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

The Judge's Story

“It was when I first began to practice,” commenced the Judge, lighting a cigar. “I was admitted and opened an office in the village—now city of C., in the Spring of 185-. I had had but little business, and the case you have mentioned proved the key to my success. I was sitting in my office, trying to keep comfortable, the clock already pointing to 10:30, when the door opened, and the keeper of the county jail entered.

“We have a guest at our house who is quite anxious to see you, and requested me to bring you up to him, if you had not retired.”

I gladly put on my coat to accompany the jailer, for I needed every cent I could earn just then, and announced myself ready to start. It was not far to the jail, and we soon arrived there. After unlocking the usual number of iron doors, the jailer admitted me to the prisoner’s cell, and remarked that when I was ready to go he would come and let me out. The huge iron door closed with a clang, the bolt was sprung, and I was alone with my would-be client.

As I had supposed, as soon as the jailer was out of hearing the prisoner came forward. He was a young, gentlemanly appearing fellow, apparently about twenty-four years of age. Extending his hand to me, he said:

“I am glad to see you, Mr. —; you are indeed kind to come to me at this untimely hour; but I wanted to talk to some one, and I feel that you will take an interest in my case. I have been arrested for the murder of Mr. Richards, the President of the Farmers’ Bank of K., and for the robbery of the bank. Will you not lend me your assistance?”

I assured him that I would do all in my power for him, if he desired to retain me. He suddenly interrupted me by saying:

“I beg your parson… 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?