The Vanishing of Carolyn Wells by Rebecca Rego Barry – 16/20 of Books of Summer

When a former colleague, Deb Englander, mentioned this book early in 2024, the subtitle – Investigations Into A Forgotten Mystery Author – immediately caught my attention and I asked the Boston Public Library to order a copy.

I only knew Carolyn Wells (1862-1942) as the author of two children’s series, the Patty Fairfield books and the Marjorie books, which had never caught my attention. In fact, Wells mastered several genres: “children’s, young adult novels, mysteries, books of trivia, crosswords, anthologies – and movie treatments would follow” (p. xv). In this extremely engaging biography by Rebecca Rego Barry, Wells is revealed as an industrious and at times gifted writer, a keen business woman who advocated for herself and was motivated by the need to earn funds but determined to take her place among the writers of the day. Among her most interesting female literary peers were Frances Hodgson Burnett and Willa Cather (p. xi).

I enjoyed Barry’s chatty tone and parentheticals (although my recent professors took off points whenever I essayed something similar), and the fact that her interest in Wells began when her husband bought her a first edition of Walden once owned by Wells. Wells had been a librarian in Rahway, New Jersey, a respectable profession for women of her upper middle class, but by 1902, she had generated enough income from writing for children that she felt able to resign to write full time (p. xv). A modern reader might think Wells had arrived when Theodore Roosevelt shared, as Obama does, some of the books he had enjoyed during the first two years of his presidency and mentions Wells’ Nonsense Anthology and it did boost sales (p. 52).   I also appreciated what Roosevelt wrote in Wells' autograph album:

There is a homely proverb, “speak softly, and carry a big stick - you will go far,” which can be even better applied to international, than to private, affairs!

Theodore Roosevelt

The White House, February 10th, 1903

I guess it's true that proverb was Roosevelt's favorite!  Wells' album contains some amazing entries and became a family treasure.

The book is organized in chapters describing Wells’ development as a writer, as well as each of the different genres she took on and her experience as a book collector. As Barry is a collector herself, it is clear that Wells’ collecting spoke to her. Barry is also a zealous defender of Wells’ work and has some interesting theories about why Wells is not more highly regarded as a forerunner to the Golden Age of detective fiction (p. 138). I wonder if part of the reason is that Wells’ work was so wide-ranging: having worked in publishing for many years, I suspect that if Wells were writing today her publishers would ask her to use pseudonyms for some, if not all, her different genres. Barry mentions that Wells mostly missed out on paperback editions that might have solidified her legacy (p. 209).

It is not necessary to have read anything by Wells to enjoy this book. However, Murder in the Bookshop (1936) is considered one of Wells’ best mysteries and seems the easiest to locate, if you are interested.  I was tempted to buy a Patty Fairfield book I saw at the Big Chicken Bank Books & Antiques in Ellsworth, Maine yesterday but managed to leave empty handed (I didn't see anything I couldn't live without, she said regretfully).

If you have access to Hoopla through your library, you may be able to access The Vanishing of Carolyn Wells and several books by Wells quite easily.

Publication: Post Hill Press, hardcover, 2024
Genre: Biography/Literary Criticism
Setting: United States
Source: Library

This is book 16 of my 20 Books of Summer. Summer ends on Monday but I’m not done yet!

It is also book 22 for Carol’s Cloak and Dagger Challenge.

Enjoy the last weekend of summer!