Anna Katharine Green, known as the "mother of the detective novel," was one of
the first American writers of detective fiction, making the genre popular a full
decade before the first Sherlock Holmes story was published. She also
introduced the concept of the "series detective" in the character of Ebenezer
Gryce of the New York Metropolitan Police Force--and she also gave the world
Miss Amelia Butterworth, a nosy spinster snoop who was the prototype for
Agatha Christie's Miss Marple, among many others.