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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

The Murder at Cedar Glen

by Amy Rudolph

“Goodbye, Amy! Remember, you mustn’t vanish away like a will-o’-the-whisp, or evaporate like a wreath of mist, before tomorrow morning! I can’t believe that so much happiness is really in store for me!”

Amy Bourne’s blue eyes dropped under the bright, ardent gaze of her betrothed husband; but there was a mute answer in the smile that broke over her lips.

“Come, I thought I was to have company part of the way home,” said old Uncle Ryder, good-humoredly. “Are you going to stand there holding little Amy’s hand all night, Tom May?

Tom laughed and relinquished the soft treasure.

“There, good-bye once more,” he said. “Come, Mr. Ryder, I’m ready.”

Amy stood a moment looking with dreamy, smiling eyes into the bright wood fire that Farmer Bourne liked to enjoy in the chill September evenings, and then went into the other room.

“Where are you going, dear?” asked her mother.

“Only to look at the rosebush, mother. See, there are seven white roses and three buds—just enough to make a beautiful wreath, with the green leaves twisted in!”

“Sure enough—well, that’s what I call providential,” said Mrs. Bourne. “It’ll be a great deal prettier than any artificial fol-de-rols—just the thing to set off my little girl’s rosy cheeks.”

“Oh, mother!” faltered Amy, hiding her face on Mrs. Bourne’s shoulder, “it seems so strange that I am going to be married and leave my dear old home tomorrow.”

“Strange! Not a bit,” said the mother, briskly winking away the telltale tears that obscured her eyes. “It’s perfectly right and natural. Now don’t cry, darling—what do you suppose Tom would say?”

Nevertheless, Amy cried softly on—but they were not unhappy tears.

The autumn sunshine… 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?