Mary Hastings Bradley (1882-1976) published a large number of travel books, short fiction and novels, including mysteries and her historical Old Chicago series. Widely traveled, she often lectured on the topic and was inducted into the Society of Women Geographers, an organization that boasted the likes of members Amelia Earhart, Margaret Mead, and Eleanor Roosevelt.
In her younger days, Bradley journeyed to Egypt with a cousin, a trip that inspired The Palace of Darkened Windows (1914) and The Fortieth Door (1920), two books that focused on the veiled, secluded women of Egypt. Both of these stories were later made into films, with The Fortieth Door adapted as a silent film in 1924 starring Allene Ray, Bruce Gordon, David Dunbar.
The plot of The Fortieth Door centers on an anti-social American archaeologist working in Egypt named Jack Ryder, who is reluctantly talked into going to a masquerade ball. He dances with a mysterious veiled woman who he understandably believes to be in costume. The sparks fly between them, but when Jack walks the woman home, he learns she's the daughter of a prosperous Muslim merchant and can't date Westerners.
But he can't get her out of his mind and does a little digging of a more personal sort. He discovers that the woman is named Aimée and is actually the daughter of a Frenchman who vanished fifteen years ago. When Jack also discovers Aimée is headed for a forced marriage her "stepfather" has arranged, he hatches a plan to rescue her that could well put both of their lives in jeopardy.
This is a slight, entertaining action/suspense novel, that includes racism common to its era, with all of the good guys being white, and all the bad guys Egyptian. But the exotic setting, which is drawn fairly nicely, and the earnest characters (if a little too much like Dudley Do Right vs. the mustache-twirling Snidely Whiplash) make for a quick read.
Among Science Fiction fans, Mary Hastings Bradley is better known as the mother of Alice Bradley Sheldon, better known as "James Tiptree, Jr.", won of the very best and strangest SF writers of all time. Tiptree's work was much informed by her travels, which began as a child when her mother took her on some quite interesting trips.
The Fortieth Door looks like the sort of light suspense novel of that time that I might enjoy.
Posted by: Rich Horton | August 17, 2018 at 06:48 PM
Thanks for pointing that out, Rich! I'll alert the hubster, who is a big sci-fi fan. (I enjoy it, too, but with only limited time ....)
Posted by: BV Lawson | August 17, 2018 at 07:08 PM
In a sense and in part in reaction to her mother and her approach to life, Alice Sheldon had a very critical eye on life, as well as being rather depressive...her fiction tends to be Very caustic, though some is humorously so. Sometimes very darkly humorously so. Imagine an even angrier Karen Blixen.
Posted by: Todd Mason | August 18, 2018 at 05:12 AM
Now I definitely have to seek out Sheldon's sci-fi works. Thanks, Todd, for the added insights - I tend to prefer humor (even darkish) in my sci-fi.
Posted by: BV Lawson | August 18, 2018 at 08:38 AM
Definitely pick up one of her collections ahead of either of her novels, as her best shorter sf is often brilliant, her novels impressive but flawed.
There was also a biography published in a fairly high-profile fashion, that is also impressive beyond that fact. As her parents' daughter, someone who worked in the CIA from back in the OSS days, and who probably prematurely euthanized her ailing husband and then killed herself, she is, to say the least, an interesting character in her own right.
Posted by: Todd Mason | August 19, 2018 at 12:04 AM