The Mystery Starts Here

Okay, I’ve decided. I’m going to update this blog twice a week, Sundays and Thursdays so mark it on your calendar! I was going to do it daily then I sobered up. I’ve got books to write, books to read, groceries to buy, meals to cook, a dog to play with and the all important “Lost” to watch to try and figure out what the heck is happening! If you know please tell me – I’m sooooo confused.

Factoid. We all know, at least I think we do, that Edgar Allen Poe is credited with writing the first mystery novel, The Murders in the Rue Morgue. But, do you know the name of the first woman to write a mystery? It’s Anna Katherine Green. Don’t feel badly, I didn’t know either.

Anna Katherine Green was an American mystery novelist, whose career stretched from 1878 with her first book, The Leavenworth Case, up to 1923. It was the first American best selling novel, selling a quarter of a million copies and earning Green the title, “The Mother of the Detective Novel.” Green had a great influence over future women mystery writers. Agatha Christie’s Why Didn’t They Ask Evens (1933) reveals her debt to Anna Katherine Green. Christie recorded in her autobiography that Green’s works helped inspire her to become a mystery writer.

So I have to ask, what female author inspired you to write mysteries? I can’t remember a lot from my younger years mainly because I read so many books then, too. I did read Nancy Drew – who didn’t? And Cherry Ames, Nurse (there’s more to that I think – anyone)? As I grew, I became a fan of Mary Roberts Rinehart. Did you know she wrote over fifty novels and is responsible for the phrase, “The Butler did it?” She also wrote short stories, poems and plays. At one time she had three plays performing on Broadway at the same time! Hard to imagine.

With that intriguing bit of history, I’ll sign off. Keep writing.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 2nd, 2008 at 3:07 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.