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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

Select Story

The Murder at Carew Court

by Amy Randolph

“And Charlie—must we leave him behind?”

“Remember, Mrs. Carew,” said the grave old doctor, “that I send you away for perfect rest of mind and body. Even the care and responsibility of such a child as little Charlie would be a serious drawback.”

“My dear,” said Mr. Carew, caressingly, “Dr. Bayne is right. Charlie will be in excellent hands here—and your health must be our first consideration. Remember that it will be only a few weeks, at the utmost!”

And Mrs. Carew, with her blue eyes full of tears, and her heart inwardly rebelling against the dictum of solemn old bachelor doctors, was forced to accede. So Carew Court was left to the sole possession of the four-year-old heir, his nurses, and a picked force of sedate servants, and a merry party of guests assembled at Silverbeach, the sea-side residence of the Carews. For Dr. Bayne had said:

“Give her change—society—amusement; keep her mind constantly occupied, if you wish to fight off the hereditary enemy of the family—consumption.”

And Mr. Carew, tremulously watching the transparent cheeks and marvelously luminous eyes of the beautiful wife who was scarce half his own age, eagerly caught at the merest straw of hope.

“My dear,” said Mr. Carew one morning at the breakfast table, “I had a letter from Clarence; he will be here tonight.”

“Will he?”

“And very happy I shall be to welcome him after his six months’ absence in Europe.”

Mrs. Carew was silent.

“Inez, you never liked Clarence,” said Mr. Carew, rather complainingly. “Before my marriage, he was a son to me, almost.”

“And it was because he was so visibly chagrined at that same marriage, Eustace, that I have never been able to learn to like him,” answered Mrs. Carew, with a slight curl of her lip. “Once he was heir-apparent: he is nothing, now.”

“But, my… 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?