Earn The Leavenworth Case Curated By Anna Katharine Green Offered As Audio Books

καλοκαιρινό, ανάλαφρο, ορισμός του whodunit αστυνομικού μυθιστορήματος, με ένα τεράστιο συγγραφικό μπακράουντ που αναφέρεται διεξοδικά στον πρόλογο της έκδοσης. Τέτοια βιβλία δε γράφονται πια, αυτό είναι μία πραγματικότητα, και το γεγονός πως οι εκδόσεις Gutenberg έδειξαν τέτοια φροντίδα και επιμέλεια σε ένα τέτοιο έργο δίνουν σε όλους μας μια τεράστια ευκαιρία να απολαύσουμε ένα πραγματικό αστυνομικό μυθιστόρημα γραμμένο κάτω από το φως των κεριών, πασαλλειμένο με το μελάνι ενός κοντυλοφόρου, στη σελήνη ενός άλλου κόσμου πολύ μακρινού από τον δικό μας.
Απολαυστική εμπειρία. Stars

A genredefining mystery that hasnt aged well


As I worked my way through various classic Mystery novels, I came across the name Anna Katharine Green.
It turns out that she was a successful Mystery novelist, Not only was she a bestselling author and one of the first female Mystery writers, she was one of the first Mystery writers AT ALL, Thats right this book was a best seller a decade before sitelinkArthur Conan Doyle published his first Sherlock Holmes story! The great sitelinkAgatha Christie listed Green as a major influence to her writing.
And having read The Leavenworth Case, it is clear that Greens influence reached many writers and the genre as a whole,

“It is not for me to suspect but to detect, ”

Although the story is a bit rough around the edges, it is clear to see how this book has many elements that became hallmarks of detective fiction including the locked room mystery, the death in a grand house, the amateur sleuth, the red herrings, the framework of accurate for the time criminal law, and the use of deductive reasoning to reach a conclusion beyond the sight of the other characters involved.
And these are things that usually get attributed to Doyle, It was surprising to learn that for years Ive been giving Doyle far too much credit for laying the foundational work of the genre, Oh, certainly Doyle still had a profound impact on the genre and created one of the greatest and best known literary characters, But he was already building on the work of others, And Anna Katharine Green deserves far more credit and recognition than she gets,

“You must never, in reckoning up an affair of murder like this, forget who it is that most profits by the deceased man's death.
”

As an interesting side note, this story particularly in the beginning, reminded me of the Lizzie Borden case, They both have a father figure coldbloodedly murdered with the daughter/niece in the house and claiming to have seen nothing, a disputed inheritance, and a similar time period followed by a lot of circumstantial evidence and clash between the likely possibility of a young, genteel woman being a murder and the society dissonance of accepting said young, genteel woman being capable of such violence.
See sitelinkThe Trial of Lizzie Borden for more details, Of course, The Leavenworth Case was published in, and the Borden murders did not occur until, It isnt as if Green ripped her story from the days headlines, And the cases veer from each other upon closer examination, But the start of the story gave me deja vu,

So why has Greens work fallen off the modern radar Well, she experienced more than her share of criticism, and most of it seemed to be because she was a woman.
When The Leavenworth Case first hit it big, people kept asking if something so good could really have been written by a woman, It was supposedly even debated in the Pennsylvania State Senate if a woman could really have written it, As the years went by and Greens career continued, the criticism towards her work became more and more harsh, Many male writers including sitelinkT, S. Elliot, sitelinkArthur Bennett, and sitelinkRaymond Chandler all actively demeaned Greens work,

Admittedly, the story is quite dated now, Few books maintain easy readability a century and a half later, And yes, the characters are melodramatic, But then again, that Gothic melodrama was hugely popular at the time, I had more issue with the story being almost entirely composed of dialogue, That did cause the pace of the story to be slow, And yes, the female characters were the stereotypical dramatic, hysterical, delicate dolls that society idealized at the time, Again, it clearly played to the audience of the time even if I do prefer my heroines to have way more agency, gumption, and common sense,

Its tough to say what my overall verdict is, The plot was interesting enough, but it was weighed down by the dramatic circumlocution, And as I mentioned, the story hasnt aged well, But I am absolutely glad that I read it and can now give proper credit where credit is due, And despite its flaws, I would recommend it to anyone wanting a clear picture of how Whodunits came to be,


RATING FACTORS:
Ease of Reading:Stars
Writing Style:Stars
Characters and Character Development:Stars
Plot Structure and Development:Stars
Level of Captivation:Stars
Originality:Stars Anna Katharine Green was one of the originators of the detective story.
Her detective, Mr. Gryce, was created nine years before Sherlock Holmes came on the scene, Ms. Green was an influence on Agatha Christie and Conan Doyle,

The story is fast paced with several improbable events, It is enjoyable to read an early detective story written by an American, since the most wellknown authors are English,

A brief synopsis: Uncle is killed, Uncle's heir is one of his nieces, At first, it looks like the niece who doesn't inherit is the murderer, Later, it appears that the niece who inherits is the murderer, Which one could it be Is it possible someone else committed the murder Possible, but is it probable To find out more, read this early detective classic for yourself.
After a promising start, degenerates into tedious, lengthy, verbose melodrama, Lengthy is an understatement pages of irrelevant chatter interspersed with a few sentences of pertinent information imagine an entire chapterin which all of this happens: protagonist takes a room with board at the address where a disappeared witness has holed up he recognizes the landlady as someone he has seen at the local post office trying to conceal two letters.
. . that's it, that's all could and should have been abridged to no more than fifty pages or so, And even then, the terribly unbelievable denouement would be a major letdown, This ain't no Agatha Christie, The more I read detective stories from other members of her sex the more I admire that Queen of Crime, Παρ'όλο που υπήρχαν κάποια πράγματα που δε με έπεισαν και σε κάποια σημεία είχε πρόβλημα η μετάφραση η ιστορία μου άρεσε πάρα πολύ!

Είναι εύκολο να εντοπίσεις ποιος κρύβεται πίσω από το έγκλημα αν και δεν είναι πολύ προφανές!
Η ιστορία εξελίσσεται με ευχάριστο ρυθμό που δεν κουράζει ιδιαίτερα.
Σημαντικό ρόλο έπαιξε για μένα και η

συμπάθεια που είχα προς το πρόσωπο του αφηγητή που παίρνει επίσης μέρος στις έρευνες!
Μου άρεσε το τέλος και το πως εξελίχθηκαν οι ήρωες της ιστορίες μέσω αυτής της περιπέτειας και γενικά θεωρώ πως υπήρξε δικαιοσύνη σε όλα τ θέματα!.

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