The Gold Bag

The first two Carolyn Wells mysteries I ever read were The Gold Bag and Vicky Van. I think the choice was dictated by them being the only two available on PG at the time, but it worked out well, since they sort of represent the best and the worst. I’ve read Vicky Van three or four times now, but I never reread The Gold Bag until last week.

The main thing I took away from my first reading of The Gold Bag was that Herbert Burroughs, the narrator/detective, was gullible and fond of leaping to conclusions. The book opens with Burroughs’ supervisor telling him, “Burroughs, if there’s a mystery to be unravelled; I’d rather put it in your hands than to trust it to any other man on the force…you go about it scientifically, and you never jump at conclusions, or accept them, until they’re indubitably warranted.” My Delicious bookmark (dated June 2006) says, “I’m sorry, an air of truth isn’t evidence, Mr. Burroughs.”

Actually, now that I’ve said that, I’m not sure anything else needs to be added. But I suppose I can’t let that stop me.

The Leavenworth Case

Carolyn Wells apparently discovered mystery novels after having had one of Anna Katherine Green’s books read aloud to her circa 1909. The Leavenworth Case was Green’s first and best-known book, and if it wasn’t the one that Wells heard read, then probably all Green’s books were pretty similar, because The Leavenworth Case reads like a blueprint for all of Well’s mystery novels, mostly in terms of the setting and the general construction of events. Or maybe not a blueprint, because blueprints are kind of spare and simplified, by definition, and The Leavenworth Case is as overwrought as any mystery novel I’ve ever read.

Horatio Leavenworth, a wealthy retired businessman, is found dead in his library one morning, shot through the back of the head. His secretary, Trueman Harwell, seeks to enlist the aid of Mr. Leavenworth’s lawyer, Mr. Veeley, in watching over the interests of Mr. Leavenworth’s two nieces, Mary and Eleanore, but finds Veeley away on business. Everett volunteers to stand in for Veeley, and promptly falls in love with Eleanore, who, of course, appears to be guilty of the crime.

Anybody but Anne, and Murder Will In

Tuesday was my birthday, so I chose to spend the day at the library. The main branch of the New York Public Library, to be precise. The have a gigantic non-circulating collection of old books they’ve taken off the shelves because no one is interested in them anymore, but if you get an access card, you can request that they let you look at them for a while. You fill out little slips — no more than three at a time — and then, in less than half an hour, they bring your books up in a dumbwaiter, and you get to pick them up at a desk in the main reading room, which has the coolest ceiling ever. It’s probably the size of a football field, and it has all these nooks and crannies that look like they’d be really fun to climb on if the ceiling were somehow turned upside down. Which, yes, is something I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about.

Anyway. I spent about five hours there and read two Carolyn Wells mysteries, Anybody but Anne (1914) and Murder Will In (1942), a title that has always interested me.

Long time no update

I haven’t updated Redeeming Qualities much recently, but that doesn’t mean I’m not thinking about it. Things keep getting in the way, like the Olympics, with which I was obsessed for about a week (and then the swimming ended). I’m also trying to catch up on some TV shows before the new season starts. I’m still reading — I’m always reading — but I’ve been reading more modern things, like a few novels and novellas by Connie Willis, and working my way through a collection of Agatha Christie etexts. The Christies are old enough to review here, but certainly not obscure enough, and after all, what is there to say about an Agatha Christie mystery after the first five or ten?

I have a few things I’m planing to post about in the near future. I’m working my way through a book by Sarah McNaughtan called Peter and Jane, which is alternately fascinating and mystifying (in a boring way), and I want to do a post about Jerome K. Jerome, but I’ve decided to finish Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow before I reread Three Men in a Boat. I also recently started a Mary Roberts Rinehart book called Dangerous Days, but I stopped reading it because I suspected that the only likeable character was about to be murdered. I do intend to finish it soon, though. And then, I haven’t read any Carolyn Wells books in a while, and I really do have to finish writing about the Patty books.

Meanwhile, I do read the comments people leave, though not as often as a I should, and as several people have found recently, I’m always happy to talk about Patty Fairfield, or anythign else I’ve written about here. I mean, I mostly started this blog in the hopes of finding someone to talk about A Woman Named Smith.

Patty’s Success

I had almost finished writing up Patty’s Success when I accidentally let my computer run out of batteries. Maybe now I’ll stop leaving textedit windows open with days worth of unsaved notes. I’m really upset with myself, because I’d been stopping to write down my thoughts as I read the book, and there’s lots of stuff I won’t remember. Also, it’s much less fun to write about something the second time round.

Patty’s Success was pretty good, considering it introduces Christine Farley and Philip Van Reypen, two characters whose advents I’d been dreading. Patty, Nan, and Mr. Fairfield reach New York about a week before Christmas, and are immediately plunged into a whirl of festivities. Patty has so many friends that not even the enormous amount of souvenirs she collected over the course of a year or so abroad will provide presents for them all.

Patty’s Pleasure Trip

So, Patty’s Pleasure Trip was enjoyable, but having at last found a Patty book that I have problems with, I’m going to concentrate on those.

Problem #1: The Fairfields have spent enough time abroad. It’s time to go home. The last book was supposed to end just before it was time for Patty to go back to America, but then Carolyn Wells changed her mind and sent to Fairfields to Italy. Now they’re finally heading back, but, this book having ended with the Fairfields deciding to sail for home on December 1st, I’m worried that the first half of the next book will be taken up with their trip, or, worse yet, that they’ll change their minds at the last moment and spend Christmas in, I don’t know, Germany or something.

Patty’s Friends

I have two theories about the excitingly and descriptively named Patty’s Friends.

1. In her excitement at discovering the existence of mystery novels, Carolyn Wells couldn’t help sticking mysteries in everything. I haven’t been able to put a date to the story about the first time she encountered a mystery novel (it was one of Anna Katherine Green’s, she was hooked from the first page, and she immediately began turning out mysteries of her own), but the first Fleming Stone book seems to have been published in 1909, while Patty’s Friends was published in 1908, so that seems seems to support the theory.

2. She was kidding.

Raspberry Jam and The Curved Blades.

So, I guess it’s pretty obvious that I’ve been on a Carolyn Wells kick lately. Having run out of Patty books for the moment, I’ve been reading a few of her mystery novels, like Raspberry Jam and The Curved Blades.

Patty in Paris, illustrations.

Frontispiece. A long blue veil tied her trim little hat in place.

Patty in Paris

As I reread the first few chapters of Patty in Paris, I contemplated just posting large chunks of it here, instead of describing it. And I’m not going to do that — at least, not exactly — but it’s even lighter on plot than the other books in the series, so I’m going to use it to illustrate a couple of things about the series in general. like Patty’s personality, and parties. It’s funny that I haven’t said that much about the parties before, because about a third of  each book is usually taken up by loving descriptions of them.