My Sherlock Holmes collection finishes with 96 items, for reasons addressed in another post. I haven’t quite doubled it to a round 100 items, since seven years ago, but it occurred to me recently to make some closing notes anyway; why not. This very occasional project has provided interest to me for 11 years, now, and in happier circumstances I would might continue it for decades.
Obviously, since getting to 50 took about four years, and the next 46 items took several years, I have slowed down collecting. A lot of things happened to the world and to me since the middle of 2015. But also, it is not a race, and as recent weeks have demonstrated to me, I have accumulated so much stuff.
Anyway, since I have a list of collection items (chronological since the first few entries), let’s see what I have added and make notes on what interests me.
Warlock Holmes did make me laugh, although I’m skeptical about it sustaining a series; who knows. Sherlock Holmes in Orbit, this is a collection highlight. One of the best anthologies. A good mix of excellent science fiction Holmes or Holmes-inspired adventures. (This is one of the books which, silly perhaps, but I set aside for now while packing up those around it.)
I have one of the Solar Pons books. It’s okay. I would certainly pick up others if I came across them. I have missed the public library’s book sales, since the pandemic halted them; some times I didn’t find much, but some times I would find three or four items for my collection all at once, for just a few dollars total, and it made me happy.
The Trial of Sherlock Holmes comic book series is a good story with okay art. Good for you, Leah Moore (and John Reppion). People born in 1978, represent.
Terror by Night is one of the Rathbone/Bruce films, and a satisfying amusing outing. Sherlock Holmes in New York, the Roger Moore film, is of similar quality; perhaps I wrote something about that one already?
Mycroft and Sherlock, splendid like all (three so far) of the Holmes novels by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Anna Waterhouse. A Study in Terror I wanted for years, I think I finally ordered this one in the Spring of 2020 because, you know, we thought the world was distressing then, so I bought myself a treat or two. It’s okay. Not the best Holmes/Ripper story, certainly not the worst. The structure is a mild novelty.
Sherlock Holmes in Modern Times, what a weird find. Maybe I already wrote about this one, too, but yeah just weird. Essentially short puzzle stories all interested in points of the law (the author’s profession), and not especially much of a Sherlock Holmes book, but well worth including in a collection of nearly 100 items just for the oddness.
Sherlock Holmes: The Beginning, an interesting choose-your-own-adventure graphic novel, and an adequate Holmes story.
The LIFE magazine special, the penultimate item in the collection, is worth highlighting just because I wanted this for years after seeing it at the supermarket and deciding it was too expensive, and hoping that I might score it cheaper somehow. I should have bought it, although in a way it worked out just as well. I ended up wishing for years that I might somehow obtain “the one that got away,” and at last to my surprise the publisher put a new printing into stores earlier this year. It was at least as expensive as ever, but I grabbed a copy. I have to say, it didn’t disappoint. In terms of editorial content, it’s nothing special; a stroll through the history of Sherlock Holmes the literary phenomenon (emphasizing the years during Doyle’s lifetime). Very competently written, but not a lot new for me. Yet it’s a wonderful artifact, lavishly designed, almost a soft-cover coffee table book. This too gave me a brief experience of happiness.
Item 96, Observations by Gaslight, I obtained only this month; an internet purchase, it arrived June 4. Having committed myself by early this year to some course of action which would involve departing without most (or all) of my possessions, I had not expected to add any more to the collection. But… without getting too far into another subject, I will just note that it’s hard at the end. Again, we thought late Spring 2020 was distressing, but wow how innocent that time seems now.
So I added one more item, a new one from Lindsay Faye. I have her two previous Holmes books as well. I think that The Whole Art of Detection is the best, and among the better class of Holmes pastiches in general. I would probably need to spend more time with the other two before deciding which is second-best, but Observations by Gaslight is good. I read it quickly and have no regrets about closing this 11-year project (among other things) with it.
As for the future, well, I wrote an entire book in some sense about how remarkable it was that one particular book collection has survived together and substantially intact almost four centuries after its founder’s demise. I indulge in some small hope that my brother, who has shown some interest in the character, might take the collection at least to browse. Probably it will end up in a secondhand shop, however, and sooner rather than later. It could just end up in a dump; I don’t know. You can’t take it with you, and it’s complicated to arrange new homes for things even without the additional complication of a reason which it’s taboo to mention. Oh well.
“Is not all life pathetic and futile? Is not his story a microcosm of the whole? We reach. We grasp. And what is left in our hands at the end? A shadow. Or worse than a shadow—misery.” (Sherlock Holmes, in “The Retired Colourman”)
