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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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Lady Pinkerton's Jewels

Whitchell Record

I was swinging comfortably on the hind legs of my chair one forenoon in my room at Scotland Yard, when a telegram which had just arrived was put into my hands, with an intimation from the chief that I was to “take up the case.”

“Lady Pinkerton, who arrived here this morning from London, has had her jewels stolen on the journey. Very valuable. No clue as yet. Send down competent man at once to assist local police. —Algernon Wade, Aidan Castle, Darnley, Northumberland.”

So ran the message. It did not afford much information and it did not seem as if there were much chance of recovering the stolen property. However, it was perhaps too soon to judge of that. I telegraphed to Sir Algernon Wade, who, who, as I understood, was Lady Pinkerton’s host for the present, asking that a description of the missing trinkets should be sent at once; and I arranged that the description should be printed and circulated among the pawnbrokers of the metropolis and the other large towns of the country without delay. These necessary matters having been attended to, I set out for King’s Cross, and was soon on my way to the north.

It was late when I arrived at my destination, but I began at once to make some inquiries. First of all I saw Lady Pinkerton herself. Her story was very soon told. The set of diamonds which had been stolen consisted of a necklace, pendant, tiara and earrings. The stones were very fine ones—worth, she had been told, at least £60,000. Her engagements had compelled her, she said, to travel down from London by night. Her husband being in Scotland, she was attended only by her maid, who traveled in the compartment (a second class one) next to that in which Lady Pinkerton herself performed the journey. Before leaving town she had given the jewel-case to her maid, reminding her as she did so of the value of the gems… 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?