How I Came to Appreciate Undershaw

[A version of this essay originally appeared on the Undershaw website, August 23, 2017] NOTE: This essay refers to the Stepping Stones School at Undershaw. In September 2021, the school changed it's name to simply "Undershaw".
[Updated November 28th, 2022 and December 11th, 2023]

I have to warn you: This is written from the perspective of a Sherlockian. I’ve been a fan of Sherlock Holmes since I was ten years old, in the mid-1970’s. In the forty-five-plus years since then, I’ve collected literally thousands of traditional Holmes adventures in the form of novels and short stories, radio and television episodes, movies and scripts, comics and unpublished manuscripts and fan fiction. And I play The Game with deadly seriousness.

You haven’t heard of The Game? That’s where Holmes and Watson are recognized as historical figures, born in the 1850’s, and living to ripe old ages before passing away in the twentieth century. As such, Watson was the chronicler of Holmes’s adventures, which he later published with the help of his Literary Agent, Dr. – and later Sir – Arthur Conan Doyle.

I’m not the only person who approaches Sherlock Holmes in this manner. Yet, even if one firmly looks at Holmes through this perspective, there’s no getting away from his being intertwined with Conan Doyle every once in a while.

But make no mistake: I’m a fan of Holmes and Watson.

Holmes Pilgrimages

In 2013, I was able to visit England on the first (of what has turned out to be three, so far) Holmes Pilgrimages. My wife and son stayed home, both recognizing that this was almost a religious experience for me. I’ve worn a deerstalker as my only hat since I was nineteen, and it went with me throughout the entire trip. I’d been planning the journey for years, making extensive use of over two-dozen Holmes travel books in my collection. I knew exactly where I wanted to go, and if it didn’t concern The Great Detective in some form or fashion, I pretty much didn’t do it. For instance, I refused to ride the London Eye, as it’s a modern contrivance that has nothing to do with my heroes. But I did explore The Tower of London – not for its historic or tourist value, mind you, but because it features in so many Holmes stories . . .

. . . but not in original sixty stories, referred to as The Canon. Holmes and Watson don’t visit The Tower in any of those, although they do see it from across the Thames while riding in a boat in The Sign of the Four. However, they have business at The Tower one way or another in quite a few of those post-Canon stories, "pastiches", as brought to us by later Holmes enthusiasts, after Conan Doyle. He was the first “Literary Agent”, serving in that capacity in fits and starts from the mid-1880’s, when A Study in Scarlet was written and then published in December 1887, all the way through the last Canonical adventure, “Shoscombe Old Place”, which appeared in The Strand in 1927. In between, Conan Doyle decided that he didn’t like Holmes very much, and was very happy to assist in reporting in “The Final Problem” that Holmes had supposedly died at the hands of Professor Moriarty atop the Reichenbach Falls on May 4th, 1891. It took years before new chronicles appeared in The Strand magazine to explain just how Holmes had survived that encounter.

So even though Conan Doyle only associated himself with five-dozen “official” stories about Holmes and Watson, there have been thousands of them since then, filling in the gaps within and around and through the originals, and attempting to answer the many questions that were left hanging. Thus, my first Holmes Pilgrimage in 2013 visited not only sites mentioned in the Canonical narratives, but a great many other Holmes-sites as well.

David Marcum and his deerstalker at 221b Baker Street

An amazing thing about London is that, wherever you go to see something on your list – especially if it’s a Holmes List – you’ll likely find two other things that you also wanted to see right next door or across the street from the first place. After having read for decades about Holmes from my own corner of the United States, specifically in eastern Tennessee, it was amazing to see the real London. It was nothing like I’d pictured in my head for all of those years, proving to me yet again that whatever you expect or imagine is nothing like seeing the real thing.

So as I traipsed around London, that place at the top of my wish list for most of my life, going from Holmes Site to Holmes Site, I couldn’t help but find myself occasionally passing sites related to Conan Doyle as well. They weren’t intended stops on their own. Rather, they were buildings on the way from here to there. Conan Doyle had several homes in London. There was a house in Montague Place, just behind the British Museum – now long gone. Not far away is No. 2 Upper Wimpole Street, where a Green Plaque commemorates his residence there . . .

At No. 2 Upper Wimpole Street

. . . and just a block or so from there is No. 2 Devonshire Place, which has a fanlight proclaiming it to be “Conan Doyle House”:

No. 2 Devonshire Place

Here I am at No. 2 Devonshire Place on the Second Pilgrimage, when it was covered up in scaffolding for repairs:

Another Shot of No. 2 Devonshire Place

Apparently there is some disagreement as to which of these two houses – in Upper Wimpole or Devonshire – are the legitimate residences.

I passed by all of these Conan Doyle homes multiple times as I criss-crossed Marylebone and Bloomsbury and points in between. I even took photos and “selfies” at each of them, but it wasn’t for the historical aspect or the Doyle-ness of them. Rather, as I played The Game, I pictured Watson stopping by to discuss the latest project with The Literary Agent – or perhaps even Holmes himself crossing the threshold for a visit . . . or possibly to plead that the narratives be treated in a more scientific and less dramatic fashion.

I also happened to visit another Conan Doyle house during that first 2013 Pilgrimage. As part of my overall exploration, I wanted to go to Scotland, and where else to dip in for a limited amount of time than Edinburgh? While there, I ate at the Conan Doyle Pub, just across the square from ACD's birthplace. And the best part – to me, anyway, and worth the trip up there – was visiting the Holmes statue that has been erected just in front of it:

At the Holmes Statue in front of Conan Doyle’s birthplace, Edinburgh

After my first Holmes Pilgrimage in 2013, I didn’t know if I’d ever get back to England. However, was able to make further Holmes Pilgrimages in 2015 and 2016, and again saw many wonderful Holmes sites, as well as once again repeatedly passing by Conan Doyle’s London houses. On each of my trips, I went to many places, and I was glad enough to have passed by The Literary Agent’s former houses as part of that, even though they weren’t my goal. Having seen them, I didn’t feel the need to travel to any of the others – Conan Doyle’s Southsea residence in Portsmouth, for instance, or Crowborough, where he lived out his later years, or even Undershaw, about which I’d heard quite a bit.

Undershaw and The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories

Several years ago, a lot of people that I “knew” (in this modern sense of knowing someone electronically) through various Sherlockian connections were beginning to write about visiting the ruins of Undershaw, and more often about how they were interested in “saving” Undershaw from decay, or from being turned into condominiums. I vaguely noticed when I’d see something about it, but it never really affected me. I did purchase a couple of books produced by MX Publishing whose author royalties were donated to the Undershaw Preservation Trust (UPT), an organization founded to save the house – but my interest was in the Holmes stories they contained, and not the charity.

But eventually I began to be educated about Undershaw, by way of Mr. Sherlock Holmes.

In early 2015, I woke up early from a dream. If I’d rolled over and gone back to sleep, I might have forgotten it, but instead, I got up. I went in to look at my shelves of Holmes books, wondering whom I might ask – for my dream was about editing a book of new, traditional Holmes short stories, written by my Sherlockian friends, or by some of the authors that I didn’t know, but whose works I admired.

I emailed a couple of good friends about it, and they liked the idea. Then I emailed Steve Emecz of MX Publishing, which had previously published my own Holmes books. He was supportive, and I started emailing other people. And they liked the idea, and wanted to participate.

Originally, I’d first and foremost thought of editing and producing this new book as a way to have more new Holmes stories set in the correct time period, and featuring the true and heroic Sherlock Holmes. This was initially very much a push-back against a certain television show at that time that I really despise which sets Holmes in the modern era, and makes him into a sociopathic murderer, Watson into a psychosomatic lump, Irene Adler into a dominatrix, Mrs. Hudson a drug dealer’s widow, and Mycroft and Moriarty . . . whatever disasters they’re supposed to be. I firmly believe and argue wherever I have a forum (including here) that this show does incredible damage to Sherlock Holmes.

And many people agreed with me. More and more authors started signing up to be in this new anthology, happy to follow the conditions that I laid down: Stories had to be set in the correct time period, with no “mind palaces”, and absolutely no “Sherlock” and “John”. Early in the process, we realized that with so many people participating, paying royalties would be a nightmare. What to do? And then I remembered MX’s earlier efforts to raise money for the UPT. We decided that the funds raised by the new anthology would be donated to that organization.

Many people continued to sign up to write stories for that initial book, to be called The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories. It was originally planned as a single volume with possibly two-dozen stories, but it became so big that it had to be split into two books. And then those two became three. By the time it was published in October 2015, it had turned into three simultaneous volumes, containing 63 new stories, as well as forewords and poems. They were arranged chronologically, and titled, Part I: 1881-1889, Part II: 1890-1895, and Part III: 1896-1929. There was a Kickstarter that raised nearly £15,000 – all from people who wanted more traditional Holmes stories. But all of that happened at the end of the process. While we were still in the middle of working it all out, it was determined that the author royalties would be shifted in a different direction.

Somewhere in the middle of 2015, while the stories were coming in and being edited, and decisions were being made about book sizes and hardcover versus paperback and cover illustrations and so on, Steve Emecz pointed out that our target recipient for the funds, the Undershaw Preservation Trust, was essentially finished – It had been set up to save Undershaw, and Undershaw had now been saved. The property had been purchased by the DFN Foundation to be converted into the Stepping Stones School for special needs children. The royalties from the books would instead go to support the school, which planned to move from their current location into the renovated building. In a long Skype call, Steve Emecz explained to me much of what had gone on over the past few years in terms of what threatened the building, what groups and personalities had worked to save it, and what the current plans were. Still not knowing much about Undershaw, I was as happy with this new direction for the royalties as I had been with the old, and preparation for the books continued.

With the publication of the books in October 2015, a grand event was planned in London. I was very fortunate to be able to attend – Holmes Pilgrimage No. 2. While there, I revisited many of the Holmes sites I’d seen two years earlier, and a lot of new ones as well. And on the night of the big party, October 1st, 2015, I was able to meet many of the wonderful and generous authors who had graciously contributed their time and efforts, along with Conan Doyle’s great-niece, Cathy Beggs.

With Cathy Beggs at the launch event for The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories October 2015

I also met a couple of people involved with the school: Melissa Farnham (later Grigsby), Head Teacher of Stepping Stones, and Norman Stromsoy, CEO of the DFN Foundation. They both gave a presentation about the school’s mission, and how it was still located in its current facilities while waiting for the remodeling to be completed at Undershaw. It was during that presentation that I first learned exactly what they do at Stepping Stones, how committed they are to excellence, and why being able to move to the much better facilities at Undershaw was so important. I also realized then that this project, which to me had simply been about encouraging more traditional Holmes stories, was actually going to be able to accomplish a lot of good as well.

After that trip, I returned home, very happy with what had been accomplished. I received a lot of emails, including some from people who hadn’t been in the original books but wanted to be in future volumes. Future volumes?!? I’d thought of this as a one-time thing. But . . . the hard decisions and heavy lifting about designing the books had already been done. More people wanted to write stories, and it was certain that more people wanted to read about the TRUE Sherlock Holmes. So . . .

. . . I hadn’t been back home for more than a week or so before I sent out new invitations for the next book, planned for Spring 2016, to be called Part IV: 2016 Annual. It was explained that the original three-book one-time event was now going to be an ongoing series. The stories rolled in, so many that I decided we should do a second book in 2016. So I sent out invitations for that one too, and more stories arrived, but this time there was a specific theme. Later that year we published, Part V: Christmas Adventures.

But just before that book came out in the fall of 2016, I was thrilled to receive an unexpected email from London – Would I like to return there again, this time as a special guest at the Grand Opening of Stepping Stones at the now-completed Undershaw? Of course, the answer was Yes.

The offer to bring me back to the Holmesland came from the DFN Foundation, the organization responsible for purchasing Undershaw for the school, and then reclaiming the terribly neglected and damaged building. I really had no idea how bad things had become. After standing empty for years, walls and floors had rotted. Original plaster was ruined and windows broken. The building had been a hotel for decades, and the former owners had made some terrible structural decisions, such as cutting through an entire row of floor joists, leaving one section of the building in serious real danger of simply breaking away. The building had been in much worse shape than anyone had realized when construction started. Additionally, there were a number of requirements involved in bringing it back to what it had been historically – repairs to items such as floors, windows, and plaster had to fit within very specific guidelines related to the restoration of historic buildings – all balanced against what would be required to make a functional site for a school for children with special needs.

The cost had been much greater than the DFN Foundation had anticipated, but the repairs and improvements were accomplished beautifully – and I saw it in person when I attended the Grand Opening on September 9th, 2016.

That was on the second full day of my Holmes Pilgrimage No. 3. I was led down to Hindhead, where Undershaw is located, by author Luke Kuhns. He and I had corresponded for several years, and I met him person back in 2013, during Holmes Pilgrimage No. 1, when he was very capably in charge of the release party and signing for one of my early books, held at the Sherlock Holmes Hotel in Baker Street. Back when I’d first had the idea of the MX anthologies, Luke was the very first person to send me a story – giving me an indication that this thing might work after all.

With Luke Kuhns at Undershaw with his book Welcome to Undershaw

When we arrived at Undershaw, there was a threat of rain. As we walked down the driveway, in the spot that I later learned Conan Doyle had wrecked the first automobile ever driven in that village, it all became much more real to me. We arrived early, long before the expected crowds, and were welcomed by Norman Stromsoy. He made us tea – I got to have tea at Undershaw! – and then led us on a very extensive tour of the building, which Conan Doyle had originally constructed to accommodate his first wife, Louisa, who was ill during the last years of her life. We saw specially designed shallow stairs, for instance, fit for passage by someone in poor health. The stained glass windows had been restored. We visited the adjoining bedrooms – Conan Doyle’s and his wife’s, that had now been repurposed. It was in Louisa’s room, with its beautiful bow window, that her husband had read to his sick wife. We were told that in those days, the view from the window would have been incredible, although now it’s blocked by a century’s growth of tall trees. It was a beautiful room, and now it’s set up as the school’s library.

We toured the new building as well, immediately adjacent to the original structure built by Conan Doyle, with its classrooms, small theater, and swimming pool. Even in that section, there are references to Holmes, with quotes from Canonical stories etched onto the hallway windows that look out upon the grounds.

But for me, the most important part of the tour, and the room to which I returned again and again, was Doyle’s study. It was there that he had a number of contemporary literary visitors, such as Bram Stoker, but more importantly, it was in this room that the first Holmes stories written since “The Final Problem” had been published in The Strand in 1893 were prepared. I say “prepared” because, still playing The Game, I maintain that Watson wrote those new stories, The Hound of the Baskervilles and those contained in The Return of Sherlock Holmes, but it was here that Doyle provided editing and other Literary Agent-related services.

I was in and out of the room multiple times during the day. I was able to have my picture made at the modern desk, placed in the exact same spot where Conan Doyle’s was over a century earlier, and I even brought a sheet of fancy paper with me from home in order to write the first line of a new story while my deerstalker and I are sitting there, as shown here:

In the same spot as Conan Doyle, while I work on preparing a new Holmes story

(Many thanks to head teacher Melissa Grigsby, the head teacher then, for taking time out of her crazy day to take the pictures of me there.)

Later, I was able to spend some time in the same room with my friends, eminent husband-and-wife Sherlockians Roger Johnson and Jean Upton – here’s a photo of Roger and me, taken by Jean, at Conan Doyle’s mantel. (I’m holding the deerstalker instead of wearing it for a change.)

With Roger Johnson in Conan Doyle’s study

I got to spend time in the study when several members of The Sherlock Holmes Society of London made a special presentation to the school. And as the building became more and more crowded with happy guests, the study became a place to slip away and enjoy the quiet for a few minutes.

Later, there was the official opening ceremony, a very crowded affair indeed. I wore my ever-present deerstalker – the only person there so attired – and sent messages across social media indicating that all of the writers of new Holmes tales around the world were being represented. The event was attended by the MP for the area, local officials, and Richard Doyle, great-nephew of Sir Arthur. Later in the day, I was able to meet him and his son . . . .

With Richard Doyle and his son at the Stepping Stones opening

. . . and then to give him a tour of parts that he hadn’t seen, since I’d learned my way around pretty well by that time, having arrived early that morning. That was a lot of fun – talking with him and trying to explain U.S. Presidential politics, which – at that point in history, September 2016 – was before anyone realized just how terribly dire the situation was about to become.

At some point during the crowded afternoon, I was able to speak with David Forbes-Nixon, whose son was attending Stepping Stones. It was his DFN Foundation that had purchased and renovated the building. We discussed the MX anthologies, and how they were of benefit by providing extra funds for the school. I was very glad to meet him in person, as well as his assistant Julie Owen, and to thank them both for making it possible for me to be able to attend the event.

Finally, it was time to return to London. As the sun set and we walked up the drive, I took one last look at the restored building, which has come so far from Conan Doyle’s original home . . .

. . . to the nearly destroyed and abandoned wreck that it was just a few years ago . . .

. . . to the amazingly beautiful restored building that now houses the Stepping Stones School, the way I saw it as I departed . . .

In the years since, I’ve seen more and more reports of how further improvements have occurred – the grounds have been finished since I saw them, and there's a Conan Doyle room, and there has been talk of having the covers of the various MX Anthology volumes blown up and placed in the building as artwork. I hope someday to get back there and see what the school looks like after it’s been lived-in for a bit, as the day I was there was just a few days after they had moved in.

In the meantime, there is more news about the MX anthologies. We're up to 42 volumes now (as I update this in December 2023), with over 840 new traditional Canonical Holmes adventures from over 200 contributors around the world - and I'm already working on additional volumes. As of December 2023, the books have raised over $120,000 - that's over One-hundred-twenty-thousand-dollars! - for the school, and no end in sight. More about that can be read here:

https://www.einnews.com/pr_news/575368182/sherlock-holmes-authors-raise-100-000-for-undershaw

Enthusiasm for the books continues to grow, both with readers and contributors, and this benefits both Holmes fans like me who want more and more new traditional adventures, and also the school, both by generating funds and also additional awareness. (In fact, I'm told by officials from the school that the awareness of the school around the world, generated by the MX anthologies, has been of even greater value than the money raised!)

I’m so thankful for the contributors to the books, as well as everyone who buys them - Truly, Sherlockians are the best people! I can't believe the opportunity that this project has given to me personally – to meet new friends, to help encourage new authors and give them a place to be published, to promote the TRUE Mr. Holmes, and to assist in the important work being done at Undershaw. And I can't wait to see what happens next!

©David Marcum 2020, 2022 – All Rights Reserved

*************************

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 one-hundred Sherlockian pastiches, some published in anthologies such as The Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2021 (edited by Otto Penzler and Lee Child), 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, Sherlock Holmes and The Eye of Heka, and The Collected Papers of Sherlock Holmes.

He has edited over eighty books, most of them being 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 42 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, and subsequently additional volumes of new Pons tales. Most recently he's written The Further Papers of Solar Pons. He has done the same for The Adventures of Dr. Thorndyke. He has contributed numerous essays to various publications, and is a member of the Mystery Writes of America and a number of Sherlockian groups and Scions. 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. He is a licensed Civil Engineer, living in Tennessee with his wife and son. 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!

"Marcum could be today's greatest Sherlockian writer, . . . ." Lee Child - New York Times Bestselling Author

"David Marcum is the reigning monarch of all things Sherlockian . . . ." John Lescroart - New York Times Bestselling Author

"Among the best I must number David Marcum, who, by this point has written more Holmes stories than Doyle himself. Characterized by unflagging imagination and ceaseless ingenuity, along with felicitous prose, these tales continue to provide what we all crave: more Sherlock." - Nicholas Meyer - New York Times Bestselling Author

"Marcum himself again demonstrates his gift for emulating the feel of The Canon . . . ." - Publishers Weekly

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

Necessary Rationalizations: The Overall Chronology of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson (along with the Truth About Mary Russell)

[The following initially appeared in a somewhat different form in
The Watsonian Vol 5, No. 1, 2017]

Not only do I read and collect all the traditional Canonical Holmes adventures that I can find – literally several thousand of them now – I chronologicize them. Along with being a devout Holmesian, I am a Sherlockian Chronologicist – and not just of the pitifully few sixty stories in the original Canon. While some agonize over where to put those stories, I’ve long since settled that question to my own satisfaction and moved on to fitting in all of those other adventures that are in my collection. Since the mid-1970’s, almost as soon as I read my first Canonical story, I’ve also sought out those others that are identified as pastiches, and to me they’re an equally important part of the story of the whole lives of Our Heroes, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John H. Watson. It’s all like a rope, with The Canon as the wire core, and the pastiches as the many fibrous strands wound around it to provide exponentially more strength than it would have without them.

The first thing that one must remember as I explain my Chronology is that I play The Game with Deadly Seriousness. Holmes and Watson were historical figures, and these events happened. Having made that clear, we can now proceed.

CREATING A CHRONOLOGY OF THE ENTIRE LIFE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES

I’ve explained in other previous blog entries how I came to create my Chronology. For instance, see “Sherlock Holmes versus Jack the Ripper” . . .

http://17stepprogram.blogspot.com/2017/02/sherlock-holmes-versus-jack-ripper.html

. . . and also “Actually, That Wasn’t Watson” . . .

http://17stepprogram.blogspot.com/2017/03/actually-that-wasnt-watson-some-notes.html

I began constructing my Chronology in the mid-1990’s, almost by accident. I looked around one day and observed that I’d been collecting Holmes tales, both Canon and pastiche, since I was a child – buying them, Xeroxing them if I located them in a library, and later printing them off the internet when that came along, gathering them wherever and whenever I could find them . . . but not necessarily reading all of them. I just kept accumulating them. Instead of enjoying each of them like I should have, I was spending my time at 221b Baker Street by continually revisiting the same Canonical stories and a few of my favorite other tales, over and over again. That day, I decided to read everything that I’d accumulated over decades of collecting.

As I did so, I kept a small binder with me, containing useful maps and places to make notes. I began to organize the stories that I was reading by year, and by the time I’d read through all of my collection (what had at that point, anyway), I found that I’d constructed a very rough Chronology of not only The Canon, but all of those additional adventures as well. I was amazed at how well everything seemed to fit together, with Canonical stories providing the main fabric, and all the later threads woven into that Great Holmes Tapestry by those who came after The First Literary Agent, thus serving to augment and improve the bigger picture.

After subsequent re-readings – a never-ending joy over the last twenty-plus years – and numerous revisions of that original Chronology, I now have a living document of over 750 densely packed pages, organized within the framework of The Canon, systematizing and listing every traditional Holmes adventure that I own, each set in the correct time period, and broken down by book, chapter, page, and sometimes even paragraph into year and day and hour.

NECESSARY RATIONALIZATIONS

In the introduction to my book Sherlock Holmes – Tangled Skeins (2015), I explained this concept in greater depth: How all of the traditional Canonical Holmes adventures fit together as a whole, and how the pieces of each were then all pulled out from all the others when published as individual cases. Essentially, when Watson was preparing an isolated investigation for publication, he only selected the necessary threads for that particular narrative, leaving out whatever else was happening at the same time, in order to avoid confusion with other concurrent investigations. When reading a story, there may be a segment that occurs on a certain day that only takes five or ten minutes of conversation. The implication is that the present investigation, the subject of the current story, somehow fills the rest of that day to the exclusion of all else, and there is no explanation at all as to what else actually did happen during the rest of that time. In fact, several other matters were also taking place while the narrated story played out, but instead of complicating that single story chosen for the subject of his latest effort with extraneous information, Watson only related what mattered.

This is the first and most important rationalization that one must make when fitting together the puzzle that makes up all of the thousands of cases handled by Holmes and Watson, and not just the few sixty recorded Canonical cases and the Untold Cases – those about Giant Rats and Abernetty Tragedies – that are teasingly mentioned along the way. If those few were all that Holmes ever did, spread out over a career lasting several decades, one would find it much more difficult to argue the claim that he is the greatest detective of them all, and he himself would have been a very bored individual indeed. If those few cases were all that he ever had to do, it would be no wonder that he would have felt “like a racing engine, tearing itself to pieces because it is not connected up with the work for which it was built.”

Many extra-Canonical tales erroneously begin with the statement that Holmes is bored, and hasn’t had a case in days or weeks. When one sees the whole story, opening one’s mind to all of that other evidence besides what came to us by way of The First Literary Agent, it’s obvious that Holmes stayed quite busy, and if anything, he used himself up with that “constant hard work of a most exacting kind” to which Watson referred. Watson, too, stayed very active as well, and for a man of action such as he was, the constant adventure must have been as if an addict were receiving a steady supply of a very satisfying drug.

For the most part, the thousands of adventures that I’ve collected, read, and organized all fit together quite well, and serve to reinforce one another, with very little that needs to be adjusted. I say “adjusted” because, at times, occasional aspects of one story or another do not fit with the bigger picture. Sometimes it’s Watson’s fault, when he is simply incorrect when making a statement, either accidentally or intentionally. This happened in The Canon, so it’s not surprising that it would occur in the extra-Canonical tales as well. (For instance, despite its saying so, “Wisteria Lodge” did not occur in 1892, in the midst of The Great Hiatus.)

Elsewhere, the internal dating inconsistencies in both “The Red-Headed League” and The Sign of the Four must be explained satisfactorily, along with other sticking points that occur in The Canon, such as Watson referring to his recent marriage at the beginning of SCAN, which occurs before SIGN - he doesn’t even meet Mary Morstan until September 1888 during SIGN. And if HOUN really occurs in Autumn 1889, as implied, then how is Watson, who is certainly married to Mary by then, able to get away to Dartmoor for so long? One can’t just blame it upon a slip of The First Literary Agent’s pen.

At times, Watson intentionally obfuscates a name, place, or date – this is no surprise. At other times, various later editors of Watson’s papers, those bringing us new adventures after those Canonical tales initially presented through The First Literary Agent – also make mistakes, or even intentionally change things to promote their own agendas.

Sometimes an editor will simply have a minor error, such as indicating that Watson is still living in Baker Street after 1902 when he’s already moved to Queen Anne Street. Occasionally there are incorrect descriptions of the layout of 221 Baker Street, added when an ignorant editor is padding Watson’s notes without knowing the facts. Mention might be made of Watson being a well-published author in The Strand in the mid-1880’s, before he had ever been published at all, and before The Strand went into business in early 1891.

In each of these cases, my Chronology notes what is Incorrect about these statements in terms of the bigger picture. Some “editors” who have made mistakes with the stories that are chronologicized, either accidental or intentional, might not like it when I point these out, or perhaps when I move their story from a date which is specified in their effort to a completely different date because they have mis-identified the time when it occurred, placing it in a chronological spot in which it simply will not work.

As knowledge of my Chronology has become more widely known, a number of people have contacted me, either asking for me to simply provide it to them free of charge – “Hey, can you send me your Chronology?” – as if I would just do that, or asking that it be placed on-line or published. I do sometimes conduct research within it for various Sherlockians, in order to track down this or that date or story for them, but I don’t simply give the Chronology away. I do think of publishing it someday, but I’m wary of that for a few reasons. First, it’s an ever-improving and ever-changing document, and as soon as I draw a line under it by putting it in a book, it will immediately be out of date. But more importantly is the aforementioned fact that some editors might be peeved when they see something listed as Incorrect.

CORRECTING CONTRADICTIONS WITH THE GREAT HOLMES TAPESTRY

Many stories work fine on their own with only minor notes about incorrect aspects, or even with no annotations at all. Other adventures have bigger issues, in that much greater chunks of the narrative are in direct contradiction to all of that massive body of evidence as accumulated in the thousands of other stories that are in general agreement with one another. In these cases, where editors who have otherwise excellent works have chosen to color outside the lines, extra steps must be taken. One example of this has been previously discussed in my blog entry, "Actually, That Wasn't Watson", explaining the truth about the film Young Sherlock Holmes (1985):

http://17stepprogram.blogspot.com/2017/03/actually-that-wasnt-watson-some-notes.html

Some narratives are very well written and provide important information for the overall biographies of Holmes and Watson, but there are pieces of the whole of those works that simply cannot be accepted as is. In those cases, there is a choice: Throw out the whole baby with all of the bathwater and keep none of it, or keep just the part that is right and get rid of the part that is wrong. This is where rationalization becomes necessary. I always list those inconsistencies when reading a story and Chronologicizing it. Sometimes a part of a story will be so at odds with established Canon that it seems that it cannot be included at all – but I make it work if I can.

There are several examples of this. I refer to a few – The Last Sherlock Holmes Story and The Seven-Per-Cent Solution - in my previously mentioned essays in past blogs. For instance, the first two chapters of Michael Dibdin’s extremely controversial novel The Last Sherlock Holmes Story are perfectly fine, and are a part of Holmes’s massive battle against The Ripper. But the rest of the book is a scurrilous slander against Holmes, obviously so maliciously fictional that it must have been written at some later date, probably by a Moriarty, and awkwardly grafted onto Watson’s original notes in order to irretrievably damage Holmes’s reputation. I include the first two chapters of that book in The Chronology, but recommend that it be read no further.

Another famous tale that provides both the same problem and the same solution is Nicholas Meyer’s The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, in which the beginning and end of the book are quite opposed to established Canonical Fact.

For The Chronology, I leave out Chapters 1 and 2, as well as parts of Chapters 4 and 17, so that the correct meat of the case, Holmes and Watson’s trip to Vienna and their meeting with Sigmund Freud, is represented, but those parts exonerating Professor Moriarty as a harmless and persecuted old man, as well as the segments incorrectly giving Holmes a damaged history to explain this persecution, are rightly ignored. (No doubt, these portions were also written and appended onto the manuscript by someone trying to rescue the evil Professor’s reputation.) Additionally, the end of the book, implying that The Great Hiatus is false, must be ignored.

There are some others of this necessary rationalization. One is Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Holmes by Loren D. Estleman (1979).

One would think that this book would be lumped in and thrown away with so many other completely fictional Holmes stories that have The Master fighting Dracula or ghosts or brain-eating aliens or zombie fungi. But there are many pieces of this story that are actually salvageable for the purposes of my Chronology.

For the most part, this tale can stand unaltered. However, there are certain segments at the end, wherein Dr. Jekyll actually changes physically into Mr. Hyde (as he does in the frankly fictionalized version by Robert Louis Stevenson) that just didn’t happen. In fact, during Holmes’s true investigation, Jekyll does take some sort of personality-altering drug that causes him to indulge in criminal activities and show homicidal personality traits, but there is not a magical physical alteration taking place into a whole different person. I note that someone at a later date altered Watson’s manuscript – First Literary Agent Doyle, perhaps? – in order to make it into a more supernatural tale. If one follows Holmes’s dictum – “No ghosts need apply.” – then anything in a narrative that implies that there is a real ghost or monster can be ascribed to some later editor with a need to alter and spoil the story with such aspects, fulfilling a personal agenda over the truth of the actual events.

Another editor with his own agenda is Peter Tremayne, (a pseudonym of Peter Berresford Ellis,) who has brought a number of Holmesian adventures to the public’s attention, such as “The Specter of Tullyfane Abbey”, “The Kidnapping of Mycroft Holmes”, “The Affray at the Kildare Street Club”, and “The Siren of Sennen Cove”. But along the way, he has felt the need to alter Watson’s original manuscripts by foisting in heavy-handed and repeated assertions that Holmes, Watson, Mrs. Hudson, and nearly everyone involved in the Sherlockian world are Irish, contrary to all accumulated evidence. According to Tremayne, Holmes and Mycroft attended university in Ireland. Mycroft works for the Irish government, etc. The list goes on and on. Apparently it’s very important to Tremayne that Our Heroes be Irish, in spite of all conflicting evidence. The stories are too good just to ignore because of these incorrect additions. Therefore, when reading them and examining them for inclusion in the Chronology, each is annotated with the notation that these Irish assertions are Incorrect.

One of the greatest rationalizations that occurred in order to make some really well-written but fundamentally incorrect works fit within the Sherlockian Chronological Universe relates to those adventures narrated by Mary Russell, brought forth by way of her own literary agent, Laurie R. King.

RATIONALIZING MARY RUSSELL

In 1994, I first read The Beekeeper’s Apprentice (1994) by Laurie R. King, which tells how fifteen-year-old Mary Russell meets the retired Sherlock Holmes on the Sussex Downs.

Although I had a few overall quibbles with the story, I was greatly impressed. The teacher/apprentice father/daughter relationship in the book was masterfully done. This, I thought, is the kind of Sherlock Holmes novel for which I'd been waiting, as well as a truly an enlightening volume of Sherlockian history. But then the next book, A Monstrous Regiment of Women (1995) veered into an uncomfortable (at best) romantic relationship wherein Holmes, by then nearing seventy, and the girl barely out of her teens professed their romantic love for one another before marrying.

I continued to buy the Russell books as they appeared – Always a collector! – but I couldn’t bring myself to read them because of that pesky romance and subsequent Holmes-Russell marriage. Although I do not doubt that Holmes has it in him to have a romantic relationship – I am a Baring-Gould disciple, (a “Baring-Gouldist” if you will,) agreeing with the Irene Adler/Montenegro/Nero Wolfe theories, and also realizing that Holmes was human, after all, no matter how much he tried to suppress his emotions – I do not think that Holmes felt that way about Mary Russell.

I eventually realized how to rationalize away my problems with Mary Russell’s narratives, allowing me to read all the other Russell books with much greater enjoyment. (They are really well-written books!) I shared my theory with some Sherlockian friends, and they agreed that is was quite plausible. In October 2009, I mustered up the courage to pass along my theory to Ms. King in a series of emails. She was gracious, tolerant, and – I think – amused. While she obviously did not agree with me, she did seem to be pleased that someone was playing The Game with her books.

She went on to post my comments on her website on October 28, 2009. (Sadly, after being there for a long time, the page seems to have vanished.) The responses from the friends of Mary Russell about my theory were not nearly as gracious, tolerant, or amused, and not at all surprising either. In fact, many of the comments were immediate, virulent, and scathing. After all, these are the folks who claim that “After 1914, he’s ours.” Russell’s defenders are quite passionate. I should have known better than to poke that particular Beekeeper’s nest.

In 2011, my own first book, The Papers of Sherlock Holmes, was published, relating some of Holmes and Watson’s adventures as discovered in one of Watson’s lost journals. The book’s publication allowed me to take the next step and track down the truth, determining the specifics of Russell’s terrible delusions. The following narrative, “Descent Into Madness”, confirms my initial theory about Mary Russell, serving as something of a patch, allowing other Sherlockians who have not previously been able to enjoy the Russell stories to now do so. For others, it may simply be an amusing aside (in the same way that Rex Stout asserted that “Watson Was a Woman”), while to a few it might even cause some blood-stirring gritting-of-the-teeth.

In 2012, at the time of the publication of the Russell book Garment of Shadows, my good Sherlockian friends Carolyn and (the late and much-missed) Joel Senter put the story up on their Classic Specialties website, where it’s remained ever since.

Not long after, it was reviewed by my friend, noted Sherlockian Roger Johnson, BSI, in “The District Messenger” (No.328, 22 December, 2012), his newsletter at the time for The Sherlock Holmes Society of London. Roger stated:

Mr. Marcum recognises the high quality of the popular novels by Laurie King that began with The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, but like many of us he rejects the notion that Miss Russell was married to Sherlock Holmes. “Descent into Madness” offers a neat solution to our problem, and it’s a good story in its own right.

http://www.sherlock-holmes.org.uk/pdf/DM328.pdf

Around that same time, Steve Rothman, BSI and editor of The Baker Street Journal, told me that “I am currently reading for review Garment of Shadows and – now and then – your idea creeps into my head.” Another member of the BSI who wishes to remain nameless - after I asked if I could name him - emailed me on December 2, 2012, stating: "I lost patience with Mary Russell quite some time ago . . . I congratulate you on doing something constructive and interesting with the same sentiments!"

So now, after living on the Senter's website Classic Specialties for several years, and having been previously published in The Watsonian, I present in my own blog the truth about Mary Russell: “Descent Into Madness” Hopefully, Ms. King is still feeling gracious, tolerant, and amused that The Game is still being played with her work . . . .

The doctor leaned back in his chair and regarded the old – the very old – man across from him. “Do you wish to see her?”

The old man shook his head and shifted slightly in his seat. The doctor knew that the gentleman was in his mid-eighties, at least, but he sat with the coiled energy and tension of someone in his prime. “I don’t think that would be wise at all, do you?”

“I tend to agree, Mr. Holmes,” said the doctor. “Still, I wanted to make the offer, due to the fact that you have known her for so long.”

“Since 1915,” replied Holmes. “We met when she was still in her teens.”

“1915,” said the doctor. “During the last time that we squabbled with the Jerrys.”

Holmes nodded. It seemed so long ago, those days of “The Great War.” And yet, it also seemed that no time had passed at all. Of course, it had. Poor Watson, gone nearly ten years. And now, in the early summer of 1939, Germany was again pushing Europe toward a war that no one but themselves wanted.

With a shake of his head, Holmes drew his thoughts back to the present, and the bleak room, and the doctor facing him across the wide desk. “Can you tell me what happened to her?”

“Certainly,” said the doctor, glancing at the file before him. “Let’s see. Mary Sue Russell. Born in 1900.” He flipped two or three pages. “When did you lose touch with her?”

“For the most part, in the late nineteen-twenties. It had been obvious for quite a while that her feelings for me had become . . . rather obsessive, and finally I thought that it would be better to sever all relations with her.”

“How did this obsession manifest itself?” asked the doctor, picking up a pen.

The doctor’s action did not go unnoticed by Holmes, but he decided that perfect frankness was the only way to proceed through this distasteful mess. “I first met Mary Russell in the spring of 1915. At that time, she was living with her aunt near my Sussex home. She was still recovering from the car accident that had killed her family. I did not realize at the time how fragile this had left her mental state.

“Recognizing her unique mental talents, I reluctantly agreed to take her on as an apprentice, although I was far too old for such a task at that point, and of course I had reservations about training a female for the type of work in which I was engaged. I had trained several apprentices over the course of my career, but never a woman.

“Even then, I should have suspected something. She always seemed to be especially jealous of my friend, Dr. Watson. She would resent when he would occasionally participate in an investigation, and she sarcastically referred to him as ‘Uncle John’, never failing to point out some error on his part in an effort to elevate her standing with me. Of course, Watson and I saw right through that, but we put up with it in order to encourage her intellectual training.”

“The file states that she went to Oxford,” said the doctor.

“Yes, it was through my influence that she was admitted. I must admit that she had some difficulty settling down to her studies, and that at times she seemed to feel persecuted by the expectations of her teachers. However, she did finish, and she went on to aid me in some of my investigations.”

“I see that she was injured during the course of one of these . . . .”

“That is correct. We had laid a trap for the daughter of one of my old enemies who was manipulating events in order to exact revenge upon me. We were forced to spend quite a bit of time together then, both during the events of the case, and after, during Russell’s recovery. Perhaps the trauma of that wound, coming so soon after the death of her family, contributed somewhat to Russell’s later madness . . . .”

“Possibly,” replied the doctor. “However, it was a number of years between that incident and the lady’s current illness.”

“I suppose,” said Holmes. “Still, I blame myself for not seeing the signs earlier, and also for not distancing myself from her when she first appeared to be showing indications of attraction toward me. I never thought of her as more than a student, or at times, I suppose, as a daughter. Sadly, she became obsessed with the idea that there was a . . . romantic relationship between the two of us.”

“Yes, yes,” said the doctor. “It seems that the condition was repressed for a number of years, but after the recent tragedy, it has burst forth to consume her. She believes with great passion that she . . . that she is your wife.”

“Absurd!” replied Holmes. “I have tried throughout my life to separate emotions from the path of pure ratiocination, and I have failed on numerous occasions – in my old age I can freely admit that I am only a man, after all – but there was only one woman that I ever loved. I . . . even had a son with her.” His gaze lost focus for a second, and then sharpened again. With absolute firmness, he stated, “Russell was not a woman that I ever loved.”

“The patient has mentioned your son in some of her ravings,” stated the doctor. He consulted his notes. “She states that he was an artist whose life was ruined by drug addiction.”

“More evidence of her insanity,” replied Holmes. “My son lives in New York now, working as a consulting detective. He is very successful, and I am quite proud of him. He has never been either an artist or a user of drugs. He was born years before I even met Russell. After his mother, there was no one else. Certainly not . . . .” His voice trailed away.

“Nevertheless,” said the doctor, “she insists with great certainty that you and she were married in the early 1920’s.”

“Russell has always been able to insist upon certain erroneous facts quite adamantly,” said Holmes. “When we first met in 1915, I was sixty-one years old. By the time her obsession began to manifest itself, Russell was arguing that I was, in fact, only in my mid-fifties when we first met. This was in spite of the fact that she was quite aware of my correct age. Of course, she was trying to rationalize away our age difference, in order to make her imagined romantic relationship between the two of us somewhat more plausible.”

“And at what point did you realize her feelings?” asked the doctor.

“Sometime in the early 1920’s, when it became obvious that she was becoming much more possessive. By the end of the decade, her visits had extended to the point where they were becoming intrusive. It was my son who warned me first. While on a visit to my Sussex home, he had seen what I did not. Inexplicably, I had ignored the signs of her irrational feelings. When I finally realized what was happening, I confronted her and forced her to understand that her beliefs about . . . about the two of us were incorrect and would always be so. It was determined that all contact between us should end.”

“And that was your last encounter with her?”

“No, I saw her one more time. Apparently, after our parting, she had moved back to Oxford, and a year or so later, she married, a young scholar of the Talmud. When I next heard from her, in 1930, she was pregnant with her first child. She reached out to me because her aunt, a Mrs. Heregrove, had been murdered, and in her condition, she was not able to investigate. I solved the matter, but had no further dealings with her.”

“Did you know that she had a second child a year or so later?”

“No,” replied Holmes. “I was unaware of any of the other details regarding her past, until I was summoned today. Can you tell me the circumstances of how she ended up here?”

“Certainly,” replied the doctor. “In short, she was traveling with her husband and children in Germany a month or so ago, when they were accosted by Nazi soldiers. Miss Russell, who apparently refused to take her husband’s name, lost her temper and argued with the soldiers. The entire family was arrested and Miss Russell was separated from her husband and children. Three days later, Miss Russell was taken from the prison and transported to the German border, where she was released with no explanation. She tried to re-enter the country, but she was caught and once again expelled.

“She contacted the Foreign Office, who in turn determined that Miss Russell’s husband and children all died on the day of their arrest, supposedly due to an accident in the prison. Miss Russell blamed herself for the death of her family, and also began to tell whoever would listen that she was also responsible for the deaths of her parents and brother when she was in her teens. She then attempted to do an injury to herself. Having no remaining family, her few friends were forced to institutionalize her.

“Since she has been here, she has been having delusions that she and you, Mr. Holmes, were the ones who actually had a romantic relationship, marriage, and children, instead of her actual husband, whom she does not seem to remember. She completely denies the facts of her actual marriage, instead reverting to her earlier fascination and obsession for you.”

“And your prognosis?” asked Holmes.

“Based on the rapid deterioration of her condition since she has been here, I believe that the condition is irreversible.

“I see,” replied Holmes.

The two men sat silently for a moment, Holmes staring into the distance, and the doctor making notes, his pen scratching on the paper. Finally, Holmes pulled his focus back and spoke.

“I would like to set up a fund for her care,” he said.

“I understand,” said the doctor.

“I do not want to resume any contact with her, but I do feel some sort of responsibility for what has happened. Perhaps, if I had simply let her go on her way that day in 1915, her path would have led in a much different direction.”

The doctor nodded. “It will be arranged as you wish,” he said. He gestured toward a stack of journals at the side of his desk. “These are hers,” he said. “They refer to the events of some of the past investigations that the two of you shared. Do you wish to see them?”

Holmes stood, surprising the doctor with the quick energy that the old body displayed. Holmes leaned forward on his cane, as the doctor rose more slowly to his feet, his hand still resting on the stack of journals.

“No,” said Holmes. “I recall perfectly well the details of each of those cases, and it would be . . . unpleasant to see how Russell remembers them. Destroy them, or let Russell read them, for as long as she’s able.”

“Certainly,” said the doctor. “Thank you for coming in today. My secretary will see you out . . . . “

* * *

The nurse unlocked the door and stepped in. The room was harsh and sunny, and the sunlight through the barred windows cast stripes on the bright white tile floor. The woman seated in the chair, looking far older than her nearly-forty years, did not raise her eyes.

“I’ve brought you something, Miss Russell,” said the nurse, brightly. “It’s your notebooks. The ones with your stories in them. Doctor thought that you might enjoy reading them.”

She placed the journals on the table beside Russell. Initially, there was no reaction. Then, Russell’s pale right hand moved and lifted the cover of the topmost journal an inch or so before letting it fall shut. The sleeve of her gown slipped back, revealing a thin red scar, newly healed, running along her inner forearm from wrist to elbow.

“May I – ” Russell said, her voice raspy and dry. “May I,” she said again, “have a pen? I would like to add to these stories.”

The nurse thought for just a second, before replying. “I don’t see any harm in that, Miss Russell,” she said, pulling a pen from the pocket of her starched white apron. “Anything to keep you interested in the world around you, that’s what I think. Just you let us know if you need anything, my dear.”

The nurse turned and left the room. Russell heard the rasp of the lock, and then the slide of the view window at eye level in the door. She felt the nurse’s gaze on her for a moment, before the slide was shut, and she knew that she was again alone.

The journals told the story of her life. All the parts that were important to her, anyway. She knew that if she could just make someone understand, then she would be freed from this place and allowed to return to her husband. That was where she belonged. By the side of her husband, Sherlock Holmes.

She shifted toward the table, and leaned forward. She pulled one of the journals toward her and flipped it open. Starting to read, she remembered the events of long ago. But after only a page or two, she found a sentence that caused her distress. It referred to Sherlock Holmes as her teacher. She fumbled with the pen, awkwardly opening the cap and adjusting it in her hand. It felt odd at first, but her muscles soon remembered the correct way to hold it. She moved her arm and drew a shaky line through the word teacher. Then, with great care and effort, she wrote above it the word husband.

Soon it was easier to write, and before long she had finished altering the first journal. With more purpose, she began on the second, changing the long-ago facts to reflect her present descent into madness, a journey from which she would never return.

©David Marcum 2018 – All Rights Reserved

WORKS REFERENCED
• The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, Nicholas Meyer, 1974
• The Last Sherlock Holmes Story, Michael Dibdin
• Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Holmes, Loren D. Estleman, 1979
• The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, Laurie R. King, 1994
• A Monstrous Regiment of Women, Laurie R. King, 1995
• Various Stories, Peter Tremayne (Pseudonym of Peter Berresford Ellis)
• Sherlock Holmes – Tangled Skeins, David Marcum, 2015
• "Sherlock Holmes versus Jack the Ripper" and “November, 1888”, David Marcum, The Watsonian, Fall 2015, Vol.3, No.2
• “Actually, That Wasn’t Watson”, David Marcum, The Watsonian, Fall 2016, Vol.4, No.2


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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

Still Waiting . . . . (Some unpublished or lost pastiches that are out there . . . somewhere)

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a fan of Sherlock Holmes pastiches. To me they’re as important as the Canon, because if they’re done right – set in the correct time period, and presented so that Holmes isn’t some drug-addicted sloppy barely-functioning murdering sociopath who can’t crawl out the door without Watson propping him up – then they add wonderfully to the World of Holmes in incredible ways. There are literally thousands of these correct pastiches in my collection, all of various lengths, and they all go together to form The Great Holmes Tapestry, in which the Canon makes up the main – but not the only – threads.

But some of these stories that I’ve read and collected over the last 41 years ended with the promise of additional and forthcoming narratives to be presented by that particular “editor” of Watson’s notes, and so far these next tales haven’t appeared. I’m still waiting, with the hope that they will someday show up, and I thought I’d take a few minutes to list a few of them, in the hopes that the people mentioned herein will see this and know that there is someone out here in the heartland that is still looking forward to reading their next effort. If you know these people or their families, let them know that I, along with other people, are indeed interested, and if you know anything about the status of any of these promised works, please let me know that too.

Some Eventually Fulfilled Promises

I’ll start with a couple of examples of works that I had hoped to read for years, and after waiting for a long time was finally able to. The first of these relates to some of the earlier works of author Michael Kurland. Some of the earliest pastiches I ever found were the first two in Kurland’s series about Professor Moriarty, The Infernal Device (1978) and Death by Gaslight (1982). Where I grew up in Eastern Tennessee, especially in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s following my initial discovery of Holmes, finding pastiches wasn’t always the easiest thing. I uncovered these on paperback racks at a local drugstore. Kurland’s Moriarty books are truly excellent, and over the years there have been a number of them. But back in 1982 there were only two, and in the introduction to the second, Death by Gaslight, Kurland wrote: “There will be a third book next year, entitled The Murder Trust.”

I spent literally years keeping my eye out for The Murder Trust. Back in those pre-internet days, one couldn’t really determine anything too well about what did and didn’t and might at some point exist in the world of books. Perhaps some of you might recall a big volume called Books in Print that was printed quarterly. It was kept behind the counter at bookstores and in some libraries, and I would scour it regularly, not only for other forthcoming titles and authors that I wanted to know about, but also looking for that pesky next Kurland book about his version of The Professor.

Finally, in December 2001, Kurland wrote The Great Game, and I was able to reach him by email, the start of an on-and-off correspondence over the years. At that point, he finally let me off the hook by telling me that The Murder Trust, for which I’d been looking nearly twenty years, was – in fact – The Great Game. Hallelujah! He’s gone on to write several more Moriarty novels and short stories since that time, and I hope that he continues.

Another example of waiting a long time for eventual fulfillment was also in relation to Professor Moriarty – this time, John Gardner’s eventual trilogy. He wrote the first two titles, The Return of Moriarty and The Revenge of Moriarty, in 1974 and 1975, respectively. And then there was a dispute with the publisher, and the third book, simply Moriarty (2008), wasn’t released until shortly after Gardner’s death. But at least it was released – finally. I don’t agree with everything about his interpretation of the Professor, but they are incredible books and highly recommended.

Still Waiting . . . .

Those success stories are outnumbered by the titles and volumes that I’m still looking for. Here are some of them . . . .

Gerard William’s Dr. Mortimer Books

I have the two available volumes in this series, Dr. Mortimer and the Aldgate Mystery (2000) and Dr. Mortimer and the Barking Man Mystery (2001), although I’m starting to doubt I’ll ever get the third. While not strictly Holmes and Watson tales, these books are part of that universe, relating some of the adventures of Dr. Mortimer (of The Hound of the Baskervilles fame), after he is widowed in the late 1880’s, remarries, and then moves to London, where he opens a clinic with his second wife, who is also a physician. In 2003, a third book, Dr. Mortimer and the Carved Head Mystery, was announced, and I pre-ordered it, but it never was actually published. Eventually I contacted the publisher, and they told me that Gerard Williams had died, and that his family had withdrawn the book. So it’s still out there, somewhere, and I’m still looking for it. If you’re part of Mr. William’s family, please turn it loose.

Timothy Sheil’s Massive Volumes

In 1999, Timothy Francis Sheil published a massive pastiche, The Siam Question. In addition to relating one of Holmes’s missions during The Great Hiatus, it also tells what happens immediately after Holmes’s return to London in April 1894, and the additional details regarding his battle that time with the Professor’s brother, Colonel Moriarty. The book is a huge hardcover, over 600 pages long, bound in faux leather to look as if it is part of a series of Foreign Office documents, compiled by Watson at Mycroft’s request, and telling what Holmes did between 1891 and 1894.

I don’t remember what I paid for it, and I have no idea what it would cost now new, but it appears to be pretty cheap used on Amazon, if you’re interested. What interests me more is the promised sequel, The Egypt Question, which was supposed to be published soon after the first book, relating more of Our Hero’s adventures during the Hiatus. In 2001, I contacted the publisher, and they said the Tim was still working on the manuscript, and that it would be published as soon as it was finished. That was fifteen years ago. Here’s hoping that 2016 is the year!

Draco, Draconis

Like The Siam Question, there is another beautiful book, this time published in 1996, called Draco, Draconis. Looking just now on Amazon, I see that it sells for between $180 and $400, so I’m glad I got it when I did. It’s an oversized softcover, printed on heavy paper in Italy, telling Holmes and Watson’s investigation into a possible-real-life dragon. (SPOILER – There is a logical real-world conclusion. I wouldn’t be recommending this book if it wandered off into fantasy.) Produced by the probable pseudonyms of Brett Spencer Altamont and Dorian David Altamont, in association with Granada Television, it is full of high-quality illustrations featuring Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke as Holmes and Watson. The story is quite good, and I was very much looking forward to the promised sequels listed at the rear of the book, Ronin, The Obsession of Sherlock Holmes, and The Case of ‘The Mansion House Paradox’. Sadly, none of these ever appeared.

Eddie Maguire’s Next Book . . . ?

In the mid-1990’s, I purchased a series of chapbooks by Eddie Maguire, each presenting really good individual Holmes adventures. In 2001, Mr. Maguire collected some of these in Sherlock Holmes: The Tandridge Hall Murder and Other Stories (Breese Books). He also later provided a story to Sherlock Holmes and the Three Poisoned Pawns (2008). In 2005, Breese put out Maguire’s first full-length novel, Sherlock Holmes & The Secret Mission, set in 1912. At both the end of this book and also on the back cover, it is promised that the adventure continues in Sherlock Holmes & The Bolshevik Plot. I’m still looking for this one. If you know Mr. Maguire, or any of the people who took over Breese Books (now published as part of Baker Street Studios Limited,) let them know.

Ross Husband

In 2013, Ross Husband published Sherlock Holmes and The Master Engraver. It’s a big paperback with big print, but the story is good and enjoyable. At the end, Husband provides an excerpt from the next book, Sherlock Holmes & The Murders on the Square, as well as a statement that he had six Holmes books ready to go, to be part of a series called The Revival of Sherlock Holmes. Sadly, in January 2014, Mr. Husband died unexpectedly. The news reports stated that his second novel was then at the proof-readers, and that the others would never be written. Hopefully someone will see this and pass it on to the Husband family, to let them know there is still interest in that second book.

Glen Petrie

Before the most recent (adequate) Mycroft Holmes novel, there have been several other Mycroft Holmes series of books, as well as a stand-alone or a few. One of these series is by Quinn Fawcett (the combination of husband-and-wife writing team Chelsea Quinn Yarbro and Bill Fawcett.) Another better much better Mycroft series was by Glen Petrie. These include The Dorking Gap Affair (1989), The Monstrous Regiment (1990), and The Hampstead Poisonings (1995). But there is a fourth book listed out there by Petrie, also from 1995, and I don’t know if it exists or not, called The Young Poisoners. Considering the date and the similar title, this is likely alternate presentation of The Hampstead Poisonings, perhaps something that was registered and never used. Phillip K. Jones’ massive pastiche database shows these titles to be the same book. But Jones’ database also shows another Petrie title, Mycroft Holmes and the Versailles Protocol, which he describes as “Mycroft Holmes #01” and “unpublished”. If this one does exist, then I WANT IT!

George Alec Effinger

In Sherlock Holmes in Orbit (1995) and My Sherlock Holmes (2003), there are two connected stories by George Alec Effinger, “The Musgrave Version” and “The Adventure of the Celestial Snows”. Each seems to be part of a larger tale, narrated by Reginald Musgrave, regarding his and Holmes’s adventures in the late 1870’s, when both were still at University and suddenly found themselves in a year-long battle with Dr. Fu Manchu. I don’t know if there is actually a bigger work that these were drawn from, although I’ve heard rumors that it exists. In any case, Mr. Effinger died unexpectedly in 2002, and if such a work is actually out there somewhere, then I would urge that it be published. There have been a number of other encounters between Holmes and the evil Doctor over the years in other stories, but these are especially interesting and need to be brought forward in their entirety.

The Mask of Death and The Abbot’s Cry

In 1984, Peter Cushing made his last appearance as Holmes in the film The Masks of Death. (He was in his early 70’s at the time, but looked older.) The story is supposedly set in 1913, but in my own Chronology, which I’ve written about elsewhere, I adjust it back to 1903, since in this adventure Holmes and Watson are still in Baker Street before Holmes’s retirement, and Irene Adler has not yet passed away. In spite of some of the features that were apparent in all bad TV movies of that time, the story itself is pretty good. Good enough, in fact, that a sequel was planned, to be called The Abbot’s Cry. However, Cushing’s health prevented him from participating in this one, and it was scrapped. Still, it’s likely that the script still exists somewhere, and I still make an internet search every once in a while to see if it’s surfaced.

The Consulting Detective Trilogy

In 2010, Darlene Cypser wrote The Crack in the Lens, detailing some information about Holmes’s life in the 1870's, growing up in Yorkshire in the years before he leaves for University. I disagree with a few things in the book, such as some of the dating and details about older brother Sherrinford’s situation, but all-in-all it’s a really good story, especially in filling in the early details of the Holmes-Moriarty feud. In 2012, Ms. Cypser followed up with Part I: University, of The Consulting Detective Trilogy, which planned to give other pieces of the puzzle in what helped Holmes to become Holmes. Again, I had some disagreements about dates and a few of Holmes’s actions within the narrative, and I think that he attended both Cambridge and Oxford, but this was a very informative book. The back cover indicated that Part II: Onstage was coming soon, and Ms. Cypser’s website says that Part II would appear in 2013, and Part III: Montague Street would arrive in 2014. I, for one, am still looking forward to reading them and adding them to my collection.

Kel Richards

1997 brought the appearance of three short young adult Holmes novels by Kel Richards, The Curse of the Pharoahs, The Headless Monk, and The Vampire Serpent. These were followed by a 3-in-1 volume, Footsteps in the Fog and Other Stories, which contained three more works. As one would expect, based on their target audience, the mysteries are full of short chapters, suspense, and possible monsters that – SPOILER – end up being unmasked in the end as defeated villains, a la Scooby Doo. However, they are fun little books, and they add to the Holmesian Universe. In the early 2000’s, Mr. Richards wrote some other short tales, and sent them to Joel and Carolyn Senter of (the now defunct) Classic Specialties. Joel sent them to me to evaluate, as they were considering publishing them. I said yes, do publish them please, but in the end Classic Specialties passed, and the stories went on to Calabash Press, which apparently didn’t publish them either. I’ve reached out to Mr. Richards, hoping to track him down for another pass at publication, but in the meantime, I’m waiting and hoping for more stories from him.

And Finally . . . .

There are still other items I could write about. I’m still waiting for the complete collected edition of Basil Copper’s Solar Pons pastiches, which I’ve lately heard will appear this year, but who knows? And then there were the IDW editions of the Canon, with the stories appearing in chronological order. While this doesn’t quite fit with the earlier books I’ve described, I was looking forward to this complete set, but it appears to have stalled at Volume 3 (in 2010), and doesn’t seem likely to get going again.

And then there is the following ongoing quest, and who knows how it will turn out? About five years ago, I bought a number of miscellaneous Holmes items through The Mysterious Bookshop that had been in the vast collection of another Holmes collector, Jerry Margolin. This purchase included a couple of unpublished Holmes novel manuscripts, and also a large carton of loose documents. In the box were a lot of old Sherlockian advertisements and articles, and down in this pile was a single sheet, apparently also from an unpublished Holmes manuscript. Based on the title of the chapter and the name at the top (possibly of the author,) I managed to track down through Phil Jones' Sherlock Holmes pastiche database that the sheet possibly came from The Badger Who Quoted La Rochefoucauld by Lou Jean Clark, which is listed as an unpublished manuscript from 1981. The title is also shown on Google Books as The Badger who Quoted La Rochefoucauld: Being the Badger's Own Narrative, Supplimented [sic] by the Reminiscences of John H. Watson, M.D. (1982, 776 pages).

Since first acquiring this single sheet, I’ve been trying to track down this manuscript in a variety of places. Jerry Margolin has no memory of it, and Otto Penzler of The Mysterious Bookshop, which sold the papers to me, doesn’t remember selling the complete manuscript anywhere else. I’ve tracked down Ms. Clark’s address, and have sent letters to her to determine the manuscript’s status, and whether I might ever get to read more than the single page that came into my possession. No response.

Ms. Clark lives in the northwestern part of the U.S., and I believe that she’s a Sherlockian. If you know her, let her know that I would love to read the complete story, and I know a publisher to whom I can introduce her.

I’ll keep waiting . . .

. . . for I am patient. I have many many many Holmes adventures to read - but never enough! - and new ones show up pretty much every day. But these various titles listed above keep gnawing at me. I know they’re out there somewhere, in some form, and I want to read them. And now you know about them too, and if enough of us wish for them and ask for them, maybe some of them will break loose.


©David Marcum 2016 – 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