase never appeared in any of her mystery novels. Her books were bestsellers in the United States for a long while in the early 20th century, probably because they were so readable; certainly not "high literature" in an sense of the word. The Circular Staircase is a prime example of this; but nonetheless it works well as a suspense novel.

Sharp-tongued spinster bests ghosts, crooks & murderers
Readers loved this "modern" Gothic thriller when it came out a century ago. Even the critics were charmed. Like so many bestsellers, however, The Circular Staircase fell into obscurity for decades. I was lucky to stumble upon a new edition in a bookstore. I'm also happy to see it's available on Amazon.

How could anyone ask for a more delightful heroine? Rachael Innes, middle-aged spinster, is witty, feisty, wealthy, afraid of mice, yet ready for almost anything else - from hunting down ghosts to warding off attackers in the night. Stimulated by crime, she's like "a dog on a scent."

In her role as Aunt Rachael, she has successfully raised her dead brother`s children to young adulthood. All they ask in return is that she take a house in the country for the summer. She foolishly agrees.

Summer at Sunnyside turns out to be a series of bizarre and terrifying happenings. In the first few nights of residence there are ghost-like thumpings and appearances, culminating in a man shot dead at the foot of the circular stairs.

This is only the beginning of the thrills and chills to come. The reader can look forward to bank robbery, grave robbery, abduction, mysterious characters with false names, ghostly intruders, veiled ladies, smooth-mannered villains, star-crossed lovers, and a very agreeable detective who lets Aunt Rachael do much of the work of detecting.

I enjoyed reading about the author, Mary Roberts Rinehard, in the very well written introduction. It seems that Rinehart herself twice rented houses haunted by a poltergeist - and scoffed at the otherworldly phenonema just like Aunt Rachael!

I highly recommend this book, especially to fans of vintage and classic mystery.

Liked the period setting and feisty narrator, but not edge-of-your-seat suspense
It was kind of annoying how Gertrude, Halsey and the narrator weren't just open and honest with each other, but I really enjoyed the banter between the narrator and the other characters and it was an interesting read. I also enjoyed how it was set in a Victorian-sort of time period. It is more suspense and mystery than romance, which I would have liked to see more of, but a good read nonetheless.

A Circular View
The Circular Staircase is a proper name for this story
because it does go in circles. The reader must stick to it for awhile.
But, it does get there. And when it does it will hold your interest
if you are an old fashioned mystery buff. The main character is an older
lady who simply will not be bullied. She has rented a strange old
mansion with secrets. The lady along with her family have decided to
stay in the house regardless of strange happenings. There is a side story also involving a large bank fraud incident. Stick with it.
The service I received from the seller was very good. I would buy from
them again.

Haunted house, old spinster, hidden treasure, murder.... and more!
Two hallmarks of the typical Mary Roberts Rinehart (The American Agatha Christie) mystery include both a rich, aristocratic lady (usually single), and a large, spooky house -- this one features both. "The Circular Staircase" is one of Rinehart's better works, rating just slightly below "The Yellow Room" and "The Red Lamp," in my opinion (I've read all her works). Here's THE STORY:

A noble and older lady, Miss Innes, rents a remote and huge New England home for the summer from a local banker who has gone to California for his health. Miss Innes brings along her niece and her nephew (both of whom she has raised from childhood), and both of whom are in their early 20s. It's not long before the banker's son, a local rapscallion and ne'er-do-well, is mysteriously murdered at the base of The Circular Staircase. What was he doing slinking around in the house late at night? No one seems to know.

However, the nephew and his good friend (a clerk at the homeowner's bank) both soon come under suspicion of having murdered the young man. In fact, the nephew suddenly and mysteriously disappears after he is involved in a significant late-night auto crash.

If this all this were not enough trouble for Miss Innes, she soon discovers that her nephew's friend (the bank clerk) may have been responsible for an embezzlement which caused the bank to go belly-up, and this additionally manifests the total loss of the two siblings' huge trust fund... and her niece has fallen madly in love with this apparent thief and scoundrel!

The house itself continues to generate a notable source of terror for Miss Innes along with her aged maid who is also her skittish companion. There are lots of bumps, screams, phantom-like apparitions, and nefarious other strange happenings as the long and eventful nights pass by. All this chaos causes the domestic help to leave as fast as Miss Innes can hire them. The local police detective seems befuddled by the overwhelming mess but Miss Innes resolves to stay in the house and to solve the mystery(s).

There are plenty more spooky and strange happenings including a big fire, a furtive-acting doctor, the necessity to exhume a grave in the middle of the night, a pock-marked "veiled lady"... the list is almost endless. In other words, the plot is complex and the sub-plots are several.

The chronological setting for "The Circular Staircase" is the Turn of the Century (from the 19th to the 20th). The book was first published in 1908, sold over a million copies, and was the premiere literary work that launched Rinehart into national fame as an author.

"The Circular Staircase" has pretty much all that any mystery could offer to a reader, including the kitchen sink. Rinehart worked in just about every possible nefarious archetype and furtive activity that we ever see in the typical cozy murder. This one is like "The Hardy Boys" for adults and it gets my highest recommendation. ... Read more

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The mystery stories and other popular fiction of Mary Roberts Rinehart (1876-1958) brought her wealth and fame, but she was much more than a writer.She was a well-known American, respected and loved during a time when few women achieved national influence.

Her early life was conventional enough.Trained as a nurse, she met and married a physician, with whom she had three sons. She was living the stereotypical life of a young matron in Allegheny (now part of Pittsburgh), when her husband's investments evaporated during a stock market crash. She began writing as a means to supplement the family income.

Rinehart became a prolific writer.In addition to her mysteries, she wrote serious fiction, plays, poems, magazine articles, and editorials. Her regular contributions to the Saturday Evening Post were immensely popular and helped the magazine mold middle-class taste and manners.

In this fascinating account of a woman ahead of her time, Cohn illuminates the tensions that pervaded Rinehart's life.Rinehart's commercial success conflicted with her domestic roles of wife and mother; she often endured periods of illness and depression but also pursued adventure, including a job as the first woman war correspondent at the Belgian front during World War I. Throughout, Cohn presents Rinehart as a woman of many complexities whose zest for life always prevailed. ... Read more

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Three classic Mysteries in one edition formatted for the Kindle. Linked Contents.

MARY ROBERTS RINEHART [1876-1958] was born in Pittsburgh. She trained at the predecessor of Shadyside Hospital in Pittsburgh as a nurse and graduated in 1896. She married Dr. Stanley Marshall Rinehart. In 1903, the Rineharts lost their savings in a stock market crash. That year, to earn income, she published 45 short stories in magazines. In 1907, she wrote The Circular Staircase , her first successful novel. It has been made into a play and several movies. From first publication to the time of her death, it sold a million-and-a-quarter copies according to The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. She was the world's first female best-selling mystery writer. According to crime critic and novelist Dorothy B. Hughes, "she 'has been and continues to be' the most important American woman mystery writer." She was also a regular contributor to the Saturday Evening Post. In World War I, she was the first woman war correspondent at the Belgian Front. While a war correspondent, she landed the first-ever interview with England's Queen Mary. From the 1920s until 1935, the family lived in Washington, D.C. where Dr. Rinehart was appointed to the Veterans Administration. He died in 1932. Mary and her sons moved to New York City. There, she and her sons co-founded the Farrar & Rinehart publishing house. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Mary Roberts Rinehart
This author is extremely talented. Each mystery is uniquely different and altho the period is before my time, I did not feel that "old fashioned" feeling you get from some of the older mystery books. Ms. Rinehart has become one of my absolute favorite authors. ... Read more

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Facsimile reprint edition. ... Read more

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William Porter has just inherited Twin Hollows, an isolated lakeside estate shrouded in mystery and doom. But William and his wife aren't easily swayed by ghost stories and whispered rumors. Until a shadowy apparition beckons to them from the undying glow of a red lamp. Is a stranger with a deadly purpose trying to frighten them away? Or are they being haunted by a chilling warning from the grave? Reissue. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

"I am still at large"
This is a completely charming mystery about an absent-minded professor who longs for more excitement in his life - and lives to regret he ever had such a wish.

Who'd have dreamed that the professor would end up in a hotbed of sinister happenings by spending the summer on the lovely waterfront property he just inherited from his Uncle Horace? Or that he'd become the number-one suspect for a host of appalling crimes?

In the once placid neighborhood of Oakville, sheep are found with their throats cut, ghosts are everywhere, and an oddly random assortment of people turn up dead. The professor's wife is not surprised. She's inherited "the second sight" from her Scotch ancestors and in fact predicted a terrible outcome from going anywhere near Uncle Horace's haunted house.

The professor, who addresses us via his journal, never ceases to be amusing, even in his darkest hours. After all, he's a man who, when he can't sleep, instead of counting sheep repeats over and over, "Milton and Dryden and Pope."

To provide a change of pace from ghosts, messages from the spirit world, dead sheep and murder, there's a quirky love story between the professor's niece and a heroic young man who can't afford to marry her.

Meanwhile, the ever-thickening mystery will have your head spinning (at least it did mine). The title comes from the red lamp found lit in the library with Uncle Horace's corpse.

Published in 1925, this book was written in an era when educated people were hosting séances, and the Society for Psychical Research was in full swing, seeking scientific proof of life after death.

I absolutely loved The Red Lamp. It's thoroughly American (people run around the countryside armed with pistols and shotguns), yet has the air of an English country house mystery.

Wanted: A Mysterious Red Lamp
I've decided to buy a red lamp.It will have to be old, circa 1920s.I would like it to be kind of kitschy because if I'm going to plunk down more than $50 on an artifact from a story I've read, then it really needs to be a unique piece.I am probably kidding myself.Where am I, a Midwest teacher with a limited income, going to find such a lamp?Besides, for it to be a real treasure, it has to have some mysterious magical powers too.

In Mary Roberts Rinehart's novel The Red Lamp, a mysterious red light indicates the presence of the late Uncle Horace.It has the ability to teleport people suddenly from room, to room, grant unwary spectators untimely demises in the fashion of heart attacks, serrated jugulars, disappearances, clubbings, shootings and drownings.The lamp detects the death of sheep.The lamp moves cars, pens, broken lenses, guitar strings, and books. It makes young people giddy with love.It befuddles police.The lamp even has the strange power to summon the dead.

Of course, most of these rather eerie phenomena will out in the book as works of mere mortals, but Rinehart makes a great case of choosing the red lamp an intriguing suspect in so many things.When William Porter, Literature Professor inherits the estate and moves in, strange things happen.Sheep in the countryside start dying.Encircled triangles, a symbol of witchcraft appears everywhere.Random items turn up missing then appear days later in incriminating places.The lamp grants his wife Jane with visions that accurately predict strange events.Even William's daughter is seduced.

William decides to lock the lamp in the attic.A miserly gentleman and his secretary become tenants of the main house.Though he hopes this will stop the lighting of the red lamp and dispel all rumors of the haunting activity of the late Horace Porter, things only get worse.William even discovers that his Uncle Horace's death may not have been natural.

Rinehart plays up the Roaring Twenties fascination with the supernatural through séances, and eerie lights.Throughout the story readers are entertained with mysterious murders, devilish symbols marked in precarious places, a fumbling police detective who, despite his persistence can't make heads or tails of the situation, and ghostly happenings.The whole story reads like a ghost story, with the lamp at the center.In the end, it is one great mystery, entwined with romance, and a bit of science fiction.

I might have trouble finding a red lamp that can do all that.I know if I do find such a lamp, I will hope for it to have a few different attributes.Maybe it will contain a genie which can bemuse me with story ideas as original as Rinehart's.Or perhaps such a lamp can increase the romance in my life the way sweet Emma Porter is surrounded by it.No matter what, I know such a lamp will be a great treasure, just as this book is a treasure to any reader.

Possibly Mary Roberts Rinehart's Best Mystery
I was very surprised to see the only other review for this novel state that it is among the author's worst books.Just goes to show how differently a work of art can hit different people!

The Red Lamp is definitely that...a work of art.I've read all of Mary Roberts Rinehart's mysteries, but it is this one - The Red Lamp - that I most frequently pull off the shelf for a fourth or fifth reading.

This book is a little creepier than many of the other Rinehart mysteries; it has a subtle undercurrent of the supernatural running through it.The characters are very vivid (especially that of the narrator) and the book manages to make a number of philosophical observations that remain profoundly relevant today.

As to the plot, the mystery itself is top-notch, and the killer's motivation one of the most unusual and disturbing I have seen in any "golden age" mystery.This book's overall style reminds my very much of that extremely popular ghost novel of the early 1940s: "The Uninvited" by Dorothy Macardle.

To compare the style and plot devices of The Red Lamp to more modern works, I would say it is also similar in structure and tone to those supernatural mysteries written by Barbara Michaels from the 1960s - 1990s (which still remain popular today).

I'll close this review with a bit of trivia.While The Red Lamp does not depend on a supernatural killer, it does end with some of its inexplicable events purposely left unexplained.Upon reading the author's autobiography, I learned that she had some genuinely weird experiences, in a summer home she briefly occupied, and these became a partial inspiration for The Red Lamp.

The worstMary R. Rinehart ?
I'm usually a great fan of Mary R. Rinehart, but this book is bad, and disappointing. It's hard to read from the first chapter, there seems to be non link between following phrases. Is it because, for once, the narrator is a man instead of a girl ? I gave up after twenty pages! Very far below her bests, "The swimming pool" and "The great mistake" or the "yellow room". ... Read more

Product Description
Mary Roberts Rinehart (1876-1958) was a prolific author often called the American Agatha Christie. "Dorothy B. Hughes, crime critic and novelist, says she 'has been and continues to be' the most important American woman mystery writer. " She was born in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, which has been a part of the city of Pittsburgh since 1907. She attended public schools and graduated at the age of sixteen, then enrolling at the Pittsburgh Training School for Nurses at Homeopathic Hospital, where she graduated in 1896. During the stock market crash of 1903 Rinehart and her husband lost their savings, and this spurred her efforts at writing as a way to earn income. In 1907 she wrote The Circular Staircase, the novel that launched her to national fame. She wrote hundreds of short stories, poems, travelogues and special articles. Many of her books and plays were adapted for movies. While many of her books were best-sellers, critics were most appreciative of her murder mysteries. Her other works include The After House (1914), Kings, Queens and Pawns (1915), K (1915), Tish (1916) and Love Stories (1920). ... Read more

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March in England is spring. Early in the month masses of snowdrops lined the paths in Hyde Park. The grass was greenthe roads hard and dry under the eager feet of Kitchener's great army. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Inspirational author, with stories of WWI
I write blog reviews for The Kindle Blog Report, but am expanding into reviewing books on the Kindle as well.

In 1915, at 38 and with three children, Mar Roberts Rinehart left for Europe (alone) to cover World War I for the Post. She toured Belgium and was received by King Albert, taking his first authorized statement regarding the war since its start. She interviewed Winston Churchill and Queen Mary in England, toured hospitals and the French and English lines. Her collected articles were published in Kings, Queens and Pawns, later on in 1915.

More than this book, I advise everyone to read a biography of Rinehart, Had She but Known: A Biography of Mary Roberts Rinehart. ... Read more

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Elizabeth Wheeler lives in a small town and has a simple life. She wants love...what she gets is murder.

Rinehart is often called the American Agatha Christie. She is considered the source of the phrase "The butler did it," and also considered to have invented the "Had-I-But-Known" school of mystery writing. ... Read more

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The works of acclaimed mystery writer Mary Roberts Rinehart with an active table of contents

'Isn't That Just Like a Man!'
Affinities
The After House
The Amazing Interlude
Bab: A Sub-Deb
The Bat
The Breaking Point
The Case of Jennie Brice
The Circular Staircase
The Confession
Dangerous Days
K
Kings, Queens, and Pawns
Long Live the King!
Love Stories
The Man in Lower Ten
More Tish
A Poor Wise Man
Sight Unseen
The Street of Seven Stars
Tenting To-night
Tish
The Truce of God
When a Man Marries
Where There's a Will
Why I Believe in Scouting for Girls
The Window at the White Cat ... Read more