Read in 2013 - 38: The Mysterious Key

The full title of this novelette by Louisa May Alcott is "The Mysterious Key and What it Opened". It was published in 1867 and sold as a "dime novel". Dime novels were popular fiction in the 1860s, aimed at and made affordable to young working-class people. They were offered at newsstands and in dry-goods stores. The Library of Congress lists "The Mysterious Key" among the "books that shaped America" - you can read more about that here.

Of course, most of you will be familiar with Louisa May Alcott through her well-known "Little Women", but she wrote loads more. 
This novelette tells the story of the Trevlyn family and their dark secret that, when it comes to light, threatens their very existence.

There is romance, love, drama and (obviously) mystery in it, and it is both fast-paced and indulgent at the same time. Some of it (the romance bit) is rather obvious, but at some other aspects of the story I couldn't have guessed had not the author revealed it all at the end.

The language is typical for that time, with long sentences but words easy enough to understand (this was, after all, aimed at an audience with not that much formal education). To give you an example, let me quote one paragraph:

As she spoke to herself she rose, glided noiselessly through the hall, entered a small closet built in the thickness of the wall, and, bending to the keyhole of a narrow door, listened with a half-smile on her lips at the trespass she was committing. A murmur of voices met her ear. Her husband spoke oftenest, and suddenly some word of his dashed the smile from her face as if with a blow. She started, shrank, and shivered, bending lower with set teeth, white cheeks, and panic-stricken heart. Paler and paler grew her lips, wilder and wilder her eyes, fainter and fainter her breath, till, with a long sigh, a vain effort to save herself, she sank prone upon the threshold of the door, as if struck down by death. 

Mine was the free kindle edition and did not look like the original cover pictured here. It was a short read, one that I enjoyed on the train to and from work and one that did not engage my mind while I was not reading it. Recommended for a spot of light old-fashioned entertainment.

More about Louisa May Alcott can be found here. 

Only two more posts and it will be post # 500 on this blog! I'm afraid it will nothing more exciting than just another book review, but I hope you'll bear with me nonetheless.