Improbable Fiction: The Life of Mary Roberts Rinehart - Softcover

Cohn, Jan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0822959127 ISBN 13: 9780822959120

Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2006

Synopsis

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.

About this title

Review:

"She İCohn¨ is particularly sensitive to recurrent motifs and issues in the large corpus of Rinehart's work, and that sensitivity, together with the chronological bibliography appended to the study, will be welcomed by avid readers of mystery or suspense fiction as well as by specialists in popular literature and culture. On the whole, this biography is well done: it is at once scholarly and popular, and it is therefore suited for large academic libararies and public libraries with good collections of Rinehart's work."
--Choice

“ This detailed, well-annotated account of Rinehart’ s public and private lives will complement a library’ s collection.”
— Library Journal

" This is the impeccably researched story of a prolific writer. Jan Cohn . . . utilizes archival sources, materials from Rinehart' s friends and family, and in-depth interviews with Rinehart' s two sons (the founders of Farrar & Rinehart Publishing in New York City) in this lucid biography."
-- Best Sellers

“ She [Cohn] is particularly sensitive to recurrent motifs and issues in the large corpus of Rinehart’ s work, and that sensitivity, together with the chronological bibliography appended to the study, will be welcomed by avid readers of mystery or suspense fiction as well as by specialists in popular literature and culture. On the whole, this biography is well done: it is at once scholarly and popular, and it is therefore suited for large academic libararies and public libraries with good collections of Rinehart’ s work.”
— Choice

"This is the impeccably researched story of a prolific writer. Jan Cohn . . . utilizes archival sources, materials from Rinehart's friends and family, and in-depth interviews with Rinehart's two sons (the founders of Farrar & Rinehart Publishing in New York City) in this lucid biography."
--Best Sellers

"She [Cohn] is particularly sensitive to recurrent motifs and issues in the large corpus of Rinehart's work, and that sensitivity, together with the chronological bibliography appended to the study, will be welcomed by avid readers of mystery or suspense fiction as well as by specialists in popular literature and culture. On the whole, this biography is well done: it is at once scholarly and popular, and it is therefore suited for large academic libararies and public libraries with good collections of Rinehart's work."
--Choice

"This detailed, well-annotated account of Rinehart's public and private lives will complement a library's collection."
--Library Journal

She [Cohn] is particularly sensitive to recurrent motifs and issues in the large corpus of Rinehart s work, and that sensitivity, together with the chronological bibliography appended to the study, will be welcomed by avid readers of mystery or suspense fiction as well as by specialists in popular literature and culture. On the whole, this biography is well done: it is at once scholarly and popular, and it is therefore suited for large academic libararies and public libraries with good collections of Rinehart s work.
Choice"

This is the impeccably researched story of a prolific writer. Jan Cohn . . . utilizes archival sources, materials from Rinehart s friends and family, and in-depth interviews with Rinehart s two sons (the founders of Farrar & Rinehart Publishing in New York City) in this lucid biography.
Best Sellers"

This detailed, well-annotated account of Rinehart s public and private lives will complement a library s collection.
Library Journal"

About the Author:

Jan Cohn was G. Keith Funston Professor of American Literature and American Studies at Trinity College and the author of four other books, including Creating America (1989).

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0822959127
• ISBN 13: 9780822959120
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 308