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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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Life and Death

Shortly after the celebrated expedition of Lopez terminated so disastrously in the Island of Cuba, fashionable circles in this city were thrown into a state of excitement over the advent of a young Cuban, whose great wealth, elegant manners, and fascinating address, made him eagerly sought for by society. The peculiarity of his appearance and character enhanced rather than diminished the interest he excited. Very youthful—indeed almost girlish in personal and physique—there was yet about him a haughtiness of [manner], and sternness of demeanor that revealed anything but a feminine spirit. He took lodgings at a fashionable hotel, and the splendor of the style in which he lived, the innate refinement and elegance that he managed to infuse into everything about him, went far to preserve the interest which his exclusiveness might otherwise have repelled.

“I remember to have seen him,” said Mr. F., “shortly after he came here. It was an accidental meeting, but it struck me then that there was something singular about him. His face was smooth and beardless; as soft and fresh in its delicate outlines as a woman’s. The luxuriant hair and small beautifully shaped head possessed none of the peculiarities of a man born and reared under the fervent sun of the tropics. There was no lack of fire, however, in the great black eyes. They flashed with intelligence and seemed instinct with pride and character. The frame was small and willowy—slender and trim, but exhibiting remarkable symmetry and grace.

In short, the young stranger’s personal appearance struck me… 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?