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

The Two-Fingered Assassin

by Sylvanus Cobb, Jr.

I was on my way from Jackson to Greensboro, in the state of Mississippi. At Lexington I left the great stage road, and struck off to the right by a less frequented way. One evening—a pleasant evening in the summer—I arrived at quite a village where I must pass the night. Upon entering the inn I found a number of guests there, and soon learned that the court was in session in that place.

The next morning was dull and drizzly, and I resolved to stop over one stage and attend court, as I learned that one or two very important cases were to be tried. I entered the courtroom which was built for town purposes, with a lawyer whose acquaintance I had made; and through his influence I got a good seat. The place was literally crowded within ten minutes from the time the doors were opened; and I hence judged that an important case was to come off. And I was not disappointed.

The first case was one of murder. The prisoner was brought in, and placed in the rough box which had been fixed up; and when I had examined his features I made up my mind that if he did do the deadly deed, he must have done it in a moment of maddening passion; for, really, had I been told to select a murderer from all that throng, the prisoner at the bar would have been the last one selected! He was not over four-and-twenty; small and delicately famed; with large, mild blue eyes; flaxen hair; and with features perfectly regular, and marked by a spirit of goodwill and intelligence. He looked pale and haggard now; and seemed to shun the gaze of the assembled multitude.

The murder had only been committed two days before. But the coroner had found a verdict at once; an indictment quickly followed; and as the court chanced to be in session at the time, the case, being so clear, was brought on.

From the opening of the prosecution I learned 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?