Biography

Mary Roberts Rinehart was born on August 12, 1876 in Allegheny City [now North Side, Pittsburgh], Pennsylvania, USA. She was a writer, known for The Nurse's Secret (1941), The Bat Whispers (1930) and The Bat (1959). She was married to Stanley Rinehart. She died on September 22, 1958 in New York City, New York, USA.

Although she is best remembered as a mystery writer, her works also included romances, comic stories, plays, editorials and feature articles.

Her stories usually involve hapless heroines put into terrifying situations. An example of a typical starting line to one of her books ("The Circular Staircase", published 1908) is: "This is the story of how a middle-aged spinster lost her mind".

Father: Thomas Beveridge Roberts; Mother: Cornelia Gilleland.

Owned a 'cottage' (really a mansion) on Eden Street in Bar Harbor, Maine. The house, known as Fairview, was one of many buildings destroyed in Bar Harbor's Great Fire of 1947.

[on flattery] He soft-soaped her until she couldn't see for the suds.