The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Ken Greenwald (1989) - Post 4

 

THE LOST ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES 

by Ken Greenwald, based on the original radio plays 

by Denis Green and Anthony Boucher.

In the 1930s and 40s, before television, individuals and families clustered around the radio much as they do with the TV these days. They listened intently to the plethora of variety shows, the news, serious drama, and adventures. The radio networks were filled with radio plays, many based on properties that existed long before radio became popular, shows like SUPERMAN and THE LONE RANGER. One such show was THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. In 1946, Rathbone left the show, passing the baton to perhaps half a dozen actors. The show remained popular for four more years.

Regarding why I consider this to be a landmark Sherlockian book, here is the backstory: Rathbone and Bruce were in the first 220 half-hour radio episodes of THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, which aired from 1939 to 1950. Apparently audio recordings of the whole series existed and were available for 40-odd years—except 1945. The recordings for all of 1945 were considered lost. But in the 1980s, a vintage radio club that included Ken Greenwald located the lost recordings. They produced at least one LP with the recordings, and then somebody had the idea to write short stories based on the recovered 1945 shows. Greenwald took up the challenge and by 1988 he brought into the world 13 new Sherlock Holmes short stories in a book titled THE LOST ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES.

Greenwald was obviously tuned into the Holmes pastiche culture of that era, which is something I conclude because THE SEVEN-PER-CENT SOLUTION started the tsunami of Holmes pastiches only about a decade earlier, assuming Greenwald began writing in the early or mid-1980s. For example, the book includes an excellent framing device at the start and a clever Introduction by Dr. John H. Watson explaining how the fortunes of this, his last volume of Holmes stories, was less than stellar due to all of England preparing for The Great War (aka World War I) in 1914. The few copies that were printed eventually faded away and the entire book was forgotten.

To my taste, all 13 stories are well-crafted and enjoyable. In his Foreword, Greenwald admits having trepidations about his writing style, concerned that the stories may seem “off key” because Doyle/Watson was not the true author. In my view the stories, which are told from Watson’s point of view, which is only right and proper, succeed in wonderfully evoking Dr. Watson page after page.

The titles of the stories are “The Adventure of the Second Generation,” “The April Fools’ Adventure,” “The Case of the Amateur Mendicants,” “The Adventure of the Out-of-Date Murder,” “The Case of Demon Barber,” “Murder Beyond the Mountains,”  “The Case of the Uneasy Easy Chair,” “The Case of the Baconian Cipher,” “The Adventure of a Headless Monk,”  “The Case of the Camberwell Poisoners,” “The Adventure of the Iron Box,” “The Case of the Girl with the Gazelle,” and “The Adventure of the Notorious Canary Trainer.”

Next Up: Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula "edited" by Loren D. Estleman

Murder By Decree by Robert Weverka (1979) Post 3

Murder By Decree,

novelization by Robert Weverka,

screenplay by John Hopkins

I think it’s fairly safe to say that the single historical event that is played out most often, again and again and again, by Sherlock Holmes pastiche writers is nothing less than the Whitechapel murders of 1888—Jack the Ripper. Doing a quick check online, I’ve found 12 that fall into this category. I am certain I could find others as well if I wanted to devote more time to the project, but I ‘m pretty sure that listing these 12 goes a long way to prove my point.


•            A Study in Terror, novelization by Ellery Queen and Paul W. Fairman, screenplay by Derek Ford and Donald Ford (1966)

•            Murder By Decree, novelization by Robert Weverka, screenplay by John Hopkins (1979)

•            An East Wind Coming by Arthur Byron Cover (1979)

•            The Last Sherlock Holmes Story by Michael Dibdin (1987)

•            The Whitechapel Horrors by Edward B. Hanna (1993)

•            Dust and Shadow: An Account of the Ripper Killings by Dr. John H. Watson by Lyndsay Faye (2009)

•            Whitechapel: The Final Stand of Sherlock Holmes by Bernard Schaffer (2011)

•            Sherlock Holmes and the Whitechapel Vampire by Dean Turnbloom (2012)

•            Jack The Ripper: Newly Discovered Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Holy Ghost Writer (2014)

•            Sherlock Holmes and the Autumn of Terror by Randy Williams (2016)

•            The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Ripper Legacy by David Stuart Davies (2016)

•            Sherlock Holmes and the Whitechapel Murders: An Account of the Matter, by John Watson M.D. by Mark Sohn (2017)

            It appears that the first two “novels” within this category began as films with the screenplay “novelized” to be ready to sell when the film was released. My attention here is focused on the second novelization, Murder By Decree, which followed A Study in Terror by 13 years.

            I have selected the novelization of Murder By Decree as the third book of my new blog—“Ruminations on Sherlockian Books”—for the dual reason that first, in my opinion, it is an outstanding novelization—one of the best I’ve read (at all times maintaining the conceit or illusion that I am actually in the presence of the doctor and the consulting detective, which is no easy task.) Also, if one thinks of all these books as pre- and post-The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, as far as I can tell, Murder By Decree appears to be the first Ripper/Holmes mash up after 1974’s The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, being released in April 1979, while An East Wind Coming was released in November 1979. I view Murder By Decree as important because it was written soon enough after Nicholas Meyer’s The Seven-Per-Cent Solution that it can legitimately be considered the first Holmes/Ripper book to be part of the ensuing flood of knock-offs that followed Meyer’s hit novel.

            The credited novelization author is Robert Weverka; it turns out he novelized a great many films and TV series during the 1970s, including the Academy Award winning The Sting, The Circle of Iron, The Waltons, and The Magic of Lassie. Of course, the movie and the book don't match perfectly. There are many scenes that have changed during the translation from screenplay to novel. Another point I admire is that most of the novelization text seems to feature more of Robert Weverka than of Hopkins by a 2 to 1 ratio. Or, it may be that the final film was dramatically cut, leaving screenplay pages on the floor.

            I have never read or viewed A Study in Terror, but everything I‘ve read about it indicates that it and Murder By Decree have similar plots, namely that Jack the Ripper in actuality was some manifestation of the British government at the time.

            Lastly, I did have one complaint about the novel when compared to the film:  whereas James Mason as Watson in the film was exceptional, and the filmmakers throughout the film clearly went out of their way to portray Watson as elegant, brave and loyal, in the novelization Watson is consistently portrayed as a dolt.

Next up:  The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Ken Greenwald (1989) - Post 4

A Taste for Honey by H.F. Heard (1941) - Post 2

“More than 30 years before Nicholas Meyer’s [1974] The Seven-Per-Cent Solution opened the floodgates of Sherlockian imitation, H.F. Heard’s A Taste for Honey was the first significant book-length Sherlock Holmes pastiche, and it remains one of the very best.”

—Jon L. Breen, mystery and crime-detective writer, scholar and critic (from Blue Dolphin Publishing’s 

“Mr. Mycroft Commemorative Series”)

The year was 1927 and two things of huge import happened to shake up Sherlock Holmes circles. First, Arthur Conan Doyle’s final Holmes story was published in Strand Magazine in its April 1927 issue. Then in May, Conan Doyle’s final Sherlock Holmes book, The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes was published. Between 1927 and 1974, a period of 47 years, efforts were made by a spectrum of people—from scholars to booksellers, from enthusiasts to librarians—to write Sherlock Holmes short stories in the manner that Arthur Conan Doyle wrote them, with varying degrees of success.

            A number of fine books either reference or reprint many of these early adventures: for example, The Game Is Afoot: Parodies, Pastiches, and Ponderings of Sherlock Holmes edited by Marvin Kaye; The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes collected and introduced by Richard Lancelyn Green; The Pocket Essential Sherlock Holmes by Mark Campbell; Sherlock Holmes for Dummies by Steven Doyle and David A. Crowder; Sherlock Holmes: The Great Detective in Paperback & Pastiche compiled by Gary Lovisi; and The Big Book of Sherlock Holmes Stories edited by Otto Penzler.

             In addition, beginning in 1945, Conan Doyle’s son Adrian took up the baton and crafted a dozen stories, some alone and some as collaborations with noted mystery writer John Dickson Carr. Then again, August Derleth, prolific storyteller and publisher of Arkham House books, around the same time asked permission of the Doyle estate to write Holmes stories and was turned down. Not one to let a small thing like that deter him, he wrote over the next two decades some 80 detective stories about Solar Pons as told by Dr. Parker, obvious clones of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.

           In other words, the world simply was not prepared to let go of Sherlock Holmes, even though his creator, Arthur Conan Doyle, was no longer writing Holmes stories. Nevertheless, 47 years is a long time and during that period relatively few Holmes stories—invariably short stories—were written and/or published, and they all required permission from the Conan Doyle Estate.

            Enter in 1941 H.F. Heard, a British writer who was inspired to write a Sherlock Holmes novel. Whether he sought formal permission to do so or whether he simply sidestepped that potential obstacle, what resulted was pure magic.

“…but since [Sherlock Holmes] has definitely retired from London and betaken himself to study bee-farming on the Sussex downs….”

—John H. Watson, M.D. (Arthur Conan Doyle) in

“The Adventure of the Second Stain”

            What Heard did was remarkable. First off, he created Sidney Silchester, a prissy introvert who lived on the Sussex Downs and preferred nothing more than to enjoy his honey at breakfast and to be left alone. When his honey from his regular source dried up, he looked about his village for a new source, which quest brings him into contact with an intense, supremely intelligent older fellow who raises bees and who has honey to spare. This gentleman identifies himself as “Mr. Mycroft”.

           “’I have used 'Mycroft'…because my full name was once pretty widely known, and I wanted, when I retired to be quiet and unmolested…’”

            “There! I have forgotten the name he gave himself. It was something not unlike Mycroft—Mycroft and then another word, a short one, I think….

            ’You see,’ I said, ‘now that I do know your real name, I have to own I have never heard of you before.’ Then, I must own, he looked amazed….”

—Sidney Silchester (H.F. Heard) in A Taste for Honey

            The book comprises a sort of journal or memoir in which Sidney Silchester has determined to write up in chronological order the strange events—perhaps illegal, perhaps immoral—through which Mr. Mycroft has subjected him, virtually against his will. Silchester writes in the first person, just as Dr. Watson did. It’s not long into his narrative that he expresses how frustrated he is, and how taken aback, by Mr. Mycroft’s peculiar manner of expressing himself, both verbally and through behavior, and by his chemical experiments. It so happens the reason Silchester’s honey was no longer available was because the mistress of the beekeeper’s house was stung to death by her own bees.

            In short order, Mr. Mycroft suspects the poor woman was murdered, and then he embroils Silchester into his impromptu investigation, not so much because he cares about the victim, the perpetrator, or even the probable crime itself. No. Mr. Mycroft is going to all this trouble because it is clear to him that Silchester was on a very short list to become the next victim, probably followed by himself. He explains to Silchester that even the simple expediency of moving out of the town or even out of the country would not deter the murderer’s obsession to kill him once he decided to do it.

TIP: Be forewarned. Many commentators on this novel and its two sequels—Reply Paid and The Notched Hairpin—seem to be confused as to whether ”Mr. Mycroft” is Sherlock Holmes’ brother Mycroft or Holmes himself.  [In fact, in nearly all of these instances, there is no confusion at all; these commentators absolutely and clearly take for granted that Heard's Mycroft IS the brother Mycroft. This is 100% wrong.) These commentators assume, or seem to assume, that Heard, by calling the character Mycroft, intended for the character to be in fact Mycroft. This is a sore point for me, since it is crystal clear who it was that retired to the Sussex Downs to raise bees. And it wasn’t Sherlock’s brother! To make matters worse, even the publishers of various reprints over the decades of these books fail to get it right. Thus, rest assured that A Taste for Honey by H.F. Heard and published in 1941, is the first important novel-length Sherlock Holmes pastiche, throughout which Sherlock Holmes, himself is front and center.

Next up: Murder by Decree by Robert Weverka from the screenplay by John Hopkins

The Seven-Per-Cent Solution "edited" by Nicholas Meyer (1974)

In 1974 there was a mighty publishing sea change. Whether it was the author, Nicholas Meyer, or the publisher, Dutton, I don’t know, but somebody’s idea minted gold back then and continues to do so. The Seven-Percent-Solution became a huge bestseller and was the first major modern era Sherlock Holmes pastiche since the late 1940s when H. F. Heard published the last of his Mr. Mycroft Sherlock Holmes pastiches.

When The Seven-Percent-Solution reached a public (who was desperate for a continuation of Sherlock Holmes, but did not know it yet), the novel included some innovations that have been replicated thousands of times. Speaking of which, one estimate of the number of Holmes pastiches to be published in the intervening 43 years from 1974 is roughly 10,000.

Nicholas Meyer did three unprecedented things in The Seven-Per-Cent Solution that proved hugely influential:

(1) Either Meyer or his editor supported the use of pseudo-front matter to increase the over-all verisimilitude of the story. To underscore that pseudo-reality, Meyer wrote a detailed Foreword (also called a “framing device”) that explained how the memoir happened to be found and how Meyer happened to arrange for its publication. This sort of front matter at root told a story of convoluted mystery and of intertwining fates, detailing why and how cause and effect, ever patient, ordained that the manuscript would be hidden, found, resurrected, and/or travel from one location to another. By its very nature, the existence of this sort of material in a novel is the epitome of irony. A reader newly approaching the book with no preconceptions couldn’t help but notice that “somebody” went to a lot of trouble to create a false provenance that seemed real but clearly was not, being, after all, affixed to a work featuring well-known clearly fictitious characters. As I said, unprecedented!

(2) Again, either Meyer or his editor chose to continue that conceit of verisimilitude by announcing on the book’s cover and also on the title page that the volume was in actuality “a reprint from the reminiscences of John H. Watson, M.D. as edited by Nicholas Meyer”, which treats Watson as an authentic human being and relegates Meyer to the subordinate role of “editor”. Again, unprecedented!

(3) Probably most importantly, Meyer had Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson cross paths with a true-to-life historical person—Sigmund Freud. This, too, was unprecedented.

The fallout from these machinations was huge. First off, Sherlock Holmes novels overnight became a dedicated subgenre with volume after volume being churned out. Then, at first more often than not, these novels were filled with various literary apparatus that suggested the legitimate nature of the volumes. Lastly, again, overnight, writers were falling over themselves to include in their tales contemporaneous real people of renown, such as Theodore Roosevelt, Lenin, and Jack the Ripper.  Then, of course, it was only a small logical leap to begin treating famous fictional characters as though were every bit as real as Roosevelt or Freud. Enter Fu Manchu and H.G. Wells' Martians. Unashamedlyfollowing in the shoes of Meyer, writer Loren D. Estleman did this quite well,utilizing Count Dracula and Dr. Jekyll in two Holmes crossover tales. Finally, the best of all possible framing devices, to my mind, was Italian scholar Umberto Eco’s untitled preface to his own giant blockbuster 1980 Sherlockian pastiche, The Name of the Rose.

NEXT: The first ever Holmes pastiche novel.