SOURCE: "Anna Katharine Green," in The Women Who Make Our Novels, revised edition, Dodd, Mead & Company, 1928, pp. 167-73.

In the following essay, Overton examines Dark Hollow in order to illustrate Green's method of writing detective stories.

Anna Katharine Green is a remarkable figure among American authors. With almost no literary gift except a power of dramatic emphasis, she possessed an extraordinary skill in the construction of the detective story. At least one of her books, The Leavenworth Case, which must have been first published nearly forty years ago, is recalled by everybody familiar with mystery fiction. Others of her books have been republished from time to time or are still, after long lapse of years, kept in print to meet a steady demand. When at the age of seventy she published a book in which could be discerned no lessening of her peculiar skill. Yet her work was...