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Title details for The Vanishing of Carolyn Wells by Rebecca Rego Barry - Available

The Vanishing of Carolyn Wells

by Rebecca Rego Barry
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The Vanishing of Carolyn Wells is the first biography of one of the "lost ladies" of detective fiction who wrote more than eighty mysteries and hundreds of other works between the 1890s and the 1940s.
Carolyn Wells (1862–1942) excelled at writing country house and locked-room mysteries for a decade before Agatha Christie entered the scene. In the 1920s, when she was churning out three or more books annually, she was dubbed "about the biggest thing in mystery novels in the US."
On top of that, Wells wielded her pen in just about every literary genre, producing several immensely popular children's books and young adult novels; beloved anthologies; and countless stories, prose, and poetry for magazines such as Thrilling Detective, Life, The Saturday Evening Post, Harper's, and The New Yorker. All told, Wells wrote over 180 books. Some were adapted into silent films, and some became bestsellers. Yet a hundred years later, she has been all but erased from literary history. Why? How?
This investigation takes us on a journey to Rahway, New Jersey, where Wells was born and is buried; to New York City's Upper West Side, where she spent her final twenty-five years; to the Library of Congress, where Carolyn's world-class collection of rare books now resides; and to many other public and private collections where exciting discoveries unfolded.
Part biography and part sleuthing narrative, The Vanishing of Carolyn Wells recovers the life and work of a brilliant writer who was considered one of the funniest, most talented women of her time.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    February 13, 2024

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9781637588512

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9781637588512
      • File size: 4892 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Kirkus

      December 1, 2023
      The fruit of "a three-year quest to restore the legacy" of a prolific and pioneering mystery writer who's dropped almost completely from sight. Love her or hate her, Carolyn Wells (1862-1942) in her time was widely acknowledged as a force to be reckoned with. Her children's book series rivaled those produced by Edward Stratemeyer's syndicate of anonymous writers. Her 81 mystery novels, including 61 starring Fleming Stone, account for less than half of her output of over 180 books--novels, verse collections, anthologies, scrapbooks, autograph books, crossword puzzle books, and screenplays--an oeuvre that made another writer wonder, "Is Carolyn Wells a syndicate?" Her nonsense verse cemented her friendship with art critic and poet Gelett Burgess; her take-no-prisoners approach to collecting material by and about Walt Whitman earned the lasting enmity of bibliophile Vincent Starrett; her mysteries were panned by Dashiell Hammett, John Dickson Carr, and, yes, Kirkus Reviews. Sandwiched between the older Anna Katharine Green and the younger Mary Robert Rinehart, Wells lacked the staying power of the second and so far hasn't been revived as successfully as the first. Barry, author of Rare Books Uncovered, aims to change that by sharing every scrap of information she's discovered about Wells' remarkable career, her reception, and theories about why she's fallen into such neglect. The result is an engaging but often frustratingly incomplete biography repeatedly interrupted by detailed accounts of how the author acquired, or failed to acquire, access to her research materials, both of them interrupted in turn by a series of chatty footnotes confiding in the reader directly. The resulting combination succeeds in bringing Wells back to life, largely through extensive quotations from her light verse, but gives little sense of any or all of those Fleming Stone novels. Not a definitive biography, but an indispensable first step toward one.

      COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

    • Library Journal

      Starred review from March 29, 2024

      Two tenacious women are featured in this literary study: one is the subject, multifaceted author Carolyn Wells (1862-1942) and the other is the book's author, Barry, who searches worldwide for information about Wells to create this work. In 2011, upon receiving a first edition of Thoreau's Walden, Barry noticed the decorative bookplate indicating the volume was from the library of Carolyn Wells. This led Barry to investigate the life of Wells, a humorist, who began her career publishing nonsense pieces in popular magazines, all while working part-time in a New Jersey library. Barry scours libraries and databases to find documentation of Wells's life, which led to contacting the author's great-niece for interviews. Overall, Barry's persistent research shows how Wells's sheer force of will enabled her to use parody to compete and thrive in a literary field dominated by men, such as Mark Twain, and establish a successful career as a young adult and mystery novelist and film and stage writer. Includes photos (not seen) and notes. VERDICT Recommended for literature and women's history collections as an excellent example of determined and focused accomplishment.--Joyce Sparrow

      Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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