The News

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

A Life-Insurance Tragedy

written for the new york clipper

by rueben b. hill

Overton woke up one morning, and before it had gone to bed again the quiet little town had something to talk about; and talk it did, sometimes in a manner quite loud, and with many shakings of the head, and again it talked in whispers, and awe looked out from eyes that seemed frightened at some inward thought. Men did not go to their work us usual, the drug-store on the corner had its quota of them, while nearly all the remainder of Overton’s male population sat either around the little red-hot stove of Simmons’ grocery-store or back of the blind that stood at the entrance to the groggery. The air was damp and heavy; and as the mist hung over and frowned down into the little river that ran by Overton’s side, it seemed to suspect that just below the surface lay some poor murdered wretch that the waters were hiding and that the grappling-irons should claim!

The young operator at the telegraph-office leaned over the counter, his head buried in both hands, and would probably have remained in that position all day, as far as the business community of Overton were concerned, had not his reverie been disturbed by a gentleman entering and requesting that a message to sent away:

Overton, Ind., Nov. 10, 187 .

The Excelsior Life-insurance Company, New York: Mrs. Elizabeth Downs, on whom our company has risk for $10,000, lies either dead or in a trance. Can’t say which. Suspicions of foul play. Had better sent loss-adjuster immediately.

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?