The Papers of Sherlock Holmes Volume 1 and 2

The Papers of Sherlock Holmes #1-2

by David Marcum

Special edition hardback containing Volumes 1 and 2. Spanning events over thirty years, The Papers of Sherlock Holmes relates narratives of Holmes and Watson's days in Baker Street, as well as particulars of Holmes's supposed retirement. Follow along as The Master and his Boswell travel from the streets of London to the Kent countryside, to Oxford and Sussex. Written in traditional canonical style, these stories provide fresh details of Holmes's world. Join us as we climb the seventeen steps to the Baker Street sitting room, where Holmes and Watson prepare to begin their next adventure.

312 pages, Hardcover

First published November 28, 2014

Reviews

[Allison · Rating 3 out of 5]

I approach most pastiches I read with as open a mind as I can. I've read dozens of them and been able to stop myself from constantly contrasting every small detail to the canon.

Mild spoilers ahead!

I felt like the author went out of his way to include as many different Holmes or Holmes-ish references and salutes as he could and he tries so hard to connect things and be clever that it just takes you out of the story entirely. He throws in a salute to the 1895 poem, has Conan Doyle appear as a character, which I was uneasy with for some reason even I can't put a finger on. He includes references to the Sherlock Holmes parody, Solar Pons, also, when he quadruples the Holmes family.

I think that I could have ignored most of it had he not turned around and put Holmes and Adler in a relationship. Adler was never interested in Holmes romantically, nor was he in her. She did the equivalent of trapping a bug under a cup and tossing it out the door when Holmes got in her way, and yet people seem to love creating a huge romance out of the whole affair. I am not saying that that's wrong, just that it happens so incredibly often that I'm utterly sick of it.

That being said; I felt that the characterization of Holmes and Watson, especially in the first few stories, was better than most. The author has not only caught Holmes' unending energy but Marcum also gave me a good view of Watson's patience and exasperated fondness. I loved the dialogue between these two, and the language that these stories are written in matches the original style really well. While some of the plots for the stories may have been a little weak as mysteries go, all in all this book has a place on my shelf

Final Verdict is:
The Papers of Sherlock Holmes Volume One: Pretty decent
The Papers of Sherlock Holmes Volume Two: nah

[Thomas Turley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This hardback edition, published in 2014, combines two earlier collections. Volume I consists of traditional pastiches, ranging from the faintly comic to the genuinely tragic, and even including a case-within-a-case. All the stories are cleverly plotted and very much in Conan Doyle’s own style. The latter tales are more ambitious, in that they begin during the period of Holmes’ supposed “retirement,” when (at his brother Mycroft’s urging) he worked to counter German espionage prior to World War I, as recounted by Doyle in “His Last Bow." That poignant case was hardly Holmes’ last bow for David Marcum. With remarkable originality, he sets his next two stories in the 1920s, when Holmes and Watson find themselves visiting Marcum’s own ancestors in east Tennessee. Fine as these stories are in their own right, even more valuable for Sherlockian scholars is the skillful way that Marcum (in this volume and its recent successor, Tangled Skeins) fleshes out the bare chronology of Baring-Gould’s Sherlock of Holmes of Baker Street with biographical detail, offering a fascinatingly complete picture of the lives of Holmes and Watson, from before their first meeting until the doctor’s death in 1929. Even readers who wrongheadedly regard the Canon as detective fiction will find The Papers of Sherlock Holmes well worth investigating.

[Nwe Mon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this.

[Gus Scholtz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This man has done so much for the Sherlockian Community it is a honor to read his stories.
The tales go off in different directions. Filling on missing avenues of Holmes life.

[Les Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not quite Doyle, but still a very good read. Recommended