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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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The Mysterious Advertisement

I was on my way home last autumn from a tour which I had been making in Normandy, and arrived by a late train at Dieppe, intending to cross over to England next morning, weather permitting. The clock struck one before I got to bed, and, being tired with my journey, I soon fell asleep. Between two and three in the morning I was disturbed. The night was pitch dark, but there was a faint light reflected into my room from a lamp in the courtyard of the hotel, and the outline of my window was printed on the ceiling of the room like a huge, distorted skylight. It was blowing hard outside but I only heard the distant murmur of the wind, my side of the house being well sheltered. Yet I fancied that I must have been disturbed in my sleep by its roaring.

Before I had had time for much reflection my attention was attracted by a strange moaning sound which seemed to be close to me; then a sharp cry rent the air, followed by loud exclamations of pain or terror, and then a series of most distressing sobs and groans fell upon my ear. The sounds were so near me that they seemed to be in my room, and, indeed, close to the head of my bed. I could even fancy that I felt the air vibrate, and I thrust out my hands in the darkness to feel whether any living object were near me from which such terrible sounds could emanate. After a short time the groans and exclamations ceased, or nearly so, and I then called out, first in French, and afterwards in English: “Who is there—what is the matter?” But I could obtain no answer, and presently the alarming sounds began again and were louder and more harrowing than before.

I had some matches in the room, but they were not within reach as I lay—or rather sat up—in my bed, and I did not like the idea of leaving it, but I presently mustered courage and stepped on tiptoe towards 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?