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James Redding Ware (1832 – c. 1909, pseudonym Andrew Forrester) was a British writer, novelist and playwright, creator of one of the first female detectives in fiction. His last known work was a dictionary.
James Redding Ware was born in Southwark, South London, in 1832, the son of James Ware, a grocer, and Elizabeth, née 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 was no longer in place, and J. R. Ware was not readily identifiable in the census.[1] But in 1865, James Redding Ware became a Freemason, at the Westbourne Lodge No. 733, and he was living in Peckham. He became a Junior Warden at the Urban Lodge, no. 1196, and by 1872 a Worshipful Master (WM).[2]
His detective works include: The Female Detective (c. 1863/1864),[3] '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 actually was unknown. However, one of his stories, "A Child Found Dead: Murder or No Murder?", was discovered, reprinted as a pamphlet and published under the name of J. Redding Ware, as "The Road Murder", an analysis of the Constance Kent case.[4] 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. The character predates the 1863/1864 appearance of W. S. Hayward's The Revelations of a Lady Detective[5] although not that of Ruth Trail.
In 1860 a novel, The Fortunes of the House of Pennyl. 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.[6]
Ware wrote The Death Trap, a play staged at the Grecian Saloon, City Road, Shoreditch, with George Conquest, the theatre manager, as the villain.[7] He had now become a jobbing writer for hire, producing books on chess; a book on the Isle of Wight with photographs by William Russell Sedgefield and Frank Mason Good; a volume of The Life and Speeches of His Royal Highness Prince Leopold; Mistaken Identities. Celebrated Cases of Undeserved Suffering, Self-Deception, and Wilful Imposture; as well as writing extensively for magazines. His only seeming connection to his early days as a writer of detective stories was with the publication, possibly in 1880,[8] of Before the Bench: Sketches of Police Court Life (London, Diprose & Bateman). Posthumously, he was most famous for Passing English of the Victorian Era. A Dictionary of Heterodox English Slang and Phrase (London, Routledge, 1909), published shortly after his death.
- The Fortunes of the House of Pennyl: A Romance of England in the Last Century (1860 as JR Ware)[9]
- A Nice Quiet Cottage. A One-act Farce (1863)
- The Revelations of a Private Detective (1863)
- The female detective: [the original lady detective, 1864], London: British Library, 2012. ISBN 978-0-7123-5878-1 Reprint of the 1864 edition.
- The Road Murder. Analysis of this Persistent Mystery (1865)
- Tales by a Female Detective (1868)
- Opera Comique (1870)
- The Death Trap; Or a Cat's-Paw. A Drama in Four Acts (1870)
- The Modern Hoyle; Or, How to Play Whist - Chess - Cribbage - Dominoes - Draughts - Backgammon, and Besique (1870)
- The Isle of Wight (1871)[10]
- Bothwell: A Drama in Four Acts (1871)
- Pipermans' Predicaments. A Farce, in One Act (1871)
- Bothwell. A Drama, in Four Acts (1871)
- The Meadows of St. Gervais. A Farce-comedy, in Two Acts (1871)
- One Snowy Night. A Comedy, in One Act (1871)
- In Quarantine. A Comedy, in One Act (1871)
- The Polish Jew: a drama in three acts (Emile Erckmann, Alexandre Chatrian, trans JR Ware 1872?)
- Before the Bench: Sketches of Police Court Life (1880)
- Some Social Science. A Satirical Comedy, in Three Acts (1880)
- Alpine Betrothals. A Swiss Eclogue, for Music (1880)
- Constant Woman: A Drawing-room Drama for Two and a Parlourmaid (1881)[11]
- A Woman Will be a Woman. An Original Duologue (1883)
- Twenty and Forty. An Original Comedy (1883)
- Life and Speeches of His Royal Highness Prince Leopold (1884)
- Wonderful Dreams of Remarkable Men and Women (1884)
- Famous Centenarians (1886)
- Mistaken Identities: Celebrated Cases of Undeserved Suffering, Self-deception, and Wilful Imposture (1886)
- The Life and Times of Colonel Fred Burnaby (with RK Mann, 1886)
- Passing English of the Victorian Era: A Dictionary of Heterodox English Slang and Phrase (1909)[12]
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