The history of the mystery novel dates back into the 1800s of Paris and London. In 1833, a French man who was a criminal, then a policeman, then a private detective, established the world’s first private detective agency.

In 1829, Scotland Yard was formed. Not long afterward, the “father” of the mystery novel, Edgar Allen Poe, published “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” (1849). In this novel, the crime solver’s cases were based on accounts of the French police. These stories became the foundation of the mystery novel, as we know it today.

The first American woman to write a detective novel, “The Leavenworth Case”, published it in 1878. Anne Katherine Green’s detective was from the New York City police department, as Ms. Green was born in Brooklyn. Ms. Green also wrote mystery novels featuring two female detectives, Violet Strange and Amelia Butterworth.

Perhaps the world’s best-known detective is Sherlock Holmes, who was introduced in 1887 by Arthur Conan Doyle in “The Study in Scarlet”.