The books we have chosen to republish come from a collection
of vintage books gathered in antique stores across the US. Each
book was chosen because it was a great story, gave a feeling
for a time and place, and showed courage and faith amidst adversity.
As it turns out, many of the authors of the books in this collection
were actually best selling 20th century authors, as you can see
from the
Publishers Weekly list of best selling novels in the United
States. These stories convey life in 1900s america in a way that allows the reader to gain some knowledge of 1900s history while being thoroughly entertained.
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Mary Roberts Rinehart was the highest paid author in the United States during the first fifty years of the 20th Century. Her books were often best-sellers and she is called the "Agatha Christie" of the US for her many, humorous mystery novels. Mary Roberts Rinehart developed a style of mystery novel that is unique. Her books are woven with her sense of humor around a tale of deadly crime.
Trained as a nurse in one of the first nursing schools in the US, married to Dr. Stanley Rinehart and mother of three sons, Mrs. Rinehart wrote her novels around caring for her husband, children, and then invalid mother. She was an original career woman in a time when women were mothers and housewives only.
Mary Roberts Rinehart is the author of the famous "Tish"
stories that were published in the Saturday Evening Post
for many, many years. As a reporter for the Post and an
ambassador for the US Red Cross, Rinehart was sent to
the front lines and trenches of World War I Belgium, and
the only reporter allowed up to the front for some time;
not to mention the first woman reporter at the front.
K
by Mary Roberts Rinehart
is listed as a best seller in 1915. Our version of K
includes a reproduction of an illustration that was on
each page of the original book. The cover was designed
from an original black and white illustration showing
"K" as he takes one of his regular walks.
K is a mystery and a love story about a man with a hidden past who comes to stay as a border at Sydney's home. Sydney, training as a nurse in the pre-World War I era, is witness to violence and mishap in the hospital, just as Mary Roberts Rinehart herself when training to become a nurse in Pittsburgh. K falls in love with Sydney while the mystery unwinds to determine who Sydney loves and who is repsonsible for murder at the hospital.
Jan
Cohn, who wrote the excellent biography Improbable
Fiction: The Life of Mary Roberts Rinehart, was given a dedication
in our publication of Bab: A Sub-Deb.
Professor Cohn taught at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA
and at Trinity Coillege in Hartford, CT. Professor Cohn particularly
liked the character of Bab, teaching about it in her classes. We had
contacted her to write something for the book, only to find that she
had just died of cancer. Her family approved our dedication of the book
to Professor Jan Cohn.
Who Was Harold Bell Wright? Today, he is not well known, but was a best
selling author in the early 1900's. His stories are true to our cause
in presenting everyday people working their way emotionally, spiritually,
and often physically through some crisis to an outcome of achievement
and personal growth. Wrights' novels contain very human characters with
very human responses to events. His ability to not only describe the era
of half Wild West and half civilized Eastern society along with in-depth
character development is superb. Please look for our productions of his
books in the future.
As with James Oliver Curwood, many of Wrights books were written into screen plays and appeared as films in the first half of the 1900's. The Winning of Barbara Worth was made into a black and white film in 1926 starring Ronald Colman and Vilma Banky with Gary Cooper in one of his first roles. Producer Samuel Goldwyn and director Henry King went scouting themselves out into the Nevada desert to find the perfect spot to base this story of a mining engineer trying to reclaim the desert through irrigation. It was filmed in Gerlach, NV and includes a real live dust storm that kicked up during production as if on cue to fit the dust storm in the story.
The Eyes of the World was made into a movie in 1917 starring Monroe Salisbury, Jack Livingston, and Jane Novak. The Re-Creation of Brian Kent is a 1925 film starring Kenneth Harlan and Helene Chadwick. Dealing with harsh subject of alcoholism and the "re-creation" of an alcoholic in delerium tremors, this book and film were gritty subjects for the time. The Mine With the Iron Door was made into a movie both in 1924 and 1936.
James Oliver Curwood was one of the best selling authors of
his time. His more than thirty novels were made into over twenty
movies during the first half of the 20th Century. His books
are full of a love of life and a zest for wilderness adventure.
His characters are not typical though, at times the villain
becomes the hero or the law man the ruthless hunter without
heart; and then they switch roles again. At times the heroine
is helpless and in need of rescue and at others a quite competent
woman of the woods capable of out-whiting the most able backwoodsman.
He drew his characters from his seventeen+ years living in the
Canadian wilderness among the people who settled that frontier
in the early 1900’s.
After writing and living in the backwoods for many years, Curwood
eventually settled back in his hometown of Owosso, Michigan
where he wrote in what is now called The Curwood Castle Museum. The Shiawassee
County Library in Owosso has a biography of his life.
Mary Roberts Rinehart
K
Jan
Cohn, who wrote the excellent biography 
James Oliver Curwood