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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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The Professor

My Dear Vane: A line in haste. If you possibly manage it, come down here by 4 o’clock train. My mother’s diamond been stolen. Don’t bring a detective; we’ll try it ourselves first. Telegraph if you can come. Yours in haste, H. Cargill.

My friend Harold was waiting for me when I reached the little station about 7 o’clock in the evening, and on the drive home I learned a few more particulars. The robbery had taken place, as far as could be judged, either during the night before last or on the preceding day. The house and the effects of the servants had been searched without avail, and Harold had only waited my arrival before taking further steps. We talked the matter over at great length, both on our way home and after dinner. That one of the servants was guilty seemed to me quite evident, but I could convince neither of the others on this point.

Mrs. Cargill left us soon to our wine, and I continued my endeavors without avail to prove to Harold that strict measures should at once be taken with all the servants. He contended that a thorough search had already been made.

“My dear fellow,” I said at length, “you should have allowed me to use my discretion in the matter, and I would have brought you down a French detective or two.”

“And what would your detectives have done? Made up a nice story, implicating one or all of the servants, and probably the gardener as an out-door agent, but not found the diamond. Now where is the use of investigations unless we recover the diamond?”

A happy thought struck me as he spoke. “If your object, Harold, is entirely the recovery of the diamond and not the punishment of the thief, I have a suggestion to make… 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?