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A review by barefootsong
The Leavenworth Case by Anna Katharine Green, Anna Katharine Green, Katherine Green Anna Katherine Green
3.0
I came across Green while cataloguing some books by her and was intrigued by the fact that she seems to be the first woman to have written a detective story and was a bestseller of her time. The Leavenworth Case is her first novel (after an unsuccessful poetry career) and her most famous so I thought I'd start here. A very interesting early detective story, though naturally very tied up in its Victorian time (originally published in 1878). This book introduces Green's recurring detective character, Ebenezer Gryce, a quite eccentric but sharp detective, predating the first appearance of Sherlock Holmes by a decade.
My one problem was that I read the Project Gutenberg edition, which lacked the diagrams and handwriting samples that are supposed to be included. They're not vital to the plot, most of the clues are described in the main text for the reader who wants to try to solve the mystery along with the detectives. I didn't even notice until more than halfway through the book, when there was a direction to "try for yourself, reader" which caused me to find another edition of the book on Internet Archive and discover what I'd been missing. So if you want the full experience, check to see if your edition has diagrams.
My one problem was that I read the Project Gutenberg edition, which lacked the diagrams and handwriting samples that are supposed to be included. They're not vital to the plot, most of the clues are described in the main text for the reader who wants to try to solve the mystery along with the detectives. I didn't even notice until more than halfway through the book, when there was a direction to "try for yourself, reader" which caused me to find another edition of the book on Internet Archive and discover what I'd been missing. So if you want the full experience, check to see if your edition has diagrams.