Early Female Detective Fiction

[Silent Scream Queen]

I've been reading some early female detective fiction from Victorian and Edwardian times and thought I'd share something about it.
There is a surprising amount of literature from that time featuring lady detectives. They are somewhat hampered by the dress and social norms of the time, so there has been no action women so far, although one rode a bicycle. They tend to be observers, a bit like Holmes, but often they observe flaws in the characters manners and home in on any twinges of emotions breaking through the surface layer. After all this is a period of the great British stiff upper lip, where we (saying we as I'm British myself) suppress our emotions and true feelings. The female detective often notices the raised eyebrow, the guilty look, the clenched fist, the brief fluttering of an eyelid.

There was one called Nora Van Snoop. Natually after solving the crime she breaks down, but as the story informs us "She had earned the luxury of hysterics."

Men were the earliest writers of female detective fiction, but women wrote stories too as time progressed.

This one is from 1864 and written by a man. It is said to be only the second novel to feature a femal detective. You can tell the woman is daring as she is smoking.

[Silent Scream Queen]

Here I will link to some detective stories from that period featuring bold and daring ladies!
Keep checking in for updates.

This first one is an American female detective, Violet Strange. She comes from high society and does her sleuthing as a sideline.
The author was Anna Katharine Green, who was known at the time for her detective fiction.
Date of publication was 1915

www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3071