The first female detectives return.

M. E. Braddon's
Eleanor's Victory (1863),
which features a female
amateur sleuth.

Under the title The First Female Detectives,  the pseudonymous Andrew Forrester Jr.'s The Female Detective (1864) and Revelations of a Lady Detective (aka Experiences of a Lady Detective, 1864, attrib. [controversially] to W. S. Hayward) have been reissued by Scholars' Facsimiles and Reprints. Eastern Illinois University's Dagni Bredesen, who wrote a Clues article about these works, introduces The First Female Detectives.

Forrester's female detective is one Miss Gladden. Regarding Revelations of a Lady Detective, Bredesen notes in her Clues article:

. . .Mrs. Paschal’s “revelations” comprise[] ten stories in which she deals with a variety of crimes and misdemeanors ranging from thefts of gold, jewels, mail, and identity to political conspiracy, murder, and fraud. In solving these mysteries, Mrs. Paschal curbs the excesses of a too-merry widow, an errant spouse, and wayward sons and brothers at the behest of either government officials or family members. Despite her conservative politics and policies, Mrs. Paschal is an exception to the rules she takes it on herself to uphold. (20)

These important works in the history of the mystery genre have not been available in their entirety since the 19th century.  (Hat tip to Judith Flanders)

TLS: Judith Flanders on authors of the first female detectives.

In the June 18 Times Literary Supplement, British novelist and journalist Judith Flanders discusses the first known female fictional detectives, particularly those pertaining to Experiences of a Lady Detective (aka Revelations of a Lady Detective, 1884; attributed to W. S. Hayward, but there is controversy about that); accounts based on the Constance Kent case (most recently the subject of Kate Summerscale's The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher); and a convincing unmasking of the pseudonymous Andrew Forrester Jr. (The Female Detective, ca. 1863). Unfortunately, Flanders's piece only appears to be available in the TLS print edition. Clues 25.1 (2006) and 26.3 (2008) featured articles that discussed Victorian female sleuths; the author of one, Dagni Bredesen of Eastern Illinois University, is working on scholarly editions of The Female Detective and Revelations of a Lady Detective.

Also of interest in the June 18th TLS: Michael Dirda's recollections as an assistant editor of the Washington Post Book World: "Elmore Leonard confessed that he was tired of being asked to review gritty crime novels, so I talked him into writing about the latest Anita Brookner" (16). Readers might also peruse Jonathan Barnes's June 23rd discussion (available online) of Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Creeping Man" (1923), in the context of a review for the 56-volume The Complete Works of Arthur Conan Doyle (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009).

Update: Bredesen's scholarly edition of The Female Detective and Revelations of a Lady Detective has been published under the title The First Female Detectives.

About the image: The Mutiny of the Thunder (1878) by W. S. Hayward, one of the authors discussed in Judith Flanders's June 18th TLS article.