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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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From Chambers’ Edinburgh Journal

Recollections of a Police Officer

The Partner

by William Russell

I had virtually, though not formally, left the force, when a young man of gentlemanly but somewhat dissipated aspect, and looking very pale and agitated, called upon me with a note from one of the commissioners, enjoining me to assist the bearer, Mr. Edmund Webster, to the utmost of my ability, if, upon examination, I saw reason to place reliance upon his statement relative to the painful and extraordinary circumstances in which he was involved.

“Mr. Edmund Webster,” I exclaimed, after glancing at the note. “You are the person, then, accused of robbing Mr. Hutton, the corn-merchant (the reader will, of course, understand that I make use of fictitious names) and whom that gentleman refuses to prosecute?”

“The same, Mr. Waters. But although the disgraceful charge, so far as regards legal pursuit, appears to be withdrawn, or rather is not pressed, I and my family shall not be the less shamed and ruined thereby, unless my perfect innocence be made manifest before the world. It is with that view we have been advised to seek your assistance; and my father desires me to say that he will hesitate at no expense necessary for the thorough prosecution of the inquiry.”

“Very well, Mr. Webster. The intimation of the commissioner is, however, of itself all-potent with me, although I hoped to be concerned in no more such investigations. Have the goodness, therefore, to sit down, and favor me minutely and distinctly with your version of the affair, omitting, if you please, no circumstance, however apparently trivial, in connection with it. I may tell you,” I added, opening the notebook from which I am now transcribing, and placing it before me in readiness to begin—“I… 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?