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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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A Fatal Mistake

There dwelt in California, some years ago, three friends, wild enough, who had seemingly linked their fortunes for better or for worse, and who, whatever their luck, were constantly in each other's company.

The young men were Charles Chester, Harry Bray and Edward Warren. They were more brotherly than many brothers, more akin than any kinsman. True to each other, even when women and money were between them. Damon and Pythias, with a twin Damon added. For a long while they had been very poor; at last fortune favored them. Each had a certain sum, by no means contemptible, stowed away in the leathern belt he wore about his waist. Each carried a gold watch, and each wore a suit of clothes, supposed by himself to be the latest style, and choicest fashion. Moreover, their revolvers were perfect, silver-mounted, and rejoicing in a multiplicity of barrels; for without these it would be quite impossible to maintain a position in this quarter of the world in any society.

How they came by these possessions, we will not inquire to particularly. They were neither burglars nor highwaymen, but dice and betting may have helped them to the winning of their little [fortunes]. They were not over scrupulous; but they would have knocked any man down who had neglected to address them as gentlemen, and used those wonderful revolvers promptly on any “stranger” who objected to drinking with them; and, consequently, stood rather high in the community. Certainly, in their conduct to each other they were faultlessly honorable and miraculously generous.

One day soon after “luck” had come to its best, a letter directed in a tremulous woman’s hand to “Charles Chester,” was handed to that member of the trio, in the presence of the other two. The young fellow seized it eagerly, tore it open, read it… 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?