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Web Site Showcases
American Detective Fiction

Posting all Detective Fiction
Prior to Conan Doyle

Fully Searchable

The mission of the Westminster Detective Library to catalog and make available online all the short fiction dealing with detectives and detection published in the United States before Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “A Scandal in Bohemia” (1891).

This site grew out of research for the anthology Early American Detective Stories (McFarland 2008) that I edited with my mentor and colleague LeRoy Lad Panek (1943-2021), winner of two Edgar awards for his contributions to the scholarly field of detective criticism. We uncovered a treasure-trove of forgotten and previously unavailable detective stories, many more than could be included in a single anthology. And so this on-going project was born.

The site includes a working bibliography; full-text copy of entries are added as they are prepared. A few stories that were published in Britain but which appear to have been previously published in America have also been included and are indicated by an asterisk in the bibliography. I welcome comments and solicit both additional bibliographical entries and texts.

Mary M. Bendel-Simso, editor

Select Story

The Philadelphia Detective

A man came hastily down Chestnut street, Philadelphia, and mounted the stone steps in front of the Central station.

He entered the broad, old-fashioned doorway with the steps of one who was at home in the building.

Two steps from the front door was another, the entrance to a large room. Here the new comer found a number of brother officers, lounging, smoking and gazing out upon the street.

“Hulloa, Bill! seen the chief yet?” asked a tall broad-shouldered, good-looking man, as the new comer entered.

“No. Why?” asked Bill.

“Oh, nothing in particular, I suppose. He asked for you a while ago,” was the reply.

Bill turned upon his heel and left the room. Mounting the stairs, he reached the second floor, and entered the chief’s office.

“Here’s a letter that was left for you, Bill,” said the chief, as he handed the missive to him.

“And here’s something else I want you to take in hand. You have been working very faithfully in the city for the past year, and this job will take you into the country for a month, perhaps.”

As the chief ceased speaking he handed a telegram to the man before him.

Bill glanced at it in a careless manner, and read the following:

Miscellany

The Detective of the Present -- Finn and Jourdan

Time was when a detective was a man who detected things. A detective is still that in some European countries; and he still detects things—in novels. There's Buckett in “Bleak House” who detects Lady Dedlook, and there's that detective in Collin’s story of the “Moon Stone,” quite a detector. New York used to have Old Hayes, who could detect a thing or two; Paris has had Vidocq, and Bow street has had Forster.* But the race has died out entirely in America, and is dying out in England.

Commissioner Jourdan, of Brooklyn, has been making an effort to raise up a detective or two and has actually produced Corr and Bill. Corr and Bill were raised to the Vidocquian task of tracing a mystic murder. Finnan is a hatter; and Finnan has been in States Prison. That ought to be enough for any detective such as Corr to concluded that Finnan did the deed. Edgar A. Poe could not reason out a conclusion clearer than that. So Corr went to where Finnan was making hats.

Is Finnan here? Yes—want to see him?