Anna Katharine Green Rohlfs was an American novelist and poet known as the mother of the detective novel
Background
Anna Katharine Green Rohlfs was born in Brooklyn, New York, the second daughter and fourth child of James Wilson and Catherine Ann (Whitney) Green. Her father was a lawyer in New York City, and much of her interest in and knowledge of crime and the law came from him.
Education
She attended Ripley Female College in Poultney, Vermont originally and later Troy Conference Academy and still later Green Mountain Junior College--from which she received the degree of A. B. in 1866 (see R. L. Rusk, The Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1939, VI, footnote p. 22). While an undergraduate she initiated Ralph Waldo Emerson into a secret society, and later she corresponded with him (Ibid. , V, 420, and VI, 22).
Career
From her college days she aspired to be a poet, but she found it difficult to publish her verse, and it is said that she wrote her first mystery story, The Leavenworth Case, in the hope that it would call attention to her serious work. A book of verse, The Defence of the Bride and Other Poems, was published in 1882, four years after The Leavenworth Case, and a dramatic poem, Risifi's Daughter, appeared in 1887, but her poetry attracted and deserved few readers. Her themes are romantic, her diction is hackneyed, and the influences of Scott, Tennyson, and other nineteenth-century poets are obvious. Her mystery stories, on the other hand, of which she wrote more than thirty, were widely popular. It can be plausibly argued that The Leavenworth Case, which antedated the first of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories by nearly a decade, was the pioneer in modern detective fiction. Poe had originated the genre nearly forty years earlier, and Wilkie Collins had had great success with The Moonstone, but no one before her had written a novel of crime and detection that was so closely constructed. In the plotting of her story and in the methods employed by her detective, Miss Green anticipated many of the devices that later become the stock-in-trade of countless writers. It is not surprising that more than one hundred and fifty thousand copies of The Leavenworth Case were sold. During nearly fifty years - her last novel, The Step on the Stair, was published in 1923 - she maintained this high level of technical skill. It is also true, however, that the writing of her books remained singularly Victorian. She never outgrew the stilted dialogue, the euphemisms, and the romantic love scenes of The Leavenworth Case, and this explains the low opinion in which her work is held by many later connoisseurs of detective fiction. On November 25, 1884, Anna Katharine Green was married to Charles Rohlfs, who had been for several years an actor. Soon after their marriage they went to Buffalo, where Rohlfs was manager of a foundry. Subsequently he began to design furniture, and was described as the originator of the mission style.
Connections
On November 25, 1884, Anna Katharine Green was married to Charles Rohlfs, who had been for several years an actor. Soon after their marriage they went to Buffalo.
He and his wife both took an active part in educational and community affairs in Buffalo. Two children, Rosamund and Sterling, died before Mrs. Rohlfs, and a third, Roland, survived her