Boston, Miss. Miss Boston was created by “Antonin Reschal,” the pseudonym of Antonin Charles Arnaud, and appeared in Miss Boston, La Seule Détective-Femme du Monde Entier #1-20 (1908-1909); her stories were reprinted in Italy and Portugal in 1909. Miss Ethel Boston is a Great Detective. She is a beautiful middle-class American woman who is drawn into detection following the murder of Sherlock Holmes. (The Italian reprint of Miss Boston rewrote the first issue so that the murdered detective whose death Miss Boston avenges is Nick Carter (I)). Miss Boston helps Dr. Watson avenges Holmes’ death and goes on to solve cases on her own, especially those involving the Hundred Thousand Arms Gang. Miss Boston appears in stories with titles like “The Invisible Man,” “Twenty-Five Thousand Corpses!” and “The Fatal Handshake.”
Miss Boston wasn’t one of the first New Woman detectives; she was about twenty years too late for that. But she was one of the first (if not the first) New Woman detectives in the European dime novels/pulps. She was a fighter for sexual and legal equality with men, was educated, athletic, and vigorous, she avoided marriage, she was happy to use a revolver, and she was determined to prove herself the equal of more famous male detectives.