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

An Unexpected Witness

A Startling Court Scene

by An Old Contributor

On my last visit to Mississippi I arrived one pleasant Autumn evening at the village of Deepwoods, having come in the stage that day from Moody Creek. I found the inn well filled, and learned that the circuit court was in session there. At the supper table I found the judge and some half dozen lawyers, besides the county officers and numerous visitors who had come to attend the trials. I had some business to transact with a merchant in the place, whose name was Landor Wallace, and I made up my mind to call upon him during the evening. I knew where his store was, and after tea I walked down to the place. The building was all fast, however, and I turned my steps toward his dwelling. I knocked at the door, and my summons was answered by a black woman. I asked her if Mr. Wallace was at home. She looked into my face a few moments, and then burst into tears.

“He’s to hum, but he’s dead!” she sobbed, with much effort.

I managed to learn from the negress that Wallace had been murdered three days before, and that his murderer would be tried on the morrow. Under such circumstances I could not disturb any other of the family, and having gathered from the slave the leading particulars I left the door and returned to the inn. There I learned some further matters touching the murder, but those who understood the matter fully were busy, and I was forced to wait until tomorrow for a clear knowledge of the case.

Though the murder had been committed so recently, the body having not yet been buried, yet as court was in session, and the accused and witness on hand, the trial was to take place immediately.

On the following morning I entered the courtroom with the crowd, and the first case which came up was that… 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?