The Dead Letter

The Dead Letter (1867) is a detective novel by Metta Victoria Fuller Victor. Published under the pseudonym Seeley Regester, The Dead Letter is the first full-length work of crime fiction in American literature. “I paused suddenly in my work. Over a year’s experience in the Dead Letter office had given a mechanical rapidity to my movements in opening, noting and classifying the contents of the bundles before me […] Young ladies whose love letters have gone astray, evil men whose plans have b...