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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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A Strange Affair

by Emerson Bennett

At a wayside inn, on the old road that then ran between Philadelphia and C—, in the State of Pennsylvania, a very strange and curious affair occurred in the fall of 1797. One dark, rainy, disagreeable night, a mounted traveler, well muffled up in a great-coat, with its broad cape turned up over his head like a cowl, his chin and lower part of his face buried in a large bandana handkerchief, and with a broad, black patch over his right eye, rode up to the tavern, and called for his supper. At the large fire burning in the chimney of the barroom, he sat and warmed and dried himself, while his meal was being prepared, without removing any of his garments, not even so much as his hat; and when the landlord at length announced that his repast was ready, he simply remarked:

“I have a severe pain in my face—so you must excuse my going to the table as I am.”

He ate his supper in silence, showed no disposition for conversation, called for a strong glass of brandy and water, and soon after asked to be conducted to his room, adding that he was very much fatigued.

“By the way,” he said to the landlord, who in person lighted him to his bedroom, “I may as well leave my pocketbook and watch in your possession tell morning;” at the same time handing these articles to the host, who took them with some reluctance, saying:

“I reckon they’d be quite as safe here with yourself—though I’ll keep them for you, if you wish me to!”

“You’ll oblige me by doing so!” rejoined the stranger.

“Well, then,” said the innkeeper, “I must know how much money you’ve got here, if I’ve got to be responsible for it.”

“Please open the pocketbook then and count for yourself,” returned the stranger.

The host did so, and said:

“I make it two hundred and fifteen dollars.”

“Right!” rejoined the traveler; “and while I’m about it, I… 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?