Introduction / Leslie S. Klinger --
DISTINGUISHED PREDECESSORS: The purloined letter / Edgar Allan Poe --
Three "detective" anecdotes / Charles Dickens --
The little old man of Batignolles / Émile Gaboriau --
"Thou art the man" / Mary Elizabeth Braddon --
RIVALS FROM THE COMMONWEALTH: The great ruby robbery / Grant Allen --
The Lenton Croft robberies / Arthur Morrison --
The Duchess of Wiltshire's diamonds / Guy Boothby --
The mystery of the Felwyn Tunnel / L. T. Meade and Robert Eustace --
The case of Oscar Brodski / R. Austin Freeman --
The coin of Dionysius / Ernest Bramah --
A hunt for a murderer / Dick Donovan --
The tragedy of a third smoker / C.J. Cutcliffe Hyne --
The green-stone god and the stockbroker / Fergus Hume --
The contents of the coffin / J. S. Fletcher --
Sir Gilbert Murrell's picture / Victor L. Whitechurch --
The hundred thousand dollar robbery / Hesketh Prichard --
The Hammer of God / G. K. Chesterton --
The riddle of the 5:28 / T. W. Hanshew --
AMERICAN RIVALS: The affair of the double thumb print / Charles Felton Pidgin --
The art of forgery / Rodrigues Ottolengui --
The case of Helen Bond / Arthur B. Reeve --
The amateur / Richard Harding David --
The problem of Cell 13 / Jacques Futrelle --
The angel of the Lord / Melville Davisson Post --
The wire-devil / Francis Lynde --
Philo Gubb's greatest case / Ellis Parker Butler --
THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES: The lost diamonds / W. S. Hayward --
The unknown weapon / Andrew Forrester --
The diary of Anne Rodway / Wilkie Collins --
How he cut his stick / M. McDonnell Bodkin --
The man with the wild eyes / George R. Sims --
The golden slipper / Anna Kathrine Green --
Mandragora / Richard Marsh --
The murder at Troyte's Hill / C. L. Pirkis --
SHERLOCKIAN SATIRES AND HOMAGES: The great Pegram mystery / Robert Barr --
The adventure of the clothes-line / Carolyn Wells --
The stolen cigar case / Bret Harte --
The adventures of Shamrock Jolnes / O. Henry --
The Umbrosa burglary / R. C. Lehmann --
An irreducible detective story / Stephen Leacock --
