The Standard Doyle Company: Christopher Morley on Sherlock Holmes (Hardcover)

~ Steven Rothman (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

The cult of Sherlock Holmes and its organizational centerpiece, The Baker Street Irregulars, were products of the fertile mind of Christopher Morley (1890-1957), one of the most versatile and prolific writers of the first half of the twentieth century. Novelist, essayist, columnist, Book-of-the-Month Club judge, poet, panelist, and promoter, Morley was an avid exponent of the literature he loved. Few writers were closer to his heart than Arthur Conan Doyle, whose tales of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson were still being penned during Morley’s boyhood.

This collection is a virtual anthology of Morley’s many styles. In addition to old favorites like "In Memoriam Sherlock Holmes," the preface to the Doubleday edition of The Complete Sherlock Holmes published in 1930 and probably the most widely read Sherlockian essay of them all, here are previously unpublished or never-before-collected essays, poems, short stories, and even a play. Excerpts from the fifteen years of Morley’s columns in the Saturday Review of Literature and a decade of his "Clinical Notes by a Resident Patient" in the Baker Street Journal (currently published by Fordham University Press) cover ever aspect of Holmes’s world – from dressing gowns to Turkish baths, from beekeeping to the "B" in 221B Baker Street.

As Morley put it in his little-known reader for high-school students, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, a Textbook of Friendship, "The beginning reader of Sherlock Holmes concerns himself with little more than attentive enjoyment, but there is a post-graduate school as well. There is a special and superior pleasure in reading anything so much more carefully than its author ever did." The Standard Doyle Company – Morley’s punning title for the Baker Street Irregulars – is an advanced syllabus for the lover of Sherlockian literature and lore.

About the Author

Steven Rothman has devoted much of the past twenty-five years to reading, collecting, and writing about Christopher Morley. He is a member of many Sherlockian organizations and is investitured as "The Valley of Fear" in the Baker Street Irregulars. Rothman, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, lives in Philadelphia, where he is working on a biography of Morley.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 429 pages
• Publisher: Fordham University Press (January 1, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0823212920
• ISBN-13: 978-0823212927
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,264,106 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Man Who Saved Sherlock Holmes, January 2, 2000

By	Raymond L. Betzner (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Chris Morley is largely forgotten now, so it might be difficult for modern readers to believe that he was once one of the best known men of letters in America. From the late 1920s to the 1940s, his columns, essays, novels and poems were widely read, and his appearances on radio were enthusiastically welcomed. Morley's most popular novel, Kitty Foyle, even made it to Hollywood. But if Morley had written nothing else than his tributes to Sherlock Holmes, it would have been enough. Indeed, it is not going to far to say that Morley is the man who single-handedly created a cult of Holmes worship (by founding the Baker Street Irregulars) which is alive and well today. While some of his Holmes work is easy to find (see his introduction to The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Doubleday), Morley's more obscure thoughts were scattered among obscure bibliographic relics. Steven Rothman has combed his considerable collection of Morley's writings and brought everything he ever wrote about Holmes into one place. This book is an excellent opportunity for anyone who knows a little about Sherlock Holmes to learn a lot about both Holmes and one of his most devout disciples. Rothman has also done an excellent job of drawing a biographical background for the reader. Morley might be forgotten, but his work about Sherlock HolmesÑÑlike the great detective himselfÑ-lives on.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars BSIr's Forever!, May 16, 2005

By	Walter P. Sheppard (Arlington, VA United States) - See all my reviews

How splendid to find this volume back in print! I have treasured it ever since it was first published several decades ago. Anyone who admires graceful, witty writing should revel in its pages even if not a Baker Street Irregular (BSIr) or at least a lover of Doyle's Holmes stories. The two annotated editions of the stories are certainly valuable and nice to have, but in Morley you will find more enthusiasm and fun than both of them together. And if you are a booklover in general you should seek out two slim books of delight by Morley - "Parnassus on Wheels" and "The Haunted Bookshop" (both out of print except for an execrable edition combining both in one badly produced volume full of typos and other errors).