The Original Text Solar Pons Omnibus Edition

Solar Pons

by August Derleth, Peter Ruber, Jean-Pierre Cagnat

Genres: Mystery

Hardcover

Published August 1, 2000

About the author

August William Derleth was an American writer and anthologist. Though best remembered as the first book publisher of the writings of H. P. Lovecraft, and for his own contributions to the Cthulhu Mythos and the Cosmic Horror genre, as well as his founding of the publisher Arkham House (which did much to bring supernatural fiction into print in hardcover in the US that had only been readily available in the UK), Derleth was a leading American regional writer of his day, as well as prolific in several other genres, including historical fiction, poetry, detective fiction, science fiction, and biography

A 1938 Guggenheim Fellow, Derleth considered his most serious work to be the ambitious Sac Prairie Saga, a series of fiction, historical fiction, poetry, and non-fiction naturalist works designed to memorialize life in the Wisconsin he knew. Derleth can also be considered a pioneering naturalist and conservationist in his writing

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augus...]

Reviews

[Jc · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think it unfair in most instances to rate a book/series solely by how it compares to another title. But, in the case of Wisconsin author August Derleth's Solar Pons novels and short stories the approach is almost mandatory. Derleth wrote these not only as Holmes pastiches, but with the intention of continuing the original Sherlockian Canon. He tried to receive AC Doyle's official blessing on his work. Doyle turned him down, and Derleth was obligated to change the intended name from Sh.Holmes to S.Pons. As detective mysteries, I think some of the stories are pretty good, though most are so-so at best. While Doyle's Holmes stories were very atmospheric, making the reader feel they WERE in ca. 1895 London hailing a Hansom cab to follow Holmes & Watson into the fog, Derleth's Pons always feels pasted onto a two-dimensional stage-backdrop of a ca. 1930s/1940s pseudo-London (Derleth himself never visited England). In addition, the characters (Pons, his friend and scribe Dr. Parker, their housekeeper Mrs. Johnson, and the oft present Inspectors Jamison & Hudson) also seem very flat and two-dimensioned compared to their doppelgangers in Baker Street. Granted, all Doyle stories are not always much in the way of "mysteries" in the classic sense (e.g., some are more adventure stories with Holmes as a side witness), and certainly Doyle could be a rushed, sloppy writer himself, but Doyle stories (even the lesser of them) always had atmosphere which could never be described as flat, as well as people with depth, and often some very weird and disturbing attributes.
I apologize to the big fans of Pons (yes, there are many -- even with SP clubs to rival the great Sherlockian/Holmesian clubs, if on a smaller scale), but though I have had fun with these stories they just never quite measure up to the original (in fact, I would rate many Holmes pastiches above them). This is my second read for most of these, though my first in this edition (which purports to have corrected the "sloppy" and "destructive" editing of earlier editions). There is also another volume which I hope to get to next year, which contains much I haven’t read before. There are also collections written by Basil Copper (sic), a British author whom some claim did the previously mentioned poor editing on the originals.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

August Derleth has been unfairly neglected, and for a variety of reasons. First, many of his works are still under copyright in most of the world, unlike many of his contemporaries. The product of a long and generally prolific life. Second, of course, his family still basically controls their own publishing house, and have seemingly no interest in making many of the works widely available in electronic or even print format. so if you want to read his non-mythos horror fiction in a modern format, you'll be paying a lot. Trust me, I know.

The exception to this general neglect of his non-mythos fiction is the Solar Pons series, one of the best pastiches (a word I learned from them, too!) of Sherlock Holmes out there. I don't want to get too deep into spoilers because I want people to read and learn from this review, but I do recommend everyone should read the Adventures of the Unique Dickensians to see a true master try his hand at a Sherlockian story. It may be one of the most interesting short stories I've ever read, and I've gone back to it three times.

[Tracy · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you wish Conan Doyle had written more Holmes stories, then this is the book you want.