The News

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

The Amputated Hand

The Confession of a Greek Merchant

by S. L. Finley

I was born in Constantinople. My father was a dragoman, uniting in addition to that occupation that of dealer in perfumes and silk stuffs. He gave me a good education, and being a man of learning, he assisted one of our priests in forming my young mind. His first intention was to leave me his business, but as I showed greater aptitude for study than he had given me credit for, by the advice of his friends he decided to make me a physician, for the reason that physicians make large fortunes in Constantinople.

A great many Frenchmen visited our home, and one of them persuaded my father to allow me to accompany him to Paris, where he stated I could learn the science of medicine at a small cost. My father, who had travelled in his youth, accepted this proposition, and the Frenchman told me that I might hold myself in readiness to leave in three months.

I was overjoyed at the idea of visiting a foreign country, and the time I had to wait appeared very long. At last my protector finished the business which detained him at Constantinople, and was ready to leave. The day so anxiously expected by me at length dawned, and my father called me into his bedchamber. I saw spread on the table handsome dresses, and various weapons. But what especially attracted my notice was a large pile of gold—more than I had ever seen before. My father embraced me, and said:

“You see, my son, that I have been occupied in making the necessary provisions for your journey. These weapons belong to you. They are the same your grandfather gave to me when I set out on my travels. Take them, but do not use them unless you are attacked—I ask that of you. My fortune is not large, but I have divided it into three portions—one belongs to you, the second I shall reserve for… 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?