WRITER BASES HIS FICTIONAL DETECTIVE ON REAL PERSON PART 1
GEE. IS THIS GOING TO BE another recounting of Arthur Conan Doyle, medical-school mentor Joseph Bell, and Sherlock Holmes? Or Edgar Allan Poe and whoever gave him the idea for … Continue reading
ST PAUL’S LORE PART 2
AN IMAGINARY STROLL initiated by Stephen Browning’s On the Trail of Sherlock Holmes led me past the Cathedral Church of St Paul the Apostle. Who would have guessed it would … Continue reading
ST PAUL’S LORE PART 1
I WAS STROLLING with the world’s first Consulting Detective and his able chronicler past St. Paul’s Cathedral; this, encouraged by Stephen Browning’s On the Trail of Sherlock Holmes. Browning describes … Continue reading
EXISTENTIALISM, NOIR, AND THE BIG SLEEP
I AM SAVORING MY WAY through The Annotated Big Sleep. See “As Hard-boiled as a Shamus’s Simile” and “On Chandler’s Greatness” and “Sleeping with Virginia Woolf, Dreaming About a Naked … Continue reading
BOSTON BLACKIE—REFORMED JEWEL THIEF
BOSTON BLACKIE WAS BILLED AS “enemy to those who make him an enemy, friend to those who have no friend.” With this convoluted moral message, he entertained readers of pulp … Continue reading
ON THE TRAIL OF SHERLOCK HOLMES
I’M ENJOYING STEPHEN BROWNING’S On the Trail of Sherlock Holmes, a fine addition to my collection about this first and most famous of the world’s Consulting Detectives. Conan Doyle the … Continue reading
AN AFFABLE AND PORTLY HOLMES PART 2
ALL OF THIS STARTED with my viewing Reginald Owen in A Study in Scarlet, 1933 (when only a year before he had portrayed Watson). Today in Part 2, we find … Continue reading
AN AFFABLE AND PORTLY HOLMES PART 1
ILLUSTRATOR SIDNEY PAGET evidently knew the world’s first consulting detective very well. And for many of us, actor Basil Rathbone came most closely to Paget’s lean intensely hawkish image. However, … Continue reading
SLEUTHING WOMEN
A RECENT UNEARTHING of the book Detectionary yields tidbits on the fair sex in mystery fiction. There’s also an interesting bibliographic tale of the book itself. Back by Popular Demand. … Continue reading
HOLMES, THE ISLE OF MAN, AND PETER H. WOOD
AMONG PETER HARRY WOOD’S PASSIONS were vintage British cars and Sherlock Holmes. Peter was invested into The Baker Street Irregulars in 1985 with the BSI sobriquet “The Second Stain” and … Continue reading
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