Letters to Sherlock Holmes

by Richard Lancelyn Green (Editor)

Gathers letters written by children and adults from around the world involving personal mysteries and requests

Genres: Nonfiction, Mystery

235 pages, Paperback

First published March 4, 1986

About the author

Richard Lancelyn Green was a British scholar of Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes, and was generally considered the world's foremost scholar of these topics. He was the son of Roger Lancelyn Green

Reviews

[Adam Stone · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a lovely little curio of actual letters sent to Sherlock Holmes from real people. Some of them were rather sweet!

[Becky · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely could not stop reading this book. A MUST read for any Holmes fan. Actual letters that people wrote to Holmes. I laughed and was dumbfounded. If you love Sherlock Holmes - you MUST read this book.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

For my full review click on the link below:
https://crossexaminingcrime.wordpress...

[Anna]

I'm not sure how I would rate this, considering it's not a story. I do think it's only for big fans of the original ACD Sherlock Holmes stories like myself. I found many letters funny but some sad because they were little kids looking to prove to friends and/or family that Sherlock was real. I didn't particularly like how the letters were organized, especially the section of Friends and Associates. I also wish they would've included more dates of when the letters were written though it's understandable how they might not have kept track of that. Overall I enjoyed it very much.

[Celeste Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Full of vintage charm... So many people really think or have thought that Sherlock Holmes and Co are real and write to somewhere. Apparently, someone from some society called the Abbey national answers them or did when this book was published in 1985.

[Read1000books · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is a mystery to me. Here's why: I like Sherlock Holmes as much as the next mystery lover, perhaps more, but he IS, after all, a fictional character. So I was not surprised when many of these letters were from children or young people. What I find inexplicable is when a husband and wife (p.85), a college student (p.143), a snake-expert private detective (p.100), a college electronics instructor (p.105), even an attorney (p.147) come to believe he is/was a real person. I can also understand that some people wrote to the author of the stories, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, addressing them to "Sherlock Holmes", but when one letter refers to "Mr. Conan Doyle (who, I presume, is a pseudonym for Dr. Watson)" (p.75), I shake my head.

[Seth · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you think you'd be interested in a collection of actual letters sent to Sherlock Holmes, then you certainly won't regret the hour or two it takes to read this one. After all it contains the only known letter to a fictional character requesting his help acquiring an autograph from the lead singer of Soft Cell. If you're unsure if you'd be interested in a collection of actual letters sent to Sherlock Holmes, your time would be better spent resetting your Internet passwords or relearning the quadratic formula.

[Susan Jo Grassi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was so surprised that so many people actually wrote to Sherlock Holmes and what was even more amazing was that each letter got a response.

[M.k. Yost · Rating 4 out of 5]

Somehow both cute, and sad, that people would write to a man they did not believe was a fiction, asking him for help.

[Yosef Shapiro · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a collection of real letters sent to the great detective.

[Jamie March · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really cool insight into the impact of Sherlock Holmes.