THE FOUR-POOLS MYSTERY By Jean Webster (18761916)
First published in 1908. This book is in the public domain in countries where copyright is Life+99 or less, and in the USA.
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Jean Webster (pseudonym for Alice Jane Chandler Webster) was an American author and playwright. Her best-known books feature lively and likeable young female protagonists who come of age intellectually, morally, and socially; with enough humor, snappy dialogue, and gently biting social commentary to make her books enjoyable to modern readers.
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On orders from his doctor to take a rest for the sake of his nerves, New York lawyer Arnold Crosby decides to visit quiet, bucolic Four-Pools Plantation, his uncles estate in Virginia. Before much time has passed, situations arise involving ghosts, robbery, and finally, the murder of his uncle! With circumstances becoming bleaker and bleaker, he calls upon his friend Terry Patten, star reporter for a large New York newspaper, to help sleuth out the truth and prove the innocence of his cousin Radnor.
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Warning: racially derogatory language and situations.
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An unusual book to come from the pen of Jean Webster. Also unusual is the strangely mixed vocabulary --- a number of Britishisms are scattered about, and I never yet met a New Yorker or a Virginian who call a man a "chap" or refer to a fight as a "row". Perhaps the publisher was trying to make it palatable for readers in the UK.
Give it a try, and see what you think.
.
.
First published in 1908. This book is in the public domain in countries where copyright is Life+99 or less, and in the USA.
-----------
Jean Webster (pseudonym for Alice Jane Chandler Webster) was an American author and playwright. Her best-known books feature lively and likeable young female protagonists who come of age intellectually, morally, and socially; with enough humor, snappy dialogue, and gently biting social commentary to make her books enjoyable to modern readers.
* * *
On orders from his doctor to take a rest for the sake of his nerves, New York lawyer Arnold Crosby decides to visit quiet, bucolic Four-Pools Plantation, his uncles estate in Virginia. Before much time has passed, situations arise involving ghosts, robbery, and finally, the murder of his uncle! With circumstances becoming bleaker and bleaker, he calls upon his friend Terry Patten, star reporter for a large New York newspaper, to help sleuth out the truth and prove the innocence of his cousin Radnor.
* * *
Warning: racially derogatory language and situations.
--------------
An unusual book to come from the pen of Jean Webster. Also unusual is the strangely mixed vocabulary --- a number of Britishisms are scattered about, and I never yet met a New Yorker or a Virginian who call a man a "chap" or refer to a fight as a "row". Perhaps the publisher was trying to make it palatable for readers in the UK.
Give it a try, and see what you think.
.
.