This early work by Anna Katharine Green was originally published in 1883
and we are now republishing it with a brand new introduction. 'X Y Z' 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.