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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 Silent Witness

From a Lawyer’s Diary

by Sylvanus Cobb, Jr.

I had spent some years in the West, in the practice of my profession, and was on a visit to my friends in New England. Among those who came first in my list of friendship was Fred Elliott, and I arranged to visit him as soon as I could. Fred and I had grown up together as boys; we had entered college together; had graduated together; and when I entered upon the practice of law, he entered his uncle’s store in the capacity of bookkeeper, with a good prospect ahead. And there was another tie between us—a near and dear one—near and dear to us who were both orphans, and who had few relatives living: Fred had married my own cousin—sweet Hattie Keene. He had married her since I was away, though the event had been upon the docket a long while before. And thus I was to meet two of my dearest friends beneath the same roof.

It was just dark when the carriage left me at the door of the house which had been pointed out as that occupied by my friend; and which I at once recognized as the former home of old Timothy Elliott, the “uncle” of whom I have spoken. My summons was answered by a light, quick step upon the hall floor; and when the door was opened I recognized the fair, fond features of my dearly remembered cousin. She was five years older than when I saw her last, and had grown to be a little more womanly, and a little more sedate. In fact, she had put on the holiest of all female characters—that of Mother. The beauty, the life, the animation, the smiles, of other years were not gone; but they were elevated with, softened by, and blended into, that nobler character. At first she did not know me; but when I called her by name—when I called her… 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?