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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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How We Caught Him

The banking house of Shavewell Brothers had been victimized by an extensive forgery, so cleverly planned and executed that, in detective circles, there was but one opinion as to its authorship. There was but one hand skillful enough for such a piece of work—that of Durnford Marwick, a most accomplished rascal, whose craft and cunning had carried him safely through a long career of roguery in spite of the best laid schemes to trap him. On this occasion a heavy reward was offered for his apprehension.

I had but lately been enrolled a member of the detective force, and was ambitious of rising. Here was a golden opportunity—golden in every sense, for whoever caught Marwick would not only be a made man, but would put a round sum into his pocket.

While others were beating the bush in different directions, I resolved to go on a still-hunt of my own. I had information that Marwick had a set of associates in a place about a hundred miles away, with whom, it was not unlikely, he had sought and found a hiding place. At any rate, it could do no harm to make a reconnaissance in the neighborhood.

I took the next train with a view to carrying out my plan. Securing a seat favorable for observation, I commenced glancing over the morning paper and my fellow-passengers. I had no particular expectation of finding any one answering to Warwick’s… 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?