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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes Shelfies (#3)

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes Shelfies (#3)

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I was posting Shelfies over in a the r/bookshelf subreddit. The Mods seemed to be growing more persnickity, and spam selling posts were getting more common, so I quit the group. I’ve already done a couple posts here at Black Gate with my shelfies from over there. Here’s the third and final one from my Sherlock Holmes shelfies. Links to the prior posts at the end.

Holmes Shelfie #15

I am aware of four sets of annotated Sherlock Holmes. We’ll get to the first two in a bit.

The most recent is The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes, from Leslie Klinger. Klinger has gone on to do other major annotations, including for Bran Stoker’s Dracula, and H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu.

It’s my favorite annotation, and not just because the slipcases are cool as heck. Love the Holmes silhouette. This is a masterfully annotated look at the entire Canon, in the order the stories were printed (you’ll see that’s relevant when I talk about William Baring-Gould’s annotation).

With over almost 1,000 illustrations on high quality paper, it’s a masterpiece. This was Klinger’s second annotation – the first set is to the right of the pic. And it’s different, (and I think better), because it deals with the stories, and the world, in reality.

His second set treats Holmes and Watson as if they were real people, and it’s a different way of annotating. Still neat, but I prefer the New Annotated. It’s a terrific resource, and a fun way to read the stories. One of the treasures of my collection.

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What I’m Reading: November 2023

What I’m Reading: November 2023

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I’ve been juggling reading with catching up on a bunch of TV/streaming stuff. But I’ve worked in a couple of good reads.

I thought about a post on series’ I’m behind on in my reading. I probably will do one – sadly, it would be VERY long. But I did just finish two novels in one such, and I started a third.

HOLMES ON THE RANGE

I wrote this essay back in 2019 on Steve Hockensmith’s Sherlock Holmes-influenced cowboy brothers. Dear Mr. Holmes is a collection of the seven short stories that kicked off the series. And just last month, the seventh novel – Hunters of the Dead– came out.

I had read the first three novels and the short stories. But book four – The Crack in the Lens – came out in 2009. I was WAAAAY behind. So last week I read Crack… – and then immediately tore through The World’s Greatest Sleuth!. Now I’m on book six, The Double-A Western Detective Agency.

Check out my prior essay for a more in-depth look at the series. But the premise is that brothers Gustav (Old Red) and Otto (Big Red) Amlingmeyer, are trail-riding cowpunchers in the Old West. This is during the time of Sherlock Holmes’ Adventures and Memoirs. Gustav can’t read. So, while they’re sitting around the campfire at night, Otto reads aloud the Holmes stories from a dog-eared magazine.

Gustav is totally enthralled with Holmes’ methods and sets out to do some deducifyin’ on the trail. And these two fall into malice and mayhem like a spinster in one of Agatha Christie’s villages. Gustav is the brains, and Otto is the brawn.

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of the Parson’s Son

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of the Parson’s Son

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I have been fortunate enough to contribute original stories to five volumes of the MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories series. The brainchild of my Solar Pons buddy, David Marcum, there have been THIRTY-SIX volumes so far, and that will be over forty by the end of the year. The stories are all authentic Holmes pastiches, emulating Doyle’s writings. No modern-age fan fiction nonsense (like, say, the road BBC Sherlock went down).

The contributors donate their royalties, which goes to Undershaw, a school for special needs kids, which is in one of Arthur Conan Doyle’s former homes. Over $100,000 has been raised so far. It’s just a terrific project in multiple ways.

Some of my favorite writers have participated, including Denis O. Smith, Hugh Ashton, John Hall, Will Thomas, and more. I’ve also discovered some new Holmes writers I didn’t know about, like Mark Mower, Mike Hogan, and Tim Symonds.

Plotting is my Achilles heel, but I’m working on getting back in the series with some new stories. Arthur Conan Doyle looked into several true crimes – often to try and thwart a miscarriage of justice. The case of George Edalji is probably the best-known. Not too long ago, a fictionalized account, Arthur and George, was made into a TV miniseries.

For MX, I took that case and had Sherlock Holmes investigate it as it occurred. “The Adventure of the Parson’s Son” appeared in third volume of this series, and was part of the initial three-part release. If you’d like to read a Doyle-styled Holmes story by yours truly, keep on going.

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes – Holmes Shelfies (#1)

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes – Holmes Shelfies (#1)

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So…I found a kinda cool group over on Reddit. And it wasn’t LotR_on_Prime – yeesh. R/bookshelf is a subreddit where people post their shelfies. With over 2,000 books on 90-ish shelves/cubes, that appealed to me!

I started with my Jack Higgins shelf, and then my Clive Cussler one. I’ve done a couple fantasy shelves, but mostly I’ve been sharing pics of my over-500 Sherlock Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle books. And I’ve been adding a comment, talking about some of those pictured. Its’ been neat.

So, I thought for this week’s entry, I’d bring back The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes again, and share the shelfies and comments. So far, anyways.

Holmes Shelfie #1

Titan Books has two lines of Holmes pastiches. The colorful ones on the left, are traditional stories in the Doyle style. They were originally reissues of hard-to-find volumes by folks like Philip Jose Farmer, Fred Saberhagen, Manly Wade Wellman, and David Stuart Davies (my editor at Sherlock Magazine). Then they started adding new novels by Davies and a few other authors.

The other line, with the covers like the ones on the right, are all new novels, and horror-ish / steampunk / gothic. Not traditional Doyle. They continued this line through the Pandemic. If you want some horror-ish Holmes, this is a good place to go. I like James Lovegrove quite a bit. And I think Caravan Scott was pretty good.

I have 38 of the Titan books, I think. Here’s a review I wrote of a couple of the early ones from George Mann.

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: At the Movies with Basil (Rathbone)

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: At the Movies with Basil (Rathbone)

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RathboneColor_RathboneeditedI started writing a regular column for Black Gate in March of 2014. I’ve covered a lot of ground, but today we’re going to try something new. Earlier this year, I was watching Casablanca (yet AGAIN) on TCM, and I decided to do do a running commentary about it on my FB page. I know a LOT about that movie. TCM showed it again a little over a month later, so I did it again. It was fun.

I decided to do the same thing with a Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes movie. But I watched it on Youtube, which let me pause it while I typed comments, and took screenshots. That worked satisfactorily. During Casablanca, I was so busy (mis)typing comments, I missed half of the movie.

So, this is a mix of my running commentary, with more information and fun stuff added in during composition of the essay. It’s a hybrid, but not as detailed as I normally write. We’ll see how it goes as we look at two films: Terror By Night, and The Scarlet Claw. I already wrote a full post on the second movie. I just felt like watching it again.

Of course, all fourteen Holmes films starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce were black and white. But colorized versions, both official and not, have been around for a while. I watched colorized versions of both films, via Youtube. Terror By Night was done by TCC (Timeless Classics now in Color). They’ve got a bunch of movies on their website. And the quality of this one was excellent. The best colorized Holmes I’ve seen. The Scarlet Claw was by ATC, and it was muddy.

TERROR BY NIGHT

We start with number eleven of twelve in the Universal Pictures series. Only one more Holmes movie remained, as Rathbone, tired of being typecast, walked away from the franchise (and the associated radio show).

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: “The Adventure of the Tired Captain”

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: “The Adventure of the Tired Captain”

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CuriousIncidents_CoverEDITEDTwenty years ago, I had a short story published for the first time. Charles Prepolec and J.R. Campbell had not yet put out their four Gaslight collections of Holmes horror stories. Their initial book outing was a little collection called Curious Incidents. For some reason that escapes me now, I thought it would be clever to have a story in which Arthur Conan Doyle plays Dr. Watson. The part that made it really clever, was that he would be assisting William Gillette as Holmes. And they’d be solving one of Watson’s untold cases! I’ve since gone on to write ‘straight’ Holmes pastiches – several of them published. As well as short stories featuring Solar Pons, and others with Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. But getting my name in print began with a twist on Sherlock Holmes.

It was a blustery evening in the Fall of 1901 when I received an unexpected visitor to my hotel room. I had come down to London to meet with my editor at The Strand, Martin Greenhough Smith. Dining at the Westminster Palace Hotel, where the fare is always excellent, we had discussed some particulars relating to the new Sherlock Holmes story that I had, somewhat reluctantly, agreed to provide him with. Returning to my home in Southsea upon the morn, I was still debating upon the merit of bringing Holmes back to life, albeit for only one more adventure.

I arose at the knock upon my door and opened it. To my considerable surprise, I found myself gazing upon the face of Sherlock Holmes. Well, not quite Sherlock Holmes, but the man who had become most identified with him on two continents. The talented actor William Gillette had come to pay his compliments to me.

I shook his hand and relieved him of his wet coat and cap. I bade him make himself comfortable in the over-stuffed armchair by the lamp and poured him a warming glass of good brandy. William Gillette was a famous actor in America. He had starred in several plays and was quite popular. In 1899 he had rewritten an offering of my own, entitled it ‘Sherlock Holmes – A Drama in Four Acts,’ and achieved new levels of success. It had been the toast of New York City and every show had played to a full house. He had recently brought it across the ocean and presented it at our own esteemed Lyceum Theater. It came as no surprise that it was an even bigger smash here in London. Though I considered these detective stories as less important than my other writings, Sherlock Holmes was immensely popular and, I had to admit, financially profitable.

Ensconced in my own chair, Gillette regaled me with his tales of Holmes in America. He certainly made an excellent portrait of the sleuth. Of course, Sidney Paget had drawn a more handsome Holmes than I described, but that had probably been for the best, as it attracted more female readers to the stories. Gillette was tall and lean, with a very distinctive profile. His nose wasn’t quite the hawkish affair that I had pictured, but I could easily see how playgoers had come to identify his visage with that of Sherlock Holmes.

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What I’ve Been Reading Lately: December/2019

What I’ve Been Reading Lately: December/2019

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Oden_MenBronzeEDITED“What have I been reading lately, you ask?” Oh. You didn’t say that. Well, I’m going to tell you anyways.  When I ‘get into’ something, I jump in full-bore for a short time: up way past my elbows. That’s how most of my series’ here at Black Gate start. Fortunately, I can be reading a couple different books simultaneously, and I also listen to audiobooks to help cover more ground (though I ALWAYS prefer reading to listening).

SCOTT ODEN

And I recently went on a short Sword and Sandals kick. Scott Oden and I have become friends through our mutual love of Robert E. Howard: he did the “Devil in Iron” entry for Hither Came Conan. I grabbed the digital version of Men of Bronze (a STEAL at $3.99!). It’s historical fiction (non-fantasy) set in 529 BC in ancient Egypt. It’s near the end of the time of the Pharaohs and Egypt is trying to hold off the encroaching Persian Empire. As is often the case with faltering empires, it is relying heavily on mercenaries to keep order.

Hasdrabal Barca is the protagonist; the deadliest mercenary of them all, leading the fight to stop the betrayal of Greek mercenaries, and the ambitious Persians. I had trouble keeping the various names straight, but I very much liked this book. It’s got a grand sweep, and I love Scott’s depiction of Egypt. There’s a rough scene early on, but fortunately, that not the norm for the rest of the book. Much recommended. I also bought his Greek historical novel, Memnon, at the same time (same price). It’s on my massive To Read list.

HOWARD ANDREW JONES

Of course, I couldn’t just read one book of a type, and move on. That’s not me! Howard Andrew Jones was Black Gate’s first Managing Editor (a post recently assumed by Seth Lindberg) and is currently receiving rave reviews for his epic fantasy, The Ring-Sworn Trilogy. I had not yet read his two fantasy Sword and Sorcery novels, featuring the wise and learned scholar Dabir and the brave man of action, Asim (I was not totally unfamiliar with them – more on that below).

So, I got the audiobook for Desert of Souls, the first novel. The adventures take place in a fantasy-real version of Arabia, with sorcery and monsters. And there’s a Robert E. Howard Easter Egg near the end. I like the main characters, and their world, so I have started on the audio book of Bones of the Old Ones.

I had already read The Waters of Eternity; a collection of six short stories featuring the two men. I re-read it, and I actually prefer it to the novels. They are really mysteries, set in that fantasy Arabia. I like the mix of fantasy and detective work, and also the shorter length. You should check them out.

NORBERT DAVIS

For months, I have been listening repeatedly, to an audiobook of the five Max Latin short stories. I simply never get tired of them. The woefully under-appreciated Davis, who I wrote about last week, as well as last year, is on my Harboiled Mt. Rushmore. And the stories about the not-as-crooked-as-he-pretends Latin are the best of the bunch. I listen and read them throughout the year.

I also picked up volumes one and two of The Complete Cases of Bail Bond Dodd, the first series character that Davis created for Dime Detective Magazine. The Dodd and Latin collections are from Steeger Books. You should be reading some Davis.

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Holmes on the Range

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Holmes on the Range

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Hockensmith_HoRCoverEDITEDThat’s right: The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes is back! Well, for one week, anyways. A (Black) Gat in the Hand will resume next Monday. There were quite a few topics I never got around to covering during TPLoSH’ 156-ish week run. (Wow!) And one was Steve Hockensmith’s Holmes on the Range series. I recently got around to finishing the short story collection that I bought for my Nook back in 2011 (I’ve got a bit of a reading backlog, ok?!), and I decided I needed to finally write a post about it, before it got buried in the To Write list again. So, here we go!

There are a lot of ways to go about writing a Sherlock Holmes story. Some folks attempt to very carefully emulate Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s own style, and turn out a tale that feels as if it might have been done by the creator of the great detective himself. Of course, success varies greatly. Hugh Ashton and Denis O. Smith are the best I’ve found in this regard. You can find stories ranging from pretty good to not suitable for (digital) toilet paper. I’ve had three of my own stories published with ‘meh’ results.

Some folks write whatever the heck they want, often with the name of Holmes being the only similarity to the famed detective. It is possible to find good Holmes stories that sound nothing like Dr. Watson’s narrative style, of course. And Holmes has been placed in different eras, and even worlds.

There have been Holmes parodies around for over a hundred years. I’ve written a couple myself, and they were fun!

There are Holmes-like successors out there, of whom August Derleth’s Solar Pons is the best. Yes, I’m aware that’s a subjective judgement, but it’s mine, and I’m the one writing this essay, so it stands. I’ve written about Pons more than once (here’s a good overview), and even contributed introductions and pastiches to anthologies.

But today I’m going to talk about one of Sherlock Holmes’ contemporaries; albeit, quite different and far away. Steve Hockensmith had been writing short stories for Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine Christmas issue, and wanted to sell more to the venerable magazine. EQMM does an annual Sherlock Holmes issue, so he figured that was the way to go. But he wanted to write more than just another Holmes story.

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Cthulhu Casebooks (Vol 2) & The Thinking Engine

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Cthulhu Casebooks (Vol 2) & The Thinking Engine

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Lovegrove_MiskatonicLast December I wrote about Sherlock Holmes & the Shadwell Shadows, volume one of James Lovegrove’s Cthulhu Casebooks trilogy. And this December, it’s on to book two, Sherlock Holmes and the Miskatonic Monstrosities. I wasn’t quite as fond of the second installment, though not because it’s a bad book.

As I wrote in that first review:

The basic premise of the… trilogy is that Watson made up the sixty stories in the Canon. He did so to cover up the real truth behind Holmes’ work. And that’s because the truth is too horrible to reveal. In a nutshell, Watson has written three journals, each covering events fifteen years apart, to try and get some of the darkness out of his soul.

The darkness exists because Holmes, with Watsons’s assistance, waged a career-long war with the otherworld beings of the Cthulhu mythos.

Somewhere in another Black Gate post, I calculated the percentage that Holmes is absent in each of the four novellas which Doyle wrote featuring the great detective. Lovegrove chose to use that novella model and it’s my biggest complaint about the book. Holmes and Watson find a journal and read it. It reminds me of the Mormon interlude in A Study in Scarlet and it takes up thirty-five percent of the book.

Fully one-third of this novel has nothing to do with Holmes or Watson. It provides background to the mystery, but it could be a standalone story and it would have no more tie-in to Holmes than an account of my going out to lunch yesterday.

The flashback takes place in Arkham and it is essentially a Cthulhu short novella. Lovegrove got to write a Lovecraft pastiche within a Holmes pastiche. Of course, these three books are aimed at fans of the Cthulhu stories, so it’s not totally out there. I’ve read stories by Lovecraft, Derleth and others. I don’t mind them, but I’m not a particularly big fan. So, I’m not the target audience for the trilogy.

Those who are avid Holmes and Cthulhu fans are likely to enjoy this second book more than I did. But the fact is that this was a third of the book with no Holmes and/or Watson.

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Solar Pons – The Complete Basil Copper

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Solar Pons – The Complete Basil Copper

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I’ve posted a few times about Solar Pons, whom Vincent Starrett called, “The best substitute to Sherlock Holmes known.” Since I created www.SolarPons.com and founded The Solar Pons Gazette, it’s fair to say I’m a big fan of the ˜Sherlock Holmes of Praed Street.’

Erikson-Lees cov copy

August Derleth wrote seventy-something stories about his creation before passing away in 1971. Derleth’s Arkham House publishing company had printed some works by British horror author Basil Copper and Arkham editor James Turner, in response to a Pons-related letter from Copper, suggested that the British writer compile the entire Pons collection into a two-volume Omnibus. Copper did so, making some 2,000 edits to Derleth’s originals to ‘correct errors.’ Copper referred to this Omnibus as “a veritable feast for Pontine enthusiasts.”

Sure. Except that there was a major outcry from said enthusiasts at Copper’s hubris in rewriting the master’s work (reminds me of L. Sprague de Camp ‘revising’ Robert E. Howard’s original Conan writings). It seems to me that the split was never healed. Meanwhile, Turner asked Copper to continue the Pons saga. Copper wrote four collections of stories and one partially completed novel over the next few years (he would go on to release two more collections of originals and complete the novel).

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