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

Major Truslow’s Mistake

by Amy Randolph

It was a mellow spring day upon the Sound, the blue water sparkling in the noon sunshine, the far off Long Island hills diademed with yellow rings of mist, and Major Truslow, leaning back in his easy-chair, as he carelessly glanced up and down the columns of the morning paper, passively enjoyed the golden beauty of the day, the rush of the steamer’s bows through the shining flow of the deep, and the merry sounds of life and vivacity around him.

As he sat there, his Panama slightly tipped forward over his handsome middle-aged brows, the voice of one of the boat servants struck on his ear.

“She’s a sittin’ there, cryin’ as if her heart would break; and there’s no kind o’ use tellin’ her it’s all her own fault.”

Major Truslow lifted his head. As a general thing, it was not his custom to interest himself in business not his own, yet he had acquired the habit of hearing and noticing all thar went on around him.

“A pretty little thing too, an’t she?” said the mulatto stewardess. “An’t it strange folks can’t have a little more common-sense!”

“What is the matter?” asked Major Truslow, now tilting the Panama back into its proper place. “Whom are you talking of?”

“It’s a young girl, sir, as has taken the wrong boat, and never found it out until there was two good miles atween us and the slip,” answered the man; “and she do take on awful. Perhaps, sir, if you was to speak to her—she won’t pay no attention to what we says?”

“Where is she?”

“In the upper cabin, sir.”

Major Truslow laid down his paper and walked aft.

Crouching on one of the sofas, with her face hidden in the pillow, and a… 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?