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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

A Queer Burglary

The Perpetrator Captured and Made Happy Thereby

by J. M. Merrill

“You have been recommended to me, sir.”

I looked up from the drawing I was studying, as a musical yet low voice uttered the words. I knew that I was to look upon a female. I was disappointed to find her closely veiled.

A slender form, plainly yet richly clad, confronted me, a small gloved hand resting on the desk just in front of me.

“What is it that you desire, madam?” I said, the moment I could gather the words to reply.

“Assistance, sir.”

“Exactly.”

I waited calmly for her to speak further. Some inward emotion seemed to hold her tongue for a full minute. When at length she did speak her voice trembled perceptively.

“I have met with a loss, sir, one that I can ill afford, and I have come to you to help me. I have been assured that you are a detective of ability, and just the one to assist me in my present trouble.”

“Please state you case, madam,” said I, blushing inwardly at the praise she was giving my abilities.

“My brother Frank was a sailor, sir,… 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?