Prologue of the book "Kelly's Mysteries"
The literary genre known as Girl Detective is characterized by the fact that it's primarily aimed at a teenage audience. The content of these works is usually limited by the age of the main character: the youngest ones solve thefts, people vanishing who are eventually found, or dedicate themselves to finding lost wills; the older ones, on the other hand, can solve homicides or kidnappings. Personally, I would not categorize Miss Madelyn Mack, a character created in 1909 by Hugo Cosgro Weir as a representative of this genre, since the term has been defined in favor of the youth or extreme youth of those who are part of this stream; therefore, 16-year-old Phoebe Daring, created by L. Frank Baum, who appears in The Daring Twins: A Story for Young Folk (1911), would be the first of this literary genre, followed by high society teenager Violet Strange, created by Anna Katherine Green, who stars in the collection of short stories The Golden Slipper: And Other Problems for Violet Strange