Audiobook · read by volunteers
Leavenworth Case
Anna Katharine Green (1846–1935)
Read by Kirsten Ferreri · 39 chapters · 10 h 34
About the book
A wealthy man is found shot in his own library, and the crime seems to point in one direction. His two nieces, one of whom stands to inherit a fortune, are drawn into a mystery that tests the judgment of the police, the coroner and the lawyer who narrates the story. Evidence accumulates, suspicion shifts, and every clue seems to complicate matters rather than resolve them. Anna Katharine Green builds her case with care, in the style of a classic detective novel, and she was so precise about legal matters that her book was used in classrooms. Thirty-nine chapters and over ten hours, read by a single volunteer, make this an engrossing puzzle from the early days of the genre. See whether you can solve it before the end. Can you spot the culprit?
Introduction
Anna Katharine Green, who lived from 1846 to 1935, was one of the first female mystery writers to publish under her own name. She is often called the mother of the detective novel in America, and her books were widely read in her time. The Leavenworth Case, published in 1878, was her first novel and a great success, selling in large numbers and winning the admiration of many readers.
The technical excellence of her books caused several law schools to use The Leavenworth Case as a textbook in some of their classes, as an example of how misleading circumstantial evidence can be. This tells us something about Green’s method. She was careful with details of procedure and evidence, and her plots depend on the reader following the logic of a case, rather than on sensational action. The figure of the detective, Ebenezer Gryce, who appears in several of her later books, is an early example of a series investigator in American fiction.
The book was followed by many others, and her influence on later detective fiction is widely acknowledged. It rewards careful listening, since small details often matter later.
This LibriVox edition is divided into thirty-nine chapters, with titles such as A Great Case and The Coroner’s Inquest, and lasts about ten and a half hours. It is read by one volunteer, Kirsten Ferreri. It is particularly interesting for readers who enjoy seeing how the detective story took shape before the age of Sherlock Holmes.
Public domain
Anna Katharine Green died in 1935: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text