A Difficult Problem

This early work by Anna Katharine Green was originally published in 1900 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introduction. 'A Difficult Problem' is one of Green's short stories of crime and mystery. Anna Katharine Green was born in Brooklyn, New York, USA in 1846. She aspired to be a writer from a young age, and corresponded with Ralph Waldo Emerson during her late teens. When her poetry failed to gain recognition, Green produced her first and best-known novel, The Leavenworth Case (1878). Praised by Wilkie Collins, the novel was year's bestseller, establishing Green's reputation. Green wrote at a time when fiction, and especially crime fiction, was dominated by men. However, she is now credited with shaping detective fiction into its classic form, and developing the trope of the recurring detective.

Known as the "Mother of the Detective Novel," Anna Katharine Green (1846 1935) shaped the structure of the modern detective novel and gave it a distinctive American style. Her works include the bestselling The Leavenworth Case, A Strange Disappearance, and The Step on the Stair.