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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

Written for The Flag of Our Union

A Mysterious Manifestation

by N.T. Munroe

It was a still, warm, pleasant summer evening, and Mrs. Sherman had just succeeded in hushing the last baby into a sound sleep, and stood by the window looking out upon the quiet scene. She was a little weary, for the day had been warm, the children had needed a great deal of looking after, she was not very strong herself, and a feeling of relief came over her as she laid “the blessed baby” in its crib, safely for the night. The good man had gone out to a lecture, or concert, or something of the kind—she did not exactly know what—and as the evening was too warm for work, and the lounge looked very inviting, Mrs. Sherman threw herself down to indulge the weariness which the day’s labor had induced. The soft evening breeze came into the open window and fanned her forehead as she lay there, and with thoughts of the dear children, the husband, and the many cares of her little household running through her matronly brain, she was fast yielding to the sleeping god, when the door-bell rung. One would have thought she had been attached to the bell-wire, by the suddenness with which she rose to her recumbent position.

“O dear!” said she, all in a tremor, “visitors, and I am in such a state!” And she began to shake out her dress, smooth down her collar, and ran to the glass to brush her hair and make herself look more presentable.

Her chamber door stood open, and while standing at the glass she caught sight of her domestic’s face, which caused her to stop her preparations and turn short round with a “For mercy’s sake, Bridget, what is the matter?”

“O, ma’am, the bell rung and I went to the door, and sure not a living soul was there.”

Mrs. Sherman was easily startled, and her heart beat quick at the… 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?