The Inscrutable Mrs. Winchester and Her Mysterious Mansion [Paperback]

Lisa L. Selby (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 16, 2006

Mrs. Sarah Winchester, heiress to the Winchester Repeating Arms fortune, lost her one month old daughter to a rare disease. Fourteen years later her husband passed away from tuberculosis. Seeking a psychic for answers, she was told a curse was put on her family by those killed with the Winchester repeating rifle. The psychic told her to move west and build continuously on a house to appease the spirits. She would do as the psychic instructed, and over the 38 years she lived in San Jose, California, she built a 160-room Victorian mansion. It is said she held nightly seances in which the good spirits would tell her how to build her house. This is the reason given for the oddities of the house. There are stairs that lead nowhere, a door that opens onto a 15-foot drop into the garden, and skylights in the floor to view the rooms below. The number 13 was used throughout the house: 13 lights in a chandelier, 13 hooks in the seance room, 13 bathrooms, etc. Music was heard coming from the house in the middle of the night, and the bell in the tower supposedly rang to call the spirits to her seances. It was said Mrs. Winchester was a recluse who wore a veil everywhere, even inside her home. This biography starts with Oliver F. Winchester and the history of the Winchester Repeating Arms Co. It then follows Sarah Winchester from her marriage to her death. It explores the myths surrounding her, as well as the facts that rarely come to light, in an attempt to find the truth behind the legend.

Product Details

• Paperback: 93 pages
• Publisher: PublishAmerica (January 16, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1424113741
• ISBN-13: 978-1424113743
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,222,220 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Needs editing, January 29, 2007

By 

Jennifer (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Inscrutable Mrs. Winchester and Her Mysterious Mansion (Paperback)

Poorly written, and repetitious. I actually had a desire to mark in this book with a red pen. I flipped to the front, to see who the editors were, and found a statement that the author requested no editing. Well, that explained it. In future, I would recommend that she allow the editors to do their job. It will make her books much easier to read, with fewer grammatical errors.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Fair Value for the Money, January 19, 2007

By 

Couch Cutie (Cypress, TX United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Inscrutable Mrs. Winchester and Her Mysterious Mansion (Paperback)

This book is a concise, quick read. The author offers some novel insights drawn on logical bases about Mrs. Winchester and her housebuilding. However, the book has many repetitive passages and typos. This may be a good book to start with to determine whether further study is required for the satisfaction of curiosity.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Nothing New, October 8, 2009

A Kid's Review

This review is from: The Inscrutable Mrs. Winchester and Her Mysterious Mansion (Paperback)

Nothing against the Author and congrats on getting the book published. I thought she went over the same comments repeatedly throughout the book and I didn't find out anything new that isn't already on the internet. Really wouldn't recommend the book.