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Mary Roberts Rinehart
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Married People: A Collection of Short Stories Kindle Edition

by Mary Roberts Rinehart (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.2 out of 5 stars 6 ratings
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Ten tales of married life: happy, sad, and blood-soaked
Clarke Wellington supposes it’s time he murdered his wife. Dolly isn’t a promiscuous woman, and she isn’t violent, but she is stingy, petty, and cruel, and she runs her household with a tyranny that has turned her husband into a mouse and her children into frightened little automatons. Of course, it’s easy to make this kind of decision, but much harder to follow through. When a man hasn’t stood up for himself in years, how can he possibly learn to kill?
“The Man Who Killed His Wife” is just one in this sterling collection of short stories by a master of the classic mystery novel. Rinehart tells her tales one couple at a time, from the Wellingtons to the Bryces to the Chisholms. In some of their houses is physical violence, and in some, the torment is purely emotional. Not until death will these happy couples part, but that day is coming sooner than some of them think. 
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  1. Print length
    312 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    MysteriousPress.com/Open Road
  4. Publication date
    August 13, 2013
  5. File size
    4.8 MB
  6. Page Flip
    Enabled
  7. Word Wise
    Enabled
  8. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“[Rinehart’s] literary distinction lies in the combination of love, humor and murder that she wove into her tales. . . . She helped the mystery story grow up.” —The New York Times 

About the Author

Mary Roberts Rinehart (1876–1958) was one of the United States’s most popular early mystery authors. Born in Pittsburgh to a clerk at a sewing machine agency, Rinehart trained as a nurse and married a doctor after her graduation from nursing school. She wrote fiction in her spare time until a stock market crash sent her and her young husband into debt, forcing her to lean on her writing to pay the bills. Her first two novels, The Circular Staircase (1908) and The Man in Lower Ten (1909), established her as a bright young talent, and it wasn’t long before she was one of the nation’s most popular mystery novelists.
Among her dozens of novels are The Amazing Adventures of Letitia Carberry (1911), which began a six-book series, and The Bat (originally published in 1920 as a play), which was among the inspirations for Bob Kane’s Batman. Credited with inventing the phrase “The butler did it,” Rinehart is often called an American Agatha Christie, even though she began writing much earlier than Christie, and was much more popular during her heyday.  

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00E4UXDEW
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ MysteriousPress.com/Open Road (August 13, 2013)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 13, 2013
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 4.8 MB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 312 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.2 out of 5 stars 6 ratings

About the author

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Mary Roberts Rinehart

Mary Roberts Rinehart

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Mary Roberts Rinehart (August 12, 1876 – September 22, 1958) was an American writer, often called the American Agatha Christie, although her first mystery novel was published 14 years before Christie's first novel in 1922.

Rinehart is considered the source of the phrase "The butler did it" from her novel The Door (1930), although the novel does not use the exact phrase. Rinehart is also considered to have invented the "Had-I-But-Known" school of mystery writing, with the publication of The Circular Staircase (1908).

She also created a costumed super-criminal called "the Bat", cited by Bob Kane as one of the inspirations for his "Batman".

Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo by Theodore C. Marceau [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5 stars
6 global ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

  • Kathy Mccarty
    5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent collection of short stories
    Reviewed in the United States on May 26, 2019
    Verified Purchase
    Some of Rinehart’s best short stories in my opinion. This book is as good as any novel. I must say it does engender desire for 1. A substantially built house and 2. Servants
    2 people found this helpful
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  • LifeboatB
    5.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing exploration of gender roles in marriage
    Reviewed in the United States on September 14, 2023
    I read a mass-market paperback of this printed in 1977, with a very 1970's cover that was just silly, so I think it's important to explain that this book was first published in 1937, and most of the stories are about well-to-do white people in that time period, though a few are about more working-class characters. Each of the 10 stories focuses on a different (hetero, obviously) couple in a different situation, and is focused on the small details of the characters' domestic lives. Many of them explore gender roles, and are from the point of view of a wife, but not all. Two are written from the perspective of a cop on the beat, and surprisingly believably.

    The writing is first-rate, with a deep exploration of feelings that will often resonate with most people today, although the comments on gender norms and morality won't always match with today's beliefs. If you're looking to understand what many people in the 1930s believed, you can find a lot of clues here. In some of the stories the women are expected to accept too much (not a surprise, but it was even more extreme then). In more than one story, the idea of a parent not seeing their child after a couple breaks up is considered commonplace. Sometimes you won't like a choice a character makes, but there are also characters to cheer for.

    Rinehart can be a wonderful comic writer, but most of these stories are serious, and deal with serious themes such as aging, suicide and divorce. Most of the main characters are older adults, and the disconnect between the generations is one of the major topics the book takes on.

    There is a little bit of racism in just one or two of the stories. Definitely not the worst examples of that I've encountered in an old book, but still--be warned.

    I would recommend this book to people who like Edith Wharton, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ann Patchett, and the like.
    One person found this helpful
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