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