Uncle Abner, the most famous literary character created by Melville Davisson Post, is a righteous amateur detective, a keen observer of human actions with profound knowledge and love for the Bible. On his journeys around the backwoods of West Virginia, long before a proper police system is in place, he is confronted by murders and mysteries that cannot be ignored. He helps to solve them with his impressive intuition and deductive skills.

Abner's adventures are populated with peculiar characters and intriguing adventures set in the rough but fascinating land 'where men concealed their feelings as one conceals the practice of a crime; and one would have stolen his neighbor's goods before he would have intruded upon the secrecy of his emotions.'

This collection of eighteen stories, first published in 1918, with the pivotal character of justice-dispensing Uncle Abner connecting them all, is often considered among the most important American detective and crime fiction.