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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 Hoodwinked Crime

by Sylvanus Cobb, Jr.

I don’t know as “hoodwinked” is exactly the proper word under the circumstances, but it struck my fancy, and I set it down. I will tell the story, and then you may call it what you please.

Some years ago—a score, more or less—a man in New Bedford, Mass., found himself painfully cramped and fretted in business. He owned a large store, and had owned a large stock of goods; and store and stock were insured for all he could get the agents to write upon the property. Really, the storehouse itself, considering the manner of its structure, and the material used, was insured for more than it was worth; and as for the goods, they were estimated at a full stock, and insured accordingly. When trouble began to perplex him, he began to force the sale of his goods, and did not replenish. Old, shop-worn goods were moved to the front, and such spread and show made of what was left that to the casual observer it would appear that everything was full. So he went on, very carefully, until he had sold down as low as he dared; and at that point, if only fire would consume the establishment, and he could get his insurance money, he would be above board, with hundreds to spare. Really, he had in his safe two or three thousand dollars for goods sold that he might get double pay for if he could make it appear that they had been burned.

The man studied long, and at length resolved to strike. He removed from his store every paper and light matter of value, and was then ready for the final stroke. On a certain day, towards the… 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?