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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

From the Cosmopolitan Art Journal

The Stolen Miniature

or what happened by “going to court”

All was bustle in the house of Jacob [Fitzsimmons]. His ward, the beautiful Louise, was in tears, and old Jacob was mumbling over some pretty hard words for a civilian.

‘May the scoundrel be burnt!’ he exclaimed. ‘This, Louise, is what comes of your having anything to do with these scalawags, whose pallets hav’nt color enough to paint their own sins!’ said the old fellow as he strode up and down the parlor. ‘I had nothing to do with the artist,’ said Louise, ‘except to watch his work closely, and to give especial directions for the restoration of the back-ground of the group.’ ‘Well, well. I know it; but after all, you did talk freely to the rascal—you gave him a chance to talk—you finally showed him the locket, and— and now ‘tis gone; and there is an end of it,’ responded Jacob. Louise said nothing, but gave way to her tears.—‘There, my dear, don’t cry,’ sad the somewhat tender-hearted old man; ‘I shall hunt up the rascal, depend on it, and bring him justice—the rogue, the impudent puppy!’ And… 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?