Q&A with Rebecca Rego Barry

 

Photo by Charlotte Barry

 

Rebecca Rego Barry is the author of the book The Vanishing of Carolyn Wells: Investigations into a Forgotten Mystery Author. She also has written the book Rare Books Uncovered. She lives in New York's Hudson Valley.

 

Q: What inspired you to write this book about mystery novelist Carolyn Wells (1862-1942)?

 

A: I was really inspired by a question, “Who gets remembered?”

 

I first learned of Carolyn Wells in 2011 because I noticed her name on a bookplate in an old book my husband had given to me as a gift. It took years before I realized that she had been a famous mystery author in addition to being a book collector.

 

Then someone clued me into the fact that she had also been a famous poet and a beloved young adult novelist. I found it almost impossible to believe that a woman who wrote more than 180 books was not someone I had ever heard of — as a lifelong reader, a bibliophile, an English major, etc., I had never once heard her name.

 

Why not, I wondered? That question nagged at me, and once I learned that she had spent her final 25 years as an author and collector in a luxury apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, I also wondered where all her “stuff” had gone. It felt like a mystery I could unravel.  

 

Q: The Vanishing of Carolyn Wells combines Wells’s biography with your own search for her story--how did you decide on the book's structure?

 

A: The fact that there was so little biographical information available about Carolyn, and that there is no “archive” that holds a substantial amount of her letters and manuscripts, meant that piecing together her story required an unusual approach.

 

It lent itself to the notion of “detection,” which, because she was a mystery novelist, seemed apt.

 

I also realized pretty early on that reading 300 pages about someone you’ve never heard of might be more interesting with a subplot of sorts.

 

So I settled on the idea of taking my readers on the journey with me, visiting Rahway, New Jersey, where she was born and worked as a librarian in her early years; to New York City, where her literary career blossomed; to the Library of Congress, where she donated her collection of rare Walt Whitman editions; to the home of Carolyn’s great-niece, the owner of an amazing heirloom album of art and autographs supplied by Carolyn’s famous friends.

 

Overall, I hoped this structure would feel like I was taking the reader on a treasure hunt. One reviewer called it a “process biography,” and I quite liked that description.   

Q: Why is Carolyn so little known today?

 

A: There were many factors at work. As she was primarily publishing between 1896-1942, she certainly ran into her share of misogyny, including one magazine editor who told her straight out, “No women contributors.”

 

Relatedly, while she wrote in various genres, the two most prominent were young adult and mystery. At the time, those genres were still very much “less than” Literature, utterly forgettable. (It didn’t help that after she died, some of the mid-century mystery critics went out of their way to bash her as old-fashioned.)

 

But I believe the primary reason for her quick slide in obscurity was the lack of a literary estate or agent to manage her affairs after her death. There was no one advocating to keep her books in print, and without that, it is easy for an author to disappear.  

 

Q: The writer Laurie Gwen Shapiro said of the book, “With meticulous research and intriguing insights, Barry offers a gripping portrait of a literary luminary whose impact has been all but erased. A poignant reminder of the transient nature of fame and the enduring power of rediscovery, Wells’s enigmatic disappearance from literary history will captivate you.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: Well, of course I love that description! But seriously, I hope that Carolyn’s story does provoke questions about how and why other authors were likewise erased.

 

Was it because they came from a historically marginalized group? Or wrote in historically marginalized genres? Or made enemies of the top critics? Or had no torchbearers after their death? 

 

Famous one day and forgotten the next; even Stephen King has suggested this will happen to him one day. That’s unlikely! 

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I’ve been working with books in some capacity since college. First in book publishing, then, after earning a graduate degree, in academic libraries working with rare books and archives. I moved from that into writing about those topics as a journalist, culminating in hundreds of articles and two books … so far!

 

For the past couple of years, I’ve been working at The Raab Collection, a private dealer of historical documents and manuscripts.

 

Even more recently, I’ve partnered up with a few folks to revive a small press called Purple Mountain Press here in the Catskills. So the written word is everywhere in my life. I do hope to write another book, perhaps another biography, as I really enjoyed the research process.    

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: Well, the big exciting news for me right now is that I’ll be giving a talk about Carolyn at the Library of Congress on March 13. The program will be called: “Women Collectors and Authors: The Vanishing of Carolyn Wells.” 

 

There will be a display of Carolyn’s books—both the rare ones she owned and the ones she wrote—bookending a short lecture, a Q&A with me and rare books reference librarian Amanda Zimmerman, and a book signing.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb