Karol May 4, 2012, 07:54:56

This massive coeilctlon of Holmes pastiches is a worthwhile addition to a Sherlockian coeilctlon although not all of its entries are of the same quality. The tales themselves range from excellent through serviceable to downright silly, with only a handful approximating the quality of Doyle’s original stories. Nevertheless the overall quality is very good, despite some jarring notes here and there (more, of course, in some tales than in others). Also helpful is the mass of information assembled at the rear of the volume. Here we find a complete chronology of Holmes’s cases not only those recorded by Doyle, but also a fair number of those recorded by others (including the contributors to this volume). Also most helpful is the chronology’s inclusion of Watson’s unpublished cases, to which he often alluded in passing. Some of these have since been published (in some cases in several versions by several authors; such instances of redundancy typically include pastiches by Adrian Conan Doyle and June Thomson). There is also a list not a complete list, which would have occupied a full volume of its own of the Holmes tales extant as of 1997, together with helpful information on their authors. (The list omits those tales in which Holmes is not a central character e.g. Carole Nelson Douglas’s Irene Adler series and those which are of a clearly fantastic nature, in which Holmes encounters e.g. Dracula or Edwin Drood.) This valuable list will be helpful to readers who wish to track down works by other pastiche artists of note say, Denis O. Smith (who is represented in this volume) or June Thomson (who unfortunately is not). The volume closes with capsules of information regarding each of the contributors. The tales themselves are in most instances culled from Watson’s allusions to unpublished cases and are presented in what purports to be chronological order. We find, for example, the business of the Abernettys (drawn to Holmes’s attention by a remark about the depth to which the parsley had sunk into the butter on a hot day); the Darlington substitution scandal; the very simple case Holmes had handled for Mary Morstan’s employer, Mrs. Cecil Forrester; the matter of the Amateur Mendicant Society; the case of the Grice Petersons on the isle of Uffa; the tragedy of the Atkinson brothers; the matter of the Addleton curse; the death of Crosby the banker; the story of the red leech; the Abergavenny murders; and a matter Holmes handled under a commission from the Sultan of Turkey. Some of these cases have been written up before, of course, in versions that are quite irreconcilable with those presented here. Moreover, in a handful of cases there are at least superficial conflicts internal to this volume itself: the red leech, for example, is dealt with in passing in a second tale, and the business of the Abernettys is mentioned in passing in terms that do not seem to suit the version of the tale included here. Editor Mike Ashley tries valiantly to deal with some of these conflicts. However, since few of these tales appear to be authentic in the first place, these difficulties are merely apparent. Not many of the pastiches contained herein reach the standards set by the best of Doyle’s tales. But the majority of them are better than the worst of the originals. And in general, the pastiches in the short-story genre are usually, to my mind, much better than the novel-length ones. In that field Nicholas Meyer has many competitors but few rivals.