You may recall the death of author John Gardner, BSI ("Moriarty") in August of 2007. He was well known for where he picked up with the James Bond novels, as commissioned by the Ian Fleming estate.
Of course, one of the reasons he was inducted into the Baker Street Irregulars was his Sherlockian work in the 1970s, in which he looked at life as a Victorian criminal through the eyes of Professor James Moriarty. His first entry in this series was The Return Of Moriarty
; the second was The Revenge Of Moriarty
, which picked up where the Return left off. There were rumors of a manuscript for a third installment in the series, but the book never made it to bookstore shelves before Gardner's demise.
Well, the wait is over - the final installment in the trilogy is titled Moriarty
and will be available in November 2008. You can pre-order it from Amazon.com by clicking here. You can also pre-order it from Amazon.co.uk by clicking here. The description of the book, courtesy of Amazon:
It is the turn of the century and, having survived the struggle with Sherlock Holmes at the Reichenbach Falls, Professor James Moriarty is alive and well and about to realize his plans to establish crime syndicates in the major cities of the United States. But suddenly he is called back to London, where his vast criminal society has been overrun by a rival concern led by the shadowy Sir Jordan Jack Idell—or Idle Jack—a supposed gentleman hoodlum acting on behalf of criminal elements in France, Italy, Spain, and Germany.
As Moriarty fights back—against both the unruly crime families and the forces of law and order—readers are thrown in among the lurkers, punishers, dippers, cracksmen, and the professor�s elite guard.
Moriarty lives again and revolts against those who attempt to oust him from his rightful place as king of “Napoleon of Crime.”
While you won't be able to get a signed copy, you might want to act early on this, as it's likely to capture a lot of attention and fly off the shelves early. This is yet another piece in what I like to think is a Sherlockian Renaissance that's about to begin.
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One of the most intriguing of the later Sherlock Holmes stories - those from the collections known as His Last Bow and The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes - has to be "The Sussex Vampire." The title alone arouses interest and imagination of a morbid gothic scene.
Certainly vampires have been right up there in popularity with Sherlock Holmes, with plenty of movies, novels and popular culture that center on Dracula and the like. And when you consider that Bram Stoker was an acquaintance of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and that his novel was released in the spring of 1897 - in the midst of Doyle's hiatus from writing the Holmes stories - it fits right in with the time and place of our hero.
If you have even the most passing interest in Dracula, then you'll be happy know know this news: Leslie Klinger, BSI ("The Abbey Grange") - probably most well-known for his three-volume series The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes (which if you don't own, you should; just click the link) - just announced that his latest opus, The Annotated Dracula, is now available for preorder on Amazon.
If you're familiar with Les's fine and thorough work in NASH, you'll know what to expect from his new book. Personally, I don't know enough about Dracula or vampires - just the usual stake-in-the-heart and garlic stuff - so this will be an interesting volume to peruse.
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The Mystery Writers of America held their annual dinner in New York City last night to honor the 2008 Edgar Winners. The field of Sherlockiana, while well represented in 2007, only had a single entrant on this year's list of nominees.
And evidently, that's all that was needed, for the winner of the Best Critical/Biographical category was none other than Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters by Charles Foley, Jon Lellenberg and Daniel Stashower. Congratulations, gentlemen!
Check out this link to see what I originally wrote about the book last November, which includes a link to the interview that Burt Wolder & I conducted with Dan & Jon - one of our most popular episodes on our audio program I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere.
If you haven't picked up a copy of the book yet, I strongly recommend that you get over to Amazon and grab yourself a copy. It's a worthy asset to any Sherlockian or Doylean library.
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In the United States, the Friday after Thanksgiving Day is typically referred to as "Black Friday," because this is the day in the retail industry when stores typically surge into the black (aka turn a profit).
Why is that relevant here? In case you haven't noticed, there are links to Amazon.com along the sidebars and at the bottom of the page. When you click on these links and buy something from Amazon, you help me keep this blog running, as I receive a small percentage of every purchase from Amazon. And to mark the occasion, Amazon is offering hourly deals from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. PST on Friday, Novemer 23. You can get there by clicking here to be taken to the Black Friday deals page.
This blog is a major effort to maintain - from paying for the domain name and fees associated with online file sharing & storage, not to mention the sheer time that it takes me to search, compose and edit posts for your edification. And there are two ways you can help out, especially in this holiday season:
- By clicking on any of the Amazon ads or search boxes the sidebars or below, or by clicking on book linkss in the context of each post;
- By making a gift through the widget in the sidebar section titled "Your Own Gift". Any amount is appreciated, especially at this time of the year.
So, I would appreciate it if you use my links to do any of your online shopping for the holidays. Once you're into Amazon, you can search for whatever you like, whether it's books, DVDs, electronics, household items - the list is seemingly endless. But by using my links to shop, you help to support the blog.
Thank you for your continued encouragement. I hope you find my efforts worthy of your time and attention.
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I think we're in the midst of a Sherlockian / Doylean renaissance - but I'll leave the full premise of that statement for another post. In the meantime, if you've been living under a rock for the past few months, then let me give you just the tip of the iceberg - particularly as it relates to two new books.
Jon Lellenberg, BSI ("Rodger Prescott"), Daniel Stashower, BSI ("Thurston"), and Charles Foley, BSI ("Marlow Bates") co-edited a massive volume of original letters and produced Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters. I won't go into the full details, as I've previously written about it. But what I will recommend (in addition to buying the book) is that you listen to the latest episode of I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere, where Burt Wolder and I interview Jon & Dan.
The episode runs nearly an hour and is a fascinating look inside the creative process behind editing and writing such a major book. Especially interesting is their view of the subject matter, both before and after their time spent with the letters.
While you're there, please do consider subscribing to the show (it's free) and telling your friends about it. We need your help to grow our listener base.
There's another biography of Conan Doyle that is being released: The Man Who Created Sherlock Holmes: the Life and Times of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle by Andrew Lycett, who has also written a biography of Ian Fleming, the author of the James Bond books. I haven't had a chance to review this one yet, but I do plan to have Andrew on the podcast in early 2008. Stay tuned!
In the meantime, you might have a look at a Times Literary Supplement article, The Ghosts of Conan Doyle by Dinah Birch. It's a nice overview of the two books and quite frankly, an excellent piece of writing. To wit:
It is odd that so much comfort is to be had from Sherlock Holmes, given the brutal violence of his adventures. Not only are those who cross his path routinely shot, bludgeoned, or knifed, they run the risk of being starved, buried alive, attacked by huge and frenzied hounds, killed by horses, jellyfish, or venomous snakes, asphyxiated with toxic vapours, afflicted with foul diseases, or crushed in giant iron presses. They might lose a thumb or an ear; occasionally they lose their minds. Yet Holmes is the most consoling of literary icons. He cannot always prevent crime or punish the criminal, but he never fails to explain what has happened, and how, and why. The prosaic Watson likes to claim that his hero is infallible because he scorns the emotional baggage that befuddles the judgement of lesser men. In fact these stories are tense with feeling, for Holmes’s hatred of wrongdoing is a passion rather than an intellectual commitment.
Indeed. Enjoy these times. We are rich indeed to have such a wealth of resources.
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Jon Lellenberg, Daniel Stashower and Charles Foley have been working on a major work about Conan Doyle, taken from a very unique perspective. Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters
looks at the author's life over decades solely through letters that he wrote to friends - and in particular, to family.
While the book itself does not go on sale until November 5 in the United States, it has a British release this month and the authors are featured on BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week with five 15-minute readings from the book on Sept. 24-28. You can listen to the program on their site from now until seven days after the broadcast date.
And for those who are interested in pre-ordering the book, you may click on the link & image here in order to guarantee it in your home as speedily as possible.
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The latest episode of I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere has been posted. You can get it directly from iTunes or by visiting the web site. If you do use iTunes, please consider reviewing our show so that others can learn from your recommendation.
In this episode, Burt and I discuss favorite books from our collections, talk briefly about John Bennett Shaw and his list of 100 essential books for every Sherlockian collection, and hear an audio clip of Paxton Whitehead reading Vincent Starrett's "221B" at the 2007 Baker Street Irregulars Dinner.
If you'd like direct access to these books in one place, the Shelfari shelf below has nearly all of them. You can reach Amazon through Shelfari (or via the link over in the right column).
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Christopher Roden, MBt BSI ("Sir Henry Baskerville") and Barbara Roden, MBt, BSI ("Beryl Stapleton") are literary movers and shakers in Canada. They are both organizers of the Arthur Conan Doyle Society, which Christopher himself founded in 1989.
I'll save the rest of their qualifications for another post about the Rodens. But I wanted to share a contest that they're running through the ACD site, to promote the new biography of Conan Doyle by Charles Foley, Jon Lellenberg and Dan Stashower, Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters. According to Christopher:
We have five copies of this forthcoming book to give away as prizes, and Jon Lellenberg has devised a fiendish quiz, answering which could mean that a copy of the book will be headed your way.
The closing date for entries is 16 September, and there is a link to my e-mail address to which entries should be sent.
So, are you up for the challenge, dear reader? If so, head over to
the quiz page on the ACD site and email your answers to Christopher. Good luck!
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If it seems like it's been a while since I've posted the HTML links from Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press, you're right. The last time I did so was April. It's not that Peter Blau hasn't been kind enough to share his newsletter with me in a timely fashion; rather, I've been deluged with other activities (which you may have gathered by my less frequent posting).
Well, rest assured that I'm trying to get back on the wagon and give you the updates and the links that it is my duty to supply. Herewith then, the links for Peter's latest issue:
- The Museum of Jewelry uses names from English literature to title some of their products, which include "Moonstones of Baker Street Earrings" and "Arnsworth Castle Earrings"
- The Hans Sloane of our age is a chocolatier: The Sir Hans Sloane Chocolate and Champagne House is the first chocolate studio in the UK to have its own in-house chocolate conching machine
- Eye of the Crow: The Boy Sherlock Holmes
is the first in a series of books about an adolescent Sherlock Holmes; there's a nice interactive web site at http://www.boysherlockholmes.com
- Oscar Wilde and Lillie Langtry seek advice from Sherlock Holmes in the People's Light &
Theatre Company's production of Katie Forgette's Sherlock Holmes & the Case of the Jersey Lily in Malvern, PA in June, 2008 - The American Theatre Wing has two video great seminars with Frank Langella, who portrayed Sherlock Holmes twice
- And they also have an interview with Langella as an audio file from XM Satellite's Downstage Center
- The Friends of Gillette Castle State Park will hold a celebration on Oct. 6 benefiting the restoration of William Gillette's locomotives
- Laurie R. King now has a Virtual Book Club; it's really a discussion forum on her web site
- Look for an appearance of Mycroft Holmes as Thursday Next's uncle in Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next: First Among Sequels
- Quill & Brush Books offers a handy guide to identifying first editions
- The Sherlock Holmes Collection at the Marylebone Library is always worth taking a look at; and from now until October 31, they're running a competition to win a copy of Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters
- Randall Stock has an informative and comprehensive site put together about the new book, including a background FAQ and a list of press mentions
- Speaking of books, To Keep the Memory Green, a collection of essays about the life of Richard Lancelyn Green is available for order from The Quartering Press, a joint effort between the Baker Street Irregulars and the Sherlock
Holmes Society of London
- The Meadow Brook Theatre's season opens with Stephen Dietz's Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure in Rochester, MI from October 10 to November 4
- Recognize this suave gentleman? It's Basil Rathbone, as Commissar Dimitri Gorotchenko in the 1937 film "Tovarich" and shown in his entry for Wikipedia
- MC Black offers Detective Walks through London that he has personally researched
- The DVD of Sherlock Holmes and Baker Street Irregulars
has been released and is now available on Amazon - The Sherlock Holmes Resume Service (1-800-5-SHERLOCK)
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Moriarty himself has passed beyond the Reichenbach.
Author John Gardner, BSI ("Moriarty") has passed away at the age of 80. He died following a collapse at his home in England and his obituary is available in The Independent. Gardner was invested into the Baker Street Irregulars in 1988.
Best known for reviving the James Bond franchise in 1981 with License Renewed
, he continued that success with 13 other Bond books and penned some 35 other thrillers.
His Sherlockian work, while less known than his James Bond collection, contain some intriguing contributions to the pastiche world and center on the Napoleon of Crime, Professor Moriarty. First up was The Return Of Moriarty, which looks at the organization that Professor Moriarty had built up - much like a Victorian-era godfather - but with a twist. The second was The Revenge Of Moriarty, which picked up with the Return left off.
Gardner finished the third and final volume in the series, The Redemption of Moriarty, shortly before his death. Since there has been a dispute about the publication, it's uncertain if fans of the series will ever get to see it.
You can read more about the man on his web site.
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One of the passions of a few select Sherlockians is collecting foreign editions of the stories. In fact, there's one Sherlockian out there - Don Hobbs by name - who refers to himself as "The Maniac Collector." You can actually read Don's weekly column, The Maniac Collector's Inbox on Brad Keefauver's excellent SherlockPeoria site.
Before we were a global economy, some of the grand Sherlockians took great pride in their foreign editions. The late John Bennett Shaw, BSI was one of them. It was he who spurred the interest in foreign editions by Dorothy (wife of Tom, the fourth head of the BSI (from 1987-1997)) Stix. FYI, it was Tom who first extended an invitation to the BSI dinner to me.
So, as an enthusiastic (albeit slightly nervous) 25 year-old arrived in New York for his first BSI dinner, I was immediately put at ease by Dorothy. While Tom could be an imposing figure for the uninitiated, Dorothy was the Welcome Wagon, the fairy godmother and the diplomat of the pair. I'm happy to say that from her retirement home in Florida, Dorothy is occasionally in touch with me via email and is a regular reader of this blog. So when she wrote to me and informed me that she's selling off her collection of foreign editions, I immediately offered to help.
By clicking on the icon at the right you can download a copy of Dorothy's master list of the
foreign editions up for sale. Warning: it's a 37-page file (233 KB) with nearly 500 titles. From Arabic to Ukranian, there's a little something for everyone. "Black Peter" in Pig Latin? Eckchay! John Bennett Shaw's 1956 edition of Petite Histoire Du Roman Policier? Oui. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in Hebrew? It's there, thank G-d.
Take a browse through this remarkable catalog and see just how globally relevant Sherlock Holmes is. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.
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Have you heard of BAFAB? It's short for Buy a Friend a Book, the brainchild of author Debra Hamel. Buy a Friend a Book Week is upon us - for the first week of July, go out and buy a friend a book, for no reason at all. According to the site:
Just get yourself to a real-life or virtual book store during Buy a Friend a Book Week (the first weeks of January, April, July, and October) and, well, buy a friend a book (or e-book)! But here's the fun part: you can't buy your friend a book because it's their birthday or they just graduated or got engaged or had a baby or anything else. You have to give them a book for no good reason. In fact, this present out of the blue from you should shock the pants off of whomever you decide to give it to. And it'll make them happy. And that's the point: promote reading, promote friendships. Just make sure to let them know about Buy a Friend a Book Week. (How? Print out this explanation and include it in your gift book. Or, if you're not giving your friend the book in person, just point them to the explanation's URL.)
So, if you're interested in reading, friendship, books or any combination thereof, please consider BAFAB. To get you started, here are some links to notable online bookstores. While you're at it, why not introduce someone to Sherlock Holmes?
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Other than early issues, The Baker Street Journal has tended to stay away from pastiches, or stories written about Sherlock Holmes in the style of Doyle. Call it the purists in us, or call it the lack of editorial space that those early volumes so plentifully offered (remember too that they bankrupted publisher Ben Abramson).
I was recently contacted by Mark Wardecker to see if I knew if the BSJ would run a pastiche that he had written. I let him know that it wouldn't. While I don't typically enjoy that form of Sherlockian work myself, nor do I wish this blog to be a repository of the same, I did take a quick look at what he had done with "The Adventure of the Second Round." Mark describes it as follows:
This particular story is set very late, just before Watson's last marriage and Holmes' subsequent retirement. Once again, Holmes and Watson find themselves "moving in high life" (ABBE) after they are called in by the Yard to help solve a murder in Kensington.
Like I said, I'm not a fan of this particular genre - I'm a Canonical purist. As a rule, writers that attempt to mimic Conan Doyle's unique and sparse style usually fall short. With very few words (as opposed to his Victorian colleagues such as Dickens or Trollope), he managed to set vivid scenes for us. And most writers just can't accomplish it in the same facile way the Doyle did.
While it is an admirable first attempt, Wardecker's work is no exception to this rule. You'll find that is is about 90% dialog (I don't know the exact figures, but I know Doyle used significantly more narrative in his work). It's very believable as far as that goes, but there are certain turns of phrase that mark it as alternatively modern or stilted, which is another hallmark of pastiches.
I'd recommend that you take a look at it yourselves, because your enjoyment of it may be far different than my own. You can see what Mark says about it on his blog
The Analytical Engines; in addition, you can
download the PDF here.
I'd be interested to know what you think of it.
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The end is nigh. At least that’s what the publishing world would have us believe. With the advent of the final Harry Potter book this summer, there’s a fear that with J.K. Rowling’s long-awaited finale will come the end of the cottage industry of related Harry Potter books.
The May 10 edition of the Wall Street Journal ran a piece (Last Hurrah for ‘Harry’ Offshoots?) in which the books about the books were called “a whole literary ecosystem,” while the original Potter canon was likened to “whales to which many barnacles have attached themselves.” With over 190 books in print, it’s easy to see why. But is there cause for concern about the demise of Potterian scholarship and publishing?
I think you know where I’m going with this. We’ve seen this phenomenon before, with Sherlockian scholarship paving the way. Before Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (or was it Dr. Watson?) had completed the Canon in 1927, Ronald Knox had penned his seminal treatise Studies in the Literature of Sherlock Holmes in 1911. Only four years after Conan Doyle’s death did the Baker Street Irregulars came into being; it was just over a decade later that they began publishing the Baker Street Journal.
To this day, Sherlockian scholarship has not dimmed. The BSJ is still being published some 60 years later. In England, the Sherlock Holmes Journal is churned out on a regular basis and has been for over 50 years. Countless societies around the world continue with their own publications; online discussion groups flourish.
Of course, the characters were never under copyright, so great liberties have been taken by a variety of authors, placing Holmes with concurrent historical figures and other literary characters, as well as in unlikely situations including sailing on the Titanic and getting married.
While the Harry Potter characters will be well protected from such pastiches in the short term, parodies and pure scholarship are fair game. I suppose the question remains: will the seven original books continue to hold the interest of future generations in the same way they’ve enchanted the current adolescents and adults alike? If so, is the content of such a rich type that unending scholarship can continue to be churned out, or are these simply “beach books” – sensational and fun reading - that helped sustain the publishing industry for a short time?
I'll close with a more controversial question for you, dear reader: were the Holmes stories simply viewed as Victorian/Edwardian beach books? It seems like many in academia today treat them as such.
And a list of some of the titles in print mentioned in the WSJ story:
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Last night was the Mystery Writers of America dinner at which the 2007 Edgar Award winners were announced. In January, in a post titled Your Merits Should be Publicly Recognized, I listed six categories containing seven entries which featured Sherlock Holmes (or his friends). Of those, I am happy to inform you that two were presented with Edgars:
Best Critical / Biographical
The Science of Sherlock Holmes: From Baskerville Hall to the Valley of Fear, The Real Forensics Behind the Great Detective's Greatest Cases
