This early work by Anna Katharine Green was originally published in 1905
and we are now republishing it with a brand new introduction. 'The
Amethyst Box' is one of Green's novels 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.