Recommended reading - The Best American Mystery Stories of the 19th Century (2014):

The Best American Mystery Stories of the 19th Century

By Otto Penzler.

The Best American Series.

Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Published 2014.

Hardcover.

ISBN-10: 0544302222

ISBN-13: 978-0544302228

Description:

An unparalleled treasury of crime, mystery, and murder from the genre’s founding century.

With stories by Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mark Twain, Louisa May Alcott, L. Frank Baum, Edith Wharton, Stephen Crane, and Jack London, The Best American Mystery Stories of the Nineteenth Century is an essential anthology of American letters. It’s a unique blend of beloved writers who contributed to the genre and forgotten names that pioneered the form, such as Anna Katharine Green, the godmother of mystery fiction, and the African-American writer Charles W. Chesnutt. Of course, Penzler includes “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” recognized as the first detective story, and with thirty-three stories spanning the years 1824–1899, nowhere else can readers find such a surprising, comprehensive take on the evolution of the American mystery story.