The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes

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So, back in 2009, I picked up a two-volume collection of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories and novels. Slowly (and not so surely) I worked through 'em, and over hiatus, finished up with this final collection of twelve stories, written between 1921 and 1927.

Although I had a good time reading them (for the first time since I was a teenager), I'll warn you that the Case-Book stories ain't popular among the critics. There were even suggestions that some stories therein weren't even written by Doyle. There are noticeable breaks with tradition: a couple stories are narrated by Holmes instead of Watson. One is even written in third person. There are plots kind of recycled from previous stories

Doyle's complex attitude toward his fictitious creation is obvious in his introduction to the collection. He points (seemingly wistfully) to his "more serious literary work". Fine, Art. Nobody reads those books any more.

There are numerous signs of the era's casual bigotry. I'm not particularly PC myself, but I'm not blind either. There's a cartoonish African-American Negro thug in "The Adventure of the Three Gables". In "The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place", the subject of Holmes's investigation is deeply in debt, which is referred to as "holding off the Jews" (once) and "in the hands of the Jews" (twice). Yeesh!

But those were different times. I didn't let it mar my enjoyment.


Last Modified 2024-01-26 6:22 AM EDT