Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
2006
Abstract
Mignon Eberhart occupies a singular place in the history of American crime fiction. She began writing in 1923, at the beginning of what would become known as the "golden age" of detective fiction. The age was golden both because of the quality of some of the writers who took up and reshaped the form and because publishers discovered that marketing detective stories could make them a lot of money. Eberhart became one of the best-known mystery writers of her times. H. R. F. Keating called her a "star writer" and Gertrude Stein described her as one of the "best mystifiers in America." And she made herself and Random House a lot of money. But whether she belongs among the greats of detective fiction is open to question.
Comments
Published in GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY 26:4 (Fall 2006). Copyright © 2006 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln.