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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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The Detective's Story

From the Springfield (Mass.) Daily Republican

Late in the Autumn of 1856 I was going home to Vermont for a short visit. Just as I stepped on to the warf at Buffalo, a gentleman tapped me on the shoulder, and said:

“This way, if you please.”

As I did not happen to please, but was turning to look after my baggage, he seized hold of me, and said, “Come along, sir.”

I said, “Don’t be rude, my man. I am not on duty now, and cannot attend to your case, whatever it may be.”

“But I can to yours,” retorted he, “so come along without any more ado.”

“Claim your baggage! Train leaves here in five minutes!” shouted the porter.

“My trunk! A check for Burlington!” said I.

“Check for the station house,” put in my pertinacious, new-made friend.

“What on earth do you mean? You will make me miss the train,” said I.

“But not the station,” he replied dryly, “so come along.”

“Will you please introduce yourself before we proceed with our acquaintance?"

“I am Deputy Crane, of Buffalo,” he answered.

“And I am Deputy Wood, of Chicago. But train’s off. I will see you on my return to Buffalo.”

There was a little confusion. “All aboard!” shouted the conductor. And all aboard they got, excepting Deputy Wood and his trunk, which, to my certain knowledge, were left standing in the depot—the one for a moment about as speechless as the other. Deputy Crane presently remarked that he had never before had the pleasure of meeting Deputy Wood of Chicago: but he thought his friends Smith, Jones & Co., might have been more fortunate, and if I would have the goodness to walk up to the City Hotel, where they boarded such as me for nothing, he would send for them. I… 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?