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Summary
Summary
This monumental edition promises to be the most important new contribution to Sherlock Holmes literature since William Baring-Gould's 1967 classic work. In this boxed set, Leslie Klinger, a leading world authority, reassembles Arthur Conan Doyle's 56 classic short stories in the order in which they appeared in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century book editions. Inside, readers will find a cornucopia of insights: beginners will benefit from Klinger's insightful biographies of Holmes, Watson, and Conan Doyle; history lovers will revel in the wealth of Victorian literary and cultural details; Sherlockian fanatics will puzzle over tantalizing new theories; art lovers will thrill to the 800-plus illustrations, which make this the most lavishly illustrated edition of the Holmes tales ever produced. The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes illuminates the timeless genius of Arthur Conan Doyle for an entirely new generation of readers.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Sherlockians and more casual Holmes fans alike will delight in this comprehensive edition of the 56 original short adventures featuring the world's first private consulting detective. Modeling his efforts on William S. Baring-Gould's 1968 Annotated Sherlock Holmes, Klinger (The Sherlock Holmes Reference Library) packs as many extras into these two volumes as a special director's cut DVD: detailed essays on subjects as diverse as the Boer War and the history of rugby, illuminating citations to early drafts of Doyle's original manuscripts,and full discussions of the numerous theories developed over more than a century concerning ambiguities, contradictions and unresolved issues in the stories. Those new to such scholarship will be fascinated by the sophisticated multidisciplined approach, much of it based on close readings and historical research similar to Bible study. The synthesis of the commentaries will engage veteran Sherlockians, who will be able to compare hypotheses concerning, for example, the true identity of the king of Bohemia or Holmes's actual whereabouts during the Great Hiatus. First-time readers might want to skip Klinger's brief intros to each tale, as they presume familiarity with the plot and often hint strongly at the solutions. Many will prefer this to the Oxford University Press uniform edition of a decade ago. Agent, Donald Maass. (Nov. 30) FYI: The four novels will be treated in a third volume, due in 2005. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Guardian Review
Sherlock Holmes has been ranked as one of the three most recognisable icons of the western world, alongside Father Christmas and Mickey Mouse. Yet there is no shortage of Sherlockian scholars prepared to dispute this on the grounds that, among the three, only the great detective was real. The state of Sherlock studies is now so advanced that, far from it seeming incredible that anyone should believe that Holmes actually existed, it is a wonder that there is anyone still prepared to suggest that he didn't. Ever since William S Baring-Gould published the first biography of the detective in 1962, there has been an increasing number of scholars determined to disprove the fiction that Holmes was in any way fictional, while Baring-Gould's Annotated Sherlock Holmes remained the bible for this school of thought for almost 40 years. Not any longer. Its pre-eminence has been seriously challenged by Leslie S Klinger's monumental New Annotated Sherlock Holmes , which now comes to completion. The first two volumes, published last year, contained the 56 short stories as they appeared in the Strand magazine between 1887-1927. The concluding part presents the four novel-length adventures. Far more significant, however, is the state- of-the-art Sherlockian arcana it contains, produced by a tribe of obsessives who believe that Conan Doyle simply acted as Dr Watson's agent; that 221B Baker Street was an actual address; and that the real brains behind al-Qaida is Professor Moriarty. Klinger has overseen a handsome project - elegantly produced, lavishly illustrated and scrupulously well organised. The only slight perversity is that the volume containing the first meeting of Holmes and Watson (in A Study in Scarlet ) should be published last; though this might be a simple reflection of the fact that Sherlockian scholars do not like anything to be simple. Indeed non- specialists may find themselves slightly disoriented by the fact that one barely reaches the second paragraph before the text breaks off to engage in a prolonged discussion of Dr Watson's war wound. Yet the issue of Watson's wound is a prime example of the kind of controversy this edition attempts to resolve. The doctor's initial report of an injured shoulder sustained in Afghanistan contradicts, as many scholars are eager to point out, plentiful testimony elsewhere in the canon that he was shot in the leg. Attention is drawn to WB Hepburn's paper, the Jezail Bullet, which rather logically concludes that the good doctor may have been shot twice. Yet this is rather too rational a solution for most Sherlockians: and Klinger also considers various theories accounting for how the bullet may have penetrated both places at the same time. My favourite among these is Peter Brain's proposal that Watson was shot from below while squatting over a cliff to relieve himself (though how Watson managed to avoid toppling backwards in shock Mr Brain declines to say). The degree of industry evidenced in these volumes is astonishing. When Holmes casually mentions that he once authored a monograph classifying different types of cigar ash, it comes as no surprise to learn that a real-life chemist, Raymond J McGowan, has verified these findings in the laboratory. And the musicologist William Smith has minutely analysed the complete piano works of Chopin in order to identify "the little thing" that Holmes sings as: "Tra-la-la-lira- lira-lay" (it's potentially the Fourth Polonnaise in C Minor, if you're interested). One continually marvels at the extent of these experts' ingenuity, while rather wondering if they do not have anything better to do with their time. Yet such speculation inevitably arises given the tantalising lack of reliable sources. Watson is often characterised as the Boswell of detective fiction, a diligent and dependable chronicler of his friend's career. Yet as Nick Rennison points out in his new biography, of a calculable 1,800 cases in the detective's career, Watson and Conan Doyle provide accounts of only 60 - in other words, more than 96% of Holmes's investigations are unrecorded. For an inventive biographer, this leaves the field wide open for fantasy and supposition, though Rennison's account feels rather stolid and dependable. According to Rennison, Holmes was brought up in windy isolation on the North Yorkshire moors, received his early education at home, and had an abortive stint as an actor with Sir Henry Irving's company before settling down to become the world's first consulting detective. As with all Sherlockians, Rennison has to be at his most resourceful while attempting to explain what happened during "the Great Hiatus", the period between 1891-94 when Holmes was assumed to have tumbled to his death at the Reichenbach Falls. Rennison rejects some of the more outre theories (that he travelled to Russia, disguised as a tobacco merchant, at the invitation of Anton Chekhov, for example) and constructs a plausible argument that throughout this time Holmes followed a semi-official roaming brief on behalf of his elder brother Mycroft, the inscrutable Whitehall mandarin. Am I quite mad, but has nobody yet tried to advance the theory that Mycroft and Moriarty are possibly one and the same? If not, perhaps it is worth drawing attention to the fact that both are furtive, elusive, super-brains whose names begin with M. And - get this - if you subject "Mycroft" to a spell-check, the automatic correction becomes "Microsoft". I confidently look forward to these findings being incorporated in the new, New Annotated Edition in due course. To order The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes for pounds 27 or Sherlock Holmes for pounds 13.99, both with free UK p&p call Guardian book service on 0870 836 0875. Caption: article-Fiction.1 Yet the issue of [Watson]'s wound is a prime example of the kind of controversy this edition attempts to resolve. The doctor's initial report of an injured shoulder sustained in Afghanistan contradicts, as many scholars are eager to point out, plentiful testimony elsewhere in the canon that he was shot in the leg. Attention is drawn to WB Hepburn's paper, the Jezail Bullet, which rather logically concludes that the good doctor may have been shot twice. Yet this is rather too rational a solution for most Sherlockians: and [Leslie S Klinger] also considers various theories accounting for how the bullet may have penetrated both places at the same time. My favourite among these is Peter Brain's proposal that Watson was shot from below while squatting over a cliff to relieve himself (though how Watson managed to avoid toppling backwards in shock Mr Brain declines to say). Yet such speculation inevitably arises given the tantalising lack of reliable sources. Watson is often characterised as the Boswell of detective fiction, a diligent and dependable chronicler of his friend's career. Yet as Nick Rennison points out in his new biography, of a calculable 1,800 cases in the detective's career, Watson and [Conan Doyle] provide accounts of only 60 - in other words, more than 96% of [Holmes]'s investigations are unrecorded. As with all Sherlockians, Rennison has to be at his most resourceful while attempting to explain what happened during "the Great Hiatus", the period between 1891-94 when Holmes was assumed to have tumbled to his death at the Reichenbach Falls. Rennison rejects some of the more outre theories (that he travelled to Russia, disguised as a tobacco merchant, at the invitation of Anton Chekhov, for example) and constructs a plausible argument that throughout this time Holmes followed a semi-official roaming brief on behalf of his elder brother Mycroft, the inscrutable Whitehall mandarin. - Alfred Hickling.
Library Journal Review
From Holmes expert Leslie S. Klinger: biographies, historical context, 800 illustrations, and more. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Table of Contents
| Preface | p. xiii |
| A Study in Scarlet | p. 3 |
| Part I (Being a reprint from the reminiscences of John H. Watson, m.d., late of the Army Medical Department) | |
| I Mr. Sherlock Holmes | p. 7 |
| II The Science of Deduction | p. 28 |
| III The Lauriston Garden Mystery | p. 47 |
| IV What John Rance Had to Tell | p. 65 |
| V Our Advertisement Brings a Visitor | p. 79 |
| VI Tobias Gregson Shows What He Can Do | p. 92 |
| VII Light in the Darkness | p. 110 |
| Part II The Country of the Saints | |
| I On the Great Alkali Plain | p. 123 |
| II The Flower of Utah | p. 138 |
| III John Ferrier Talks with the Prophet | p. 148 |
| IV A Flight for Life | p. 155 |
| V The Avenging Angels | p. 168 |
| VI A Continuation of the Reminiscences of John H. Watson, m.d. | p. 180 |
| VII The Conclusion | p. 196 |
| Appendix "Mr. Sherlock Holmes," | p. 203 |
| The Sign of Four | p. 209 |
| I The Science of Deduction | p. 213 |
| II The Statement of the Case | p. 226 |
| III In Quest of a Solution | p. 237 |
| IV The Story of the Bald-Headed Man | p. 246 |
| V The Tragedy of Pondicherry Lodge | p. 260 |
| VI Sherlock Holmes Gives a Demonstration | p. 272 |
| VII The Episode of the Barrel | p. 283 |
| VIII The Baker Street Irregulars | p. 296 |
| IX A Break in the Chain | p. 310 |
| X The End of the Islander | p. 324 |
| XI The Great Agra Treasure | p. 337 |
| XII The Strange Story of Jonathan Small | p. 345 |
| Appendix The Dating of The Sign of Four | p. 380 |
| The Hound of the Baskervilles | p. 383 |
| I Mr. Sherlock Holmes | p. 387 |
| II The Curse of the Baskervilles | p. 398 |
| III The Problem | p. 415 |
| IV Sir Henry Baskerville | p. 430 |
| V Three Broken Threads | p. 447 |
| VI Baskerville Hall | p. 460 |
| VII The Stapletons of Merripit House | p. 472 |
| VIII First Report of Dr. Watson | p. 489 |
| IX Second Report of Dr. Watson | p. 498 |
| X Extract from the Diary of Dr. Watson | p. 521 |
| XI The Man on the Tor | p. 533 |
| XII Death on the Moor | p. 550 |
| XIII Fixing the Nets | p. 568 |
| XIV The Hound of the Baskervilles | p. 581 |
| XV A Retrospection | p. 601 |
| Appendix 1 The Butterfly and the Orchid | p. 615 |
| Appendix 2 The Source of The Hound of the Baskervilles | p. 618 |
| Appendix 3 Was Richard Cabell "Hugo Baskerville"? | p. 620 |
| Appendix 4 The Search for Baskerville Hall | p. 622 |
| Appendix 5 The Dating of The Hound of the Baskervilles | p. 626 |
| The Valley of Fear | p. 629 |
| Part I The Tragedy of Birlstone | |
| I The Warning | p. 633 |
| II Sherlock Holmes Discourses | p. 647 |
| III The Tragedy of Birlstone | p. 658 |
| IV Darkness | p. 670 |
| V The People of the Drama | p. 683 |
| VI A Dawning Light | p. 698 |
| VII The Solution | p. 714 |
| Part II The Scowrers | |
| I The Man | p. 731 |
| II The Bodymaster | p. 743 |
| III Lodge 341, Vermissa | p. 764 |
| IV The Valley of Fear | p. 783 |
| V The Darkest Hour | p. 794 |
| VI Danger | p. 809 |
| VII The Trapping of Birdy Edwards | p. 819 |
| Epilogue | p. 832 |
| Appendix 1 "Who, Then, Is Porlock?" | p. 837 |
| Appendix 2 People, Places, and Incidents in The Valley of Fear with Their Pennsylvania Counterparts | p. 841 |
| Appendix 3 The Dating of The Valley of Fear | p. 843 |
| Chronological Table: The Life and Times of Sherlock Holmes | p. 845 |
| Selected Sources | p. 873 |
| General | p. 873 |
| A Study in Scarlet | p. 876 |
| The Sign of Four | p. 887 |
| The Hound of the Baskervilles | p. 893 |
| The Valley of Fear | p. 898 |
| Notes for Scholars | p. 903 |
| Acknowledgements | p. 905 |
