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Ruth the Betrayer; or, The Female Spy, by Edward Ellis (published by John Dicks, in 51 parts, one a double issue), was the first fictional female detective (British Library, Barry Ono Collections, C.140.c.41/Mic.C.12114). The date has been given as 1865, but the British Library's single-volume compilation copy was acquired on 28 February 1863, ensuring it predates Andrew Forrester's The Female Detective and ?W.S. Hayward's The Revelations of a Lady Detective (both 1863/4).

Ruth Traill, the protagonist of this penny-dreadful, is 'a female detective -- a sort of spy we use in the hanky-panky way when a man would be too clumsy'.