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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 Experience

Retribution

Far down on St. Ann street is an old frame house, with ruined gables, worm eaten, and hastening to decay. The moss has gathered on its roof, and the wild vines cling to its casements. The lawn is overgrown with weeds, and a single narrow path leads to its door. Yet it is inhibited; and at night, when darkness and gloom pervades the earth, and the noise and stir of the great city grows less distinct, a wild face is pressed to the panes of an upper window and great wild eyes peer out into the darkness. It is an old face now; but it was once beautiful, and the haggard cheeks were rosy with health. There is a madness in the hollow eyes, where dwelt once the fire of genius. Nearly twenty years ago Inez de Castro was the belle of New Orleans.

“I saw her then,” said Mr. F——, “regnant over may hearts. Tall and graceful, with a figure matchless in symmetry, she seemed created for the queen she was. An heiress, courted and caressed, it is no wonder that her pride was flattered, and her faults recounted as virtues. Yet was she not spoilt by adulation. The impulses of a wayward nature were toned and controlled by the instincts of a good heart. Distress never appealed to her in vain; and the cry of grief or sickness would wean her from the giddiest whirl of dissipation or pleasure.

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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?