Dead Letter and The Figure Eight

Before Dashiell Hammett or Raymond Chandler, and before Dorothy Sayers or Agatha Christie, there was Metta Fuller Victor, the first American author - man or woman - of a full-length detective novel. Originally published in 1866, "The Dead Letter" is presented here along with another of Victor's mysteries, "The Figure Eight", out of print since its 1869 publication. Together, these stories show how - by combining conventions of the mystery form first developed by Edgar Allan Poe with those of the domestic novel - Victor pioneered the domestic detective story and paved the way for generations of writers to follow. These novels were written under the name Seeley Regester. In "The Dead Letter", a young attorney, Richard Redfield relates the events surrounding the murder of Henry Moreland. One evening, on his way to visit his fiancee, Eleanor Argyll, Moreland is killed by a single stab to the back. Against a background of post-Civil War politics including a preoccupation with the United States' relationship to California and Mexico, Redfield helps Burton, a legendary New York City detective, solve the crime. In "The Figure Eight", Joe Meredith undertakes a series of adventures and assumes a number of disguises to solve the mystery of the murder of his uncle and regain the lost fortune of his angelic cousin whom he loves.