American novelist Anna Katharine Green, often called "the mother of the American detective novel", was born in Brooklyn, NY, in 1846. She graduated from Ripley Female College in Vermont at 20 years of age. She intended to be a poet, a career choice no doubt enhanced by her meeting renowned poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, but her first published work turned out to be something entirely different: a detective thriller called "The Leavenworth Case" (1878), which was critically praised for its clever, well-constructed plot and an obvious grounding in criminal law (her father was a lawyer). The book was a resounding success, selling more than 150,000 copies. More successful detective thrillers followed, many featuring her character of detective Ebenezer Gryce. She finally tried her hand at poetry, turning out two volumes, but they were not successful, and she decided to devote her talents full-time to her detective novels.

She died in 1935 in Buffalo, NY.

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Anna Katharine Green

Writer