The Sherlock Holmes Society of London reviews A Study in Terror Volume 1

"Volume 1 of A Study in Terror: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Revolutionary Stories of Fear and the Supernatural, edited by Derrick Belanger. The influence of Poe on Conan Doyle wasn’t limited to his stories of detection: the tales of mystery and imagination left their mark as well. ACD didn’t write very much in that vein, but the best of it can be classed with the best of Poe. Here are eight stories – ‘The Terror of Blue John Gap’, ‘The Horror of the Heights’, ‘The Captain of the Pole Star’, ‘J Habakuk Jephson’s Statement’, ‘The Leather Funnel’, ‘The Silver Mirror’, ‘Through the Veil’ and ‘The Parasite’ – of which at least the first three and ‘The Leather Funnel’ are absolutely in the top rank. They come with three good essays, the most interesting to me being Derrick Belanger’s ‘Revisions of History: Arthur Conan Doyle and the Mary Celeste Mystery’, which tells how ‘J Habakuk Jephson’s Statement’, though not his best, became perhaps Conan Doyle’s most influential short story. A second volume is due on 19 November. "

A Study in Terror: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Revolutionary Stories of Fear and the Supernatural Volume 1 is available for pre order from all good bookstores including Amazon USA, Amazon UK, Waterstones UK, and for free shipping worldwide Book Depository .