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Audiobook edition · 3 h 3 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
The lights go out for a séance, and a room full of dinner guests becomes a circle of suspects.
In Bayard Veiller’s three-act mystery play The Thirteenth Chair, a dinner party brings friends, relatives and private worries into one room. Rosalie La Grange arrives to lead a séance. The guests gather in darkness, expecting voices and signs from beyond. Instead, a crime turns their evening into a puzzle in which the room, the table and an empty seat all matter.
Inspector Donohue trusts evidence, not spirits. As he questions the guests, fear gives way to inquiry, and every private worry invites closer attention. Among those caught in the evening’s events is Helen O’Neill, a young woman whose future depends on the case. Beneath the mystery runs another question: how much does belief depend on our wish to be convinced?
What you’ll discover
- A séance in darkness Enter the play’s central scene, where an eerie ritual becomes the setting for a crime.
- A medium under scrutiny Meet Rosalie La Grange, whose role at the gathering places her at the crime’s centre.
- Evidence against spirits Follow Inspector Donohue as he questions every guest and sorts fact from fancy.
- A future at stake Watch Helen O’Neill face an evening whose outcome reaches beyond the dinner party.
- Belief and stage trickery Explore how séances and theatre both draw their power from a willingness to believe.
Who will love it
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.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A happy engagement and a friend's warning
- A medium who shows you her tricks first
- Thirteen chairs, a locked room, and a dark circle
- Inspector Donohue turns the room into a trap
- Ten minutes to find a murderer
- Faith and fakery stand side by side
- A mother's love and the walls of class
- One room, one evening, and a stage full of clues
Who’s who
- Madame Rosalie la GrangeA French accented medium who admits to tricks but may hold a real gift, and who will do anything to protect her daughter.
- Helen O'NeillMrs. Crosby's secretary, newly engaged to Billy, who hides her mother's trade and keeps a promise that makes her look guilty.
- Inspector DonohueA quiet, polite police inspector who wants to solve the murder of Spencer Lee and shuts the room to find the killer.
- Edward WalesA loyal friend of the Crosbys who brings the medium to the house, seeking the person who killed his best friend.
- Roscoe CrosbyThe wealthy, warm hearted head of the household, who locks the doors for the séance and tries to protect his family.
- William CrosbyBilly, the Crosbys' son, who has just proposed to Helen and defends her fiercely against the police.
- Philip MasonA painter who has lived in Paris, a family friend who is quickly convinced that the medium has real power.
- Mary EastwoodA sharp tongued guest who mocks the medium and loves a theory of her own about how the crime was done.
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The Thirteenth Chair
by Bayard Veiller · 1917
A medium in a locked room calls up a dead man's voice, and a guest is stabbed in the dark circle.
Medium level2–5 hours to readEnglish
Excellent
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In short
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.
The Thirteenth Chair at a glance
- Reading time
- About 1 h 50 min1 h 25 min fast, 2 h 10 min slow
- Length
- 25,800 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
- First published
- 1917by Bayard Veiller
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
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.
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- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 15 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- First published
- 1917
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 1 h 55 min
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
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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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.
The author
Bayard Veiller
1869–1943 · American playwright and screenwriter
Bayard Veiller was an American playwright and screenwriter. He was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1869 and died in New York City in 1943. He wrote the plays Within the Law, first produced in 1912, and The Thirteenth Chair, first produced in 1916. He also wrote for films.
More by Bayard Veiller
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