Story summary
Trama e riassunto di La tredicesima sedia
- 8 min di lettura
- 8 parts
- Audio a breve
A medium in a locked room calls up a dead man's voice, and a guest is stabbed in the dark circle.
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La tredicesima sedia in breve
Riassunto: 8 min di lettura
- Tempo di lettura
- Circa 1 h 50 min1 h 25 min fast, 2 h 10 min slow
- Durata
- 25.800 parole
- Livello nella biblioteca
- Medio longer sentences, everyday words
- Prima pubblicazione
- 1917by Bayard Veiller
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). Quanto tempo ci vuole per leggere i classici · Aggiornato
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La tredicesima sedia in short
The Thirteenth Chair is a mystery built on a simple setup. A party in a rich New York house becomes a séance, and the séance becomes a killing in a locked room. Edward Wales wants to learn who stabbed his friend, and the medium Rosalie la Grange agrees to help.
What La tredicesima sedia is about
What if a séance made to catch a killer ended with a second victim? That is the situation in The Thirteenth Chair, a three act mystery play by Bayard Veiller, set in one evening in one room of a rich family's New York house.
Billy Crosby has just become engaged to Helen O'Neill, his mother's secretary. Only the family friend Edward Wales refuses to congratulate them. He has brought a French medium, Madame Rosalie la Grange, to learn who stabbed his best friend, Spencer Lee. Thirteen people sit in a dark circle. The doors are locked and the medium is tied to her chair. Then comes a scream. You get a puzzle with every piece on view.
A chi è rivolto. You will love this play if you enjoy locked room puzzles, quick dialogue, clever detectives, and guests who each have something to hide. It suits anyone curious about séances and how a good mystery is built.
The story in 8 parts
Key idea 1 · free to read
A happy engagement and a friend's warning
The play opens with a kiss. Billy Crosby and Helen O'Neill stand in the Italian Room of his parents' New York home, newly engaged and very much in love. Billy's mother, Alicia Crosby, walks in and teases them. She and her husband Roscoe have watched the romance all evening.
Only Helen is uneasy. She works as Mrs. Crosby's private secretary, and she fears she is marrying above her place. Mrs. Crosby waves this away. She was once a schoolteacher who married a clerk, and money has never been the point. Helen also hides a secret worry about her mother, whom she fears the Crosbys will find common.
Then Edward Wales walks in, a close friend of Roscoe for many years. He hears the news and goes silent. He will not congratulate the couple. He says he has good reasons, that he cannot explain until tomorrow, and that twenty four hours may spare everyone a great deal of unhappiness. Billy is furious and Helen is hurt.
The opening makes you care about a warm family, and it plants a question the play will not forget. Why would a loyal friend spoil a happy night?
A good mystery starts with a small unanswered question at a happy table.
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A medium who shows you her tricks first
The guests arrive, among them the painter Philip Mason, the lawyer Howard Standish, and the sharp tongued Mary Eastwood.
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Thirteen chairs, a locked room, and a dark circle
Wales explains why Rosalie is here.
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Inspector Donohue turns the room into a trap
Inspector Donohue arrives in plain clothes, quiet, polite, and watchful.
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Ten minutes to find a murderer
By the third act, half an hour has passed.
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Faith and fakery stand side by side
The central puzzle of the play is not only who held the knife but whether any of this is real.
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A mother's love and the walls of class
Under the mystery runs a second story about parents and children.
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One room, one evening, and a stage full of clues
Veiller keeps the whole play in one place.
Read all 8 key ideas now
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Characters, plot and themes
Main characters
- Madame Rosalie la Grange A French accented medium who admits to tricks but may hold a real gift, and who will do anything to protect her daughter.
- Helen O'Neill Mrs. Crosby's secretary, newly engaged to Billy, who hides her mother's trade and keeps a promise that makes her look guilty.
- Inspector Donohue A quiet, polite police inspector who wants to solve the murder of Spencer Lee and shuts the room to find the killer.
- Edward Wales A loyal friend of the Crosbys who brings the medium to the house, seeking the person who killed his best friend.
- Roscoe Crosby The wealthy, warm hearted head of the household, who locks the doors for the séance and tries to protect his family.
- William Crosby Billy, the Crosbys' son, who has just proposed to Helen and defends her fiercely against the police.
- Philip Mason A painter who has lived in Paris, a family friend who is quickly convinced that the medium has real power.
- Mary Eastwood A sharp tongued guest who mocks the medium and loves a theory of her own about how the crime was done.
How it ends (spoiler)
Rosalie calls everyone back for a final invocation, during which the window blind rises and light reveals the knife in the ceiling. She calls on the spirit of Wales, and Philip Mason breaks down in terror as the knife falls. He confesses that he killed both Spencer Lee and Wales. Donohue arrests him, Helen O'Neill is freed, and Rosalie repeats her first happy fortune to her daughter.
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Domande su La tredicesima sedia
What is The Thirteenth Chair about?
It is a mystery play in three acts. At a New York dinner party, a medium holds a séance to find the killer of a man named Spencer Lee, and a guest is stabbed in the dark.
Who is Madame la Grange in The Thirteenth Chair?
Madame Rosalie la Grange is a French accented medium. She tells the guests that most of her work is trickery but that she has felt a real power at times, and her spirit guide is Laughing Eyes.
Why is it called The Thirteenth Chair?
The séance circle has thirteen chairs, and one guest warns Edward Wales that the thirteenth seat is unlucky. The number gives the play its title and a mood of foreboding.
Is The Thirteenth Chair based on a true story?
No, it is a work of fiction by the American playwright Bayard Veiller, written for the stage in the early twentieth century. It draws on the spiritualist fashion of its day.
Is The Thirteenth Chair easy to read?
Yes, in the sense that it is a play, so the story moves through quick dialogue. Short scenes, one room, and clear stage directions make the clues easy to follow.
Cita questa edizione
Veiller, Bayard. The Thirteenth Chair. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-thirteenth-chair.
Veiller, B. (2026). The thirteenth chair. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-thirteenth-chair (Original work published 1917)
Veiller, Bayard. The Thirteenth Chair. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-thirteenth-chair.
@book{veiller2026thirteenth,
author = {Veiller, Bayard},
title = {The Thirteenth Chair},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-thirteenth-chair},
note = {First published 1917}
}
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