According to the Guinness Book of Records, Sherlock Holmes has been portrayed on screen more than any other literary character. Olivia Rutigliano ranks the 100 best, worst, & strangest screen portrayals of the great detective…
“Holmes’s stories […] have a surprisingly grounded view of crime, & one that arguably fits better into the hardboiled tradition of Hammett & Chandler than the cozy tradition of Christie.”
When Doyle killed Sherlock Holmes at the Reichenbach Falls, “20,000 people cancelled their subscriptions to the Strand”. Public pressure – & a huge fee – brought Holmes back from the dead; did this fictional immortality influence Doyle’s spiritualism?
In 1912, “Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the world’s most celebrated fictional detective, had turned detective himself in an actual murder case – in the process liberating a man who had spent nearly twenty years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.”
In March 1927, Arthur Conan Doyle put together a list of his own top 12 Sherlock Holmes stories, sealed it in an envelope, & left it with the editor of the Strand magazine…
New at my Patreon... Last time I was in Switzerland, I took a train to the town of Meiringen - and visited a painstaking replica of Sherlock Holmes' sitting room:
I spoke with Vincent O'Donnell of Arts Alive about my new book, The She-Wolf of Baker Street, on the weekend. The spot will be on his show today, between 12 and 1pm. YOu can 'listen live'from midday!
I'm thrilled with my first review for The She-Wolf of Baker Street!!! Ashleigh Meikle says:
"As ancient & modern worlds, mythology & reality collide...this unique Holmesian adventure was brilliantly executed, & managed to traverse the fae traditions in a modern context to allow the story to work well & come to life as part of the Holmesian cannon of literature."
The HistFic Outside the Box promo starts today and goes till 30 April! You can buy my Sherlock Holmes/John Watson historical crime romance The Adventure of the Colonial Boy and also get a NEW free ebook of short stories, set after the novel, The Swordmaster's Secret!
Get unusual & queer historical fiction by other authors too, including medieval Islamic stories, 13thC Mongols, Wild West, WWI/WWII, & Shakespeare!
Sherlock is a Girls Name - full of stories about female Sherlocks and their Watsons, through time and space and fantasy worlds - is available for pre-order ahead of its 29 April release! Visit clandestinepress.net or improbablepress.com (US) to get in on the action!
In 1889, #ArthurConanDoyle & #OscarWilde sat down for dinner with J.M Stoddart, editor of Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine.
There, Wilde agreed to write “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, & Conan Doyle “The Sign of Four” – one of his most famous #SherlockHolmes stories.
Now, Conan Doyle’s letters recounting that fated dinner and his sole handwritten #manuscript of “The Sign of Four” are being auctioned by Sotheby’s New York.
Now that I have a new website (and have cleared out all the old posts) I will occasionally edit and reprint old posts - today it's all about the myth of the Alpha wolf, and my new werewolf!Mrs Hudson Holmesian book, The She-Wolf of Baker Street, due out this month!
Just stumbled across this December 2010 edition of Chess Life (which I'd never seen before).
It has a review by two-time US Women's Champion Jennifer Shahade of the chess fiction anthology MASTERS OF TECHNIQUE to which I contributed. She has some very nice things to say!
Check this interview with her in Vanity Fair about the TV series QUEEN'S GAMBIT: