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The first spinster detective
Miss Marple had an American ancestor: Miss Amelia Butterworth, first fictional spinster sleuth, invented by Anna Katherine Green. These two novels, wittily narrated by Miss Butterworth, were published in 1897 and 1898.

Miss Butterworth is wealthy, keen-witted, minutely observant and utterly self-confident. She moves in the most exclusive New York society and has strict notions of propriety. Despite her outspoken, old-maidish ways, she has a kind heart.

Her debut as an amateur sleuth begins with a murder next door. The highly inquisitive Miss Butterworth notices some questionable activity in the empty mansion adjacent to her residence, and she prods a reluctant policeman into checking it out. Sure enough, there's a dead woman inside.

Sly old Inspector Gryce investigates, and soon he and Miss Butterworth are conducting competing inquiries. The complex case, full of mistaken identities and faulty deductions, is a fertile field for their very different talents. Gryce is finally brought to acknowledge Miss Butterworth's worth.

Which is why he persuades her to investigate Lost Man's Lane.

In a placid little village ninety miles from New York, four men have disappeared walking down a gloomy mountain road. Coincidentally, the three grown children of a (deceased) schoolmate of Miss Butterworth's live in one of the houses along this lane. And so Miss Butterworth pays the Knollys family a visit.

This novel is steeped in gothic elements. A phantom coach is sometimes seen rushing noiselessly down the lane. A mysteriously muttering old crone lives nearby. And the huge, decaying Knollys mansion has dozens of uninhabitable rooms crawling with beetles and spiders. Miss Butterworth encounters an uneasy welcome from the Knollys siblings, who behave quite strangely.

I love Miss Butterworth, and these two novels are a delight. I'd also recommend this edition over others. It's complete - and more readable than a digital reproduction.

spp
Both are very good stories and some of the best by Anna Katharine Green. I enjoyed reading them! ... Read more

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"In the spring of 1840, the attention of the New York police was attracted by the many cases of well-known men found drowned in the various waters surrounding the lower portion of our great city. ... Read more

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The classic genre-defining whodunit, by the mother of the detective novel

Introducing the first American series detective, Ebenezer Gryce, The Leavenworth Case was published nine years before the debut of Sherlock Holmes, and made author Anna Katharine Green an enormously popular and influential writer who changed the mystery genre forever. Showcasing Green's verve and style, The Leavenworth Case opens with the shocking murder of Horatio Leavenworth, a wealthy New York merchant, philanthropist, and well-known member of the community. His favorite niece, Mary, is to inherit his fortune, and all of the evidence seems to implicate her or her sister. Yet surprises greet Gryce at every turn-even before the second murder. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A charming, interesting andfunny (ironic) story
This book tells the story of the murder of Mr. Leavenworth in his house in New York around the middle of 1800. The murder is resolved in the classical Sherlock Holmes style, but the book was published in 1878, some years before Conan Doyle published his first novel with Sherlock Holmes in 1887.Green must have constructed the novel with the purpose of entertaining her readers in many ways; among the main characters are two young ladies, one is glorious "..I beheld a glorious woman" the other "a beautiful creature", (p. 41-42). Their relationships evolve during the story, and many readers at that time, and maybe at present, will recognize their feelings, although not how they are expressed. Green also uses satiric elements, I believe, as she employs the rules and conventions that must have been present at that time for what they areworth. For example, on the notion of what a gentleman is: "as this latter was undoubtly a gentleman" (p. 83) and ".(you) were born one (gentleman) perhaps. Can even ask a lady out to dance without blushing, eh?" (p. 104). Many sentences throughout the book are worth remembering. I liked this one: "I am not a bad man; I am only an intense one".I believe that the story also tells the story on how it was to live in New York around 1860 ties but with an understatement.Although the story is told by a man, I am not sure it could have been written by a man. The book is charming because it reflects its time in a gentle manner, it is interesting because it shows us that, yes, our worldview has changed since 1860ties, and it is funny because the characters balance between caricatures and real persons, but almost always on the real side.

Pivotal nineteenth-century mystery
I've always been crazy about nineteenth-century fiction, so I can't believe I'm just discovering this author. Anna Katharine Green has drifted into obscurity in recent decades, yet her mysteries were best sellers in her day - and her works influenced both Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie.

The Leavenworth Case, Green's first novel, was a runaway success. The setting is the palatial Fifth Avenue mansion of millionaire merchant Horatio Leavenworth, found shot to death in his library. At the inquest we meet the two ravishingly beautiful nieces who share Mr. Leavenworth's home.

The coroner quickly establishes some suspicious behavior on the part of Eleanore Leavenworth. Mary Leavenworth, on the other hand, is heir to the victim's vast wealth and benefits from his death. Everett Raymond, the young lawyer looking out for the cousins, will have his hands full protecting them. To complicate matters, he's falling in love with Eleanore.

Green has invented a wonderful detective to grapple with the Leavenworth case. Ebenezer Gryce lacks the penetrating eye of a conventional Victorian detective. He'd rather gaze at a doorknob or a button than look directly at anyone. He's not lean and mean but portly and comfortable. And he's not a gentleman. To overcome this handicap, he makes use of young Mr. Raymond, who can move in society and discreetly learn its secrets.

So we end up with two detectives: Mr. Raymond, who's good at gathering evidence but draws wrong conclusions - and Mr. Gryce, who sets things straight, repeatedly.

The introduction by Michael Sims is excellent. I found it fascinating, for example, that during Green's lifetime The Leavenworth Case was used by Yale to teach its law students the risks of circumstantial evidence.

I loved this book, and I'm going on an immediate search for more mysteries by Anna Katharine Green. ... Read more

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Volume I of the collected mystery stories of Anna Katharine Green includes:The Bronze HandA Difficult ProblemThe Hermit of ------ StreetThe House in the Mist ... Read more

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Dark Hollow. please visit www.valdebooks.com for a full list of titles ... Read more

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I was lodging with my wife on the first floor of a house in Twenty-seventh street. I had taken the apartments for three months, and we had already lived in them two and found them sufficiently comfortable. ... Read more

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This file includes: The Bronze hand, The Chief Legatee, The Circular Study, The Golden Slipper, The House in the Mist, The Leavenworth Case, The Mill Mystery, The Millionaire Baby, The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow, The Old Stone House and Other Stories, A Strange Disappearance, and That Affair Next Door. According to Wikipedia: "Anna Katharine Green (November 11, 1846 – April 11, 1935) was an American poet and novelist. She was one of the first writers of detective fiction in America and distinguished herself by writing well plotted, legally accurate stories." ... Read more

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An excerpt:

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THREE MYSTERIES!

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The Circular Study
!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. --BOOK I.-A STRANGE CRIME.
CHAPTER I.-Red Light
CHAPTER II.-Mysteries
CHAPTER III.-The Mute Servitor
CHAPTER IV.-A New Experience for Mr. Gryce
CHAPTER V.-Five Small Spangles
CHAPTER VI.-Suggestions From an Old Friend
CHAPTER VII.-Amos's Son
CHAPTER VIII.-In the Round of the Staircase
CHAPTER IX.-High and Low
CHAPTER X.-Bride Roses
CHAPTER XI.-Misery
CHAPTER XII.-Thomas Explains
CHAPTER XIII.-Despair
CHAPTER XIV.-Memoranda
BOOK II.-REMEMBER EVELYN.
CHAPTER I.-The Secret of the Cadwaladers
CHAPTER II.-The Oath
CHAPTER III.-Eva
CHAPTER IV.-Felix
CHAPTER V.-Why the Iron Slide Remained Stationary
CHAPTER VI.-Answered
CHAPTER VII.-Last Words

The House in the Mist
Selection from Chapter I:
It was a night to drive any man indoors. Not only was the darkness impenetrable, but the raw mist enveloping hill and valley made the open road anything but desirable to a belated wayfarer like myself.

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This is the second volume of the collected mystery stories of Anna Katharine Green, including:A Strange DisappearanceMidnight In Beauchamp RowThe Staircase At The Hearts DelightThe Gray Madam ... Read more

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This volume is produced from digital images created through the University of Michigan University Library's large-scale digitization efforts. The Library seeks to preserve the intellectual content of items in a manner that facilitates and promotes a variety of uses. The digital reformatting process results in an electronic version of the original text that can be both accessed online and used to create new print copies. The Library also understands and values the usefulness of print and makes reprints available to the public whenever possible. This book and hundreds of thousands of others can be found in the HathiTrust, an archive of the digitized collections of many great research libraries. For access to the University of Michigan Library's digital collections, please see http://www.lib.umich.edu and for information about the HathiTrust, please visit http://www.hathitrust.org ... Read more

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Word count: 2151. ... Read more

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Publisher: G.P. Putnam's SonsPublication date: 1916Subjects: Fiction / AnthologiesFiction / ClassicsFiction / LiteraryFiction / Mystery ... Read more

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It was the last house in Beauchamp Row, and it stood several rods away from its nearest neighbor. It was a pretty house in the daytime, but owing to its deep, sloping roof and small bediamonded windows it had a lonesome look at night, notwithstanding the crimson hall-light which shone through the leaves of its vine-covered doorway.

... Read more