Project Gutenberg 2009-08-15 Public domain in the USA. 230 French, Joseph Lewis 1858 1936 Masterpieces of Mystery in Four Volumes: Riddle Stories The Mysterious Card / Cleveland Moffett The Great Valdez Sapphire / Anonymous The Oblong Box / Edgar Allan Poe The Birth Mark / Nathaniel Hawthorne A Terribly Strange Bed / Wilkie Collins The Torture by Hope / Villiers de l'Isle Adam The Box with the Iron Clamps / Florence Marryat My Fascinating Friend / William Archer The Lost Room / Fitz-James O'Brien. Produced by David Clarke, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) "Masterpieces of Mystery in Four Volumes: Riddle Stories" by Joseph Lewis French is a collection of mystery short stories edited in the early 20th century. This compilation aims to showcase the art of the riddle story, a subgenre intertwining elements of mystery and human psychology, while allowing readers to engage their intellect. The stories included represent a broad palette of authors and styles, hinting at a rich exploration of the people and situations that create mysterious conundrums. The opening portion introduces the first story, "The Mysterious Card" by Cleveland Moffett, which follows Richard Burwell, an American in Paris who receives a mysterious card from an enigmatic woman. His attempt to understand the card's cryptic message leads him into a whirlwind of strange occurrences, including evictions from hotels and a mysterious detention by police. The narrative quickly escalates as Burwell's quest for the card's meaning impacts his personal and social life, leading to suspicion and dire consequences that unravel his former stability. As the tension of the story unfolds, the reader is drawn into a spell of intrigue revolving around miscommunication, societal norms, and the search for hidden truths. (This is an automatically generated summary.) Reading ease score: 78.3 (7th grade). Fairly easy to read. en Short stories Detective and mystery stories Ghost stories PN Text Category: Short Stories Category: Crime, Thrillers and Mystery 394857 2025-08-12T08:53:55.081899 text/html 395172 2021-01-05T10:44:55 text/html 249772 2025-08-12T08:54:03.455866 application/epub+zip 254386 2025-08-12T08:53:58.768833 application/epub+zip 219741 2025-08-12T08:53:57.467896 application/epub+zip 529974 2025-08-12T08:54:06.966824 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 510675 2025-08-12T08:54:02.509861 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 409428 2022-09-13T16:43:39.469684 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 378812 2025-08-12T08:53:54.514940 text/plain; charset=us-ascii 378546 2021-01-05T10:44:55 text/plain; charset=us-ascii 378540 2021-01-05T10:44:55 text/plain; charset=us-ascii 21165 2025-08-12T08:54:07.095798 application/rdf+xml 23468 2025-08-12T08:53:57.958835 image/jpeg 4848 2025-08-12T08:53:57.710870 image/jpeg 149053 2021-01-05T10:44:55 application/octet-stream application/zip 152817 2021-01-05T10:44:55 application/octet-stream application/zip 148961 2021-01-05T10:44:55 application/octet-stream application/zip 246796 2025-08-12T08:53:55.113860 application/octet-stream application/zip Archives containing the RDF files for *all* our books can be downloaded at https://book.klll.cc/wiki/Gutenberg:Feeds#The_Complete_Project_Gutenberg_Catalog en.wikipedia