The Listening House

MABEL SEELEY

Publication: Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc, 1938, Garden City

First edition. Author's first crime novel. Near fine copy, red top edges are bright, in a bright dust jacket interior bright and clean in dust jacket with light professional restoration to the spine ends, corners, and extremities. A Haycraft/Queen Cornerstone mystery title. 20th Century Crime & Mystery Writers page 954 says, "Her first suspense novel, The Listening House, was set in a squalid rooming house, presumably in St. Paul. The ladylike - though divorced - narrator establishes herself in what are surely unsuitable surroundings and becomes part of a sordid story involving white slavery, gangsters, and a disgustingly gruesome cadaver fed upon by hungry household pets. The plot is complicated and there are numerous characters to keep track of. Despite the evil landlady, her sluttish niece, and their down-and-out clientele, the heroine finds herself a presentable suitor, and the couple may live happily ever after on their dubiously acquired if not absolutely ill-gotten gains. The tale is a strange mixture of romantic thriller, some hard-boiled features, and a naturalism a bit reminiscent of Zola ---- all of this in an American city in the 1930s. It is a tale that can be read with some interest today," Crime Club Mystery title. One of the most inexplicably scarce books of the Golden Age.

Inventory Number: 53208