Mary Roberts Rinehart (1876-1958) was an American novelist, short-story writer, playwright, journalist, and war correspondent whose enormous popularity made her one of the best-known American writers of the early twentieth century. Trained as a nurse in Pittsburgh, she began writing professionally after financial losses threatened her family's security. Her breakthrough novel, The Circular Staircase, helped establish the suspenseful domestic mystery for which she became famous. Rinehart also wrote extensively outside the mystery field, producing novels, plays, humorous fiction, travel writing, and short stories. During World War I she traveled to Europe as a correspondent and was among the first American women journalists to report from the front. Her other notable works include The Man in Lower Ten, The After House, K., Tish, The Amazing Interlude, and The Breaking Point.