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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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Resting Powders

From the Diary of a Physician

by Sylvanus Cobb, Jr.

In the spring of 1847 I settled in Lancaster. The old physician of that place had been removed by death, and several of my friends were anxious that I should come in. The opportunity was an excellent one, and I embraced it; and when I had been there a year I had a practice far better and more extensive than I had ever before enjoyed. Among those who became my warm personal friends were Frederic Lawson and his wife; and their friendship was worth having. Mr. Lawson was over seventy years of age, a hale, hearty old man; and his wife was the very picture of domestic health and comfort. He was the wealthiest man in the town, being worth over a hundred thousand dollars, and he was one of the most valuable citizens, too. Both he and his wife gave me their friendship very soon after I took up my residence with them, and this circumstance helped me much in other quarters.

One day in the early part of September I received a request to attend at Mr. Lawson’s without delay. It was in the afternoon, and when I arrived, I found the old gentleman and his wife both sick. They had been taken just before noon, with cramps and chills; but they were much easier when I arrived than they were when they sent for me. I saw that their stomachs were out of order; and as I knew that they were both pretty high livers, I was not at all surprised. I gave simple emetics, with some other medications, and then left them, promising to call again in the morning.

In the morning I found them no better than they had been on the day before. They fancied that they were much better, because they suffered no pain; but I could see that they were really sick. After a careful examination I came to the conclusion that I had got to guard against fever; and I gave the nurse directions with that understanding.

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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?