The Life and Death of Sherlock Holmes

I guess I would have first encountered Sherlock Holmes on TV many years ago and have watched all of the most recent series starring Benedict Cumberbatch. Many years ago I bought the complete sets of novels and short stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and read them with much enjoyment. I came across the book The life and death of Sherlock Holmes in a bookshop a few weeks ago and I later downloaded it in kindle form and read it. It is basically everything you ever wanted to know about the subject. Instead of stopping with the death of Conan Doyle the Swedish writer carries on describing what the surviving family did and didn't do and tracing the parallel life of the character in parodies, films, plays and TV presentations, etc. In the end it is too much but the author writes well and keeps you interested for most of the well over 500 pages! It is an exhaustive and through piece of work that name drops all the way written by a genuine enthusiast and probably would not be appreciated by everyone. I would love to see something similar done with P G Wodehouse's Jeeves although I notice that Bostrom thinks Jeeves is a derivative of Holmes. Strangely it didn't create a desire in me to read the original stories or the book of parodies I also have.

10 Fictional Addresses of 10 Fictional Detectives

Elliott Brown from Birmingham, United Kingdom, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>,
via Wikimedia Commons

1. Sherlock Holmes, 221B Baker St, London W1, England (Arthur Conan Doyle)
2. Hercule Poirot, 56B Whitehaven Mansions, Sandhurst Square, London W1, England (Agatha Christie)
3. Miss Marple, Danemead, High Street, St Mary Mead, England (Agatha Christie)
4. Jules Maigret, 132 Boulevard Richard-Lenoir, Paris, France (Georges Simenon)
5. Sam Spade, 891 Post St, San Franciso, CA, USA (Dashiell Hammett)
6. Philip Marlowe, #615 Cahuenga Bldg, Hollywood Blvd, LA CA, USA (Raymond Chandler)
7. John Rebus, 17 Arden Street, St Leonards, Edinburgh, Scotland (Ian Rankin)
8. Lord Peter Wimsey, 110A Piccadilly, London W1 and Bredon Hall, Duke's Denver, Norfolk, England (Dorothy L Sayers)
9. Brother Cadfael, Shrewsbury Abbey, Shrewsbury, Salop, England (Ellis Peters)
10. Albert Campion, 17a Bottle St, Piccadilly, London W1, England (Marjorie Allingham)

Novelists 38 Arthur Conan Doyle

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859 – 1930) is best known for stories rather than novels as such. A Scot, he was a medical doctor who became a writer, most noted for his fictional stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, which are generally considered milestones in the field of crime fiction. He also wrote about a second fictional character of his own invention, Professor Challenger, and for popularising the mystery of the Mary Celeste. He was a prolific writer whose other works include fantasy and science fiction stories, plays, romances, poetry, non-fiction and historical novels. I've read all the Sherlock stuff but nothing else. He was born exactly a hundred years before me (and Morrissey of the Smiths).

His middle name is Hamish

 

The current round of Sherlock on BBC 1 reveals that John Watson, assistant to Holmes, has the middle name of Hamish. (Conan Doyle only gives the middle initial H, and Hamish is Dorothy L Sayers' educated guess). It made me think of another Anglo-Scot, to whom so many of us are indebted, with the middle name Hamish.

 

 

Descendants and Sherlock Holmes II

Sat down to watch a couple of DVDs recently. The George Clooney film Descendants had seven Oscar nominations and so one expected something extra special. In fact it was quite an ordinary film really though quite watchable apart from the needless swearing, with plenty of drama and a refreshing Hawaiian backdrop. The only Oscar it won was for screenplay adaptation (it is based on a novel) and that seemed quite deserved. So, quite a good drama on a humanist level and worth watching if you can cope with the foul language.

As for Sherlock Holmes A Game of Shadows the less said the better. I thought they just about got away with it in the first film but this sequel is pretty useless and I gave up watching half an hour from the end. I suppose that if it wasn't called Sherlock I never would have watched a Guy Ritchie film. It does seem unfair to hijack a name like that. Surely he should be a bit like the character in the Conan Doyle books.

More here and here.

Literary Lives

I noticed this fairly new series today.
Wordsworth Literary Lives makes available once more (they say) classic Biographies and Autobiographies of some of the most famous names in Literature. They give readers of Classic fiction a fascinating insight into the character and personality of these literary giants.
Each book has specially commissioned Notes & Introductions which put the books in their historical context, and in many cases include some interesting facts on the authors themselves, some of whom - Chesterton on Dickens for example - are famous in their own right.
More here.
Editions so far:
Austen-Leigh, J. Memoir of Jane Austen 256 9781840225600
Blind, M. George Eliot 9781840225693
Carswell, C. D.H.Lawrence (The Savage Pilgrimage) 256 9781840225686
Conrad, J. A Personal Record - Mirror of the Sea 304 9781840225723
Chesterton, G.K. Charles Dickens 176 9781840225624
Doyle, A.C. Memories & Adventures 368 9781840225709
Gaskell, E. The Life of Charlotte Brontë 448 9781840225648
Hardy,F. The Life of Thomas Hardy 528 9781840225594
Harris, F. George Bernard Shaw 9781840225662
Harris, F. The Man Shakespeare, His Tragic Life Story 9781840225631
Harris, F. Oscar Wilde: His Life & Confessions 400 9781840225549
Kipling, R. Something of Myself 144 9781840225679
Maude, A. The Life of Tolstoy 9781840225617
I bought the Dickens. The material is, of course, out of copyright and can be accessed here.

Hats D

Deerstalker. As made famous by Sherlock Holmes. (I had one of these when I was very little). More here.