Melora

New York: Random House, 1959. AP2 - A first edition (First printing stated) hardcover book in very good condition in very good dust jacket that is mylar protected. Dust jacket has some wrinkling, chipping, crease and few tiny tears on the edges and corners, wrinkled on some corners, some scattered light foxing and stains, light tanning and shelf wear. Book lightly cocked, some bumped corners, chipping and tiny tear on the spine and gutter edges, crack/tear on the back top left corner, light tanning and shelf wear. A novel of mystery and suspense by the author of POSTMARK MURDER. Although not marked in any way, this copy comes from the personal collection of Otto Penzler, legendary editor and founder of the Mysterious Press, an award-winning icon in the genre. 8.25"x5.5", 247 pages. Satisfaction Guaranteed. Mignon Good Eberhart was an American author of mystery novels. She had one of the longest careers (from the 1920s to the 1980s) among major American mystery writers. By the end of the 1930s, Eberhart had become the leading female crime novelist in the United States and was one of the highest-paid female crime novelists in the world, next to Agatha Christie. She was one of the first of many writers called, by their publishers, "America's Agatha Christie," few of which had as little in common with 'Dame Agatha in matters of plotting, characterization, or even type of story.' She wrote a total of 59 novels, the last published in 1988, shortly before her 89th birthday. Eight of her novels were adapted as movies, beginning in 1935 with While the Patient Slept. The last adaptation, based on the book Hasty Wedding, was the movie Three's a Crowd, released in 1945. She also collaborated with Robert Wallsten to adapt her novel Fair Warning into the play, Eight O'Clock Tuesday, which played first at the Cleveland Playhouse in Ohio in 1939-40, and then on Broadway in 1941, starring Celeste Holm. Sarah Keate, though popular as the protagonist of Eberhart's first five novels, proved to be the author's only series sleuth, making only a couple of appearances after the early 1930s. Instead, Eberhart wrote mostly "standalone" mysteries, something fairly unusual for a crime writer with such a large output. Eberhart was one of the more prolific of the practitioners of the classic romantic suspense novel that had begun with some of the earliest work of Anna Katharine Green and was brought to its height by Mary Roberts Rinehart in the early 20th century. There had been many female sleuths featured in short stories previously, and Rinehart had introduced her own nurse-detective, Hilda Adams, aka "Miss Pinkerton," in the second decade of the 20th century. But in 1929, when Eberhart introduced Sarah Keate, it was still relatively rare to have a female lead in novel-length "straight detective stories". The year after Eberhart's first novel was published, Agatha Christie wrote the first novel featuring her female detective, Jane Marple, who had previously appeared in short stories collected as "The Tuesday Club Murders". Eberhart's works often featured female protagonists, and tended to include exotic locations, wealthy characters, and suspense and romance. Her characterization has been praised, her characters described as always having "genuine and believable motives for everything they do." Her "writing is spare but almost lyrical." In 1971, she was awarded the Mystery Writers of America's Grand Master Award. Eberhart also served as president of the Mystery Writers of America. In 1994, she received the Agatha Award: Malice Domestic Award for Lifetime Achievement. . First Edition. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall.