The Leavenworth Case: The Most Popular Mystery Novel You’ve Never Read

“Mr. Leavenworth is dead. . . . murdered; shot through the head by some unknown person while sitting at his library table.” Thus begins a mystery novel once sensationally popular and now, mystifyingly, almost completely unknown. The Leavenworth Case (1878) by Anna Katharine Green is a milestone of the genre. Wilkie Collins, Arthur Conan Doyle,…