Many writers have revisited the Reichenbach Falls in the hope of summoning up the ghost of Sherlock Holmes. Now Richard Lancelyn Green has succeeded triumphantly with this collection of stories by expert writers of the calibre of Ronald Knox and Julian Symons. Designed not to compete with or parody the original, but rather to reflect and enhance the achievements of the great detective.
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21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A good collection.,
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This review is from: The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Classic Crime) (Paperback)
In this volume Richard Lancelyn Green has assembled some of the best of the noncanonical Holmes short stories as of 1986. I personally think _The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes_ by Adrian Conan Doyle and John Dickson Carr is a slightly better collection overall, but this one comes close.
Adrian Conan Doyle is represented here as well, the adventure of "Arnsworth Castle" being simply a republication of "The Red Widow" from _Exploits_. (I disagree with the reviewer who thought the story was a "complete failure," but I also disagree with anthologist Green that it is the strongest of the younger Doyle's Holmes pastiches.) The highlight of the collection is undoubtedly Denis O. Smith's "The Purple Hand." This is the first of Smith's Holmes tales (of which another -- "The Silver Buckle" -- appears in _The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures_); in general they are among the best pastiches in the short-story genre. (Smith has published them in three volumes under the title _The Chronicles of Sherlock Holmes_.) Other high points include "The Tired Captain" and "The Green Empress," based on two unrecorded cases mentioned by Watson in the first paragraph of "The Naval Treaty." The latter of the two cases requires a brief explanation. "The Green Empress" is the new title of the tale mentioned in a review below under the name "The Second Stain." Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, of course, wrote a story of that title as well, but the version he published does not seem to match the description in "The Naval Treaty." There is also a reference to the "affair of the second stain" in the opening paragraph of "The Yellow Face" (which the Bantam/Doubleday version for some reason emends so that it refers instead to the "adventure of the Musgrave Ritual"). Some Sherlockians claim this remark refers to yet a third case, though I do not happen to know the foundation of this claim. At any rate there would thus appear to have been at least two and perhaps three Holmes cases catalogued by Watson under the same name. F.P. Cellie's tale fills in the details of the one mentioned in "The Naval Treaty." In 1967 it won a contest in South Africa under its original title of "The Second Stain," and its title has been altered for publication in the present volume. End of explanation. Another highlight: this volume is the only one currently in print -- so far as I know -- in which Vincent Starrett's classic "The Unique _Hamlet_" is collected. In my own view this pastiche is somewhat overrated (being among other things ludicrously easy to solve), but at any rate it's a good one to have; at least it was one of the first, having been privately published in 1920. And another point which may be of interest to Amazon shoppers: the larger and more recent collection _The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures_, edited by Michael Ashley (and with a foreword by Green), does not include _any_ overlap with the present volume. Owners of one may therefore feel safe in purchasing the other.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
huge fun - highly recommended,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Classic Crime) (Paperback)
I've just finished this and am amazed by how much I enjoyed it - I'd bought it expecting to hate it but not so. It's very patchy but no more so than Conan Doyle's original stories, and the only really terrible bit is one effort by his son Adrian which is a complete failure, although a very involved thing about Scotland (which left me wondering, why couldn't he have just put the brooch in his pocket? - you'll know what I mean when you've read it) tries the patience rather. Best are the 'Purple Hand' and 'Second Stain' stories, both of which the man himself would have been very proud of, but all are honourable additions to the mythos, hugely enjoyable and very sensitive to the much-loved originals.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Magisterial,
By Kevin Killian (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER) (TOP 1000 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Classic Crime) (Paperback)
Poor Richard Lancelyn Green! I knew his name through the scandal headlines that surrounded his death two years back, a suicide which he tried to stage as a murder, hoping or so it seems to cast a sinister light on the family of Conan Doyle and their auction of period Holmes memorabilia at Christie's which he, RLG, thought should have been disposed of elsewhere. And laboring in the shadow of his far better known father Roger Lancelyn Green, it can't have been easy. In any case it's great that at least one of his anthologies, THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, will keep his name alive in a positive way.
I don't understand why he changed the names of stories while presenting them here. Why bother retitling Adrian Conan Doyle's story "The Red Widow"? Is his own title, "The Adventure of Ainsworth Castle," any more thrilling? Surely it's misleading to present the famous story by Arthur Whittaker, "The Case Of The Man Who Was Wanted" under a title like "The Adventure of the Sheffield Banker." Please! Whittaker's tale isn't very good, but it has the historic distinction of having been mistaken for an actual Sherlock Holmes story (for it was found among Conan Doyle's papers) and published under the Master's name by misguided scholars in 1948. SC Roberts also has his title changed. I guess Lancelyn Green wanted them all to be called "The Adventure of . . ." and felt no compunction about renaming these old chestnuts where they didn't fit the bill. A small point, but one perhaps illustrative of the sometimes magisterial nature of the man's character. Otherwise you couldn't ask for a more interesting smapling of Holmes pastiche. The Stuart Palmer story is good, and an unexpected choice considering that its companion, "The Remarkable Worm" is far better known. "The Adventure of the Trained Cormorant," formerly known as plain "Holmes in Scotland," is a splendid reconstruction of one of the cases mysteriously alluded to by Watson in one of the canonical tales. Maybe I'm the only fan in the world who's not blown away by D O Smith, and I'll try reading more of Smith's work to catch the vibe, but I was less than overwhelmed by reading the tedious "Adventure of the Purple Hand," which seems padded out to twice its optimum length. However, many fans whose opinions I respect swear by Smith and I'll read some more before I put that baby to bed. Take it all and all, a fine anthology and a nice way to remember poor old Richard Lancelyn Green.
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