“The House of a Thousand Candles” is a classic romantic novel containing all the elements of a good mystery story: an isolated mansion inhabited by mysterious creatures, a handsome hero, duels, ghosts, and an old-fashioned shoot-out. The highly mannered style and aggrandized gaze of Meredith Nicholson"s world nevertheless delights and enchants the reader with the silken kaleidoscope of sensory values pulled through narrow golden hoop of the written page. Indiana"s lace-edged tintype history gleams with romance, mystery, substance. I am proud to own this signed first edition, and collect Nicholson’s where others have imprudently overlooked them. The story begins as the hero enters the scene, nodding at the criminal foil, the stately and perfect heroine (American style if you please,) and the lifelong friend of the old school. Never again shall a writer look to the future and look back over the shoulder of American History with such finesse. A grand mystery, may Hollywood never grab it!