Mary Roberts Rinehart (1876-1958)

Death: 22nd September 1958
Location: Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Arlington County, Virginia, United States Plot: Section 3, Lot 4269-B N
Cause of death:  Heart Attack
Photo taken by: David N. Lotz
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American writer who is often called the ‘American Agatha Christie’, although her first mystery novel was published 14 years before Christie's. Rinehart wrote hundreds of short stories, poems, travelogues and articles. Many of her books and plays were adapted for movies, such as The Bat (1926). 
While many of her books were best sellers, critics were most appreciative of her murder mysteries. Rinehart, in The Circular Staircase (1908), is credited with inventing the "Had-I-But-Known" school of mystery writing. The Had-I-But-Known mystery novel is one where the principal character (frequently female) does things in connection with a crime that have the effect of prolonging the action of the novel. 
The phrase "The butler did it", which has become a cliché, came from Rinehart's novel The Door, in which the butler actually did do it, although that exact phrase does not appear in the work. 
Rinehart suffered from breast cancer, which led to a radical mastectomy. She eventually went public with her story, at a time when such matters were not openly discussed. The interview "I Had Cancer" was published in a 1947 issue of the Ladies' Home Journal and in it Rinehart encouraged women to have breast examinations.

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