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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

Mr. Bungletree’s Collapse

by Judge Clark

At the station we had just passed a melancholy-looking youth had entered the car and taken the very limited portion of one of the seats left vacant by the ample proportions of a corpulent passenger next the window, whose general appearance betokened good digestion and a quiet conscience.

“Sorry to discommode you, sir,” said the newcomer, as he edged into the narrow space unoccupied by the fat gentleman.

“Don’t speak of it,” replied the other. “If apology is due it is on my side for taking up more room in the world than is ordinarily allotted to mortals by the laws of nature and the railway regulations.”

“Ticket, sir,” said the conductor.

“I had no time to get one,” the new passenger answered. “What is the fare to the next stopping place!”

“A dollar.”

The young man thrust a hand into his pocket and withdrew it nervously. Then both hands made rapid and repeated searches of all his pockets.

“Good heavens! I have lost my pocketbook!” he exclaimed wildly. “It must have been stolen from me in passing through the crowd to the train.”

… 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?