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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

Who Was Guilty

“It was never fully cleared up,” said the old detective. “Among those who remember the circumstances, there are two, if not three, theories still extant.

“It was a gala night at one of our fashionable city mansions. The wealthy host and hostess had spared no pains for the entertainment of their guests.

The occasion had proved a great success, till, at length, the hour came for the crowning event of the night, the performance of a drama, for which such elaborate preparations had been made that the expectation of all was on tiptoe.

“Never was play better received. Every act and scene, down to the last, had been applauded to the echo, and deservedly so.

“Two of the young amateurs, Charles Ellery and Kate Manning, to whom it had been assigned to represent a pair of devoted lovers, acquitted themselves with especial credit.

“How well they do it!” was whispered comment of more than one.

“Little wonder,” others said; “it’s more in earnest than in play they are, or many are mistaken.”

“I doubt that,” returned one of the less good natured sort. “Kate is a confirmed flirt. They say, that having sufficiently amused herself with Charles Ellery, she has turned her attention to Jules Carsen of late, who is foolish enough to fancy himself engaged to her. The empressement with which she… 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?