This early work by Anna Katharine Green was originally published at the
turn of the 20th century and we are now republishing it with a brand new
introduction. 'The Staircase at the Heart's Delight' 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.