Better Known by the Name of Anna Katharine Green, the Writer of Detective Tales.
Mrs. Anna Katharine Green Rohlfs, known to the world as the only woman writer of detective stories that are pronounced “practical” by professional hunters of criminals, is the mother of three beautiful children—Rosamond, aged nearly 12; Sterling, 10; Roland, 5. They all take the most intense interest in their mother’s work. It was when she was only a “wee bit lassie” that Miss Rosamond was one day seen with pencil and paper in hand scribbling away for dear life.
“What are you doing, child?” asked the mother.
“Oh, I’m writing ‘The Leavenworth Case!’” was the ready response. “See! And I’m going to get a lot of money, too, mamma.”
Mrs. Rohlfs is so devoted to her children that she would much rather talk about them than about her books, although sometimes to her friends she tells how she came to write fiction. Originally her ambition was to write poetry, and, although it is likely few of those who admire her detective stories know it, she has published a book of very creditable verses. She began writing in rhyme and rhythm when she was a mere child, and her brother, who had a toy printing press and a font of type, used to set up and print her childish effusions. Here is a copy of the first stanza of a poem written by her when she was 8 years old and preserved by the boyish printer. The title is “The Marriage:”
See! The day comes on in his path so bright
To claim the hand of the beautiful night.
See! They meet each other now face to face.
And around the bright and glorious place
Flow curtains of sunlight rich and fair.
Curtains blue and gold, looped with stars, hang there.
Some of her versified productions were rhythmic narratives of involved and intricate plot, and one day the young girl’s mother urged her to write a story. The result of this suggestion was a long tale which never saw the light, but which contained the germs of “The Leavenworth Case.” After this first girlish attempt at novel writing was finished it was laid aside for several years and finally destroyed, but there came a time when the main features of the plot were utilized. It was fully two years after “The Leavenworth Case”‘ was rebegun before it was completed. Some of it was written at home, some at the seashore, some in the mountains, some on moving trains. When finished, the copy, as Mrs. Rohlfs describes it, was “a sight to behold.” It was written on all sizes, grades and colors of writing paper, for she bought her stationery wherever she happened to be without regard to the appearance of the completed manuscript. At that time she had never met a detective, nor had she ever visited a police court, a coroner’s office or any other place where the machinery of detection and punishment of crime is worked. Naturally she feared that her descriptions of inquests and trials and police methods might be technically inaccurate.
“So,” said Mrs. Rohlfs to the writer, “after the story was finished I asked my father, who was a lawyer, to read it and correct where he thought correction necessary. He read it, and,” with an expressive gesture, “he just tore some of it to pieces on technical grounds. Then after I had fixed it up again I took it to a friend of the family, a judge, thinking that if he said the law in the story was all right it would be safe to submit the manuscript to a publisher. The judge made only one suggestion, and that related to my use of the word equity. Then I thought my troubles were over, so far as ‘The Leavenworth Case’ was concerned, but the publisher said the story, which contained 150,000 words, was one-third too long. He thought it interesting, however, and said that if I would cut it down he might publish it. I did not see how a single word could be left out, but I did cut it down, and I am free to admit that condensation improved it. When the publisher looked it over again, he said:
” ‘I wish you would get Rossiter Johnson to read this manuscript. If he says that it will go, we will publish it.’
“So Mr. Johnson was asked to come over from New York to my father’s house in Brooklyn. Of course I could not ask him to read the story, but I suggested that he should let me read a chapter or two to him. He acquiesced and lay back comfortably in a deep armchair. I read the first chapter. At its close I saw that his eyes were closed, and I feared he had gone to sleep, but when I paused he opened his eyes and said one word, ‘More!’ Then I read two chapters without stopping.
“When I paused, he opened his eyes and said again, ‘More!’ That was repeated, with intervals for meals, until the story was finished. To be strictly accurate, there was also one interval for sleep, since, although I had condensed the story, it was too long to read at a sitting, and I did not succeed in finishing it until the next day. I need not say that my voice suffered considerably from such a prolonged strain, and, as you know, Mr. Johnson’s judgment was accepted by the publisher:”
Mrs. Rohlfs has her favorite among her characters, as most authors have. Of them all she says she likes the detective Gryce, who appears in all her books, best, and, next to him, Amelia Butterworth, the old maid character in her latest story, “That Affair Next Door.” Few who have read this story have failed to be impressed by the humor that is infused into the delineation of the self appointed old maid detective who from the beginning to the end of the tale attempts to solve the mystery of the murder of a pretty young woman and who, although most of her theorizing is incorrect, at the last contributes as much to the unraveling of the mystery as Gryce, the detective. Mrs. Rohlfs created the part of Amelia Butterworth because Mr. Irving Brown of Buffalo once said to her that, like most other woman writers, she could not create humorous characters.
Mrs. Rohlfs, although a writer in a field almost exclusively occupied by men, is not in the least a “new woman.” She belongs to a few clubs, of course, but she does not believe in equal suffrage rights or in the aspirations of those of her sex who desire for themselves all the freedom in certain directions that is tacitly accorded to men. Nor does she believe that the present tendency of thought among women is likely to continue. “It is the same old woman’s heart,” she says, “and it cannot be changed.”
In her judgment, Hall Caine is the greatest living English novelist. She enjoys the writings of Mary E. Wilkins better than those of any other American story teller.
Mrs. Rohlfs’ story, “The Leavenworth Case,” has, as is well known, been dramatized, and the stage version of the tale is an intensely interesting play.
The part of the private secretary is enacted by Mr. Charles Rohlfs, the husband of the novelist, who is an actor of some repute.
Any one who has read the novel will recognize the possibilities of this character in the hands of a competent actor, and Mr. Rohlfs is more than that he is an extremely good actor.
After his marriage Mr. Rohlfs left the stage for seven or eight years, but returned and made a success of his ventures.