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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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Signed with My Own Blood

by Captain Howard

In the spring of 1850 I entered the detective force. I will not here give the whys and wherefores for so doing, but leave the reader to conjecture. It is said that when a man becomes a detective – a man hunter – he is desperate. The saying was applicable to my step. But why did you do it, Captain? asks an inquisitive reader. Perhaps, my dear friend, I had been jilted; perhaps a great commercial crash had left me penniless, or doubtless I found the years of bachelorhood gathering about me, and I, with “no visible means of support.” The last conjecture is most probable, don’t you think so?

But to the story – to the leaf I pluck from the tree of a detective’s life.

I was seated one morning on the steps of the W---- House, waiting for breakfast, when little Dick, the errand boy of headquarters, ran up and whispered in my ear:

“Captain, the chief wants you.”

“Is his business urgent, Dick?” I asked, for I did not relish a walk with an empty stomach.

“No; you can eat your breakfast,” and the boy bounded away.

After partaking of my morning’s meal consisting of coffee, ham and eggs – a dish I relish – I sauntered away toward headquarters. As I entered Eight street I saw several groups of men talking excitedly, and I knew that something important had taken place, with which my summons to headquarters was connected, I quickened my steps, and not long afterwards stepped into the office.

“Take a chair, Howard,” said Matsell.

I seated myself, and he continued:

“A murder was committed last night. Some person or persons assassinated Mr. Royston, the banker, in his chamber.”

“They did!” I exclaimed.

“Yes; you will have to work out the case, as the rest of the force are engaged. A reward of five thousand dollars is offered… 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?