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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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Sheer Luck

A Detective’s Adventure With a Criminal

Editor and Publisher: WM. H. Bayne

One pleasant evening recently two men were seated in a cosy room not far from St. Louis, engaged in conversation concerning criminals. One was a detective connected with a Chicago agency. “Well,” remarked the detective, after a pause in the conversation, “I will tell you a peculiar little incident that happened several years ago to a brother detective, which will illustrate how luck sometimes assists us in accomplishing an object which otherwise might be unattainable. “Several years ago,” he continued as he ejected a cloud of smoke from his mouth, “a noted forger was wanted very badly in Chicago where he had been indulging in such crookedness as rendered him liable to occupy the penitentiary for a term of years if he were caught. The case was placed in Pinkerton’s hands and one of his men detailed to work it up. He was fortunate enough to obtain a clue to the much wanted individual’s whereabouts, and following it up he at length spotted his man at Toronto, Canada, which you know is on Lake Ontario. The detective threw himself in the way of the forger, became acquainted with him under an assumed name, and generally ingratiated himself in his favor. Forgery not being an extraditable offence it was impossible to make the arrest in Canada, so the detective was obliged to adopt another line of tactics. He made known his intention of crossing over into the States, and the forger determined to go to the boat to see him off. Once on board, the detective kept him engrossed in interesting conversation, and with such consummate tact did he play his part that the crooked gentleman did not notice that the boat had started until it was far out in the lake, for they had gone below to take a social glass at parting. When the forger found the boat… 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?