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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

A Case of Larceny

by Sylvanus Cobb, Jr.

We began to think that camp life had a very bad effect upon those who had gone to war from our section. Jack Stanton had, previous to the breaking out of the rebellion, been one of the best young fellows in our town,—genial and kind-hearted; ever ready to assist suffering humanity wherever he found it; and never known to do a mean or corrupting act. And yet, within two months after he had returned from the war, while engaged in a drunken frolic, he came very near killing the landlord of a low tavern, for which offence he was arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to three years imprisonment. The penalty was made thus severe because it appeared to the court that the offence was a very aggravated one, and the extenuating circumstances, which subsequently came to light, did not appear in evidence at the trial.

Within a fortnight after Jack Stanton had been imprisoned our good citizens were astonished and grieved upon learning that Wallace Danbury had been arrested for larceny. Wallace and Jack had both been members of the same company, the former a sergeant, and the latter a corporal; and they had borne from the field of battle the noblest record a soldier can win. They had been brave and true, always ready for duty, foremost in the charge, and among the last to leave the field when there were wounded companions to be brought off.

At first people would not believe that Wallace Danbury had been guilty of theft. It could not be possible—he who had always been so free from even the appearance of wrong-doing.

“I can hardly understand it,” said our aged clergyman, “except upon the supposition that the young man is deranged. He has certainly appeared to be honest, upright, and industrious; and always ready and willing to help in every good word and work.” Still, pursued the old man, with a solemn shake of the head, “there has been… 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?