. . . . . .
“The total result ... after twelve years is that I have learned to sit down at my desk and begin work simultaneously,” wrote Mrs. Rinehart in 1917. “One thing died, however, in those years of readjustment and struggle. That was my belief in what is called ‘inspiration.’ I think I had it now and then in those days, moments when I felt things I had hardly words for, a breath of something much bigger than I was, a little lift in the veil.
“Other things bothered me in those first early days. I seemed to have so many things to write about, and writing was so difficult. Ideas came, but no words to clothe them. Now, when writing is easy, when the technique of my work bothers me no more than the pen I write with, I have less to say.
“I have words, but fewer ideas to clothe in them. And, coming more and more often is the feeling that, before I have commenced to do real work, I am written out; that I have for years wasted my substance in riotous writing, and that now, when my chance is here, when I have lived and adventured, when, if ever, I am to record honestly my little page of these great times in which I live, now I shall fail.”
If her readers shared this feeling they must have murmured to themselves as they turned the absorbing pages of The Amazing Interlude: “How absurd!” It is doubtful if they recalled her spoken misgiving at all.
Books By Mary Roberts Rinehart
The Circular Staircase, 1908.
The Man in Lower Ten, 1909.
When a Man Marries, 1909.
The Window at the White Cat, 1910.
The Amazing Adventures of Letitia Carberry, 1911.
Where There’s a Will, 1912.
The Case of Jenny Brice, 1913.
The After House, 1914.
The Street of Seven Stars, 1914.
K., 1915.
Through Glacier Park.
Tish, 1916.
The Altar of Freedom, 1917.
Long Live the King! 1917.
Tenting To-Night, 1918.
Bab, a Sub-Deb.
Kings, Queens and Pawns, 1915.
The Amazing Interlude, 1918.
Twenty-Three and a Half Hours’ Leave, 1919.
Dangerous Days, 1919.
Love Stories, 1919.
Affinities and Other Stories, 1920.
“Isn’t That Just Like a Man?” 1920.
The Truce of God, 1920.
A Poor Wise Man, 1920.
More Tish, 1921.
Sight Unseen and The Confession, 1921.
The Breaking Point, 1922.
Published by George H. Doran Company, New York, except the following, which are published by Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston: The After House, The Street of Seven Stars, K., Through Glacier Park, Tish, The Altar of Freedom, Long Live the King! and Tenting To-Night.