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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

Select Story

A Spanish Gang Of Gamblers And Counterfeiters

A Distressed Mother—A Good Friend—Changing Names—The Ballet—A Gambling-Hell—An Exciting Game—An Obedient Alarm-Bell—The Decisive Moment—Meeting Their Doom—A Happy Mother And Son.

by George McWatters

Early in the month of June, 1876, I received a note from the chief-of-police of Madrid, requesting me to call at his office. I did so. He informed me that my services were required in a case which was of the most delicate nature. Señora Alvarez, a lady belonging to one of the most aristocratic families of Madrid, had applied to him to have a detective follow the track of her son, as she was afraid that he had fallen in with a gang of gamblers and sharpers, who made him squander his fortune and that of the family. I at once understood the delicate nature of the case, and, neatly dressed, called on Señora Alvarez, who vividly painted to me her deep grief and promised to reward me royally if I should succeed in showing her son the abyss upon the brink of which he was standing. I told her that I would do all that was in my power, and hoped to succeed. On my further inquiries, she told me that a certain Toledo was the special friend of her son Juan, and that she thought he was a very bad companion for him, and even the aristocratic name which he bore was only adopted, and did not belong to him. Her son, after he had become of years, had the misfortune to fall into the hands of gamblers, most of whom moved in good society; this was clear to me, and provided with this information, I told her that I would use my utmost endeavors to bring her son back to the path of virtue. I insisted, however, that Señora Alvarez should keep this a profound secret from her son, and in order not to arouse his suspicion, I should not call on her any more, but inform her of my proceedings by the mail. I requested her to give me a… 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?