Mary Roberts Rinehart was born Aug. 12, 1876, in a little house in Arch St., in the City of Allegheny. While attending Allegheny High School, Rinehart received $1 each for three short stories from a Pittsburgh newspaper. After receiving inspiration from a town doctor who happened to be a woman, Rinehart developed a curiosity for medicine. She went on to study nursing at a medical school in Pittsburgh. Upon completing her schooling, She began her writing career. The first of her many mystery stories, The Circular Staircase (1908), established her as a leading writer of the genre; Rinehart and Avery Hopwood successfully dramatized the novel as The Bat (1920). Her other mystery novels include… The Man in Lower Ten (1909), The Case of Jennie Brice (1914), The Red Lamp (1925), The Door (1930), The Yellow Room (1945), and The Swimming Pool (1952). Stories about Tish, a self-reliant spinster, first appeared in the Saturday Evening Post and were collected into The Best of Tish (1955). Rinhart has written more than 50 books, eight plays, hundreds of short stories, poems, travelogues and special articles. Three of her plays were running on Broadway at one time. Mary Roberts Rinehart died September 22, 1958.