Skip to content
The Woman in the Alcove — cover
Get your copy
Aeneas Press edition Edwardian

The Woman in the Alcove

by Anna Katharine Green 1846–1935

The book, and the century it came out of.

A man is stabbed at a New York ball, in an alcove, and the woman found beside him is engaged to the man everyone suspects — who will not defend himself. Green published The Leavenworth Case in 1878, nine years before Sherlock Holmes, and is called the mother of the detective novel; here the narrator is the accused’s fiancée, and she does the detecting because nobody else will. Illustrated with 58 full-page plates — paintings by Giles, Kokular and Davis among them.

I was, perhaps, the plainest girl in the room that night.
The first sentence of The Woman in the Alcove
A note on this edition

The Woman in the Alcove, by Anna Katharine Green, complete and unabridged. Spelling and punctuation follow present-day American usage; the sentences, the paragraphs and the voice are the author’s, word for word.

It was written in another era and may carry attitudes a reader today will find dated. They are kept for the sake of the work and do not reflect the views of this house.

The edition
Format
Ebook
Extent
about 200 pages
Reading time
about 4 hours
Illustrations
Full-page plates, credited
Text
Complete, unabridged
Language
en
This edition
2026
ISBN
9785501373235
The plates

58 paintings are bound into this edition

Six of them are shown here, taken from the volume itself. Each is reproduced full page and named with its painter and year.

The Interior of the Drawing Room at Haddo, James Giles
The Interior of the Drawing Room at Haddo James Giles 1836
Scene from the Academy in Copenhagen, Knud Baade
Scene from the Academy in Copenhagen Knud Baade 1827
Rebecca and Brian de Bois-Guilbert, Léon Cogniet
Rebecca and Brian de Bois-Guilbert Léon Cogniet 1828
Vue de l’île Louviers ; effet de neige, Antoine Perrot
Vue de l’île Louviers ; effet de neige Antoine Perrot 1830
Thomas More, Lord High Chancellor of England, Claudius Jacquand
Thomas More, Lord High Chancellor of England Claudius Jacquand 1828
The Torensluis (tower lock) and the Jan Roodenpoortstoren in Amsterdam, Hendrik Gerrit ten Cate
The Torensluis (tower lock) and the Jan Roodenpoortstoren in Amsterdam Hendrik Gerrit ten Cate 1829
The setting

A page from this edition

Not a mock-up: this page is taken from the finished volume. The ornament above the chapter belongs to its shelf and to no other, the opening letter is set as a drop capital, and the plate below carries the name of the painter and the year.

A page of The Woman in the Alcove as set for this edition
The opening of a chapter
A page of The Woman in the Alcove as set for this edition
A page where a plate falls

Both photographed from the finished volume.

Colophon

The Woman in the Alcove, issued in this edition by Aeneas Press in 2026 on the Mystery & Crime shelf. Newly set, with the ornament of its series above each chapter and a drop capital on the opening page. Illustrated with full-page plates, each named with its painter.

Published as an ebook and not issued in print by this house; it carries one ISBN, 9785501373235, and is supplied worldwide. This edition — its setting, its ornament, its cover art, and the selection and attribution of its plates — © 2026 Aeneas Press.

Before you buy

Questions readers ask

Is this the whole of The Woman in the Alcove?
Yes — complete and unabridged. Nothing is cut, condensed or paraphrased. This is the book, not a summary of it.
What exactly did you change?
The spelling and the punctuation follow present-day American usage. Anna Katharine Green's sentences are untouched — same words, same order, same rhythm.
Are the pictures really in the book?
Yes. The edition carries full-page plates bound into the text, each one named with its painter and the year it was made. Six of them are shown on this page.
How long is it?
About 200 pages, which is roughly about 4 hours of reading.
What do I actually get?
An illustrated ebook with its own ISBN, sold worldwide. One file, yours to keep, readable on any device.
If this one suits you
The Woman in the Alcove
$4.99
Buy the ebook