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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 Case Of Circumstantial Evidence

In a small town of Saxony there lived three young men whom we shall call George, Ernest and Lewis, and who, from their intimacy, were strongly attached to one another. George and Ernest were merchants; Lewis studied law, and practiced in his native place.

One summer day Ernest and George set out on horseback for a town about thirty miles off where they had business to transact. Ernest was weak enough to be fond of discussing with his friend on religious subjects, on which they were of different opinions, and had often had warm disputes, though George was as irritable and passionate as he was obstinate in maintaining his notions. During the journey Ernest led the conversation to this unlucky topic. They fell as usual into altercation, which was kept up till they reached the inn, where they agreed to dine. The dispute was continued over a bottle of wine, but with temper on both sides and the travelers pursued their journey. Ernest renewed the subject of their former conversation, and both being elevated with the wine they had taken, the dispute became more and more violent as they proceeded; so that by the time they had entered a wood through which their road lay it had degenerated into downright personality and abuse.

George’s passion knew no bounds; unconscious of what he did, he pulled out a pistol and presented it at his companion. The pistol went off and Ernest fell from his horse, which frightened by the report and relieved from his rider scampered away into the woods.

George, pale as death, immediately alighted to assist his friend, who was weltering in his blood, the paroxysm of passion was over, and had given place to the utter repentance.—He stooped trembling to Ernest who just then breathed his last.

Overwhelmed with despair and anguish he tore his hair, and afterwards galloped back to the village to surrender himself to 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?