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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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A Detective’s Story

“Hasheesh”

by James McMullen

In the fall of 1870 I was recalled from the southern part of the State, where I had been “working up” a horse case, and ordered to start immediately, upon the arrival of my relief, for Chicago, and report myself to our chief at headquarters. (I may here premise that I had been, for a number of years, a detective belonging to Pinkerton’s force, and had always been considered an efficient officer by my superiors.)

My preparations were soon made, and after giving my relief, who had arrived the same evening, full instructions regarding the further “shadowing” of the horse thieves, I was soon bowling along by fast express for Chicago, which city I reached the next morning, and without going to my hotel, reported to the officer in charge at headquarters.

“Hello, Marker!” cried he. “Back so soon? We did not expect you much before evening.”

“Well, I kind of thought by the way the dispatch was worded, that you had something important on hand that required haste, so here I am.”

“Oh, it’s important enough, but that won’t prevent you from taking a little rest, and sprucing up a bit; so call around at eight this evening, and the old man will give you the points about the affair he wants you to try your hand upon.”

Returning at the appointed time, I was put in possession of the following facts by the chief:

“During the past summer, a number of persons have made complaints at police headquarters, to the effect that they had been drugged and robbed, but that they have not the remotest idea how it was accomplished. The parties are, without exception, gentlemen, and are, or were, guests of one of our numerous hotels; and now what I want you to do,” continued he, “is to visit some of the unfortunates yourself, and hear their story, and then see if you can’t unravel… 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?