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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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[Written for The Flag of our Union]

The Tragedy at Granite Bridge

by W.W. Buchanan

It was on a beautiful autumn day, about three years ago, when I was most thoroughly enjoying “La dolce far niente,” that the even I am now about to narrate happened at Terrana, a beautifully situated but decayed gold field near California. Terrana had once been a great and productive “rush,” but at the time of which I speak had settled down into one of those still-to-be-met-with townships, that, scattered over a vast space, represent, to a small extent, both the commercial and mining interests. Long streets of calico tenements had given way to a floating population, but the business of the store-keeper depended principally upon the surrounding country, and among the deep shafts of the miner had grown up a wealth of green underwood, that made lovely the old hills of “stuff” they interspersed.

The police camp was situated in one of the now deserted gullies. The population had edged away from it, and “circumlocution” had not ordered its removal to a more convenient situation. So we had the comfort of living among greenness and pretty scenery, with only here and there a residence of wood or iron, to do away with utter loneliness.

Yes, it was only a “far niente” business of mine that day, and I do believe a “dolce” one, also; for I was perfectly idle, and quite capable of enjoying the rugged and beautiful view that spread before the window above the iron bedstead on which I reclined. The bedding was folded up, regulation fashion, to serve as a pillow, and a policeman’s ribs ought not to be particular; so mine did not feel any inconvenience from the contact with the bottom bars of my stretcher.

Directly opposite, and at the distance of about a quarter of a mile, rose up from the valley in which we were encamped, a green ridge… 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?