Editing Anna Katharine Green

{{Short description|American detective author (1846–1935)}}
{{Infobox writer
| name =Anna Katharine Green 
| image =Anna Katherine Green.jpg  
| image_size = 
| caption = 
| birth_name = 
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1846|11|11}} 
| birth_place =[[Brooklyn]], [[New York City]], U.S.
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1935|4|11|1846|11|11}} 
| death_place =[[Buffalo, New York]], U.S.
| genres = poetry, detective fiction
| spouse = {{marriage|[[Charles Rohlfs]]|1884}}
| children = 3, including [[Roland Rohlfs|Roland]]
| signature = Signature of Anna Katharine Green.png
}}

'''Anna Katharine Green''' (November 11, 1846 &ndash; 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.<ref name=obit/> Green has been called "the mother of the detective novel".<ref name="Penzler">{{cite news |last= Penzler |first= Otto |author-link= Otto Penzler |title= A Deadly Month |work= [[The New York Sun]] |location= New York |publisher= Ronald Weintraub |date= November 16, 2005|quote= [Green] is frequently, inaccurately, described as the mother of the detective novel by virtue of having written ''The Leavenworth Case'', which is said to be the first mystery written by an American woman. But the honor rightfully belongs to [[Metta Victoria Fuller Victor|Seeley Regester]] [1831-1885], with her 1866 novel ''The Dead Letter''.}}</ref>

==Life and work==
Green was born in [[Brooklyn]], [[New York (state)|New York]] on November 11, 1846.<ref name=obit/> She had an early ambition to write romantic verse and corresponded with [[Ralph Waldo Emerson]]. When her poetry failed to gain recognition, she produced her first and best known novel, ''[[The Leavenworth Case]]'' (1878), praised by [[Wilkie Collins]], and the hit of the year. She became a [[Bestseller|bestselling]] author, eventually publishing 37 books over 40 years.<ref>{{cite book |last=Sussex |first=Lucy |title= Women Writers and Detectives in Nineteenth Century Crime Fiction: The Mothers of the Mystery Genre |location= New York |publisher= Palgrave McMillan |date= 2010}}</ref>

On November 25, 1884, Green married the actor and stove designer, and later noted furniture maker, [[Charles Rohlfs]] (1853 – 1936).<ref>{{cite news| work=[[The New York Times]] | date= July 1, 1936 | url= https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1936/07/01/87955749.pdf |title= Charles Rohlfs, Designer, is Dead |quote=Manufacturer, 83, Is Credited With Having Originated Mission Furniture. Began Career on Stage. Starred in Mystery Drama Taken From Novel by Wife Anna Katharine Green }}</ref> Rohlfs toured in a dramatization of Green's ''The Leavenworth Case''. After his theater career faltered, he became a furniture maker in 1897, and Green collaborated with him on some of his designs. Together they had one daughter and two sons: Rosamund Rohlfs, [[Roland Rohlfs]], and Sterling Rohlfs.  Her daughter Rosamund married Robert Twitty Palmer.{{cn|date=July 2021}}

Green died on April 11, 1935, in [[Buffalo, New York]], at the age of 88.<ref name=obit>{{cite book |title=A. K. Green Dies |date=April 12, 1935 |newspaper=The New York Times |quote=Noted Author, 88. 'The Leavenworth Case' in '78 Followed by 36 Other Books. Wife of Charles Rohlfs. Wanted to Write Poetry. Wrote Detective Stories to Draw Attention to Her Verse. Changed Mystery Fiction  | url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1935/04/12/110044195.pdf }}</ref> Her husband died the following year.

==Critical response==
Though Green's book ''The Leavenworth Case'' is frequently cited as the first mystery written by an American woman, ''The Dead Letter'' by [[Metta Victoria Fuller Victor|Seeley Regester]] was published earlier (1866).<ref name="Penzler"/>

In a discussion of women writers of detective fiction, scholar Ellen Higgins in 1994 chronicled the work of Green as popularizing the genre a decade before [[Arthur Conan Doyle]] brought out his first [[Sherlock Holmes]] story. "I only found out afterward that some people were a little upset with it because they don't want to hear about women competing with the master", Higgins said.<ref>{{cite news |last= Grondahl |first= Paul |title= Secret to longevity? Elementary, for Holmes while the Master happily tends bees in the Sussex countryside, his fans each January 6 fete him on his birthday|work= [[Times Union (Albany)|The Times Union]] |location= Colonie, New York |publisher= [[George Randolph Hearst III]] |date= January 15, 1995|url= http://infoweb.newsbank.com/iw-search/we/InfoWeb?p_product=AWNB&p_theme=aggregated5&p_action=doc&p_docid=0FB5F01E4F4C41D5&p_docnum=2&p_queryname=1 |accessdate= January 8, 2013}}</ref>

Green is credited with shaping detective fiction into its classic form, and developing the series detective. Her main character was detective Ebenezer Gryce of the New York Metropolitan Police Force, but in three novels he is assisted by the nosy society spinster [[Amelia Butterworth]], the prototype for [[Miss Marple]], [[Miss Silver]] and other creations. She also invented the '[[Girl Detective (genre)|girl detective]]': in the character of Violet Strange, a debutante with a secret life as a sleuth. Indeed, as journalist Kathy Hickman writes, Green "stamped the mystery genre with the distinctive features that would influence writers from [[Agatha Christie]] and Conan Doyle to contemporary authors of suspenseful "whodunits". In addition to creating elderly spinster and young female sleuths, Green's innovative plot devices included dead bodies in libraries, newspaper clippings as "clews", the coroner's inquest, and expert witnesses. [[Yale Law School]] once used her books to demonstrate how damaging it can be to rely on circumstantial evidence. Written in 1878, her first book, ''The Leavenworth Case: A Lawyer's Story,'' sparked a debate in the [[Pennsylvania State Senate]] over whether the book could "really have been written by a woman".<ref>{{cite news |last= Hickman |first= Kathy |title= Sisters in Crime hit Local Library |work= [[The Sun Chronicle]] |location= Attleboro, Massachusetts |publisher= Oreste P. D'Arconte |date= November 25, 2006 }}</ref>

Green was in some ways a progressive woman for her time—succeeding in a [[Literary genre|genre]] dominated by male writers—but she did not approve of many of her [[Feminism|feminist]] contemporaries, and she was opposed to [[women's suffrage]].

==Legacy==
In 2002, Buffalo Literary Walking Tours began an annual series of weekend [[walking tour]]s highlighting authors with local connections. Green is included along with [[Mark Twain]], [[F. Scott Fitzgerald]], [[Herman Melville]], [[Taylor Caldwell]], and others.<ref>{{cite news |title= Travel |work= The Daily News (Batavia) |location= [[Batavia, New York]] |publisher= Johnson Newspaper Corporation |date= July 14, 2004 |page= 8A}}</ref>

Green's short story "The Intangible Clue" featuring Violet Strange was adapted  by [[Chris Harrald]] for the second series of [[BBC Radio 4]]'s drama series ''The Rivals'' and starred [[Jeany Spark]] as Violet Strange.<ref>{{Cite web | url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03brnrj | title=BBC Radio 4 - the Rivals, Series 2, the Intangible Clue}}</ref>

==Selected works==
{{Library resources box|by=yes|onlinebooksby=yes|viaf=69054865}}
[[File:The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow - Cover - Project Gutenberg eText 17763.jpg|thumb|Cover of ''The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow'' by Anna Katharine Green]]

;Detective and mystery novels

* ''[[The Leavenworth Case]]'' (1878)<ref name=obit/> Mr. Gryce #1
* ''A Strange Disappearance'' (1880) Mr. Gryce #2
* ''The Sword of Damocles: A Story of New York Life'' (1881) Mr. Gryce #3
* ''Hand and Ring'' (1883) Mr. Gryce #4
* ''Behind Closed Doors'' (1888) Mr. Gryce #5
* ''A Matter of Millions'' (1891) Mr. Gryce #6
* ''The Doctor, His Wife, and the Clock'' (1895) Mr. Gryce #7. Novellette, shorter than the others
* ''That Affair Next Door'' (1897) (Amelia Butterworth I). Also Mr. Gryce #8
* ''Lost Man's Lane: a Second Episode in the Life of Amelia Butterworth'' (1898) Also Mr. Gryce #9
* ''The Circular Study'' (1900) (Amelia Butterworth III) Also Mr. Gryce #10
* ''One of my Sons'' (1901) Mr. Gryce #11
* ''Initials Only'' (color frontispiece by Arthur Keller) (1911) Mr. Gryce #12
* ''The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow'' (1917) Mr. Gryce #13
* ''X Y Z: A Detective Story'' (1883)
* ''The Mill Mystery'' (1886)
* ''7 to 12: A Detective Story'' (1887)
* ''One Hour More'' (1887)
* ''Forsaken Inn'' (1890)
* ''Cynthia Wakeham's Money'' (1892)
* ''Miss Hurd: An Enigma'' (1894)
* ''Doctor Izard'' (1895)
* ''Agatha Webb'' (1899) Caleb Sweetwater #1
* ''The Filigree Ball: Being a Full and True Account of the Solution of the Mystery Concerning the Jeffrey-Moore Affair'' (1903)
* ''The Millionaire Baby'' (illustrations by [[Arthur I. Keller]]) (1905)
* ''The Chief Legatee'' (1906)
* ''The Woman in the Alcove'' (illustrations by Arthur I. Keller) (1906) Caleb Sweetwater #2
* ''The Mayor's Wife'' (illustrations by [[Alice Barber Stephens]] (1907) 
* ''The House of the Whispering Pines'' (1910) Caleb Sweetwater #3
* ''Three Thousand Dollars'' (1910)
* ''Dark Hollow'' (1914)
* ''The Step on the Stair'' (1923)

;Other novels

* ''The Defence of the Bride, and other Poems'' (1882)
* ''Risifi's Daughter, a Drama'' (1887) 
* ''[[Marked "Personal"]], A Drama Within a Drama.'' (1893)
* ''To the Minute; Scarlet and Black: Two Tales of Life's Perplexities'' (1916)

;Short novels and short stories

* ''The Old Stone House and Other Stories'' (1891) featuring:<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YqMwAAAAYAAJ|title=The Old Stone House and Other Stories|last=Green|first=Anna Katharine|date=1891|publisher=G. P. Putnam's sons|language=en}} (via Google Books)</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/21824|title=The Old Stone House and Other Stories|last=Green|first=Anna Katharine|date=1891|language=en}}(via Project Gutenberg)</ref> 
** "The Old Stone House"
** "A Memorable Night"
** "The Black Cross"
** "A Mysterious Case"
** "Shall He Wed Her?"
*''A Difficult Problem: The Staircase at the Heart's Delight, and Other Stories'' (1900) featuring:<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z3o6AQAAMAAJ|title=A Difficult Problem: The Staircase at the Heart's Delight, and Other Stories|last=Green|first=Anna Katharine|date=1900|publisher=F.M. Lupton Publishing Company|language=en}} (via Google Books)</ref> 
** "A Difficult Problem" (1900)
** "The Grey Madam" (1899)
** "The Bronze Hand" (1897) 
** "Midnight in Beauchamp Row" (1895)
** "The Staircase at the Hearts delight" (1894)
** "The Hermit of ― Street" (1898)
* ''Room Number 3, and Other Detective stories'' (1913) featuring:<ref>{{Cite book|url=http://archive.org/details/roomnumber3other00greeiala|title=Room number 3, and other detective stories|last=Green|first=Anna Katharine|date=1913|publisher=New York : A.L. Burt|others=University of California Libraries}} (via Internet Archive)</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/31578|title=Room Number 3, and Other Detective Stories|last=Green|first=Anna Katharine|date=1913|language=en}} (via Project Gutenberg)</ref> 
**"Room Number 3"
**"Midnight in Beauchamp Row"
**"The Ruby and the Caldron"
**"The Little Steel Coils"
**"The Staircase at Heart's Delight"
**"The Amethyst Box"
**"The Grey Lady"
**"The Thief"
**"The House in the Mist"
* ''Masterpieces of Mystery'' (1913) 
**Short story collection. The stories are also collected in ''Room number 3'' and ''A Difficult Problem''.
*''The Golden Slipper, and Other Problems for Violet Strange'' (1915) featuring:<ref>{{Cite book|url=http://archive.org/details/goldenslipperan00rohlgoog|title=The Golden Slipper: And Other Problems for Violet Strange|last=Anna Katharine Green|first=Anna Katharine (Green ) Rohlfs|date=1915|publisher=A. L. Burt company|others=University of Michigan|language=en}} (via Internet Archive)</ref> 
** "The Golden Slipper"
** "The Second Bullet"
** "The Intangible Clew"
** "The Grotto Spectre"
** "The Dreaming Lady"
** "The House of Clocks"
** "The Doctor, His Wife, and the Clock" *shorter version of the novella.
** "Missing: Page Thirteen"
** "Violet's Own"

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
*Giffuni, C. "A Bibliography of Anna Katharine Green", ''Clues: A Journal of Detection'', 8:2 Fall/Winter 1987.
*Maida, Patricia D. ''Mother of Detective Fiction: The Life and Works of Anna Katharine Green'' (1989). Bowling Green State University Popular Press.
*Murch, Alma. ''The Development of the Detective Novel'' (1958). P. Owen, London.
*Landrum, Larry. ''American Mystery and Detective Novels: A Reference Guide'' (1999). Greenwood Press, Westport CT.
*Frances E. Willard; Mary A. Livermore (eds) [[s:Woman of the Century/Anna Katharine Green Rohlfs|"Anna Katharine Green Rohlfs"]], ''Woman of the Century'', 1893

==External links==
{{wikisource author}}
{{commons}}
{{Library resources box|by=yes|onlinebooksby=yes|viaf=69054865}}
* {{StandardEbooks|Standard Ebooks URL=https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/anna-katharine-green}}
* {{Gutenberg author | id=541}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Anna Katharine Green}}
* {{Librivox author |id=407}}
* {{Find a Grave|8611204}}
* {{LCAuth|n50046883|Anna Katharine Green|77|}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Green, Anna Katharine}}
[[Category:1846 births]]
[[Category:1935 deaths]]
[[Category:American mystery writers]]
[[Category:19th-century American novelists]]
[[Category:Writers from Brooklyn]]
[[Category:Burials at Forest Lawn Cemetery (Buffalo)]]
[[Category:20th-century American novelists]]
[[Category:American women novelists]]
[[Category:American women poets]]
[[Category:20th-century American women writers]]
[[Category:American women mystery writers]]
[[Category:19th-century American women writers]]
[[Category:Novelists from New York (state)]]