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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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Claude Melnotte as a Detective

by Allan Pinkerton

CHAPTER I.

Late one evening in the fall of 1854, I was seated in my private office in Chicago, smoking a cigar, preparatory to going home for the night. The delightful Indian summer had just given way to the cold winds of November, which moaned and whistled around the building, mournfully heralding the near approach of icy-handed winter. I had turned down the gas and seated myself in a comfortable easy-chair before a bright coal fire, which lit up the room with a soft, mellow light. The surroundings were well adapted for the repose of mind and body, and I mechanically puffed away at my cigar, while enjoying a well-earned rest after a day of exciting work. As I was revolving in my mind the events of the day and laying plans for the morrow, I was disturbed in my revery by the entrance of Mr. Stuart, one of my clerks, who said that there were three gentlemen in the main office desirous of seeing me. I was somewhat annoyed at the interruption, being anxious to go home soon, but as my motto has always been, “Business before pleasure,” I said that I would see the visitors, and a moment later three fashionably dressed young gentlemen walked in. They introduced themselves as Messrs. Williams, Henry, and Robinson, and stated that they had been appointed members of a committee to secure my services in detecting the perpetrator of a series of robberies in their hotel.

“What hotel do you refer to, Mr. Robinson?” I asked.

“The Clifton House, on Wabash avenue,” he replied.

I knew it well, as it is always my habit to keep thoroughly posted in regard to the city hotels. The Clifton House was the most fashionable hotel in Chicago at that time, and numbered among its guests many of the best people in 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?