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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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Alfred Martin’s Peril

“It is a foul and bloody murder, and may God punish the one that did the deed! But may there not be some life remaining? May it not be in my power to rob the grave. It is a dangerous undertaking, and if I am found here, I shall most certainly be accused of the crime. Blood upon my hands and clothes, and I have not touched the corpse! Ah! I see how it came. The bushes are stained with it. The body was dragged to this lonely spot. Lonely! Who would ever think of coming here unless he had a foul purpose, save, it might be, a geologist like myself, whom the simple people in this part of the country would call mad. Yes it would go hard with me, especially as I am a stranger, and though poorly clad, as becomes my present occupation, have a considerable sum of money upon my person.”

He drew back a few steps from the corpse upon which he had come suddenly and unexpectedly, and looked around. Without noticing his path, he had journeyed to the bottom of a deep ravine before his progress was arrested. High hills rose upon either side, covered with a heavy growth of trees and tangled underbrush. A little stream found its way with great difficulty through the rocks at the bottom, and its waters were never gilded by a single ray of sunlight. Even in the brightest day it was gloomy twilight there; and a more dismal place would have been difficult to find—the very spot for dark deeds, for a murder’s hiding! And there, before him, stopping the path lay a blood-stained human body, as if to finish the picture and give gory evidence of its evil character.

His first thoughts were to pass on. What had he to do with the crime of another? Why should he mix himself with that in which he had not the most remote business? His clear head and logical mind foresaw all the… 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?