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Pioneers of Mystery
The earliest mystery novels — Wilkie Collins, Baroness Orczy, Émile Gaboriau, and more.
Before there was a mystery genre, there were the writers who invented it. Wilkie Collins gave us the first great detective novel. Émile Gaboriau created the police procedural. Baroness Orczy wrote the original armchair detective. Anna Katharine Green became America's first bestselling mystery author.
These books aren't just historically important — they're genuinely great reads. The plotting is tight, the characters are vivid, and the mysteries hold up. The reason the genre exists at all is because these stories were so good that readers demanded more.
Most of these titles are available only as poorly formatted public-domain reprints or expensive collector's editions. We're changing that with fully restored editions that do justice to the originals.
This collection will span the founders of detective fiction from the 1860s through the early 1900s — the books that made the mystery genre possible.
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We're restoring these titles now. Drop your email and we'll let you know the moment this collection is ready.