The Mother of the American Detective Story: Anna Katharine Green

Every serious mystery writer knows full well who holds the title of the “father of the American detective story.” That title belongs to Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), whose 1841 short story, Murders in the Rue Morgue, introduced C. Auguste Dupin, the detective hero.

But little known is the identity of the “mother of the American detective story.” According to Michael Mallory, writing in Mystery Scene magazine, (Spring, 2018), it was Anna Katharine Green (1846-1935). Her first novel, The Leavenworth Case: A Lawyer’s Story, published thirty-seven years later in 1878, is widely regarded as the first American detective novel.

Over a fifteen-year period, her novel sold more than three-quarters of a million copies. She distinguished herself by writing well plotted, legally accurate stories. Her influence and reputation were so great that Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), the creator of Sherlock Holmes, sought her out during his visit to the U.S. in 1894.

She was college-educated—rare at that time—and started a career as a poet and often corresponded with Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882). Then when her poetry failed to catch on, she turned to writing novels. She worked on her first novel for six years. It was published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons. She later married, raised a family, and wrote three dozen more novels over the next forty-five years.

In fact, her novel’s insight into legal matters was used in Yale University law classes as “an example of the perils of trusting circumstantial evidence.” Interestingly, her novel sparked a debate in the Pennsylvania State Senate over whether the book could really have been written by a woman.

The Leavenworth Case was the novel that first established the “whodunit” and the idea that “everyone and nobody” is a suspect.