The News

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 Mysterious Murder

The following strange events occurred in an English country town in the year 1805. They have been carefully abridged and connected from the newspaper accounts of that day, and may therefore be considered matter of history.

For many years, Sir James Fanshawe, a baronet of ancient family and large estates, had resided at ––––Abby. He was a widower, and had but one child, a beautiful and accomplished daughter, who, upon his decease, (she then being just twenty-one years of age) became sole possessor of his property, and also continued to dwell at the same place. Shortly after her father’s death Miss Fanshawe benevolently adopted as her companion a distant relative—a high born young Irish lady, named Eveleen O’Neil, who had been left, not merely portionless, but a totally friendless orphan. These two ladies conceived the strongest friendship and attachment to each other—so much so, that Miss Fanshawe made her will, conferring all her property on her youthful cousin. This mark of preference eventually proved a curse to the unfortunate Eveleen, as will be seen in the sequel.

On the morning of the 25^th of July, 1805, the inmates of Fanshawe Abby were horrified by the most piercing screams of agony proceeding from the sleeping apartments of the mistress of the mansion. In great alarm the butler, Thomas Cooper, hastily threw on part of his clothes, and rushed to the scene of the outcry. The door of his mistress’ bedroom stood slightly ajar, and pushing it slightly open, he crossed the threshold, and was horrified by what he immediately saw. On the carpet, by the side of the bed, lay the body of Miss Fanshawe, in her night dress, bathed in blood. Kneeling close by her was Eveleen O’Neil, with her left hand resting on her mistress’ bosom, and her right uplifted with a small drawn dagger, which was apparently about to be plunged into his mistress’ body. Both the dagger and the hand… 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?