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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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The Hofraadinde

A THRILLING TALE

On the evening of the second of August, I and a number of young people, assembled at the house of a friend to celebrate the anniversary of his marriage. Our host possessed that courtesy and gaiety of manner which never fails to promote the mirth and enjoyment of a party; and as to his young wife, whose joyous and blooming countenance spoke the happiness of her lot, she was the first in every scheme suggested for the amusement of her guests. After having spent a most delightful evening, we were just about to bid good night to our kind entertainers. When we heard a carriage roll down the street, upon which I stepped to the window, and by the light of the carriage lamps, I saw a splendid chariot stop at the opposite dwelling.

“Who comes home so late?” asked one of the party.

“That is our beautiful neighbor, the Hofraadinde,” replied our host, [“]who seldom returns before midnight from her fashionable parties.”

“Is she a widow?” said one of the ladies.

“By no means,” replied our hostess; “but she finds little pleasure in having her husband always by her side, who might almost be her father from the disparity of their years, and who would find some difficulty in keeping pace with the dissipation of his young wife; while she is amusing herself with the gaieties of the world, the old gentleman is shut up in his study, engrossed with his pen and his politics.”

Meanwhile the step of the carriage was let down, and an elegant female alighted, whose costly attire showed the high rank to which she belonged. The important business of… 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?