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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Doyle’s Favorite SH Adventure (Doyle on Holmes)

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Doyle’s Favorite SH Adventure (Doyle on Holmes)

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And it’s another essay by Arthur Conan Doyle about his famous detective. This was also the last one he wrote, appearing in The Strand in March of 1927.

The fifth and final short story collection, The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes, was due out shortly.

He wrote a piece to announce a contest for readers of The Strand to name their twelve favorite Holmes stories. He would make his own list and see how they compared. The response with the closest list to his would win a $100 check and an autographed copy of his autobiography, Memories and Adventures. One hundred more people would win autographed copies of the autobiography (no check).

There are actually four components to this. The announcement, written by someone at The Strand, was A Sherlock Holmes Competition.

Doyle’s accompanying essay was Mr. Sherlock Holmes to His Readers.

In June, someone at The Strand wrote The Sherlock Holmes Prize Competition: The Result.

Which was accompanied by Doyle’s essay, How I Made My List.

So Doyle wrote an essay to announce the contest, and another a few months later, to name his favorite stories. Each of those two essays was accompanied by some in-house text, with its own title.

Clear as mud? Okay, let’s go!

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Back Among the Kencyrath: “The Gates of Tagmeth” by PC Hodgell

Back Among the Kencyrath: “The Gates of Tagmeth” by PC Hodgell

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One of the earliest reviews I wrote for Blackgate was of P.C. Hodgell’s 1982 sword & sorcery classic, God Stalk. It’s the story of Jame, a relative innocent at large in the very Lankhmarian city Tai-Tastigon on the world of Rathilien. She’s a High Born, the ruling race of a tripartite race called the Kencyrath (the other two are the Kendar — warriors and artisans — and the Arrin-ken — the lion-like judges of the three races).  She’s also a Shanir, a subset of her people gifted — or cursed as most have come to believe — with strange abilities. In her case, it’s retractable claws on her fingers.

The Kencyrath have been consecrated by their Three-Faced God to battle Perimal Darkness, a great evil that’s been devouring one world after another in a chain of parallel worlds for millennia. Every time, they’ve failed at their duty, having to retreat to one world or another. As of God Stalk, they’ve been on Rathilien for three thousand years. They escaped there following the Fall, a moment when the High Lord betrayed the Kencyrath and two-thirds were killed, their souls offered up to Perimal Darkness.

After a year in Tai-Tastigon Jame set off into the West in search of her twin brother Torisen and the Kencyrath homeland — well, at least the homeland they took possession of three thousand years ago. Over the following six books, Jame, forever a square peg in a round hole, emerges as a wild card in the political games between the various Kencyrath houses. Unwilling to adopt the cloistered and regulated life of most High Born women, Jame eventually finds herself a candidate in the Kencyrath military officer’s school. Along the way, she learns she is more than likely the prophesied incarnation of the destructive aspect of the Three-Faced God. She also discovers more of the supernatural underpinnings of Rathilien, how the Kencyrath’s arrival disrupted it, and that the final reckoning with Perimal Darkness is near.

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A to Z Reviews: “The Hat in the Hall,” by Jack Iams

A to Z Reviews: “The Hat in the Hall,” by Jack Iams

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A to Z Reviews

Jack Iams published “The Hat in the Hall” in the August 1950 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and it is an example of a story that has dated poorly. Set in the aftermath of a cocktail party in which Charles and Jane Mattson are cleaning up the mess left behind, Iams describes the couple emptying ashtrays, finding hats left behind by their guests, and, most egregious, commenting that one of their friends, Jim, is “a pretty careful driver, even when he’s stewed.”

Although the party is a success, it was also loud, which is why Charles stopped by their next door neighbor, Mrs. Oliver, to apologize the next morning. Oliver had called to complain about the noise a couple of times during the party, but it was only during his visit that Charles realizes that they were holding the party on the anniversary of her husband’s death. What surprised Charles was Mrs. Oliver’s explanation that her husband’s ghost always visited her on the anniversary of his death, but the noise from the party seemed to have kept him away.

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Inferior Sleuth (Doyle on Holmes)

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Inferior Sleuth (Doyle on Holmes)

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The late Nis Jessen’s ‘A Study in Scarlet’ may be my favorite illustrated Holmes. It’s wonderful.

Welcome to week four of Doyle on Holmes. We started with The Truth Behind Sherlock Holmes. Then, it was Some Personalia about Sherlock Holmes. Last week, A Gaudy Death. This week, it’s a poem war featuring Sir Arthur! All four of these essays can be found in Peter Haining’s The Final Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. It’s a good book, and the only partial replacement I’ve found for Jack Tracy’s cornerstone book, Sherlock Holmes: The Published Apocrypha.

The Science of Deduction is the second chapter of A Study in Scarlet – the first Sherlock Holmes story. Holmes had explained the observations and inferences that had led to the famous line, “You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive.” Watson then – for the first, but certainly not the last, time – says it’s a simple matter. Watson then tells Holmes that he reminds him of Poe’s Dupin, and he didn’t know such existed in real life. Holmes sets him straight:

“Sherlock Holmes rose and lit his pipe. ‘No doubt you think that you are complimenting me in comparing me to Dupin,; he observed. ‘Now, in my opinion, Dupin was a very inferior fellow. That trick of his of breaking in on his friends’ thoughts with an apropos remark after a quarter of an hour’s silence is really very showy and superficial.

It’s Elementary – Bearing in mind this the very first story, having Holmes say that is pretty funny. Since he would do exactly that with Watson, more than once.

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A to Z Reviews: “Triolet,” by Jess Hyslop

A to Z Reviews: “Triolet,” by Jess Hyslop

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A to Z Reviews

Jess Hyslop’s “Triolet,” which appeared in the June 2013 issue of Interzone is another high concept story in which the reader is asked to suspend their disbelief by accepting Hyslop’s far-fetched idea, in this case Mrs. Entwhistle, who grows flowers which recite poetry when a person brushes against them.

The first indication that these flowers are anything special is when Lisa and James Lewis pass by her garden on their way to work and brush against a flower, which recites a poem. Although the two love the poetry plants, they are merely part of their shared experience on the way to work until they learn that Mrs. Entwhistle had given a plant to a friend of their. The knowledge that they could, conceivably, own a plant began to take root in their minds.

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Frankly Frankenstein

Frankly Frankenstein

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My guess is that even people who’ve never read the novel or seen the Boris Karloff version likely recognize that “Frankenstein” signifies a human-made scientific creation that bites back. (Though they probably do confuse which is the creator and which is the actual monster.)

Here in the 21st century, what Mary Shelley depicted way back at the start of the 19th is embedded in our cultural collective consciousness, even for those people who don’t pay attention to the culture unless it involves Taylor Swift, because of how often it actually occurs throughout history. Take your pick of technological disasters, the latest perhaps being AI.

Of course the reason why Shelley’s Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus  is a canonical work even before SF gained some legitimacy in academia is that this isn’t just a gothic horror story (though it is of course that).

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Don’t Quit

Don’t Quit

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Image by PDPics from Pixabay

Goodafterevenmorn!

You may recall that I once said that all writing advice is bunk (sort of). I hold that to be mostly true. Knowing this, I’m still going to offer some advice to anyone out there who happens to be a struggling writer (hello, I’m your resident frustrated author who thinks of giving up three times a day. Welcome to my little support group. Do take a seat), because it’s something I desperately need to remind myself. Repeatedly. If there’s one piece of writing advice you should follow to the letter, it’s this:

Don’t quit.

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: A Gaudy Death (Doyle on Holmes)

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: A Gaudy Death (Doyle on Holmes)

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This essay precedes the two prior ones in our series, having appeared in Tit-Bits in December of 1900. The aptly named Tit-Bits was a potpourri of ‘stuff’ which was published by George Newnes, who also owned The Strand.

Wanting to make a big to-do about their thousandth issue, Newnes used his unique position to secure an ‘interview’ essay written by the publicity-shy Doyle. Holmes had gone over The Reichenbach Falls and Doyle was resisting pressure to bring him back.

To interview Dr Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, is not an easy matter. Dr. Doyle has a strong objection to the interview, even though he has no personal antipathy to the interviewer. Considerations, however, of his long and friendly relationship with the firm of George Newnes Ltd, in the pages of whose popular and universally read Strand Magazine Sherlock Holmes lived, and had his being, overcame Dr. Doyle’s reluctance to be interviewed, and he consented to give the following particulars, which will be read with interest by his admirers all over the world.

It’s Elementary – Man, that is one serious run-on sentence above!

“Before I tell you of Sherlock Holmes’ death and how it came about, it will probably be interesting to recall the circumstances of his birth.”

So does Arthur Conan Doyle open this essay, seven years after readers had been shocked by “The Final Problem.” He reminds the reader it began with A Study in Scarlet, with Holmes suggested from “a professor under whom I had worked at Edinburgh, and in part by Edgar Allen Poe’s detective, which, after all, ran on the lines of all other detectives who have appeared in literature.”

It’s Elementary – It’s interesting to me that Doyle does not name Dr. Joseph Bell here, though that’s clearly who he is referencing. He cites Poe’s Dupin as an influence. That was mentioned in the first essay, The Truth About Sherlock Holmes. And that’s a main item in next weeks’ post, The Case of the Inferior Sleuth.

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A to Z Reviews: “3 RMS, Good View,” by Karen Haber

A to Z Reviews: “3 RMS, Good View,” by Karen Haber

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A to Z Reviews

Real estate prices in San Francisco are notoriously high, which leads Karen Haber’s character in “3 RMS, Good View” to seek out extreme living arrangements. Despite her better judgement, she rents an apartment in near Haight and Asbury in San Francisco in 1968, despite working in the 2000s, for Chrissy lives in a world where time travel is inexpensive and easy.

Haber’s focus in not on the impact so many time travelers would have on the world, simply presenting a noninterference contract they all must sign. Instead, Haber focuses on the impact living in the past, and particularly that year and place, have on Chrissy and her cat, MacHeath. Haber does note that Chrissy can spend as much time in her 1968 apartment and never be late for work because she can set her arrival coordinates to whatever she needs them to be.

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Some Personalia About Sherlock Holmes (Doyle on Holmes)

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Some Personalia About Sherlock Holmes (Doyle on Holmes)

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So in our first series post, we had a LONG post on ACD’s 1923 essay – The Truth Behind Sherlock Holmes – for Collier’s The National Weekly. This week, it’s an earlier one he which wrote for The Strand.

“The Adventure of the Dying Detective” ran in The Strand in December of 1913 (appearing the prior month over in America, in Collier’s). There wouldn’t be another Holmes story until September of 1917, with His Last Bow appearing in both The Strand, and Collier’s, that month.

Holmes having finally come back to his magazine with “The Dying Detective,” Strand editor Greenhough Smith was anxious to keep the detective’s name in the magazine. He persuaded Doyle to write an essay, Some Personalia About Sherlock Holmes, which ran in the December, 1917 issue. “The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone” wouldn’t follow until October of 1921.

I have this essay in Peter Haining’s The Final Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, from Barnes and Noble. Last week’s The Truth Behind Sherlock Holmes is also in that nifty book.

 

LETTERS

Doyle begins by talking about how many letters he has received regarding Holmes. He mentions many are in Russian. He does recount an amusing story of a woman in Warsaw (Poland) who states that she had been bedridden for two years and his novels “were her only, etc etc.”

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