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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 Detective Story

Tracking a Burglar

by an English Detective

Chapter I

“There’s not much to go upon, Crinley,” said the chief of our department when he was putting me on the case. “You must go out there, and I have no doubt you’ll make something of the matter.”

That was a compliment, and it was very pleasant to hear it from the chief, and I immediately went out there.

The house was in a very retired road at Highgate. When the door was opened to me, I asked to see Mr. Bowles, and that gentleman made his appearance in a very time.

I had only to introduce myself as Mr. Crinley, detective, called to make inquiries concerning the robbery and the murderous assault, to insure a very cordial reception.

“The rascal has not left even a footmark behind to trace him by!” exclaimed the injured Mr. Bowles soon after he had conducted me onto the parlor.

“Men who follow such lines of business seldom do,” I said. “But perhaps I shall be able to trace come of the stolen property. If I do that I dare say I can run down the thief. Let me see the place where you were attacked, please.”

I was conducted up the stairs and into a passage or lobby which ran from the back of the house to a door leading into a front bed room. There was a door on each side of this passage, each giving admittance to another bed room. Two smaller doors belonged to closets, in which a variety of things not in immediate use, were deposited from time to time.

“This is where I caught the villain,” said Mr. Bowles, planting his foot firmly on the carpet near one of the bedroom doors. “This is my bedroom, you see… 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?