According to Francis M. Nevins’ master list of novels by Harry Stephen Keeler, there are four titles in the “Ramble House series”: The White Circle, I Killed Lincoln at 10:13!, The Purple Room (unfinished) and Strange Journey. But in Nevins’ review of The Sign of the Crossed Leaves, which Nevins claims to have been read by only himself, Harry and Harry’s two wives, Ramble House is mentioned. And in an introduction written by Richard Polt for the Ramble House edition of The White Circle (2001), Polt states that The S—— V——, another unfinished manuscript, is also in the “Ramble House series”, but admits it may be another name for Strange Journey.

These six novels comprise the complete written history of the Washington, D.C. roominghouse known as “Ramble House”, and will supply the bulk of the data for this introduction.

To confuse matters, the microscopic publishing house which has valiantly vowed to bring every novel written by Harry Stephen Keeler back into print is called “Ramble House”. When the home-bookcrafters, Jim Weiler and your humble introductionist, started their publishing concern in 1999, the first name for it was Short Order Press. But when Richard Polt, major domo of the Harry Stephen Keeler Society, suggested that a perfect name for a Keeler-oriented publishing company would be “Ramble House”, the duo quickly agreed and changed the name.

Some of the information contained in this introduction comes from various writings by Polt and Nevins about Keeler, but the bulk of the history comes from the Ramble House Series books themselves, thanks to the Keeler Kanon, a folder on my PC that contains the text files of all of Keeler’s novels, formatted for quick and easy “searching” by computer. When this folder is complete—estimated date is mid-2004—it will be the greatest tool ever for Keeler-related research.

All of the documents in question provide the same early history of Ramble House. The White Circle (1954) was written first, followed by I Killed Lincoln at 10:13! (1958) , The Sign of the Crossed Leaves (1959), and The Strange Journey (1965), but if taken in historical order, they are:

1865 I Killed Lincoln at 10:13!

1867 The Sign of the Crossed Leaves

1965? The White Circle

1967 Strange Journey