Who were the writers that helped develop the mystery genre? There are many, and every country likes to claim their author was first. Edgar Allan Poe wrote the first published mystery short story featuring an amateur detective. Wilkie Collins is credited with writing the first novel featuring a detective. Anna Katherine Green narrowly missed out on being the first woman to have a mystery novel published, but her police detective set the standard for police procedurals. This month we’re featuring Anna Katherine Green and Edgar Allan Poe.
Anna Katharine Green (1846-1935) was an American poet and novelist. She was born in Brooklyn, New York. From an early age, she wanted to write romantic verse. She was inspired by the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson and even corresponded with him about poetry. After her poems failed to Gain recognition, she decided to try writing fiction.
In 1884, she married actor and stove designer, Charles Rohlfs. They had three children. After Rolfs’ acting career stalled, he began making furniture. Green often collaborated with him about his designs.
Green’s debut novel, The Leavenworth Case: A Lawyer’s Story was published in 1878. This American detective novel is a work of fiction about the murder of a retired merchant, Horatio Leavenworth in his mansion in New York City. Green introduced the character, Detective Ebenezer Gryce of the New York Metropolitan Police in this novel, the first of eleven Detective Gryce Mysteries. Green is credited with helping to shape the classic form of detective fiction and developing the series detective. She is often identified as the first American women to pen a mystery novel ; however, The Dead Letter by Seeley Regester was published in 1866. Seeley Regester was one of multiple pen names used by Metta Fuller, who we will be featuring in an upcoming article in the “Dare to Believe” series.
The Leavenworth Case was an immediate best seller. Although the author Wilkie Collins praised her work, many men were skeptical at the time that a woman could have written it. In Pennsylvania, there were debates in the State Senate about whether Green could have actually written the book. Building on the success of The Leavenworth Case, Green became s bestselling author. She wrote 37 books in 40 years.
Green is often called “the mother of the detective novel.” She was one of the first American writers of detective fiction. She’s known for her well plotted legally accurate stories. Her work influenced writers such as Agatha Christie and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Detective Ebenezer Gryce appeared a decade before Sherlock Holmes. In three novels, Gryce is assisted by a nosy spinster, Miss Ameila Butterworth. This character predates Miss Marple. Green also created the first “girl detective, Violet Strange, a debutante with a secret life as a sleuth.
Green’s plots were complex. They often included coroner’s inquests, the testimony of expert witnesses, and the reliance of physical clues instead of circumstantial evidence. Yale Law School sometimes used her books to demonstrate the dangers of relying on circumstantial evidence.
Green was a progressive woman in the world of literature which offered few opportunities to women during her lifetime, but she opposed the Women’s Suffrage movement. She died fifteen years after the ratification of the 19th Amendment which gave women the right to vote. Her husband died one year later.
Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) was an American poet, writer, author, editor, and literary critic. He is best known for his poems and short stories, especially his mysteries and tales of the macabre. Poe is a central figure in American literature. He is one of the first well-known American writers to earn his living solely from writing. He struggled financially in the years before his death at forty years old.
Poe is credited with inventing the detective fiction genre. He is a central figure in Romanticism and Gothic Fiction, and his works have also influenced writers in the science fiction genre.
His character C. Auguste Dupin in the short story, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” (1841) was an amateur sleuth who solved crimes in Paris. He was created before the word “detective” was used. Poe is credited with creating the first detective fiction, but because the three stories featuring Dupin were not novels, many British critics feel Wilkie Collins is the true “father of detective fiction” because of his novel, The Moonstone (1868) the first novel in the police procedural genre.
Poe was born in Boston. His parents were actors. He had an older brother and a younger sister. His father abandoned the family in 1810 and his mother died the following year of tuberculosis. Poe became the foster son of John Allan, a wealthy merchant in Virginia. Although the Allans never formally adopted him, they changed his name to Edgar Allan Poe, and he lived with them well into adulthood. Allan was originally from Scotland, and he took his family to the United Kingdom for several years. Poe attended classes in London and in Irvine, Ayrshire, Scotland where Allan was born.
In 1820, the family moved back to Richmond, Virginia. Allan was an inconsistent foster father. He often lavished gifts and privileges on Poe while harshly disciplining him for the smallest infraction.
Poe registered at the University of Virginia in 1826 to study ancient and modern languages. The school had a rigid code of conduct that forbade drinking, gambling, horses, guns, and tobacco. Enforcement of the rules was lax, and many students ignored them completely. Poe was rumored to be engaged to Sarah Elmira Royster at the time, but he became so involved with campus life that he lost touch with Sarah and his foster family. Poe amassed considerable gambling debts and used all the money earmarked for his education to try to pay them. He claimed Allan hadn’t given him enough money to cover his expenses, but when Allan sent additional funds, Poe’s debts only increased. After the first year, Poe dropped out of the university. He didn’t return to Richmond because he learned Sarah had married someone else.
Poe moved to Boston where he worked as a clerk and a newspaper writer. He began going by the name, Henri Le Rennet. When he couldn’t support himself, he enlisted as a private in the Army using the name, Edgar A. Perry. Poe was only eighteen though he claimed to be twenty-two. That year, he released his first book of poetry, Tamerlane, and Other Poems by a Bostonian instead of using his name or a pen name. The book did not sell well.
Poe seemed to do well in the military, but after two years, he asked to be released from his five-year commitment early. After confessing his true identity and age to his commanding officer, Poe was instructed that he had to make amends to his foster father in order to be granted early release. Allan was resistant to Poe’s overtures for several months. When Poe’s foster mother died, Poe and Allan reconciled, and Poe was allowed to come home on the condition that he worked toward securing an appointment to West Point Military Academy to become an officer in the U.S. Army. Poe also had to find a replacement to finish the rest of his five-year commitment.
Before entering West Point, Poe went to Baltimore to stay with his widowed Aunt Mary Clemm who had taken in Henry, Poe’s older brother. Also in the household were his grandmother, Elizabth Poe and Mary Clemm’s daughter, Virginia Eliza Clemm. While in Baltimore, a literary critic, John Neal, praised Poe’s first book of poetry. It was the first positive affirmation from a professional Poe had ever received for his writing. He dedicated a poem in his second book of poetry to Neal.
Encouraged by the prospect of a successful writing career, Poe was no longer excited to attend West Point and have a career in the military. He became a West Point cadet on July 1, 1830. After Allan remarried in October of that year, Poe learned about Allan’s extra-marital affairs during his first marriage. Allan had fathered several illegitimate children. This caused a rift between Poe and his foster father. Allan disowned Poe for good.
Poe decided court martial was his only way out of West Point. He stopped attending formations, classes, and church services. In 1831, he was formally charged with gross neglect of duties and disobedience of orders.
Poe was released from service and traveled to New York publishing his third book of poetry soon after his arrival. Poe was able to fund its release from donations made by his fellow cadets who enjoyed the poems Poe wrote about their instructors and commanding officers. Ironically, those poems were not featured in the book.
Poe returned to Baltimore later that year because his brother was ill. Henry died in August from ailments caused by acute alcoholism.
Poe decided to try to make a living from writing, but he was hindered by the lack of copyrighting laws in the United States. American publishing houses often pirated works by published British authors instead of paying for new works by American authors. This ease of acquiring works led to a boom of American Periodicals. Most of these periodicals lasted only a month or two and didn’t pay their writers. The publishers that did survive often delayed paying their writers or found ways to cheat them out of royalties. Poe often had to beg for payments owed to him.
Poe began writing short stories and found a reputable Philadelphia publication interested in his work. His stories caught the eye of John P. Kennedy, a successful businessman from Baltimore. Kennedy connected him with Thomas W. White, the editor of the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond. Poe became the assistant editor for the publication in 1835, but he was fired shortly after for drinking on the job.
Poe returned to Baltimore and proposed to his cousin Virginia. She was thirteen and he was twenty-six. Poe returned to Richmond with Virginia and her mother, Mary Clemm. He persuaded White to give him his job back. For the next two years, he worked diligently contributing short stories and poems of his own. The circulation of the publication thrived, and it finally seemed as if Poe had found his way.
In 1838, Poe relocated to Philadelphia where he completed his novel, the Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. It was a critical and financial success. In 1839, Poe became the assistant editor of Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine. Poe had a prolific year writing poems, short stories, and critical reviews which enhanced his reputation as a literary critic. Poe made plans to start his own literary journal, The Penn, but something stopped him from following through with his plans. Poe left Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine after a year and moved on to become a writer and co-editor for Graham’s Magazine, a successful Philadelphia publication. The publication thrived under Poe’s leadership.
In January 1842, Poe’s wife Virginia contracted tuberculosis, the same disease which had killed his mother. Her health declined rapidly. Poe’s drinking increased considerably, and he left his position at Graham’s Magazine.
Poe hoped to be selected for a position in President John Tyler’s administration. After securing an interview, Poe failed to show up. He feigned illness, but Poe’s drinking bouts were well known. By the time his interview was rescheduled, no positions were available.
Poe worked at several publications in New York trying to earn enough money to care for Virginia during her illness. In 1845, he published his poem, The Raven in the Evening Mirror. It was an immediate critical and popular success, establishing Poe as a literary genius, but Poe was only paid $9 for his poem.
After becoming the editor of the Broadway Journal, Poe became its owner. It failed in 1846, a year before his wife died at their cottage in Fordham, New York. Poe’s drinking spiraled following her death in 1847. Rumors circulated about Edgar Allan Poe’s drinking and erratic behavior.
He began a relationship with the poet Sarah Helen Whitman who lived in Providence, Rhode Island. Their engagement failed because of his drinking and her family’s disapproval.
Poe returned to Richmond and reunited with his childhood sweetheart Sarah Elmira Royster.
On October 3, 1849, Poe was found delirious on the streets of Baltimore dressed in someone else’s clothing.
Doctors have speculated his death at 40 was caused by alcoholism. Some theorize Poe was the victim of “cooping,” a form of voter fraud where random citizens were abducted, taken to polling locations, and forced to vote for certain candidates. Many were forced to change clothing with other victims to alter their appearances at the polls.
He died at a local hospital on October 7, 1849. Poe never fully regained consciousness, but allegedly called out the name “Reynolds.” There was no one in his circle of acquaintances with that name. All medical records including his death certificate were mysteriously lost.
Some of Poe’s best-known works include:
Poems: Short Stories:
“Annabel Lee” “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”
“The Bells” “The Tell Tale Heart”
“The Raven” “The Pit and the Pendulum”
“To Helen’ “The Cast of Amontillado”
“Lenore” “The Black Cat”
“Eldorado” “The Fall of the House of Usher”
Poe’s only complete Novel:
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket