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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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A Private Detective

Hiram Hazlett had for months been much interested in newspaper accounts of cases in which private personages attained fame by acting as amateur detectives in cases where professionals had failed. He was constantly revolving in his mind the possibility of sometime acquiring fame in such line himself, and was fond of picturing his course of conduct under circumstances which he would imagine himself in. With this proemial clause, we will proceed to follow Mr. Hazlett on his way to catch the early morning train for the city, where he was engaged in the hardware business.

The train was nearly filled when he entered, and it was with some difficulty that he secured a seat just in the rear of two neatly-dressed ladies. At first he was so intent upon his own thoughts that he paid no attention to the conversation of his fair neighbors, but finally a remark arrested his wandering ideas. What he heard was: “What do you intend doing with your husband?” from one of the fair ladies to the other.

“Oh, I have that all fixed. I shall bind him securely with the ropes secreted in a closet in the room, and then, while he is still asleep, I shall steal out and call Burgess Winburne to come and assist me to rifle the iron safe of all valuables in the form of money, bonds and jewels.”

“What will you do then?” said the other lady.

“We will leave my husband bound and gagged while we pack our spoils into a portable shape and get away to New York, whence we will sail for Europe to enjoy our ill-gotten gains. I am not right sure but what I shall have Burgess Winburne kill my husband, and leave his cold corpse to electrify the servants at Eglantine Villa,” laughingly said the lady of the gray veil.

This rather singular… 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?