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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

Select Story

My First Case

by Frank Dumont

I had not been in the detective service long when a singular case came under my notice. I was sitting in my cozy little office looking over the county newspaper, when the door opened and a tall man walked in.

His face seemed familiar, but at that moment I could not imagine where I had seen it.

“Mr. Wyant, I believe,” said the stranger. He bowed and drew a chair to the window and sat down. “I am Mr. Wyant, at your service, and you, sir—“

“Ralph Barnes. Now you know my name, I will proceed. I come to see you on a very painful piece of business; in fact, sir, there has been a murder committed.”

Mr. Ralph Barnes drew from his pocket a soiled handkerchief and carried it to his eyes. This part being done, he walked to the matchbox, took a Lucifer and it a cigar, or the stump of one.

“Murder?” I said, quickly rising. “When and where?”

“Last night at my house,” replied Barnes, and great sobs welled up from his heart so violent in appearance that I really thought the organ of life would break.

“Who was the unfortunate victim of this murder?” I asked.

The answer came slowly. “My adopted daughter,” amid a fresh flow of tears.

“Do you suspect any one, or have you any clue?”

“I have no clue,” said Barnes, “but I suspect Jasper Morton, my cousin, for he was seen late last night with her, and again was the handkerchief pressed to his eyes.

The man Barnes told his story in such a cool way, and played the hypocrite so well, that I put him down for a cool villain before he had spoken a dozen words to me. In a moment more I locked my office, and we both went on out way to the scene of the murder. About a mile from the town we came to a cottage surrounded by dense foliage. Barnes kicked open the gate, and we walked up a narrow path to the house. A woman stood in the doorway, crying and wringing 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?