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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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A Doctor’s Adventure

Anonymous

“And now we’ll have a cozy, comfortable evening together,” said my wife. “And—but what’s that, Irving?”

My wife started nervously as a sharp peal at the bell interrupted our domestic quiet.

“Only the office bell, my dear; somebody wanting me, I suppose.”

And I went down stairs, secretly wondering to myself if, after all there was a very wide difference between a galley slave and a country doctor.

The office door stood wide open, but nobody was there, and through the blinding darkness without I could just discern the black outline of a close carriage, and a man standing at the horse’s head.

“Who’s there?—what’s wanting?” I asked, coming to the threshold, and instinctively buttoning up my overcoat I had hurriedly thrown on.

“You’re wanted, Doctor,” said the man, speaking indistinctly behind the muffling that surrounded his face.

“Yes, but what for? Who wants me?”

“I am not at liberty to tell.”

I had already entered the carriage, but this suspicious answer inspired me with distrust. I made a step to descend, but I was too late; the vehicle was already in motion.

“It is quite unnecessary to alarm yourself, Doctor,” said a quiet, measured voice at my side. “Believe me, you are quite safe; and I trust you will not feel any uneasiness when I tell you that you must be blindfolded.”

And at the same instant a folded bandage was deftly slipped over my eyes.

“Hold!” I ejaculated. “It strikes me that is rather superfluous. The night is dark as Erebus, and you have no lamp.”

“Possibly,” returned the dry voice; “but it is best to run no risks.”

And then ensued a silence of some ten or fifteen minutes, while the carriage rolled swiftly along, and the low, measured breathing of my unknown companion kept tome to my own uncomfortable thoughts.

At length my companion… 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?