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

Saved by Kindness

by T. Francis Henshaw Baden

“Yes, Good, though only thought, has life and breath—

God’s life—and so can be redeemed from death;

And evil, in its nature, is decay

And any hour can blot it all away.”

“What a remarkable looking person that nurse of yours is, Nellie,” said Mrs. Markham to her friend Nellie Livingston.

“Remarkable, in what way? For her plain, almost ugly face, I suppose,” replied Mrs. Livingston.

“Yes—that it is; almost ugly, you say. Why, she is positively, painfully bad looking; indeed, I do not think I could have such a—I must say hideous person, about me,” exclaimed her friend.

“Why, you do not really mean so; look at her honest, clear eyes, her very pleasant mouth; we do not see her ugly looks; we see only the true, brave heart looking through her eyes, and know her patience and endurance. To us she is almost pretty, and the children love her (I sometimes think) better than me—”

“But that terrible ugly scar she has across her face. Did you know her before she received that wound?” questioned Mrs. Markham.

“That scar does not make her look any the worse to us. On the contrary, it endears her the more, for it was received in our service. Most likely but for that my little ones might have been motherless.

“How was it? Do tell me; you know this is my first visit to you, except for a few hours, since you were first married, so this is the first time I have seen this woman. What is her name?

“Nora Parsons. She has been with us twelve years; indeed, I do not know what I should do without her. We do not look on her as a servant. She is as near to me as one of my sisters.… 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?