Update, Westminster Detective Library.

Mark Twain, ca. 1907.
Library of Congress, Prints
and Photographs Div.

Since I last posted about the Westminster Detective Library—the effort by Edgar winner LeRoy Lad Panek (Introduction to the Detective Story) and Mary Bendel-Simso (McDaniel College, MD) to compile an online repository of short detective works published in the United States prior to 1891, some 300 pieces have been added, and there is a new Web interface. The pieces include 87 stories by 48 female authors, and Panek states, "There are no doubt many more as the majority of the stories we have cataloged have no author listed in the original." Panek also notes that he and Bendel-Simso will be issuing a book based on the works in the library.

A sample from the Westminster Detective Library:

• "The Female Assassin" (1850) by Prince Cambaceres, archchancellor of the French Empire and Duke of Parma

• "Who Is the Thief?" (1864) by Elizabeth Campbell (a writer and actress trained by Edwin Booth)

• "The Stolen Letter: A Lawyer's Story" (1855) by Wilkie Collins

• "Mrs. Fitzgerald's Life Policy" (1863) by Andrew Forrester Jr. (pseudonymous author of The Female Detective  [1864] unmasked by Judith Flanders in The Invention of Murder)

• "The Murder at Carew Court" (1868) by Amy Randolph

• "Edward Mills and George Benton" (1880) by Mark Twain

For the project, Panek and Bendel-Simso seek help from students and others with tasks such as editing, proofreading, and locating materials; clues to finding additional stories and sources; and comments on the materials in the library. Contact Bendel-Simso.

Twain's "Double-Barrelled Detective Story" (1901).

Mark Twain. Library of
Congress, Prints and
Photographs Div.

Included in the Morgan Library's online exhibition "Mark Twain: A Skeptic's Progress" are two handwritten pages of Twain's spoof "A Double-Barrelled Detective Story" (1901) with a unique view of The Great Detective at work.

Mark Twain's Is He Dead? playing in Long Beach, CA.

Playing through May 24th at the International City Theatre in Long Beach, CA, is Mark Twain's 1897 play Is He Dead? in which a poor young artist stages his own death to jack up the prices of his paintings and returns to life as his widowed sister.

You can see clips from the play here. The University of California Press published the play in 2003. Is He Dead? is scheduled for theaters in Massachusetts and New Jersey this summer; Chicago, Las Vegas, and Salt Lake City this fall; and Seattle in spring 2010.