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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

The Fatal Marriage

“Your future is dark. I see much trouble for you. I see bloodshed, violence, and worst of all, murder! I––”

With a piercing cry, Inez Opher drew her hand from the clasp of the gipsy woman, who flung the silver at her feet, darted into an adjacent thicket of pines, and was lost to view. She had noticed the girl, had begged to tell her fortune, and this was the result. Pale, trembling in every limb and with staring eyes, the girl turned to her humble home, in the yard of which she was then standing. As she crossed the threshold, her mother a stern-looking woman, met her. She did not notice her daughter’s agitation, but exclaimed––

“Your uncle John Morton, will be here this evening. You must take care not to offend him, as he is very peculiar. I have not seen him for almost twenty years; but he has not forgiven my foolish marriage, I feel sure.”

Her daughter sank into the nearest seat, and her large gray eyes wandered wearily over the scanty furniture of the room.

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?