Pastiches: The Third Leg of the Sherlockian Stool . . . or . . . Do you want to write a pastiche?

[A version of this essay originally appeared as the Editor's Foreword to The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories - 2018 Annual: Parts IX (1875-1895) and Part X (1896-1916)]

In his introduction to The Return of Solar Pons (1958), Edgar W. Smith, a legendary member of the Baker Street Irregulars, wrote:

There is no Sherlockian worthy of his salt who has not, at least once in his life, taken Dr. Watson’s pen in hand and given himself to the production of a veritable Adventure. I wrote my own first pastiche at the age of fourteen, about a stolen gem that turned up, by some unaccountable coincidence, in the innards of a fish which Sherlock Holmes was serving to his client in the privacy of his rooms; and I wrote my second when I was fifty-odd, about the definitive and never-more-to-be-seen-in-this-world disappearance of Mr. James Phillimore in a matrix of newly-poured cement.

I would love to read these stories, composed by this man whose undisputed efforts to promote the admiration of Sherlock Holmes helped to make the world’s first consulting detective one of the most recognized figures on the planet. The essay “How I First Met Edgar W. Smith” by one of the BSI founders, William S. Hall, (Baker Street Journal, June 1961) describes an occasion in which Hall, Christopher Morley, and Smith met in 1939 for lunch. After a period of Morley asking several tough Canonical questions, “[Smith] was accordingly dubbed, with the help of an additional whiskey-and-soda, a full-fledged member on the spot. Since then I have always rated the meeting of Morley and Smith second in importance only to that of Stanley and Livingstone. The rest we all know about. Almost from that moment on, Edgar was The Baker Street Irregulars, and that includes most of the Scion Societies as well.”

Edgar W. Smith, BSI - Friend of Sherlockian Pastiche

Smith was a tireless advocate for the promotion of Holmes, and there are many who know much more about him than I who can provide specific examples. It’s commonly known that he was the founder and first editor of The Baker Street Journal, and is still listed to this day on the title page of every issue. He edited the first “definitive” text of The Canon – if such a thing can actually exist – and that version, which was published in three amazingly handsome volumes in the early 1950’s, is still being used today by the Easton Press for their beautiful leather-bound editions . . . .

He had an open-door policy that allowed and encouraged others to join the fun and take the spotlight, such as when he had noted Sherlockian Vincent Starrett write the foreword to the aforementioned definitive Canon, instead of doing so himself. He had the same inclusive spirit in his cornerstone volume Profiles by Gaslight (1944), an amazing collection of Holmesian essays. (An amusing side-note to those who have one of the 1944 hardcover editions: The page numbers proceed normally and sequentially, until one is in the middle of the Vincent Starrett contribution, “The Singular Adventures of Martha Hudson”. This essay runs from pages 202 through 229. As one proceeds, the pages are numbered as one would expect: 218, 219, 220. And then, where one would expect to simply see page 221, Smith adds a letter, making it 221B. Then the next page is 222. That single added letter shows just how dedicated Mr. Smith was to The World of Holmes.)

Smith’s contributions are innumerable. Yet, with all of his support of both The Canon and Sherlockian Scholarship, the first two legs of the Sherlockian stool, he didn’t forget the third:

Pastiche.

Worth one's salt . . . .

As shown above, when referring to pastiche, Smith says “There is no Sherlockian worthy of his salt who has not, at least once in his life, taken Dr. Watson’s pen in hand and given himself to the production of a veritable Adventure.” Strong words from the man who shaped the Baker Street Irregulars. And words that should not be forgotten or swept aside or spoke of, save with a gibe and a sneer, in the pursuit of the scholarly side of things.

In that same paragraph from that same introduction, Smith goes on to write:

The point that does concern me – and it is a point that all of us who are tempted to emulation should bear in mind – is that the writing of a pastiche is compulsive and inevitable: it is, the psychologists would say, a wholesome manifestation of the urge that is in us all to return again to the times and places we have loved and lost; an evidence, specifically, of our happily unrepressed desire to make ourselves at one with the Master of Baker Street and all his works – and to do this not only receptively, but creatively as well.

There are several important points to be noted from these short passages. To be “worth one’s salt” is historically assumed to refer to the practice of paying Roman soldiers enough wages that they could buy salt, necessary for both survival itself, as well as for tasks such as curing meat. If a soldier wasn’t effective in his job, he wasn’t paid. The phrase has come down through the years to mean more generally that one must be competent, adept, and efficient to be “worth one’s salt”. And it was no accident that Smith began his essay in this way, for he understood, from those early days, the importance of pastiche. “No Sherlockian worth his salt . . . .”

Additionally, he wrote that this should be done receptively. For if one is truly a Sherlockian worth his [or her] salt, then there should be no resistance against this need to create or read additional adventures of Mr. Sherlock Holmes. It must be true. Edgar W. Smith said so.

Beyond The Canon

I’ve long maintained, and written extensively in a number of forums, that pastiches are of supreme importance, and should receive as much credit as possible for promoting the continued and growing popularity of Sherlock Holmes. Sherlockian scholarship and speculation is a cornerstone of some people’s interest in The Canon, but it can be somewhat esoteric. It is pastiche that fires the imagination of many people and serves to initially lure them to The Canon. Sherlock Holmes is recognized around the world, but how many people who admire and adore him read The Canon as their absolute first contact with him? Many, certainly, but not all. Instead, a sizeable number also encounter Holmes first in the form of pastiches – stories, films, radio and television episodes, comic books, fan-fiction – and then seek to know more about that actual Holmes Bible made up of the original (and pitifully few) sixty adventures, as brought to us by that first – but not the only! – Literary Agent, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

It’s always been my contention that The Canon is the wire core of a rope, but pastiches are the strands that overlay it, giving it both thickness and strength. In other places, I’ve called the entire body of work, both Canon and pastiche, The Great Holmes Tapestry. It all weaves together to present a picture of the complete lives of Holmes and Watson, immensely complex and interesting. And that tapestry, with its threads of pastiches woven in and around and through the main supporting Canonical fibers, has been forming since nearly the same time when the first Canonical stories were being published.

In those earliest of days, the tendency was to parody Holmes, rather than produce true pastiches – possibly because Holmes was still new, and many of the tropes that have since become set in stone were then still in flux. However, some of those early parodies came very close indeed to having the feel of the real thing, and only a few changed words would be enough to nudge them into acceptable adventures.

In his introduction to The Memoirs of Solar Pons (1951), Ellery Queen presents an amazing comprehensive list that enumerates the various variations on Holmes from earlier decades, up to that time. (Richard Dannay, son of Frederic Dannay, who was half of the Literary Agent-team representing Ellery Queen, recently told me that his father’s list “is truly a virtuoso, one that can’t be duplicated or imitated.” However, Sherlockian Bill Mason has done so, with his book A Holmes by Any Other Name.) It’s amazing, from this distance of so many years since Queen’s list was constructed, and then from reading Bill's new book, to realize just how widespread Holmes’s influence was, even in those days.

I cannot say what the earliest Holmes parody or pastiche was – there is some debate on that point. It’s clear from some that are on Queen’s list, such as Detective Stories Gone Wrong: The Adventures of Sherlaw Kombs by Luke Sharp (1892), The Adventure of the Table Foot by “Zero” (Allan Ramsay, 1894, featuring Thinlock Bones), and the eight “Picklock Holes” stories which first appeared in Punch in 1893 and 1894, that The Master’s influence appeared quite early.

There are numerous other Holmes-influenced stories from those early days, and more are being mined all the time. Many collections over the years have included these very valuable “lost” tales:

• The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes (1944) – edited by Ellery Queen. (A most important book for any collection, with a publication history of its own that’s as interesting as the contents of the book itself);
• Sherlock Holmes in America (1981) – edited by Bill Blackbeard. (A beautiful coffee table book of all sorts of obscure items);
• The Game is Afoot (1994) – edited by Marvin Kaye. (An incredible volume, with a great representation of both old and new stories);
• As It Might Have Been (1998) – edited by Robert C.S. Adey. (One of the first to be specifically devoted to rare old pastiches and parodies);
• I Believe in Sherlock Holmes (2015) – edited by Douglas O. Greene; (Truly a labor of love, with some great obscure ephemera.)
• A Bedside Book of Early Sherlockian Parodies and Pastiches (2015) – edited by Charles Press. (Definitely worth examining to find hidden treasures); and
• The Missing Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes (2016) – edited by Julie McKuras, Timothy Johnson, Ray Riethmeier, and Phillip Bergem. (This is a unique title, which takes on the task of including the stories first mentioned – but not included – in Ellery Queen’s Misadventures. I was honored to be able to bring this volume to Richard Dannay’s attention, as he was previously unaware of it.)

Also, the Herculean efforts of Bill Peschel must be lauded. He has assembled seven (as of this writing) massive (and very handsome) volumes of early Holmes parodies and pastiches – and I hope that he keeps going:

• The Early Punch Parodies of Sherlock Holmes
• Sherlock Holmes Victorian Parodies and Pastiches: 1888-1899
• Sherlock Holmes Edwardian Parodies and Pastiches: 1900-1904
• Sherlock Holmes Edwardian Parodies and Pastiches: 1905-1909
• Sherlock Holmes Great War Parodies and Pastiches: 1910-1914
• Sherlock Holmes Great War Parodies and Pastiches: 1915-1919
• Sherlock Holmes Jazz Age Parodies and Pastiches: 1920-1924

Initially, those early stories were created for simple amusement, with countless variations on Holmes and Watson’s names that possibly seemed clever or funny in those long ago days – Purlock Hone and Fetlock Bones, Dr. Poston and Whatsoname – but now seem painfully like a first-grader’s attempt at humor. Gradually, however, stories in the true traditional Canonical style began to appear. Vincent Starrett’s “The Unique Hamlet” from 1920 is often referenced as a good early traditional pastiche. It certainly established that Holmes adventures did not have to be parodies, and that they could be presented to the public without first passing across the desk of the first Literary Agent, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Solar Pons and Dr. Parker

In the late 1920’s, a new kind of Sherlockian tale arrived, when August Derleth became Dr. Parker’s Literary Agent, arranging for the publication of the first Solar Pons stories. While not actually about Holmes and Watson, these occur within Holmes’s world, and are so precise in reproducing the style and substance of Holmes’s adventures that they very much paved the way for additional stories using the correct format to follow.

Solar Pons: The Sherlock Holmes of Praed Street
http://17stepprogram.blogspot.com/2017/09/solar-pons-sherlock-holmes-of-praed.html

Edith Meiser

In 1930, Edith Meiser advanced the cause of pastiche significantly. She was convinced that the Holmes adventures would be perfect for radio broadcasts. She worked out a deal with the contentious Conan Doyle brothers, Adrian and Denis, and began to write scripts. Her efforts were rewarded when Holmes was first portrayed on NBC radio on October 20th, 1930, in a script adapted by Meiser from “The Speckled Band”. In that first broadcast, Holmes was played by William Gillette, the legendary stage actor who had defined Holmes for Americans for a generation or more. The show continued after that with Richard Gordon as Holmes, and Meiser kept adapting the original stories throughout the early 1930’s. Then she did a remarkable thing: She began to write pastiches of new cases, in the manner of the originals, and set in the original correct time period – and all of this with the approval of the Conan Doyle family. (At one point, she later sued the Conan Doyle heirs, asserting - correctly - that it was through her efforts that the entire perception of Holmes, by way of elevating Watson’s role in the narrative, had been changed. But that’s another essay for another time.) The first original story, “The Hindoo in the Wicker Basket”, appeared on January 7th, 1932. Sadly, it’s lost, but luckily a few of the pastiche broadcasts from that period still survive, either in their original form, or when they were re-done a few years later starring Basil Rathbone as Holmes.

Meiser deserves immense credit for setting these new stories in the correct time period, and not updating them to the 1930’s. There had been several Holmes films made by that time - first silent pictures, and then with sound, such as The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1929) and A Study in Scarlet (1933). All of those were produced with contemporary settings as a matter of course – automobiles and modern clothing and all the rest. Sir Arthur would have been proud of Ms. Meiser for keeping things true. After all, he had written in his autobiography Memories and Adventures (1924) about his thoughts on modern aspects shown in the silent Eille Norwood films produced from 1921 to 1923, stating, “My only criticism of the films is that they introduce telephones, motor cars, and other luxuries of which the Victorian Holmes never dreamed.” (If Sir Arthur could see what’s been to damage Holmes on screen in the present day, character assassination that goes far beyond simple modernization or the use of automobiles, he’d roll over in his grave. But perhaps, spiritualist that he was, he’s already seen and observed it. I can hear him spinning now . . . .)

(For more about this idea, see my blog entry "Automobiles in the Sherlock Holmes Films" - http://17stepprogram.blogspot.com/2018/07/ )

The run of the show under Edith Meiser’s guidance ended in 1936, but it resumed without her in 1939, due to the popularity of the Basil Rathbone film, The Hound of the Baskervilles. By that point, the radio show was being scripted by Leslie Charteris (under the sobriquet Bruce Taylor) and Denis Green. However, these two continued to use the exact same format created by Meiser during her run – something that still extends its influence even to the present day. Thank goodness that Sherlockian Ian Dickerson has found the previously lost scripts by Charteris and Green from 1944 and is republishing them in very handsome volumes.

Traditional pastiches appeared through the years – books and short stories and films and broadcasts – all serving to bring new generations to 221b Baker Street. In 1954, The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes, containing twelve very traditional adventures, was published. Originally appearing in Life and Collier’s, these stories were presented by agents Adrian Conan Doyle and John Dickson Carr. The creative process wasn’t always smooth between the two authors, but the adventures themselves are excellent. Here are my hardcover copies, as well as original magazine appearances, with some amazing paintings by Robert Fawcett:

Throughout the following decades, traditional pastiches appeared sporadically, often few and far between, and difficult to find. Radio continued to present original Holmes stories into the 1950’s. The Holmes television show from 1954-1955, starring Ronald Howard, was made up of mostly original stories. The film A Study in Terror and the related book by Ellery Queen (1965) helped to represent Holmes in the 1960’s

“Here comes the original caped crusader!” proclaimed the posters – but pickings were slim.

The Golden Age

Then, in 1974, an amazing thing happened. Nicholas Meyer reminded us that Watson’s manuscripts were still out there, waiting to be found. Meyer had discovered some of Watson’s original notes, which were published as The Seven-Per-Cent Solution. A film quickly followed. An amazing Holmes Golden Age began that extends to this very day.

I was fortunate to jump on this Holmes Train around the time that it was leaving the station. I discovered Holmes in 1975, when I was ten years old, with an abridged copy of the Whitman edition of The Adventures. I was only prompted to start reading it after seeing a piece of A Study in Terror on television. (It’s hard to believe that the film was only ten years old then, like I was.) Before I’d even tracked down or read all of The Canon, I began to absorb pastiches as well. Very soon after reading my abridged copy of The Adventures, I received a paperback copy of The Seven-Per-Cent Solution. (This was through the Reading Is Fundamental [RIF] Program. I well remember being led into the school gymnasium, where one side was set up with countless long tables covered in books – a sight that thrilled me even then, as I was always a sensible lad. I was allowed to pick two books, and I chose The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, with Holmes on the cover, and another that looked like a boy’s adventure, something called Lord of the Flies. I thought from the description on the back that it might be rather like one of my favorite series, The Hardy Boys. It wasn’t. But I digress.)

I must admit that, even then, with my limited Canonical awareness, (and with apologies to Nicholas Meyer), I didn’t agree with all that was proposed in The Seven-Per-Cent Solution. A benign mistreated Professor Moriarty? Hints that The Great Hiatus didn’t actually occur? No, sir. I believed The Canon, wherein the Professor was the Napoleon of crime, and the organizer of half that was evil and of nearly all that was undetected in the great city of London. And I believed that Holmes had truly fought him at Reichenbach, as reported, instead of going off to recover from his cocaine addiction in the guise of Sigerson the violinist while in pursuit of a redheaded woman.

But that whole alternative set-up between the established Canon and this new adventure forced me to start thinking, even then, in a critical Sherlockian manner – though I didn’t realize it at the time. What did I believe? And why? This was reinforced by other seemingly contradictory adventures that I also began to encounter. I discovered William S. Baring-Gould’s amazing biography, Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street (1962), at nearly the same time I started reading about Holmes. Here's my old copy, still serving me well after all these years . . . .

I also read it before I’d even found all of the actual adventures, so many of Baring-Gould’s theories are hard-wired into my brain right along with The Canon – such as certain aspects of Baring-Gould’s chronology, and all about brother Sherrinford, and the first Mrs. Watson named Constance, and a love child (Nero Wolfe) with Irene Adler.

Nero Wolfe, the Son of Sherlock Holmes

(For mor information, read "Re-reading the Nero Wolfe Adventures" -
http://17stepprogram.blogspot.com/2016/01/re-reading-nero-wolfe-adventures-visit.html )

Holmes versus The Ripper

Baring-Gould related a specific version of Holmes’s defeat of Jack the Ripper. But Holmes also fought a different Ripper to a different conclusion in A Study in Terror. And then it happened again just a few years later in the amazing film and book Murder by Decree (1979) – which, by the way, is another incredible pastiche that helped to bring people to The Canon, and also personally showed to me the Holmes that Watson describes in “The Three Garridebs” as a man with both a great brain and a great heart.

I began to understand that these various accounts of Holmes versus The Ripper didn’t contradict one another – rather, they were simply different threads of a larger story, with each pulled out and tied off so as to present a complete picture of this-or-that particular case (or piece of a case) without causing confusion by referencing other side issues. (I explain it further in "Sherlock Holmes versus Jack the Ripper" http://17stepprogram.blogspot.com/2017/02/sherlock-holmes-versus-jack-ripper.html )

This became very useful later as I began to discover more and more versions of some of the famous “Untold Cases”, such as The Giant Rat of Sumatra. Some readers might pick one or the other of these as the only “definitive” version of this case, but I believe that, as long as the different narratives are set within the correct time period, and don’t stray into some Alternate Universe or modern or science-fiction or Lovecraftian or supernatural world, then each is true. Thus, there were lots of times – each of them unique – when Holmes and Watson encountered Giant Rats. There were many Hurets that Holmes fought in 1894 – a whole nest of them, a regular Al Qaeda of Boulevard Assassins – instead of just one. There were a number of tobacco millionaires in London during 1895, and Holmes helped them all, while Watson lumped each of them into his notes under the protective pseudonym of “John Vincent Harden”.

Some other classics . . . .

Back in the mid-1970’s, however, before the Golden Age really began to bloom, it was still a bit hard to find good traditional Holmes stories. Nicholas Meyer’s second Holmes discovery, The West End Horror (1976) is just about perfect – I thought so then, and still do. A few years later, I discovered Enter the Lion (1979) by Michael P. Hodel and Sean M. Wright, and realized that a view of Holmes’s world didn’t always have to be through Watson’s perspective. This was reinforced when I found John Gardner’s Moriarty books and Carole Nelson Douglas’s histories of Irene Adler.

The 1980’s and 1990’s brought more and more new Holmes stories – although “more and more” is a relative term because, while there were certainly more than there used to be, they were still hard to find and hard to acquire. There were some great anthologies, including The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1985), The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1987), and The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories (1997).

Master pasticheurs such as Barrie Roberts and June Thomson brought us multiple volumes of truly high quality narratives. Publishers like Ian Henry and Breese Books provided excellent stories which – with a little digging – were much more easily obtained than before. These books could now conveniently be ordered through chain bookstores and also Otto Penzler’s remarkable Mysterious Bookshop. Then things became even easier with The Rise of the Internet. The world of pastiches changed forever.

More and More Traditional Canonical Pastiches - And Yet . . . Never Enough!

I began to use the internet when I went back to school for a second degree in engineering in the mid-1990’s. My tuition gave me access to the school’s computer lab, where I spent a great deal of time between classes. More importantly, it allowed me to have free printing. I didn’t feel any shame in printing whatever I could, literally thousands and thousands of pages, as I was being charged exorbitant fees for things like Intramural Sports, an activity in which I, as a grown-up part-time student, would never participate.

My time in the computer lab was spent searching for on-line Holmes pastiches – and there were many. I started by working my way through the links on the original version of Christopher Redmond’s mind-blowing sherlockian.net website, and moved on from there, printing as I went. I’m glad that I archived these stories, because many of them have long since vanished, evaporated in an ephemeral e-puff of vapor. But I have them, along with all the others I’ve continued to collect since then, in over one-hundred-seventy-five big fat white binders lining the floor in front of the bookshelves containing of my Holmes collection.

As I progressed in my quest to acquire more traditional Holmes stories, I was able to refine my research techniques, aided by hints provided by my incredible wife, who is a research librarian – and very tolerant of my Holmes vice. These same techniques helped me to discover and track down a previously unknown myriad of additional traditional Holmes adventures, most of which I had never before encountered. I was already an addict, but this sudden tapping-in to the mother-lode of High-Grade Holmes only fed upon itself, and I began to collect more and more. I started reading and re-reading all of it, and along the way, making notes in a binder that I took with me everywhere, containing maps, useful information, and anything that would increase my understanding and pleasure in the stories. When I finished that first pass through everything I had at that point, I found that I had constructed a rough Holmes Chronology of both Canon and pastiche. Since then, it’s been through multiple ongoing revisions, and now it’s over seven-hundred-and-fifty densely printed pages, showing the complete lives of Holmes and Watson, and not just what is presented in those very few five-dozen stories funneled our way by the First Literary Agent. And yet, even with all of that information about the lives of Our Heroes, it isn’t enough. More! Give me more!

Media Pastiches

In the years since the mid-1990’s, the opportunity to find, read, collect, and dive into more and more Holmes adventures has only increased, and not just in printed form. Holmes has been well represented on radio. Bert Coules, who first supervised and helped write one of the best adaptations of the entire Canon for radio ever, then continued with his own set of original pastiches. Jim French, along with his able right-hand Larry Albert as Watson and John Patrick Lowrie as Holmes, guided Imagination Theatre through over one-hundred-thirty original adventures, as well as the only version of the complete Canon featuring the same actors as Holmes and Watson, along with each script being by written by one person, Matthew Elliott.

Over the years, pastiches on screen have included A Study in Scarlet (1933) with Reginald Owen, the Arthur Wontner films of the 1930’s, and the Basil Rathbone films from before, during, and after World War II. (For a bit of an explanation about those, check out "Basil Rathbone's Solar Pons Films" http://17stepprogram.blogspot.com/2016/11/basil-rathbones-solar-pons-films.html )

The 1959 version of The Hound with Peter Cushing had pastiche aspects. It was followed by the previously mentioned A Study in Terror and Murder by Decree. A new generation of movie-goers encountered Young Sherlock Holmes (1985). After a long wait came Sherlock Holmes (2009) and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011), each with a more action-packed Holmes, and then Mr. Holmes in 2014. (Some were unsettled at seeing Holmes in the aforementioned action-oriented films, showing such things as bare-knuckle boxing on screen, when those had previously only been presented off-stage. Likewise, others were uncomfortable viewing an elderly Holmes in his nineties – but if one has read about the entire lifespan of the man, then it’s only natural to see him at any age.)

On television, the 1954-1955 series with Ronald Howard – mostly pastiches – was followed by a 1979-1980 series from the same production group, this time starring Geoffrey Whitehead. Douglas Wilmer starred as an amazingly Canonical Holmes on the BBC from 1964 to 1965, and Peter Cushing followed in his footsteps in 1968. The Hound was televised with Steward Granger as Holmes in 1972, and again with Tom Baker in 1982 and Richard Roxburgh in 2002. The early 1980’s had Young Sherlock (1982), two Canonical films by Ian Richardson in 1983, and The Baker Street Boys (1983).

Holmes’s popularity was greatly increased by way of the Granada films, which ran from 1984 to 1994, featuring Jeremy Brett as Holmes, and both David Burke and Edward Hardwicke as very sensible and intelligent Watsons. As the show progressed, some of these Granada versions tended to stray into most definite pastiche territory.

Holmes’s other television appearances, both Canonical and stand-alone pastiche, have included Sherlock Holmes in New York (1976), Sherlock Holmes and the Masks of Death (1984), Hands of a Murderer (1991), Sherlock Holmes and the Leading Lady (1991), Sherlock Holmes: Incident at Victoria Falls (1992), The Hound of London (1993), four films starring Matt Frewer (2000-2002), Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking (2004) and Sherlock Holmes and the Baker Street Irregulars (2007). There have also been a few Russian productions.

Except for these, there has sadly been absolutely nothing about Sherlock Holmes on television since then whatsoever, except for a couple of shows that shamelessly trade on the use of Holmes’s name but only damage his reputation. A few others, such as House, MD, successfully incorporated Holmesian characteristics while forgoing any attempt to replace the originals with subversive and objectionable versions. (In this current bleak period when there has been nothing whatsoever about Holmes and Watson on television for ever ten years, one would be well advised to contact master dramatist Bert Coules, who has a set of scripts – complete and ready for filming – that depict Holmes and Watson in the early 1880’s, the correct time period. I can’t convince Bert to give me a peek, so someone is going to have to film them so I, and everyone else, will be able to know the stories!)

More and More Opportunities

The discovery of new cases by Holmes and Watson only continues to increase – and that’s a great thing. And it must be an indicator that people like me crave more and more adventures featuring Our Heroes. Still, I sometimes refer to myself as a missionary for The Church of Holmes, and my greatest task seems to be trying to make people respect these extra-Canonical Holmes adventures.

With ever-changing paradigms in communication and publishing, the discovery of new Holmes adventures seemingly accelerates every day. In addition to a few story collections or the rare novel presented by “mainstream” publishers, companies such as MX Publishing, Belanger Books, Wildside Press, Wessex Press, Baker Street Studios, and a few others continue to make it possible for new “editors” of Watson’s works to reach a public starving for additional narratives.

Sadly, there is sometimes an attitude from some quarters that pastiches are somehow less worthy than pure scholarly examinations of The Canon. Often pastiches are dismissed – except when a friend or celebrity has written one, in which case exceptions and are made and special dispensations granted. At other times, these new stories can only be considered “acceptable” if they are in a very pretty book from an approved list of publishers. In cases like this, where other adventures are rejected without a second glance simply because they don’t have the right pedigree, the potential reader is left immensely cheated. There are some amazing Holmes tales out there – online as fan fiction, or appearing in print-on-demand books – that are as good as anything one can find anywhere, and with of them are better than the original Canonical stories!

In the Nero Wolfe book The Mother Hunt (1963), Wolfe’s client asks:

“But you’re the best detective in the world, aren’t you?”

“Probably not,” he replies. “The best detective in the world may be some rude tribesman with a limited vocabulary.”

Pastiches are the same way – some of the best aren’t always to be found in a polished cleaned-up setting, like Wolfe in his Manhattan brownstone. Anyone who thinks so is limiting themselves and doesn’t even realize it.

Thankfully, there are still the opportunities to find new Holmes adventures all over the world, written by people who love the true Sherlock Holmes for people who love the true Sherlock Holmes. I’m incredibly thankful to be a part of it - and want to invite you to join the party as well . . . .

The MX Sherlock Holmes Anthologies

In early 2015, I awoke early from a dream where I had edited a Sherlock Holmes book – something that I’d never done before. I’d written and had published a few Holmes books by then, and I’d also edited a number of professional engineering reports over the years, but I’d never had this type of experience – and I’m not sure where the dream came from.

If I’d simply gone back to sleep, I might have forgotten about it. But I got up and looked over my Sherlock Holmes collection, which consists of several thousand volumes. I was checking to see which authors that I knew and could ask for stories, and identifying others that I’d like to invite to join the party. I emailed Steve Emecz of MX Books, who had published my previous books, to see if there was any interest, and he said to go ahead.

Over the next few days, I started sending emails, and the response was phenomenal. Over the first half of 2015, more and more Sherlockian authors heard about the project and wanted to be a part of it. What had initially been envisioned as a trade paperback of perhaps a dozen stories grew into two – and then three – massive volumes, published simultaneously, containing 63 new Holmes stories by some of the best Sherlockian authors from literally around the world.

I had insisted from the beginning that the stories be absolutely traditional and Canonical – no parodies, no actual supernatural encounters, and no anachronisms. And of course, the stories had to be good too. I believe that these requirements led to the immediate popularity of the books.

From the beginning, the author royalties have gone to support the Stepping Stones School for special needs students at Undershaw in Hindhead, England, one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s former homes. In just a little over three years, we’ve raised over $40,000 for the school, with no end in sight.

When the first three volumes were published in October 2015, I believed that it was a one-time thing. However, almost immediately previous participants talked about new stories that they had written, and new authors wished that they had been a part of it. Since all the production decisions had already been made for the first three books, it was decided to go ahead and see if there was interest in a fourth. I was a bit nervous when I put out a call for new stories, but I didn’t need to be. The next book. Volume IV, was published in the spring of 2016, and was as successful as the first three. And in fact, so many new stories were coming in that it became necessary to publish yet another book, Volume V, in fall 2016.

Since then, the books have gone from success to success. There have now been over 300 new Holmes stories included in this series that wouldn’t have been written otherwise – and there can never be enough traditional and Canonical Holmes adventures! Additionally, we are approaching having 200 authors participating. So many excellent stories are regularly submitted that the spring or fall collections are now usually expanded to become two simultaneous volumes. Thus, in November 2018, only three years after the first publication, we are at Volumes XI and XII. And I’m already receiving stories for the spring and fall volumes of 2018!

We’ve had stories by both professional and amateur authors, as well as forewords by bestselling authors such as Lee Child, Jonathan Kellerman, Nicholas Meyer, and Lyndsay Faye. For the last couple of years, every volume has been very favorably reviewed by Publishers Weekly. I’m most proud of the money raised for the school, and also by the fact that several first-time authors were part of this, and have gone on to write other things – some now having their own books published too!

As a diligent editor, I’m always on the lookout for new stories and new participants. As mentioned, these have to be in the style of the original Holmes narratives. If anyone would like to submit a story for consideration, or if I can provide any additional information, I can be reached at:

thepapersofsherlockholmes@gmail.com

I’m personally living my Sherlockian dream by being a part of this, and I can’t thank everyone enough who has participated in or supported these books. Long may they continue!

In conclusion . . . .

Pastiches are worth reading, and they’re worth writing. Where do you and the Sherlockians with whom you’re acquainted stand in regards to pastiches? Do you support them? Do you write them?

Consider the question by way of foundational Sherlockian Edgar W. Smith’s statement:

As a Sherlockian, are you worth your salt?

©David Marcum 2018 – All Rights Reserved

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David Marcum plays The Game with deadly seriousness. He first discovered Sherlock Holmes in 1975 at the age of ten, and since that time, he has collected, read, and chronologicized literally thousands of traditional Holmes pastiches in the form of novels, short stories, radio and television episodes, movies and scripts, comics, fan-fiction, and unpublished manuscripts. He is the author of over sixty Sherlockian pastiches, some published in anthologies and magazines such as The Strand, and others collected in his own books, The Papers of Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes and A Quantity of Debt, and Sherlock Holmes – Tangled Skeins. He has edited over fifty books, including several dozen traditional Sherlockian anthologies, such as the ongoing series The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories, which he created in 2015. This collection is now up to 21 volumes, with several more in preparation. He was responsible for bringing back August Derleth’s Solar Pons for a new generation, first with his collection of authorized Pons stories, The Papers of Solar Pons, and then by editing the reissued authorized versions of the original Pons books. He is now doing the same for the adventures of Dr. Thorndyke. He has contributed numerous essays to various publications, and is a member of a number of Sherlockian groups and Scions. He is a licensed Civil Engineer, living in Tennessee with his wife and son. His irregular Sherlockian blog, A Seventeen Step Program, addresses various topics related to his favorite book friends (as his son used to call them when he was small), and can be found at http://17stepprogram.blogspot.com/ Since the age of nineteen, he has worn a deerstalker as his regular-and-only hat. In 2013, he and his deerstalker were finally able make his first trip-of-a-lifetime Holmes Pilgrimage to England, with return Pilgrimages in 2015 and 2016, where you may have spotted him. If you ever run into him and his deerstalker out and about, feel free to say hello!

His Amazon Author Page can be found at:

https://www.amazon.com/kindle-dbs/entity/author/B00K1IKA92?_encoding=UTF8&node=283155&offset=0&pageSize=12&searchAlias=stripbooks&sort=author-sidecar-rank&page=1&langFilter=default#formatSelectorHeader

and at MX Publishing:

https://mxpublishing.com/search?type=product&q=marcum&fbclid=IwAR12tH4SUvE9nmEnnuqeI5GC7Tv69-NagPgmAZlxcz0vr2Ihza5_6jP-fXM