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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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A Terrible Night

It was four o’clock on an afternoon in the month of December 18--, and business for the day being over, the porter of the bank of W----- was closing the doors of that establishment. As I was accountant at the bank, I was busily engaged in verifying the posting of the ledgers, while the tellers were hard at work counting the cash in the tills, and the clerks were at the various books and letters. When I finished an abstract I was making from some of the ledgers, I took it into the manager’s room. As I entered, the manager was just buttoning his coat to depart.

“I have done the abstract of profit and loss on bills for the last month,” said I, placing the paper on his table, “and I find the result more satisfactory than you expected.”

“I am glad of it; the directors are particularly anxious to improve this branch of the business. I will take this abstract with me, and look over it this evening,” said he, putting it in his breast pocket. “If there is nothing very urgent to do in the office, I should like you to come up and dine with me this evening; in fact, I have some news for you, which you will find as acceptable as, I think it will be unexpected.

As I had no pressing reason for doing any more work that afternoon, I accepted the manager’s invitation, the more so as he was a very genial man, and much of my advancement in the bank was due to his kindly exertions on my behalf. We both sallied forth into the main street. It was a miserable night, the rain and sleet came down at a sharp angle, borne on a piercing wind, and under foot was a half-frozen mixture of mud and snow, which struck a cold chill through one’s feet. We soon found a cab, and a few minutes saw us in the porch of Mr. Wilmot’s house, and once more in his cosy snuggery.

As soon as we were seated, Mr. Wilmot commenced to communicate to me the news of which he had spoken. It is unnecessary for me to detail our… 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?