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

In a Compartment Car

There is a story told of a lady and gentleman traveling together on an English railway. They were strangers to each other. Suddenly the gentleman said:

“Madam, I will trouble you to look out of the window for a few minutes, I am going to make some changes in my wearing apparel.”

“Certainly, sir,” she replies with great politeness, rising and turning her back upon him. In a short time he said:

“Now, madam, my change is completed, and you may resume your seat.”

When the lady turned she beheld her male companion transformed into a dashing lady with a heavy veil over her face.

“Now, sir, or madam, whichever you like,” said the lady, “I must trouble you to look out of the window, for I also have some changes to make in my apparel.”

“Certainly madam,” and the gentleman in ladies' attire immediately complied.

“Now, sir, you may resume your seat.”

To his great surprise, on resuming his seat the gentleman in female attire found his lady companion transformed into a man. He laughed and said:

“It appears that we are both anxious to avoid recognition. What have you done? I have robbed a bank.”

“And I,” said the whilom lady, as he dexterously fettered his companion’s wrists with a pair of handcuffs: “I am Detective J—, of Scotland Yard, and in female apparel have shadowed you for two days — now,” drawing a revolver, “keep still!”

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?