Thursday, October 31, 2019

Rivals of Sherlock Holmes (#RIPXIV)

This is a collection of thirteen stories written by English authors from the years 1891 to 1914. The editor of the collection is Hugh Greene, brother of Graham. Hugh Greene seems to have collected old mysteries and, since he worked in television, this collection was a basis for a British television series (which I haven't seen.)

Greene says he limited the selection of mysteries to characters who had an identifiable London address, like 221B Baker Street. But they're not all consulting detectives. Some are; but Lady Molly is with Scotland Yard; the Old Man in the Corner solves crimes for his own amusement, but doesn't worry about bringing the criminal to justice; Mr. Pringle is a con man; and Simon Carne is simply a thief.

I think we can safely say that Sherlock Holmes actually doesn't have any rivals... ;-) but some of these are nevertheless fun. I particularly liked the two by Baroness Orczy, better known as the author of The Scarlet Pimpernel. But her stories about Lady Molly and The Old Man in the Corner are quite good. Also good was R. Austin Freeman's Dr. Thorndyke story, and Ernest Bramah's story about Max Carrados, the blind detective. Several of these detectives are represented on the Haycraft-Queen list of classic mysteries.

And because they're early, a bunch of these are available at Project Gutenberg, and I'd previously read the first collection of Old Man in the Corner stories and the collection of stories about Max Carnacki, the ghost finder, by William Hope Hodgson.


8 comments:

  1. this collection led me on to discover many of the golden age authors, which pursuit i'm still stuck in... Edgar Wallace being my current favorite...

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    1. There's definitely some out of this collection I want to read more of.

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  2. This is a really fun idea for a collection of stories, though you're right. Sherlock Holmes really has no rivals. :)

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    1. It is fun to compare to the Sherlock Holmes stories & see what others did with the time period.

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  3. In France, Sherlock Holmes has rivals. Please see Maurice Leblanc's Arsene Lupin, Gentleman Thief (1907), where you will meet the master-thief's constantly defeated arch-rival Herlock Sholmes. If you like this, continue on to the next book in the series, Arsene Lupin vs Herlock Sholmes (1908).

    But for the most shocking rivalry, see Gaston Leroux's The Mystery of the Yellow Room (1907). I will not give a hint of what happens to the Holmes-substitute. It is something else.

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    1. I've never read the Leroux & I really should.

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  4. This sounds like fun. And you've reminded me that I've been meaning to explore Orczy's novels too. Another project?!

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    1. I've only read the first of the Scarlet Pimpernel novels, but it was fun.

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