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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

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Mark Stretton

by Thomas Waters

A fire suddenly burst forth late one winter evening in the stables attached to a large house on Wimbledon Common, then in the occupation of David Stretton, Esquire, a retired merchant of large wealth. I happened to be not far off, and, as in duty bound, hastened to afford what assistance I could. By great exertions and good fortune, the fire was confined to the stables, which were totally consumed; and being, like most Yorkshiremen, pretty skilful in the management of horses, I succeeded in saving two very valuable fillies, which, frenzied by the flames, and plunging wildly, could not be brought out till, with considerable difficulty and danger, I had managed to blind them to the red glare of the conflagration.

There could be no doubt the fire was accidental—a groom had let fall an open lighted lantern upon a heap of loose straw; and being satisfied upon that point, I was about leaving, when I was told that Mr. Stretton wished to speak with me.

Obeying the summons, as a matter of course, I, in two or three minutes, found myself in the presence of David Stretton, Esquire, an aged invalid, very nearly used up by the fret and fever of nearly fifty years of successful trade. Mr. Stretton was by no means of a niggardly disposition, as the present he made me gave twenty golden proofs. The fillies I had mainly helped to save were not only of great value, but his especial pets; and he would not, he said, for any sum, that they should have been injured, much less burned to death. Besides the master of the house, there were in the drawing-room two gentlemen whom I had noticed at the fire, and a Miss Clara Vignolles, Mr. Stretton’s niece.

This lady was plain in features, which were somewhat coarsely marked by small-pox, and could not, I guessed, be much less than thirty; but there was an expression of sweetness, of mild good nature about… Read More

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?