Carolyn Wells

Carolyn Wells.
Wells's mystery Vicky Van was serialized in The Argosy in 1917-18

Carolyn Wells (June 18, 1862 March 26, 1942) was an American writer and poet.

Life and career

Born in Rahway, New Jersey,[1] she was the daughter of William E. and Anna Wells.[2] She died at the Flower-Fifth Avenue Hospital in New York City in 1942.[3]


Wells had been married to Hadwin Houghton, the heir of the Houghton-Mifflin publishing empire founded by Bernard Houghton. Wells also had an impressive collection of volumes of poetry by others. She bequeathed her collection of Walt Whitman poetry, said to be one of the most important of its kind for its completeness and rarity, to the Library of Congress.[4][5]

After finishing school she worked as a librarian for the Rahway Library Association. Her first book, At the Sign of the Sphinx (1896), was a collection of charades. Her next publications were The Jingle Book and The Story of Betty (1899), followed by a book of verse entitled Idle Idyls (1900). After 1900, Wells wrote numerous novels and collections of poetry.

Carolyn Wells wrote a total of more than 170 books. During the first ten years of her career, she concentrated on poetry, humor and children's books. According to her autobiography, The Rest of My Life (1937), she heard That Affair Next Door (1897), one of Anna Katharine Green's mystery novels, being read aloud and was immediately captivated by the unraveling of the puzzle. From that point onward she devoted herself to the mystery genre. Among the most famous of her mystery novels were the Fleming Stone Detective Stories whichaccording to Allen J. Hubin's Crime Fiction IV: A Comprehensive Bibliography, 17492000 (2003)number 61 titles. Wells's The Clue (1909) is on the Haycraft-Queen Cornerstone list of essential mysteries. She was also the first to conduct a (brief, in this case) annual series devoted to the best short crime fiction of the previous year in the U.S., beginning with The Best American Mystery Stories of the Year (1931) (though others had begun a similar British series in 1929).

In addition to books, Wells also wrote for newspapers.[6] Her poetry accompanies the work of some of the leading lights in illustration and cartooning, often in the form of Sunday magazine cover features that formed continuing narratives from week to week. Her first known illustrated newspaper work is a two part series titled Animal Alphabet, illustrated by William F. Marriner, which appeared in the Sunday comics section of the New York World.[7] Many additional series ensued over the years, including the bizarre classic Adventures of Lovely Lilly (New York Herald, 1906–07).[8] The last series she penned was Flossy Frills Helps Out (American Weekly, 1942),[9] which appeared after her death.

Today, however, she is best known for her light verse, particularly for several classic limericks, including this one:

A canner exceedingly canny
One morning remarked to his granny:
   “A canner can can
   Any thing that he can
But a canner can’t can a can, can he?”

Works

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Adult fiction

Fleming Stone mysteries
  • The Clue (1909)
  • The Gold Bag (1911)
  • A Chain of Evidence (1912)
  • The Maxwell Mystery (1913)
  • Anybody But Anne (1914)
  • The White Alley (1915)
  • The Curved Blades (1915)
  • The Mark of Cain (1917)
  • Vicky Van (1918)
  • The Diamond Pin (1919)
  • Raspberry Jam (1920)
  • The Mystery of the Sycamore (1921)
  • The Mystery Girl (1922)
  • Feathers Left Around (1923)
  • Spooky Hollow (1923)
  • The Furthest Fury (1924)
  • Prillilgirl (1924)
  • Anything But the Truth (1925)
  • The Daughter of the House (1925)
  • The Bronze Hand (1926)
  • The Red-Haired Girl (1926)
  • All at Sea (1927)
  • Where's Emily (1927)
  • The Crime in the Crypt (1928)
  • The Tannahill Tangle (1928)
  • The Tapestry Room Murder (1928)
  • Triple Murder (1929)
  • The Doomed Five (1930)
  • The Ghosts' High Noon (1930)
  • Horror House (1931)
  • The Umbrella Murder (1931)
  • Fuller's Earth (1932)
  • The Roll-Top Desk Mystery (1932)
  • The Broken O (1933)
  • The Clue of the Eyelash (1933)
  • The Master Murderer (1933)
  • Eyes in the Wall (1934)
  • The Visiting Villain (1934)
  • The Beautiful Derelict (1935)
  • For Goodness' Sake (1935)
  • The Wooden Indian (1935)
  • The Huddle (1936)
  • In the Tiger's Cage (1936)
  • Money Musk (1936)
  • Murder in the Bookshop (1936)
  • The Mystery of the Tarn (1937)
  • The Radio Studio Murder (1937)
  • Gilt Edged Guilt (1938)
  • The Killer (1938)
  • The Missing Link (1938)
  • Calling All Suspects (1939)
  • Crime Tears On (1939)
  • The Importance of Being Murdered (1939)
  • Crime Incarnate (1940)
  • Devil's Work (1940)
  • Murder On Parade (1940)
  • Murder Plus (1940)
  • The Black Night Murders (1941)
  • Murder at the Casino (1941)
  • Murder Will In (1942)
  • Who Killed Caldwell? (1942)
Alan Ford
  • The Bride of a Moment (1916)
  • Faulkner's Folly (1917)
Pennington Wise
  • The Room with the Tassels (1918)
  • The Man Who Fell Through the Earth (1919)
  • In the Onyx Lobby (1920)
  • The Come-Back (1921)
  • The Luminous Face (1921)
  • The Vanishing of Betty Varian (1922)
  • The Affair at Flower Acres (1923)
  • Wheels Within Wheels (1923)
Kenneth Carlisle
  • Sleeping Dogs (1929)
  • The Doorstep Murders (1930)
  • The Skeleton at the Feast (1931)
Other mysteries
  • The Fourteenth Key (1924)
  • The Moss Mystery (1924)
  • The Deep-Lake Mystery (1928)
Other novels
  • Abeniki Caldwell: A Burlesque Historical Novel (1902)
  • The Emily Emmins Papers (1907)
  • Ptomaine Street: A Tale of Warble Petticoat (1921)
Story collections

Children's fiction

Patty Fairfield[10]
  1. Patty Fairfield (1901)
  2. Patty at Home (1904)
  3. Patty in the City (1905)
  4. Patty's Summer Days (1906)
  5. Patty in Paris (1907)
  6. Patty's Friends (1908)
  7. Patty's Pleasure Trip (1909)
  8. Patty's Success (1910)
  9. Patty's Motor Car (1911)
  10. Patty's Butterfly Days (1912)
  11. Patty's Social Season (1913)
  12. Patty's Suitors (1914)
  13. Patty's Romance (1915)
  14. Patty's Fortune (1916)
  15. Patty Blossom (1917)
  16. Patty-Bride (1918)
  17. Patty and Azalea (1919)
Marjorie Maynard
  1. Marjorie's Vacation (1907)
  2. Marjorie's Busy Days (1908)
  3. Marjorie's New Friend (1909)
  4. Marjorie in Command (1910)
  5. Marjorie's Maytime (1911)
  6. Marjorie at Seacote (1912)
Dorrance Family
  1. The Dorrance Domain (1905)
  2. Dorrance Doings (1906)
Two Little Women
  1. Two Little Women (1915)
  2. Two Little Women and Treasure House (1916)
  3. Two Little Women on a Holiday (1917)
Other novels
  • Folly in Fairyland (1901)
  • In the Reign of Queen Dick (1904)
  • Dick and Dolly (1909)
  • Dick and Dolly's Adventures (1910)
  • The Story of Betty (1911)
Collections

Nonfiction prose

  • On Finishing Collector (1926)
  • The Technique of the Mystery Story (1913)

Verse

  • At the Sign of the Sphinx (1906)
  • The Re-Echo club (1913)
  • Diversions of the Re-Echo Club (1936)
  • Ballade of Baker Street (1939)
  • A Whimsey Anthology (New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1906)

Plays

    Anthologies (as editor)

    • A Nonsense Anthology (1910)
    • A Parody Anthology (1904)
    • Such Nonsense, An Anthology (1918)
    • The Best American Mystery Stories of the Year (1931, 1932)

    References

    1. "CAROLYN WELLS, NOVELIST, DEAD; Noted for Mystery Stories and Nonsense Verse, Also for Children's Works BEGAN WRITING IN RAHWAY Wrote 170 Books by 1937 and 70 Were Mysteries — Widow of Publisher's Son", The New York Times, March 27, 1942.
    2. John William Leonard, Albert Nelson Marquis (1903). Who's who in America. Marquis.
    3. "Carolyn Wells, Witty Mystery Expert, Dies". Associated Press. The Washington Post, March 28, 1942. Bibliographical data at PSQarchiver.com ("buy complete document").
    4. New York Times, Apr. 16, 1942.
    5. The Walt Whitman Collection.
    6. "Pebbles". The Independent. Jul 6, 1914. Retrieved August 1, 2012.
    7. Stripper's Guide Obscurity of the Day: Animal Alphabet, December 29, 2010.
    8. Stripper's Guide Obscurity of the Day: Adventures of Lovely Lilly, August 28, 2009.
    9. Stripper's Guide Obscurity of the Day: Flossy Frills, February 9, 2006.
    10. —, Melody. "The Patty Fairfield series". Redeeming Qualities. Retrieved 27 January 2014.

    External links

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    Carolyn Wells
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