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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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An Ex-Detective’s Story

During the summer of 1852, I was called to work up a case that had perplexed and baffled the keenest men on our force.

The facts were simply these: Simon Glover, a wealthy merchant of S—, a town about five miles from New York, had missed from his safe, at various times, money, varying in amount from one to five thousand dollars.

Nothing at all remarkable—such things are occurring daily; the mystery centered in the fact that all the researches that had been made failed to discover the slightest trace of how, or by whom, it had been taken.

Mr. Glover had sent a peremptory despatch to the bureau for an officer to be sent him at once. I had been selected to go; and, after a private interview with our chief, I look the train for S— .

As I had sent no announcement of my coming, I expected no one to meet me at the station; but as I enquired of a bystander the way to Mr. Glover’s, a pleasant looking, gentlemanly-appearing young man stepped forward, and who had been intently regarding me from the moment I first put my foot on the platform.

He introduced himself as Mr. Glover’s son, and offered to go with me to his father’s house, which was a short distance.

“The officer father sent for, I presume?” he said, in a low voice, as soon as we got clear of the crowd.

“The same, sir, John Jones, and quite at your service.”

The young man bowed again, giving me another quiet, penetrating look.

And as I looked at him attentively, I perceived that there was an air of maturity about him, not at all in keeping with his smooth, boyish face.

“Our captain got the telegram just about an hour before I left. Has anything new occurred?”

“It can hardly be called anything new, sir; but five thousand dollars more disappeared last night, and in the same mysterious manner.”

“And you haven’t the slightest suspicion?”

“I am sorry to… 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?