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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

Job Quigley’s Lesson

by Judge Clark

“Beg pardon, sir; but you’ve dropped your pocket-book.”

Job Quigley clapped both hands on his pantaloons pockets, and then thrust them both in.

“N-no, I haven’t,” he stammered excitedly, as his dexter fist reappeared with the article in question tight in its grasp, “but, confound it, if you didn’t frighten me.”

“I thought this might be yours,” said the first speaker, a serious-looking young man in second-hand mourning, with crepe on his hat, and a dilapidated carpet-bag in his hand.

Job could have bit his tongue off as his eye fell on a plethoric-looking wallet, which the stranger stood ready to deliver had he said the word, or rather if he had not said it so quickly.

“I was almost certain it was yours,” the serious-looking young man resumed. “I saw it just after you passed, and such things are not apt to lie long here.

“I tell you it ain’t mine,” Job surly growled, out of humor with himself, and, of curse, with everybody else.

“It’s a serious loss to somebody,” mused the other, as he opened the pocket-book and displayed a roll of greenbacks with figures on the corners that made his listener’s eyes water.

“Well, you’re in luck anyhow,” the latter curtly answered, and was about to pass on.

“Of course, I must endeavor to find the true owner,” answered the other; “but it happens most unfortunately, that I am just setting out in answer to a distant summons to the bedside of a dying mother. (He winked his eyes very hard, but his grief was too deep for tears.)

Mastering his emotion, he continued:

“I feel, however, as though I could confide in you. You have the appearance of an honest man; besides, had you been otherwise, you would certainly have claimed this property as your own.”

“Of course I would,” was the gruff response, followed by the mental query, “Why the deuce … 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?

Read More