The News

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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Strange Stories

Remarkable Narrative of Young Cyclone, the Detective, and Wild Frank

When Chief of Police Hein received a letter day before yesterday signed by “Wild Frank, the Scout,” and warning him that some woman was waiting for a chance to send him to his long rest, it was thought the epistle was from some crazy person who had been arrested at some time, but, in view of recent developments, it appears that the peculiar letter was written by some youngster, who has evidently been reading dime novels and wants to immortalize himself by trying his hand at story writing. The following second letter has been received from “Wild Frank,” and is here with presented to an anxious public: a Mystery.

Maddam Reptah, the Belle of the ill fame, was arrested or captured not far from this City and taken away for reveng by two unknown Detictives last Saturday Night.

If she has any friends they will find her at 1221 vanderwater st. New York.

Young Cyclone the chain lightning Detictiv a lowed himself to be shot at as A target just to save the true carricter of lady of whom he cared more of then his own life. ah why should that save the carricter of her. there lies the mystery but he know, only a mans broken arm saved the life of him and her name, ah if that lady could read his thoughts what would she se. Snakes and Buffalo chips, it would be more than she could Stand She would se more pleasure in store for her than She ever saw in her life wild Frank the Prierie rattler writes this to Public to solve the mystery of the duel that was fought in private last Sunday morning just below the falls.

her name is saved was the last words, the Detective said as he walked away.

So says wild frank to… 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?