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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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Accidentally Innocent

A Lawyer’s Story

No lawyer likes going into court with a thoroughly bad case—yet how can he help it sometimes? I should have more patience with the question, “Do you ever think it right to defend a man whom you believe to be guilty?” were it less frequently asked by people who spend six days of the week trying to get the upper hand of their neighbors, and the seventh to circumvent their Maker. To the honest inquirer I command the answer Dr. Johnson once gave to Boswell: “Sir, the lawyer is not the judge.”

Was it my place, when George Gilbert’s little sorrow-worn wife, with tears glistening in her eyes, besought me to do what I could for her imprisoned husband, virtuously to turn my back and leave her tired, struggling heart to break or not, as it might? I was neither a priest nor a Levite to find a ready excuse for passing by on the other side! Yet what could I do? George Gilbert had been sent on a collecting tour, and had gambled away money received for his employers. It was a plain case of embezzlement, and the penalty was a term of years in the State Prison.

“I’m sure he never meant to be dishonest,” pleaded the loyal little woman; “he was tempted by a crafty and designing man, but, instead of running away, as others would have done, he let his whole salary go toward making up the money, till every cent was paid. Mr. Meek, the junior partner, was inclined to be merciful; but Mr. Mangle, the head of the house, who returned just then, after a year’s absence, insisted that the law should take its course.”

I gave what poor consolation I could, for lawyers, like doctors, must keep their patience, courage up at times.

“In the first place I’ll see Mangle & Meek,” I said. “Mr. Mangle… 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?