The House of Mystery: An Episode in the Career of Rosalie Le Grange, Clairvoyant

Irwin, Will, 1873-1948Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.0
Word count
220K words
Chapters
23

Tags

English Originals Suspense ThrillerSocial ObservationJianghu FeudUrban RomanceLife PhilosophyComplex HumanityPsychological InsightCriminal PsychologyPopular NarrativeFemale Perspective

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971, and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today. The House of Mystery: An Episode in the Career of Rosalie Le Grange, Clairvoyant. Author: Will Irwin, 1873–1948. Language: English. Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature. Release Date: June 1, 2004.

Editor's review

This novella revolves around the professional career of the medium Rosalie Le Grange, centering on the "House of Mystery" as its core event; it is a work of fiction by the American author Will Irwin. Its readability comes from narrative pacing and an atmosphere of suspense: rather than relying on gore or horror, the author builds tension through an investigative progression and the protagonist's professional perspective, drawing readers alongside the medium into a space where truth and falsehood are hard to distinguish. As a public-domain ebook, it is moderate in length, suitable for reading in one sitting or over two or three sessions. Its highlight lies in combining the subject of mediumship with professional adventure, satisfying curiosity while also offering a view of how early American popular literature handled the tension between the supernatural and the rational. While reading, pay attention to the narrator's reserved attitude toward the medium's abilities; this is often the key to understanding the work's appeal.

Who it's for

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Reading tips

  1. Read through once to grasp the sequence of events, then revisit the medium's professional details and the narrator's attitude.
  2. Note which clues in the "House of Mystery" are explained and which are left open, and appreciate the author's use of ambiguity.
  3. Compare with contemporary American popular fiction to observe common conventions of supernatural themes.
  4. When reading in English, read the opening and closing of each chapter first, then fill in the middle details to reduce interference from unfamiliar words.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23

FAQ

Is this book a full-length novel or a novella? Judging by the length of the electronic edition, it is a novella-length narrative, suitable for reading in one sitting or over two or three sessions. The exact page count varies with formatting; readers can check their progress in their e-reader.
Is the story a horror novel? It is closer to a novel of mediumship with suspenseful elements; the atmosphere is tense, but it does not aim for horror or gore. The reading experience leans toward investigation and revelation rather than fright.
Do I need to know the author's background to read it? No. The story is relatively self-contained; knowing that the author, Will Irwin, was an American writer is enough. If you are interested in the background of early American popular literature, you can supplement with related materials after reading.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Irwin, Will, 1873-1948 Author

Will Irwin (Irwin, Will, 1873–1948), born William Henry Irwin, was an American journalist and writer. Public information about him is limited, and many details of his life remain unknown, yet the five works held in this collection show the breadth of his writing. The City That Was: A Requiem of Old San Francisco recalls in elegiac prose the old city before the 1906 earthquake, combining a reporter's eye for fact with a literary nostalgia; The Readjustment and The Picaroons turn to social and character-driven subjects in a lighter, popular narrative manner; The House of Mystery unfolds suspense through an episode in the career of the clairvoyant Rosalie Le Grange; and Stanford Stories: Tales of a Young University draws on campus life with humor and warmth. His plain, fluent style excels at evoking an era through concrete scenes and characters, and his works were aimed at general readers.