Susan Knight's Blog, page 9
November 2, 2019
Illustrating Holmes: David Henry Friston and Sidney Paget
Those of us to love to read Sherlock Holmes stories will be
very familiar with the wonderful illustrations by Sidney Paget that give an
unmistakeable face and form to the great detective. And yet he was not the
first illustrator. That was David Henry Friston, best-known for his
illustrations for the vampire novel, Camilla.
Friston’s vision of Holmes, in the four pictures he designed for A Study in Scarlet, appeared in the 1887 Beeton’s Christmas Annual, on sale for one shilling. It sold out before Christmas.
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But history has not been kind to Mr Friston. In 1932, The Bookman of New York remarked that those pictures of Holmes would distress the devotees, ‘being neither handsome nor intellectual’. The Bedside, Bathtub, and Armchair Companion to Sherlock Holmes took things further, describing Friston’s Holmes as ‘an outrage’. ‘His head and hands appear small, almost feminine, his sideburns are ridiculously long, and his figure is plump, dwarfed by the oversize coat. On his head appears a strange, rounded hat. This Holmes looks nothing like the detective we know.’
Poor Friston! Of course we all know what Holmes look like, don’t we…thanks to Sidney Paget.
Sidney, however, nearly wasn’t. The Strand magazine sent him the commission to illustrate The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by mistake. It had been meant for his brother Walter, also an illustrator.
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The first story he illustrated was The Adventure of the Final Problem (left), realised so dramatically. So successful were the images, that Sidney was asked to illustrate The Memoirs, too. Conan Doyle then specifically requested him for The Hound of the Baskervilles. He also worked on The Return of Sherlock Holmes, but sadly died in 1908 aged only 47 of an inoperable tumour on the lungs.
Without Sidney, there would have been (shock horror!) no
deerstalker hat – not mentioned in any of the stories, no Inverness cape, ditto.
And Sidney perfected the lean and hungry look of the detective on the hunt.
A complete set of his Strand illustrations is much sort after, rare and expensive. In 2004, the original drawing of ‘Holmes and Moriarty in Mortal Combat on the Edge of the Reichenbach Falls’ was sold by Sotheby’s for $220,800.
My new short story collection Mrs Hudson Investigates will be launched this month. It is also available in a Mrs Hudson bundle with Memoirs from Mrs Hudson’s Kitchen by Wendy Heyman-Marsaw and Barry S Brown’s The Unpleasantness at Parkerton Manor. https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/BO7WRKFFYP
And of course each book can be bought separately.
October 25, 2019
Sherlock meets Lego
What a brilliant and fun idea – to unite two contemporary icons, Sherlock Holmes and Lego. P. James Macaluso Jr. has combined the two in his latest reimagining of a Holmes story, A Baskerville Curse. He retells The Hound of the Baskervilles in the twenty-six words of the alphabet, accompanying the text with charming Lego figures, as you can see.
You can support the latest enterprise through Kickstarter and gain some lovely rewards in the process: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mxpublishing/a-baskerville-curse-sherlock-holmes-re-imagined
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Check out James’ earlier books, with illustrations in Lego after Sidney Paget’s Strand magazine illustrations at https://mailchi.mp/mxpublishing.com/re-imagined
October 24, 2019
The French Sherlock Holmes
Here’s a great case of life imitating art. Dr Edmond Locard, considered the father of modern forensic science, was happy to admit his debt to Sherlock Holmes, suggesting to his students that they read the stories. In 1921, he even met up with Conan Doyle in Lyon.
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Locard was born in 1877, ten years before the first Holmes’ investigation appeared. He studied medicine and law in Lyon and later criminology under the great Alphonse Bertillon. In 1910 Locard founded a police laboratory on the principle that ‘every contact leaves a trace’, something we take for granted today but which at the time was a revolutionary enough notion.
Locard even burnt his own fingertips to see if fingerprints
could be permanently removed. He found they could not!
Investigating the death of a young woman, Marie Latelle, Locard’s
suspicions fell on her boyfriend, Emile Gourbin. However Gourbin appeared to
have a cast iron alibi, playing cards with friends at the time of Marie’s
murder.
When Locard examined the body he
found Marie had been strangled. He scraped under Gourbin’s fingernails and
found skin cell samples containing lady’s make-up. He sent this to a chemist
who made a match with Marie’s powder. Faced with this evidence, Gourbin
confessed. He had established his alibi by changing the time on the clock in
the games room.
For the time, a revolutionary
practice, indeed. However, as we fans know, Sherlock Holmes had been tracing
contacts for over twenty years before this, as Locard acknowledges:
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‘I hold that a police expert, or an examining magistrate, would not find it a waste of his time to read Doyle’s novels. For, in the adventures of Sherlock Holmes, the detective is repeatedly asked to diagnose the origin of a speck of mud, which is nothing but moist dust.
The presence of a spot on a shoe or pair of trousers immediately made known to Holmes the particular quarter of London from which his visitor had come, or the road he had travelled in the suburbs. A spot of clay and chalk originated in Horsham; a peculiar reddish bit of mud could be found nowhere but at the entrance to the post office in Wigmore Street.’
Locard himself was able to work out the occupations of 92 out
of 100 individuals by analysing the dust collected from their eyebrows – flour in
the baker’s, iron filings in the locksmith’s, soot in the chimney sweep’s… An
experiment truly worthy of his idol.
October 21, 2019
Interview
Had fun being interviewed yesterday by Steve Emecz of MX publishing, regarding my forthcoming collection of stories, ‘Mrs Hudson Investigates’. The book is available through Amazon and can also be bought as part of a bundle with two other Mrs Hudson books, Barry Brown’s ‘The Unpleasantness at Parkerton Manor’ and ‘Memoirs from Mrs Hudson’s Kitchen’ by Wendy Heyman-Marsaw.
Check out the interview at https://mxpublishing.com/blogs/news/the-sherlockian-interview-author-susan-knight
October 18, 2019
Sherlock Homes vs Conan Doyle
During the week I was enthralled by a French documentary
entitled ‘Sherlock Holmes vs Conan Doyle’, broadcast on Sky Arts. Screenplay
and commentary by Michel le Bris and directed by Emmanuelle Nobécourt.
As well as a clever and imaginative collage of images from Sherlock films, cartoons and video games, and input from some very serious-minded French commentators, it also features the familiar face of Roger Johnson of the London Sherlock Holmes Society speaking words of wisdom, as well as author Anthony Horowitz, who has written his own excellent Holmes spin-offs.
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The documentary shows how Conan Doyle was defeated ‘in a forty year battle to the death’ by the creation which he came to loathe and which he tried to kill off on several occasions, only to be thwarted by the clamour of Holmes’ adoring public (‘You brute!’ exclaimed one furious fan) and by the temptation of huge cheques from Colliers magazine ($5000 per story, even astonishing in today’s money).
[Cartoon from Punch, 1926, by Bernard Partridge]
Who except biographers and academics remembers Conan Doyle
now except as the inventor of perhaps the greatest private detective of all
time? I am reminded of Arthur Sullivan who wanted so much to have done with the
comic operettas he wrote with W.S.Gilbert, and to be recognised for his ‘more serious’
classical pieces. Alas, in vain.
Who remembers Conan Doyle as the author of the Walter Scott inspired historical novels, ‘Micah Clarke’ and ‘The White Company’, even though the latter had success in his lifetime? Even less do we think of him as a sportsman, a prize fighter, an ace snooker player and the inventor of competitive downhill skiing, but he was all that and more.
During the First World War, Conan Doyle urged the use of
bullet-proof jackets and gas masks in his booklet ‘To Arms’. And it was not for
his writing but for his work setting up a field hospital and defending British
policy in South Africa during the Boer War, that won him a knighthood in 1902.
When I think of Conan Doyle, the image of him in later life springs to mind, stocky, balding and with a big grey walrus moustache. So it was surprising to see him photographed as a fresh-faced twenty-seven-year-old in 1887 when he penned the first Holmes story, ‘A Study in Scarlet’. The last, ‘The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place’ was written three years before his death in 1930. But Sherlock Holmes lives on and on…
‘Mrs Hudson Investigates’ will be published by MX publishing on November 7 and can be preordered on Amazon. It is also available in a Mrs Hudson bundle that includes Barry Brown’s ‘The Unpleasantness at Parkerton Manor’ and Wendy Heyman-Marsaw’s ‘Memoirs from Mrs Hudson’s Kitchen’.
October 11, 2019
Check Your Change
My daughter recently visited me in Ireland from Scotland
bearing a gift, a commemorative 50 pence coin embellished with the familiar
profile of Sherlock Holmes, deerstalker hat and all. He is surrounded by a list
of sixteen of his most famous works in tiny print, including ‘The Hound of the
Baskervilles’ and ‘A Study in Scarlet’.
The designer, Stephen Raw, comments ‘by necessity I have kept the
words very small. I hope it will encourage the ‘inner detective’ in those who
are intrigued by the coin. Naturally, the only way to solve “the mystery of the
text” is by using that essential piece of equipment always carried by the intrepid
sleuth: a magnifying glass.’
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The coin commemorates not only the fiftieth
anniversary of the 50 pence piece, first introduced in October 1969 (others for
this year include the Gruffalo, Stephen Hawking and Paddington at the Tower of
London) but also the 160th anniversary of the birth of Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle on May 22, 1859.
Such coins rapidly become
collectors’ items and the Royal Mint cashes in on this. It produced a range to
suit every taste including a limited edition of 400 Sherlock Holmes gold proof
50 pence pieces for £980 each. This has sold out. However, keen collectors
might be able to snap one up on eBay. One such was advertised quite recently
for £1400. Postage not included. That’s an extra £1.50.
Who knew? There’s a guy on
YouTube with 17,769 views who regularly buys £100 pounds worth of 50 pence
pieces and goes through them to find rare ones. In a recent trawl he found two
Sherlock Holmes coins among others. What these are worth depends on rarity and condition
but apparently a regular Kew Gardens 50 pence has been sold on eBay for £160,
while a Paddington Bear from 2018 was listed for as much as £3000.
Or you can simply go to the Royal Mint’s website where the
coins are being sold in Brilliant Uncirculated condition for £10.
For the time being I’ll hang on
to my lowly, only slightly scratched Sherlock, unless I get an offer I can’t
refuse.
October 5, 2019
A Biased Judgement: The Sherlock Holmes Diaries 1897
This first novel in Geri Schear’s inventive and enjoyable
series sees Sherlock – oh, shock, oh horror! – falling in love. Much against
his better judgement, let it be said. In fact he has great difficulty
recognising this strange emotion.
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The object of his affection is the very resourceful Lady
Beatrice, almost a match for him in so many respects. But as an upper class
woman in Victorian Britain, she is hidebound by social mores, and has to resort
to ingenious methods to assert her independence. However, when threatened with a
marriage to a drunken brute, sanctioned by her godmother Queen Victoria, she
sees no way out. Enter Sherlock on a metaphorical white charger.
This is just one strand in a novel, which also puts Sherlock
himself in grave danger from his old enemies. Murders and savage attacks abound
and nasty characters lurk in every corner.
The novel is written in diary form by Sherlock himself, and
Geri Schear captures an authentic voice in the language of the period, adding a
welcome degree of humour. ‘I am on holiday,’ he says at one point. ‘Is there a
more detestable phrase in the English language?’
Authentic period details abound. Sherlock dines regularly at
the still existing and highly regarded Simpson’s in the Strand, where he eats
well (I’ve eaten there myself and can report that the food is excellent and the
service nicely discreet).
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He is also invited to Windsor Castle, where the portions are notoriously miserable and unappetising. I haven’t been able to discover if this is historically correct. All reports tell of Queen Victoria’s greed after the death of her beloved Albert, where food consumed in vast quantities provided comfort at the expense of her girth – she ended up literally as wide as she was tall. But perhaps Her Majesty was stingy when it came to visitors.
Aficionados will be diverted by frequent mention of cases from the canon – Geri Schear knows her Sherlock. ‘A Biased Judgement’ has been followed up by ‘Sherlock Holmes and the Other Woman’ and ‘Return to Reichenbach’. I look forward to reading them.
‘Mrs Hudson Investigates’ will be published by MX publishing on November 7.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mrs-Hudson-Investigates-Susan-Knight/dp/1787054845
Check out also the Mrs Hudson bundle including ‘The Unpleasantness at Parkerton Manor’ by Barry Brown and ‘Mrs Hudson’s Kitchen’ by Wendy Heyman-Marsaw
October 1, 2019
Sherlock Holmes in New York
Having recently returned from New York, I took to wondering
if Sherlock Holmes ever made it to the Big Apple. And indeed he did in a 1978 TV
film entitled Sherlock Holmes in New York,
directed by Boris Sagal, known for his work on ‘Columbo’, ‘Twilight Zone’,
‘Alfred Hitchcock presents’ and ‘The Man from Uncle’.
Sagal is also infamous for the gruesomely freaky nature of
his death, having been partially decapitated by the tail rotor blades of a
helicopter.
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While arguments persist as to the best incarnation of Sherlock among the scores of actors who have portrayed him on screen, I doubt whether Roger Moore features high on anyone’s list. Here he plays Holmes as a curly-haired upper class toff with a lovely tan, trying not to go all gooey and preserve a stiff upper lip in the face of Charlotte Rampling’s gorgeous Irene Adler. Patrick McNee meanwhile does a fair take off of Nigel Bruce as a gormless Dr Watson.
Roger Moore initially declined the part but after reading the script decided it was ‘funny and original’ (!!). ‘But what I most like about playing Holmes,’ he said, ‘is that there is more dialogue then I ever had in 120 Saint episodes and two Bond films.’ Well, yes, except that the dialogue is ludicrously clunky (‘Fear not, Irene, you shall not long be parted.’). There’s one good line, however. When a dancer exclaims ‘Mon Dieu’, Holmes replies, ‘Yes, if I were French I’d say the same.’
You can spend an enjoyable enough 90 minutes all the same,
if you’ve nothing better to do, revelling in the ludicrously melodramatic plot,
with John Huston, no less, as evil a Moriarty as one could hope for, despite the
wobbly accent. A minor character rejoices in the suggestive name Fraulein
Reichenbach and there’s even a horse-drawn cab chase.
And who knew one of Holmes’ middle names was Scott?
But for goodness sake, the thing wasn’t even shot in New
York, but on the Fox lot in Southern California.
September 26, 2019
The Mysterious Bookshop
While in New York recently, I travelled downtown to TriBeCa to visit The Mysterious Bookshop. This cavern of criminal delights has existed since it was set up by editor, publisher and enthusiast, Otto Penzler, on Friday 13 April 1973, but only moved to its present Warren Street location in the late nineties.
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It claims to be one of the oldest mystery bookshops in the US but, more to the point, it stocks all new mx publications. With my book, Mrs Hudson Investigates, coming out in November, I introduced myself to Tom, the manager, and then browsed the shelves, which run floor to ceiling.
It was with difficulty and thoughts of the weight of my luggage that I
restrained myself and only bought two books. The first was Mycroft and Sherlock by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Anna Waterhouse,
named by Barnes and Noble one of the best thrillers of 2018. I look forward to
curling up with it very soon.
The other, which I have already dipped into, is The Best Sherlock Holmes Parodies and Pastiches 1888-1930 collected
and edited by Bill Peschel. This would seem to be a distillation of his other
seven books of parodies. Mr Peschel is an enthusiast indeed!
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It’s full of weird and wonderful delights. I was particularly struck to discover that none other than Jack B. Yeats, brother of W.B., composed a comic strip series featuring Chubblock Homes for the paper Comic Cuts, which ran from November 1893 to 1897.
Mrs Hudson Investigates will be published on November 7. It is also available in a bundle with Memoirs from Mrs Hudson’s Kitchen by Wendy Heyman Marsaw and Barry S Brown’s The Unpleasantness at Parkerton Manor.
September 21, 2019
John Lennon meets Sherlock Holmes
Not a pairing that springs readily to mind, admittedly, but in fact Lennon was a something of a fan of Sherlock Holmes and was even known to dress up in a deerstalker hat occasionally.
The John Lennon anthology records how, when he found himself in Tahiti with no other reading matter, he stumbled on a volume of the complete set, ‘a sort of madman’s Sherlock Holmes’ he says, ‘where you get all the stories in one; and I realised that every story was the same.’ (Some of us would beg to differ, John).
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Anyway, his readings inspired him to write and illustrate one of the hilarious and absurd pieces in his collection, A Spaniard in the Works of 1965. I used to own a Penguin paperback of it but sadly it is lost. However, you can find the story on line. It’s entitled The Singularge Experience of Miss Anne Duffield, although the said Miss Duffield does not figure further in the tale. Whether or not you find it as funny as I do, depends on your sense of humour, but the word play is certainly worthy, maybe not of James Joyce or Lewis Carroll, but certainly of Stanley Unwin, if anyone remembers him. Here’s how it starts:
“I find it recornered in my nosebook that it was a dokey and winnie cave towart the end of Marge in the ear of our Loaf 1892… Shamrock Womblds had receeded a telephart whilst we sat at our lunch eating. He made no remark but the matter ran down his head, for he stud in front of the fire with a thoughtfowl face, smirking his pile, and casting an occasional gland at the massage. Quite sydney with warping he turd upod me with a miscarriage twinkle in his isle.
‘Ellifizgerald my dear Whopper,’ he grimmond then sharply. ‘Guess whom has broken out of jail Whopper?
My mind immediately recoughed all the caramels that had recently escaped or escaped from Wormy Scabs.
‘Eric
Morley,’ I ventured. He shook his bed. ‘Oxo Whitney,’ I queered, he knotted in
the infirmary. ‘Rygo Hargreaves?’ I winston agreeably.
‘No, my dear Whopper, it’s OXO WHITNEY,’ he bellowed as if I was in another room, and I wasn’t.’”
And here’s how it ends:
“I poked the fire and warmed his kippers. When he had minicoopered he told me a story which to this day I can’t remember.”
