to take employment as a private detective is Miss Gladden (not her real name, merely, she writes, “the name I assume most frequently while in my business”), often referred to simply as “G.” She enters the stage in The Female Detective (1864) by Andrew Forrester, Jr., the pseudonym of James Redding Ware (1832–1909). The best evidence of its preeminence indicates that this rare book was first published in May 1864, while the anonymously published Revelations of a Lady Detective, long regarded as its predecessor, was published several months later. Both books were preceded by the near-detective volume Ruth the Betrayer; or, The Female Spy by Edward Ellis, a “penny dreadful” issued in fifty-two parts in 1862–1863.
Ware’s decision to write about a female private investigator was extraordinary, as no such career was open to women in England at the time of his book. As the first-person narrator, “G” is not intent on breaking down barriers, merely attempting to avoid genteel poverty. It is fortunate that she is intuitive, as many elements of her cases rely on intuition and coincidence, though she does occasionally make deductions based on observation.
As Forrester, James Redding Ware also wrote Revelations of a Private Detective (1863) and Secret Service, or Recollections of a City Detective (1864). A book frequently listed in his bibliography, The Private Detective, is simply a later reprint of Revelations of a Private Detective. Ware was a prolific playwright and wrote several other books under his own name that did not involve crime (his works covered such topics as dreams, board games, and English slang) until he produced another collection of purportedly true-life experiences, Before the Bench: Sketches of Police Court Life (1880).
“The Unraveled Mystery” was originally published in The Female Detective (London, Ward & Lock, 1864).