author
Stephen Rudd
A little-known early 20th-century author, this writer is remembered for brisk, kid-centered mystery adventures with a strong newspaper-boy flavor. The surviving record is slim, which only adds a bit of old-book intrigue.
1 Audiobook
The mystery of the missing eyebrows
by Stephen Rudd
About the author
Stephen Rudd is the credited author of The Mystery of the Missing Eyebrows, a juvenile detective novel from the early 1900s that is now available through Project Gutenberg. The book follows newspaper carrier Renfro Horn as a strange clue pulls him into a kidnapping case, giving modern listeners a window into the fast-moving adventure fiction written for young readers of its time.
Some modern catalog and reader sources suggest that “Stephen Rudd” may have been a pseudonym connected to R. H. Gore and the R. H. Gore Publishing Co., but the surviving information is limited, so that detail is best treated cautiously. What can be said with confidence is that the name is attached to a small, obscure corner of vintage children's mystery fiction.
Because so little biographical material appears to survive, the books themselves do most of the talking. That makes Stephen Rudd one of those authors who feels half literary history, half puzzle — a fitting legacy for someone associated with a story called The Mystery of the Missing Eyebrows.