Rebecca Rego Barry

Real Rating: 4.25* of five

The Publisher Says: 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 show more 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.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Think of women writers from 1850 to 1950. Pull up some names from your memory hole. Virginia Woolf? Willa Cather? Maybe Agatha Christie? Not Anna Katherine Green, or Carolyn Wells, despite those women's sales eclipsing all the others combined at their peak. Not highbrow enough for scholars to study nowadays. A damned shame.

Resembling the masterful HAD SHE BUT KNOWN: A Biography of Mary Roberts Rinehart, this rescue of a (deliberately?) forgotten woman bestseller from the past is definitely one for your shelves be they physical or digital, if you have the slightest interest in the development of the mystery genre by and for women.

Post Hill Press charges $14.99 for a Kindle book (non-affiliate Amazon link), and well worth it in my opinion. show less

Intriguing and inspiring collection of short anecdotes from contemporary book people about finding something truly special. In today's environment in which even those who enjoy texts tend to devalue the physical book form, this reminder of the value of the culture of the book can be restorative.

On the one hand, it's really cool to know about Carolyn Wells -- prolific, incredibly multi-faceted, funny, and clearly an important member of the literary world. After a while, I even enjoyed the sidebars into the research tactics Barry used to try and glean more information. There's something addictive about the search, and I appreciated being part of it as the history unfolded.

On the other hand, the narrator has strange pronunciations of French words, that was weird and irritating. And show more sometimes the acquisitive search that Barry shares with us was interesting, and sometimes it was also annoying -- i mean, good for you, finding things, buying things? Why is this part of the story? But maybe the reason it's a part of the story is because there isn't an archive to refer to, no centralized collection, and she's building it for the future. And that's pretty cool. It's a pretty slow grind of a book, though, interesting, but slow.

Advanced Reader's Copy provided by Libro.FM show less

Book scouting sounds like one of those oddly intriguing careers, like a treasure hunter or a salvage diver. Mostly miss and every so often a massive hit but always the thrill of the chase.

Rare Books Uncovered is a collection of 52 stories from some of the more well known (relatively) scouts, librarians, and dealers in the business, each sharing their biggest, or most memorable 'score'. Rare first editions, ephemera and in one case, a flag.

This kind of stuff is my personal catnip and I ate show more it up. The cherry on top being a recommended reading section at the back, which will do nothing for the ever-growing size of my TBR. show less