The Agony Column is the perfect combination of mystery and vintage romance. Earl Derr Biggers may have been the only person, besides M.M. The short story begins on July 23, 1914, as Geoffrey West, an American living in London and a devoted reader of the daily newspaper's personal column (known as the "Agony Column in England"), observes a young American woman and her father entering and taking a seat nearby who also reads the Agony Column. He fell in love with it right away. He is so enamored of her that he publishes an advertisement in the column expressing his interest in her. She replies with her name, Sadie Haight, and hotel address, assuring him that she would determine whether or not she is interested after receiving 7 letters from him within 7 days if he is interested. He continues the story in his excellently written daily letters, which she eagerly awaits. His letters provide fascinating tales of his persona, his involvement in the murder of the resident of the rooms above him, and the events that followed. The story revolves around a high-stakes romance between two strangers!
Earl Derr Biggers was an American novelist and playwright who lived from August 26, 1884, until April 5, 1933. His books, which featured the fictitious Chinese American investigator Charlie Chan, were converted into well-liked movies in both China and the United States. Earl Derr Biggers, the son of Robert J. and Emma E. (Derr) Biggers, was born in Warren, Ohio, and graduated from Harvard in 1907 while participating in The Lampoon. He temporarily worked as a journalist at The Plain Dealer in 1907 before moving on to the Boston Traveler and writing fiction until 1912. His plays and books were adapted into numerous motion pictures. George M. Cohan rapidly turned his first book, Seven Keys to Baldpate, into the same-named Broadway theatrical play once it became well-known in 1913. One of the play's seven film adaptations, the 1917 movie starred Cohan. A 1935 revival also featured Cohan. The novel was also made into two films, House of the Long Shadows and Haunted Honeymoon, with different titles, but they both substantially followed the same storylines. More than ten years after Baldpate, Biggers' Charlie Chan detective novel series achieved even greater fame. Charlie Chan was well-liked even in China, where Shanghai audiences favored Hollywood productions.
