The Complete Guide to Sherlock Holmes

by Michael Hardwick

Book Overview

Few authors have been so widely read and re-read as Arthur Conan Doyle--but then, few fictional characters have been so irresistible as Sherlock Holmes. Hardwick's companion to the stories, now... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312072481
• ISBN13: 9780312072483
• Release Date: January 1986
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 255 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.1" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

A excellent companion

Michael Hardwick is one of the most prolific and accomplished of Sherlock Holmes scholars. Prior to the writing of this book, he had several other titles in print regarding Holmes, including surveys and biographical texts. This book represented a complete recapitulation of the Holmes canon, not quite in the manner of an encyclopedia (such had already been done recently by Jack Tracy), but a ready reference work with different organisational principles. Sherlock Holmes is one of the best known detectives in the world -- so famous in fact, that 221B Baker Street in London continues to get mail adddressed to this fictional character almost a century after he would have died had he been a real person. There are groups of people -- Sherlockians and Holmesians, the distinction between which is rather subtle -- who delight in retelling the tales; it has become somewhat traditional to try to fill in the gaps, things left out of the 'canonical' stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle -- 56 short stories and 4 novels. The official tales allude to happenings beyond them -- some authors take up the point there, and others create fanciful tales altogether. Michael Hardwick sticks to the canonical texts here. Hardwick also has a biographical introductory chapter about Conan Doyle himself and the beginnings of Holmes wrapped up in this experience, as Holmes in many ways derives from Conan Doyle's own experiences with one of his professors, Dr. Joseph Bell, who had a method of analysis and deduction that doubtless inspired Conan Doyle. Hardwick follows the basic ordering of the publications -- The first two novels ('A Study in Scarlet' and 'The Sign of Four'), and then through collections of short stories as they appeared in 'The Strand' magazine (later brought together in recognised collected groupings). The other two novels ('The Hound of the Baskervilles' and 'The Valley of Fear') are brought in according to their publication order; however, as Hardwick indicates, this was a writing out of sequence -- Holmes had 'died' at Reichenbach Falls, and this publication was a reflection back upon an earlier, unchronicled case. Of course, Holmes was discovered not to have died at the Falls for the later books. Hardwick includes a chapter which is in fact a glossary of names, a who's who of characters in the stories. These each consist of a two-to-four sentence description of the person and his or her significance -- very few characters are left out. Following this, there is a chapter on unchronicled cases -- the Hound of the Baskervilles at one time being presented as one such, it is intriguing to speculate what these other cases might have been (and, indeed, some authors have risen to the challenge to try to write such mysteries in Holmesian style). There is a list of 'the writings of Sherlock Holmes' -- these are the titles of purported writings (not always published, and not always finished) by Holmes himself. The book is well written and useful. Hardw