Part 17 (2/2)
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AUTHOR'S AFTERWORD
Arthur Conan Doyle wrote fifty-six short stories and four novels about Sherlock Holmes. You can still find them in most bookshops. When he first appeared, Sherlock was around thirty-three years old and was already a detective with an established set of habits and abilities. In his last appearance he was around sixty, and had retired to the Suss.e.x coast to keep bees. Yes, bees.
My intention with the book you are holding, and with the books that will follow, is to find out what Sherlock was like before Arthur Conan Doyle first introduced him to the world. What sort of teenager was he? Where did he go to school, and who were his friends? Where and when did he learn the skills that he displayed later in life the logical mind, the boxing and sword-fighting, the love of music and of playing the violin? What did he study at university? When (if ever) did he travel abroad? What scared him and who, if anyone, did he love?
Other people have written about Sherlock Holmes over the years, to the point where he is probably the most recognized fictional character in the world. The number of stories written about Sherlock by other writers far exceeds the number written by Arthur Conan Doyle, and yet it is Doyle's stories that people keep returning to. There is a reason for that, and the reason is that he understood understood Sherlock from the inside out, while the other writers, for the most part, merely tried to copy the outside. Sherlock from the inside out, while the other writers, for the most part, merely tried to copy the outside.
Arthur Conan Doyle gave little away about Sherlock's early years, and most writers since then have avoided that period of time as well. We know little about his parents, or indeed where he lived. We know he was descended on his mother's side from the French artist Vernet and that he had a brother called Mycroft, who appears in a few of the short stories, but that's about it. That has given me the freedom to create a history for Sherlock that is consistent with the few hints that Conan Doyle did let slip, but also leads inevitably to the man that Conan Doyle described. In this endeavour I have been lucky to have had the approval of Jon Lellenberg, the representative of the Conan Doyle Estate Ltd, and the approval of the surviving relatives of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: Richard Pooley, Richard Doyle and Cathy Beggs. I have been lucky too to have the approval of Andrea Plunkett, owner of several trademarks in Europe. I have also been fortunate in having an agent and an editor Robert Kirby and Rebecca McNally respectively who understood completely what I wanted to do.
Various writers have attempted to produce their own biographies of Sherlock Holmes, tying together what Doyle revealed with actual historical events. These works are inevitably flawed, incomplete and personal, but I confess that I have a sneaking fondness for William Baring-Gould's Sherlock Holmes A Biography of the World's First Consulting Detective Sherlock Holmes A Biography of the World's First Consulting Detective, and have taken some details (most notably, dates) from that iconic work.
I promise that there will be more adventures of Sherlock Holmes at school and university, but in the meantime you might want to seek out the original stories by Arthur Conan Doyle. The short stories have been collected together in five books The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, The Return of Sherlock Holmes The Return of Sherlock Holmes, His Final Bow His Final Bow and and The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes. The novels are A Study in Scarlet A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of the Four The Sign of the Four, The Hound of the Baskervilles The Hound of the Baskervilles and and The Valley of Fear The Valley of Fear. If you want to go further, you could do worse than seek out the three more recent Holmes novels by Nicholas Meyer The Seven Per Cent Solution The Seven Per Cent Solution, The West End Horror The West End Horror and and The Canary Trainer The Canary Trainer as well as Michael Hardwick's as well as Michael Hardwick's The Revenge of the Hound The Revenge of the Hound and Lyndsay Faye's and Lyndsay Faye's Dust and Shadow Dust and Shadow. You might also like to check out Michael Kurland's stories told from the point of view of Sherlock Holmes's arch-enemy, Professor James Moriarty, which provide a refres.h.i.+ng alternative look at the Great Detective The Infernal Device The Infernal Device, Death by Gaslight Death by Gaslight and and The Great Game The Great Game. Second-hand bookshops or eBay might be your best bet.
Until next time, when Sherlock faces the repulsive Red Leech . . .
ABOUT THE AUTHOR.
Andrew Lane is the author of some twenty previous books. Some are original novels set in the same universes as the BBC TV programmes Doctor Who Doctor Who, Torchwood Torchwood and and Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), some are contemporary novels written under a pseudonym, and some are non-fiction books concerning specific film and TV programme characters (notably James Bond, and Wallace and Gromit). He has also written for the Radio Times Radio Times and its US equivalent, and its US equivalent, TV Guide TV Guide. Andrew lives in Dorset with his wife, his son and a vast collection of Sherlock Holmes books, the purchase of which over the past twenty years is now a justifiably tax-deductible expense.
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Dedicated to the memory of the Young Adult writers whose work I used to devour when I was young: Capt. W. E. Johns, Hugh Walters, Andre Norton, Malcolm Saville, Alan E. Norse and John Christopher; and also to the friends.h.i.+p and support of those members of the latest generation that I'm fortunate enough to know: Ben Jeapes, Stephen Cole, Justin Richards, Gus Smith and the incomparable Charlie Higson.
And with grateful acknowledgements to: Rebecca McNally and Robert Kirby, for having faith; Jon Lellenberg, Charles Foley and Andrea Plunkett, for giving permission; Gareth Pugh, for telling me all about bees; and Nigel McCreary, for keeping me sane on the journey.
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First published 2010 by Macmillan Children's Books This electronic edition published 2010 by Macmillan Children's Books a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR Basingstoke and Oxford a.s.sociated companies throughout the worldISBN 978-0-330-53271-6 PDF.
ISBN 978-0-330-53270-9 EPUB.
Copyright Andrew Lane 2010 The right of Andrew Lane to be identified as the author of this work has been a.s.serted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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