Big Business Girl

When Farrar and Rinehart published Big Business Girl in 1930, they credited the book to the anonymous “One of Them” — meaning one of the women in big business. “She knows whereof she writes. She remains anonymous because she has revelations to make and emotional secrets to tell.”

They were being disingenuous. They knew perfectly well that the author was Patricia Reilly, then managing editor of College Humor. For one thing, the novel had just been serialized in the magazine and when Warner Brothers bought the movie rights, Reilly had been named in Variety and other industry journals. For another, they’d known Reilly for years: when she was a journalism graduate fresh out of Columbia, Stanley Rinehart had hired her as a staff writer when he and John Farrar were both working for The Bookman magazine.