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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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My First Attempt

A Detective's Story

by E.H.K.

It was my fortune during the summer months to be traveling up the Hudson River; on the trip I made the acquaintance of one of New York’s ablest Detectives. At my request he told me the following story. I give it in his own language as nearly as possible, with the exceptions of names, and dates:

“Most of my earlier years were passed near the town of S––––, in New York State, where I was born. I never shall forget the morning of the twentieth day of August 18––––; it was my eighteenth birthday. On reaching school at nine o’clock all the scholars were present; but the old schoolmaster had not made his appearance. After waiting ’till ten three of the boys, besides myself, agreed to go to his house to see what delayed him; (it was his first absence in his whole term of teaching something over ten years.)

He lived alone in a piece of woods some mile from the schoolhouse, keeping bachelor’s hall.

On arriving at the place we found the house closed in front, and no marks of any living thing stirring on the premises; no response came to our knocking except the growling of the old man’s dog who was in the building. We knocked again but received only a similar return. We paused and looked at each other wondering what it could mean, but coming to the conclusion that the owner was at the barn we went towards it; on our way there one of the boys called my attention to the dog who stood in the open doorway of the house (the back door); the animal knew us immediately, and sprang towards us with evident manifestations of delight, but on reaching us he commenced to moan and whine piteously, and pull at our clothing: at first we could not make out his meaning, when he again commenced to pull one… 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?