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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 Burglar Betrayed by His Dog

William Cole, or "The Weasel," as he was styled by the fraternity, was, without doubt, the most daring, skillful, and expert burglar of his day. About thirty-five years of age, medium-sized, heavy-set, with dark hair and eyes, there was nothing peculiar in his appearance, had he not been a cripple. His right leg was shorter than the other by four or five inches, which compelled him to walk upon the ball of his left foot to make the length of the limbs equal. There was a calm resolution in the steadfast gaze of his dark, piercing eye, which bespoke the highest order of physical courage; and his well-knit frame, erect head, firmly poised upon a solid neck, evinced that he possessed great strength and powers of endurance. Either from design, or a fondness for novelty and change, he was here, there, and everywhere, apparently perfectly ubiquitous as to time or place; and as he made it a regular practice to take back and entrances, alley-ways, porches, halls, or any unusual method of going or coming, it was impossible for one man to track him without being detected. Upon making the discovery, he would hastily spin around upon the ball of his foot, and with flashing eyes, angrily exclaim:

“I have a dog to do my dogging, sir!" or, if in his humor, would "wind the fellow," which simply meant a complicated series of turnings, twistings, and doublings, which often brought him face to face with his panting and puzzled pursuer, when with a hearty, "Good-morning, sir," he would keep on so long as the whim lasted.

His plans once matured, his ingenuity and daring rose in proportion to the obstacles to be overcome, and the more complicated the locks, firmer the bolts, and careful 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?