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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 Millers of Tewkesbury

When the list of men hung by circumstantial evidence is complete, the name of Calvin Tyler, the miller of Tewkesbury, will be found thereon. One hundred and two years have passed since occurred the particulars we are about to relate, and the mill which achieved such a notoriety long ago has been swept from existence by the breath of the fiery demon.

On the night of October 20^th, 1775, as several persons affirmed on solemn oath, Calvin Tyler entered his family circle and said that the faithful watch-dog of the mill had died in a fit, and was buried in the cellar whose walls were washed on one side by the water of the race.

The miller furthermore said that the dog exhibited symptoms of having been poisoned, and when his daughter asked him if he suspected any one, he said “No!” and almost immediately went to bed.

This very simple occurrence—the death of a dog—was to be commented upon and very generally disbelieved by the highest in that portion of the realm. One month afterward, Mrs. Marble gave notice to the proper authorities that her husband, a prominent merchant, had been missing for six-and-twenty days, and that she feared that foul play had befallen him.

The lady said that on the 23d of October her husband had left home at eight o’clock in the evening, saying that he was going to Tyler’s mill, the owner of which, Calvin Tyler, was to pay him six hundred pounds of borrowed money, and the interest thereon. With the intention of collecting the debt… 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?