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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 Detective’s Experience

A Touch of Romance

“It was just before the war,” said the detective, “that a queer trick was played me by a young fellow accused of forgery.”

“How was it? Let me hear the story.”

“Well, I have no objection, but don’t interrupt me with questions.”

The reporter promised silence, and the detective elevated his feet to the table and thus proceeded.

“The Chief called me into his office one morning, and told me that a check for $4,000 had been drawn by the confidential clerk of a well known commercial house, and had been cashed at the bank where their funds were deposited. It was a forgery, and the clerk had left as soon as the money was obtained. His name was Henry Harding; his parents lived in one of the interior parishes, and it was supposed he had gone there before setting out elsewhere. I could only learn that he was young and of rather effeminate appearance. This was all the description I could ascertain. The affair had not been blown abroad, and the Chief directed me ‘to work up the case.’ You know that S—— and I always work together. I called him and we had a consultation. He prosecuted researches here, while I went to the country. Thus arranged I was soon on my way. I had found out where the family of young Harding lived, and I had hoped to reach 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?