The Alternative Sherlock Holmes

Book excerpt: Between 1887 and 1927, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote sixty Sherlock Holmes stories, and his great canon has become the most studied chapter in the history of detective fiction. From the very first, the fascination of the original stories was such that other authors soon began writing new stories derived from Holmes. In almost every year of the twentieth century pastiches, parodies, burlesques, copies, and rivals of the detective appeared, but no comprehensive attempt has previously been made to collect and discuss these stories, all of which are of historical interest. The Alternative Sherlock Holmes does so, and provides a new approach to the Sherlock Holmes literature, as well as discussing many works that have for years remained forgotten. Although presented as an entertaining narrative, of interest to both the aficionado and the scholar, it provides full bibliographic data on virtually all the known stories.