Educated at Ripley Female College in Vermont, Green graduated in 1866. Green's father was a prominent trial lawyer with a circle of friends that included judges, chiefs of police and other attorneys. Green was often included in the circle when they discussed their various cases and this both provided her with background information and stimulated her interest in the detective genre. Her first book, The Leavenworth Case, was published in 1878 and firmly established her credentials as a writer of detective novels, selling over a quarter of a million copies in the first year. She went on to invent many well-known detective characters including Amelia Butterworth, Violet Strange and Inspector Gryce. Her works influenced many later writers including Mary Roberts Rinehart and Agatha Christie. Arthur Conan Doyle himself was a huge fan. Her other works included A Strange Disappearance (1880), The Defense of the Bride and Other Poems (1882), XYZ (1883), The Mill Mystery (1886), The Forsaken Inn (1890), The Doctor, His Wife, and the Clock (1895), Agatha Webb (1899), The Circular Study (1900), The Filigree Ball (1903), The Woman in the Alcove (1906), Initials Only (1911), Dark Hollow (1914) and The Step in the Stair (1923). |
