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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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Bent Twig and Broken Tree

by James S. Brisbin

THE village of L— was and still is one of the most beautiful towns of New England. Nestled among the cool hills, the white cottages overshadowed by wide-spreading boughs of green trees, its quiet homes presented a scene of peace and comfort rarely surpassed on this earth, and its numerous tall church-spires pointed constantly to heaven as emblems of the piety and goodness of the people who came to worship beneath them.

In one of the prettiest cottages at the end of the village lived Minnie Morgan, a young girl of rare and astonishing beauty, and who was the acknowledged belle not only of the town but of all the surrounding country. Minnie was a little wild, but such was her goodness of heart and beauty that even the bitter jealousies of a small inland town never reached her, and everyone said, “When Minnie grows older, she will become steadier and make a good and sober wife.” Minnie’s father was a small merchant, and much engrossed with the cares of business, so that he saw little of his wayward daughter. Mrs. Morgan was a handsome dressy woman of little education, and had the reputation of not being a very agreeable wife. Her husband toiled late and early to make money, and Mrs. Morgan’s chief occupation seemed to be to get as much money as possible and spend it in dress and entertainment. Still, she was a good housekeeper, and an apparently affectionate wife and mother. Minnie was the only child, and at eleven years of age was sent away to school. Her father, who loved her dearly, went in two weeks to the boarding-school to see how she got on, and Minnie cried so when he came to leave, and was… 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?