Metta Fuller Victor (1831–1885)

The Poisoned Pen Press has been a longtime provider of quality mystery novels—not just current ones, but also classics you won't find anywhere else. Case in Point: The Dead Letter. This is the first title in a cooperative effort between Poisoned Pen Press and the Library of Congress exploring the start of mystery novels in the U.S. And as it turns out, The Dead Letter is, as far as anyone knows, the first full-length mystery novel published in the U.S., published under the name Seeley Regester, which one of many pen names used by Metta Victoria Fuller Victor. Yes—the first full-length mystery in the U.S. was written by a woman.

The Dead Letter includes a bit of the paranormal—one of our detectives and his daughter are able to "read" people and scenes through physical evidence—but that paranormal plays second fiddle to real-thing mystery. The novel has an ambitious structure. It opens in a dead-letter office, where an unusual bit of correspondence has the narrator thinking back on a mystery that tore his life apart—flash back first to that story, flash back next to a more recent bit of that same story, then flash forward to a post-dead letter finale.

You will probably figure out who dunnit well before the end of the novel, but the author keeps things tense nonetheless. Will evil prevail? What will be the fate of our honorable hero? Will the innocent young maids avoid entanglements with scoundrels? The detectives, of course, are men. Travels from New York to San Francisco and Acapulco are involved, which leads to some deeply biased portrayals of Latinx characters. The author was a product of her time.

The Dead Letter is an interesting read, and not just because it marked the beginnings of U.S. mystery novels. It's well worth a read—particularly for those who like historical fiction—and it's left me eager to read the next volume in this series.

I received a free copy of this title from the publisher via EdelweissPlus; the opinions are my own.… (más)

This is a very early detective novel--like many novels of the period it has some major coincidences as foundational to the plot. A lost letter that is key to the solution just happens to be opened by a key character--really, out of hundred such--but it was Providential. A full ration of national prejudices appear as well: superstitious Irish, violent Mexicans--no wily Chinese, the main character didn't have occasion to visit Chinatown while in San Francisco. Incredibly a private detective is allowed by the police to retain key pieces of evidence and the murderer is allowed to (spoiler alert) walk free after his coerced confession. Interesting as a historical piece but cannot be recommended for any other reason. It is considered the first full length work of crime fiction published in the US. The author was Metta Victoria Fuller Victor, who published over 100 works in a variety of genres including an abolitionist work praised by Lincoln.… (más)

between a 3.5 and 3.7, rounded to 4

for plot, etc., I'll refer you to my online reading journal here.

Published in 1866, The Dead Letter, in my opinion, is the better of the two novels featured here. Catherine Ross Nickerson in her The Web of Iniquity: Early Detective Fiction by American Women labels The Dead Letter as "the first American detective novel" (29); both books are, as she notes,

"documents of a moment in cultural history when the young professional seemed to hold the promise of mediating between the cloudy-minded nostalgia of the landed class and the unprincipled greed of the merchant and capitalist classes." (31)

I will leave it for the reader to discover exactly what she means, but she is most definitely on target here. While there's definitely a LOT going on between the lines (way more than I can explain here), for example a portrait of a) what was holding the American reading interest at the time, b) societal/cultural attitudes towards outsiders (here including the Irish, Mexicans, Spaniards and other ethnic groups) c) the focus on the home, marriage, and the domestic sphere as a prime focus of "investigation", these books are also fun reads for anyone interested in American literature of this period that won't likely be found on any general American Lit course syllabus.

Nickerson also reveals in her book that

"the first Americans to write detective novels picked the domestic sphere as the area most able to support the detective story and the area most in need of investigation," (46)

and as I continued to read through both novels here, this idea became clearer with every page turned.

As I said earlier, there's no possible way to go into all of the under-the-surface things I uncovered while reading these books, and both are much more complex than I make them out to be in my reading-journal post, but trust me, there is a lot between the covers that is discussion worthy. For someone like myself who loves these old books and who tries to read between the lines as to the cultural climate, the politics, and the historical significance of the time in which they were written, it is a goldmine. On the other hand, they're definitely not for everyone, but if for no other reason, the fact that Metta Fuller Victor made an appearance before Anna Katherine Green (who I've always believed was the first American detective novelist) makes her extremely readworthy.… (más)