The Leavenworth Case: A Lawyer's Story

INCLUDES PDF OF BOOK! Published nine years before Sherlock's first appearance, this debut novel by the Mother of American Detective Fiction would be credited as changing the mystery genre forever. The Leavenworth Case's dynamic prose and intriguing characters—especially the introduction of Detective Gryce, the first recurring American detective in fiction—would set the stage for all mystery novels written thereafter. Agatha Christie would credit it as one of the books that encouraged her to try her hand at writing mystery in the first place.

This edition includes an engaging introduction by Patricia Meredith, author of A Deed of Dreadful Note, the first historical fiction mystery featuring Anna Katharine Green, centering on the events that would lead to her writing of this, her debut novel, an effort that would take six years beginning in 1872, ending with its publication in 1878.

"The Leavenworth Case is admirable. One savors its atmosphere, its studied and deliberate melodrama. Those rich and lavish descriptions of the golden beauty of Eleanor, the moonlight beauty of Mary!… and there is the maidservant, Hannah, so true to type, and the murderer, an excellent psychological study." —Hercule Poirot in The Clocks (1963) by Agatha Christie

"Have I read The Leavenworth Case? I have read it through at one sitting. Her powers of invention are so remarkable—she has so much imagination and so much belief (a most important qualification for our art) in what she writes, that I have nothing to report of myself, so far, but most sincere admiration.… Dozens of times in reading the story I have stopped to admire the fertility of invention, the delicate treatment of incidents—and the fine perception of the influence of events on the personages of the story." —Wilkie Collins, author of The Woman in White and The Moonstone

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Release date

Lydbog: 20. september 2023