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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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The Detective’s Story

In one of our Western cities a forgery to a large amount had been effected, and the perpetrator had escaped with the spoils. The place of his concealment was not entirely known, but he was supposed to be secreted in New York City. In the city where the crime had been committed, I held a situation as lieutenant of police, and in obedience to orders I proceeded to New York in search of the forger. It was my first evening in town, and as I was sitting within the friendly walls of the St. Nicholas, wrapped in a cloud of tobacco smoke and a fine specimen of the latest style of false whiskers and moustache, I saw enter a very dear friend, from whom, two years before, I had parted in California. As he passed, he glanced at me, but did not recognize me. I was glad of it, for it assured me that my false whiskers would be a valuable aid to me as a disguise in the search which on the next day I intended to commence. My friend lighted a cigar, and seated himself some distance from me. As I couldn’t allow the opportunity of speaking to him to pass by, I went toward him and said:

“Good evening, Mr. Markham.”

“Good evening, sir,” he replied, at the same time looking at me as if… 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?