Friday 2 March 2012

WORK IN PROGRESS

HERE BE HOLMES  - Some Idle Thoughts on Sherlock and John

WORK ON ITS WAY

A WHO'S WHO OF SHERLOCK HOLMES

T. S. BLAKENEY

A lovely small book* (10.6 cms x 17.8 cms) came into my possession today (2/3/12). Most pleasant to handle - with beautifully clear print, copious and meticulously presented footnotes and three appendices, it forms part of the Otto Prenzler Sherlock Holmes Library and was published in 1993 by Otto Prenzler Books, New York, with a cover illustration of Sherlock Holmes by Frederic Dorr Steele. While one may quarrel with some of its inclusions (Jean Paul Richter appears to be presented on page 14  as two persons), it's reassuring to find many of my own conclusions, arrived at independently, supported by so famous and able a commentator. How I wish I had read the book earlier. It would have been so much easier to trace all those relevant comments in the canon!

*Sherlock Holmes Fact or Fiction? by T. S. Blackney. First published in 1932 by John Murray, London