K. is closely related to its immediate predecessor, The Street of the Seven Stars (1914) and looks forward to some of Rinehart's later attempts at serious novels, especially This Strange Adventure (1929). In The Street of the Seven Stars, Harmony Wells, a gifted young violinist, must choose between her career and her love for the young physician Peter Byrne. In spite of the presence in the novel of Dr. Anna Gates, a proponent of women's rights, Harmony comes to the inevitable conclusion that if she is to have a career, it will be Peter's. Such an ending, of course, assured The Street of the Seven Stars a place on the best-seller lists.

In what was one of her last attempts to establish herself as a writer of serious fiction, Rinehart examines the life of Missie Colfax in This Strange Adventure. Again, largely autobiographical, the novel traces its protagonist's...