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Andrew Forrester is the pseudonym of the creator of one of the first two female detectives in fiction.

His publications include: The Female Detective (c.1863/4[1]), 'edited by A.F.'; Secret Service, or, Recollections of a City Detective (?1864); The Private Detective and Revelations of the Private Detective (both c.1868).

Forrester was for many years known to be a pseudonym, but who he was was unknown. However, recently a reprint of one of his stories, 'A Child Found Dead: Murder or No Murder?', was discovered, published under the name of J. Redding Ware, as 'The Road Murder', an analysis of the Constance Kent case. With this as a clue, Forrester/Ware's first stories of the female detective can be found in a journal entitled Grave and Gay in summer 1862, which makes his female detective predate the 1863/4 appearance of [?W. S. Hayward], The Revelations of a Lady Detective.[2]

James Redding Ware was born in Southwark, south London, in 1832, the son of James Ware, a grocer, and Elizabeth, nee Redding. By 1851, his father had died, and his mother, according to the census, was a grocer and tea-dealer, and James Redding Ware was her assistant. By 1861, the household is no longer in place, and J. R. Ware is not readily identifiable in the census.[3] But in 1865, James Redding Ware became a Freemason, at the Westbourne Lodge No. 733, and he was living in Peckham.

In 1860 a novel, The Fortunes of the House of Penyll. A Romance of England in the Last Century (Blackwood's London Library) was published, with illustrations by Phiz, under the name J. Redding Ware. By 1868, he was a contributor to the Boy's Own Paper, the series of penny-bloods owned by Edwin Brett, although no particular work has been attributed to him. He also contributed to Bow Bells Magazine.[4]

He was also the author of The Death Trap, a play staged at the Grecian Saloon, City Road, Shoreditch, with George Conquest, the theatre manager, as the villain.[5]

References

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  1. ^ 1864: British Library catalogue suggested date; 1863: acquisition stamp date in British Library copy
  2. ^ Flanders, Judith (2010). TLS. {{cite journal}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  3. ^ 1841, 1851, 1861 UK census
  4. ^ Bookseller magazine. {{cite journal}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  5. ^ Era newspaper. {{cite journal}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)