Mary Roberts Rinehart: The Street of Seven Stars. A Book Review.

A fluffy yet captivating Gothic melodrama written in 1913, this “Novel of Romance and Intrige” also gives the reader an unusual perspective of Vienna just before WWI.

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Topics in this essay:

1. Vienna and the Austrian-Hungarian Empire before the outbreak of the Great War
2. Mary Roberts Rinehart: Adventurous Journalist as well asWriter of Romantic Fiction & Crime Novels
3. Gothic Romance or the horror of social reality?
4. Hitler in Vienna, the Workers’ Revolt & the Negerdörfl (“Nigger Village”)
5. Kaffeehaus Culture & Contemporary Magazines
6. La Condition Féminine: Mary Roberts Rinehart, Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie & Henry James
7. … and a riveting good story, too!

Just before the outbreak of the Great War, American violinist Harmony Wells — a typical Gothic romance heroine — who is studying music in Vienna, meets Peter Byrne, an American doctor studying in Vienna to become a surgeon. Each following their dream, both almost penniless, they find a way to survive by setting up a little commune, chaperoned by Dr Anna Gates, the middle-aged feisty spinster doctor who has given up on her dream of a husband and children. Social scandal ensues in the small Viennese…