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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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Leaf the Twenty-Fifth

The Artist's Story

by John B. Williams, M.D.

After a long residence in the country, I returned to New York. The exhibition of the Academy of Arts was then open, and being very fond of paintings, I hastened to visit it. On the very threshold of the door I met my friend George Herbert, one of our most charming landscape painters. After shaking hands we entered together.

I asked Herbert if he had anything on exhibition, and on his replying in the affirmative, I begged of him first of all to show me his pictures. But modest as usual he led me to some of the best paintings, and pointed out to me beauties of detail not usually appreciated by the mass of visitors. He thus passed in review the works of his friends, rivals and enemies, and was equally just with them all. It was not until an hour had elapsed that he placed me opposite one of his own pictures, which was surrounded by a considerable number of ladies.

“I can make no remark on this picture,” said he, “look and judge for yourself.”

The moment I cast my eyes on it, I could not suppress an exclamation of surprise and joy, which made all the persons looking at it turn round their heads. One only remained motionless. She was a lady elegantly dressed in black, and who with her elbow leaning on the balustrade, appeared to be entirely absorbed in the contemplation… 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?