MYSTERY

The Best American Mystery Stories of the 19th Century

by Otto Penzler
Houghton Harcourt. Oct. 2014. 624p. ed. by . ISBN 9780544302228. $30; ebk. ISBN 9780544302310. M
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From Penzler, editor of "The Best American Mystery Stories" series, comes a new anthology of 19th-century American mystery fiction. Classics by Edgar Allan Poe and Anna Katharine Green are presented alongside lesser-known works by well-known authors, including Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Louisa May Alcott, Mark Twain, Edith Wharton, L. Frank Baum, and Jack London, as well as several forgotten contributors to the genre. There's a gem of a story by African American author Charles W. Chesnutt and a legal clunker by Abraham Lincoln that will make you grateful he didn't quit his day job. Penzler heralds each story with a brief introduction to the author and a description of the work's significance to the genre.
VERDICT Penzler's latest collection is the literary equivalent of a B-movie marathon. A guaranteed satisfying read for die-hard classical mystery enthusiasts and lovers of literary Americana, if not for everyone else.
Reviewed by Liv Hanson, Chicago , Oct 01, 2014
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