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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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The Detective’s Story

A man, coming through on the Western train, stopped in our city. Nothing remarkable about that: neither was there anything remarkable about the man. He was dressed in loose, dark clothes; wore his hair and beard long, and a broad Mexican hat on his head; in short, had just the appearance of what he professed to be—a California miner, washed up and just out from the “diggings.”

He took lodgings at a quiet hotel. booked himself as James L. Snyder. His manners were unobtrusive, and had everything connected with him so perfectly common-place as to suggest the idea expressed by the landlord:

“Clever fellow enough! But as to smartness—between you and I, he will never set the river on fire!”

Well, Mr. James L. Snyder lingered, and looked about for upward of a week, and then announced his intention of “settling down.” He made a partial bargain for some real estate; had some talk of taking shares in a railroad just going through; and thus it transpired that he was a man of means.

About this time he took the landlord so far into his confidence as to impart a little anxiety he felt respecting his capital. His “pile” was just as he had made it, being all in “dust”; and as the amount was considerable, he doubted being able to exchange it at any of our banks.

The landlord, who was a good-natured fellow, and withal a man of some influence, offered to go with him to the principal one, which he did, Snyder carrying a specimen of his “dust” in a small bottle.

The cashier, who was attending to business during the absence of the president, gave great encouragement respecting the exchange, but as he felt a great responsibility resting upon himself, wished to retain the specimen, and postpone his reply until the next day.

Snyder readily complied with this proposition, expressed a deal of quiet satisfaction at the… 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?