Sherlock Holmes Great War Parodies and Pastiches I Read online

  Welcome to 223B Baker Street

  The debut of Sherlock Holmes in the pages of “The Strand” magazine introduced one of fiction’s most memorable heroes. Arthur Conan Doyle’s spellbinding tales of mystery and detection, along with Holmes’ deep friendship with Doctor Watson, touched the hearts of fans worldwide, and inspired imitations, parodies, songs, art, even erotica, that continues to this very day.

  “Sherlock Holmes Great War Parodies and Pastiches I: 1910-1914” collects 43 pieces—short stories, poems, and cartoons—published during this stage of Conan Doyle’s literary career. Also included are much of the original art and more than 340 footnotes identifying obscure words, historical figures, and events that readers were familiar with at the time.

  Peschel Press’ 223B Casebook series—named because they’re “next door” to the original stories—is dedicated to publishing the fanfiction created by amateur and professional writers during Conan Doyle’s lifetime. Each book covers an era, publication, or writer, and includes lively mini-essays containing insights into the work, Conan Doyle, and those who were inspired by him.

  A lifelong fan of mysteries, and Sherlock Holmes in particular, Bill Peschel is a former award-winning journalist living in Hershey. He is the annotator of novels by Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers, publisher of the three-volume Rugeley Poisoner series, and author of “Writers Gone Wild” (Penguin).

  For more info on my books or to sign up for my newsletter, visit me at PeschelPress.com.

  Goodreads

  BookBub

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Welcome to 223B Baker Street

  Title Page

  Introduction

  How the Book Was Organized

  Acknowledgements

  1910

  Sherlock Bones, Editor / Anonymous

  Detective Work on the Ferry / “Herlock Sholmes”

  Sherlock Holmes / “Uncle Walt” (Walt Mason)

  Sherlock Holmes Redivivus / “A. Cannon Doily”

  Surelock Homes’ Waterloo / George M. Johnson

  Sherlocko the Monk / Gus Mager

  The Adventure of the Rubber Pipe / E.J. Line

  Herlock’s One Mistake / Henry A. Hering

  Why I Jilted Nan / Helen Gillespie

  1911

  The Mystery of the Missing Pawn / H.T. Dickinson

  The Return of Herlock Sholmes: The Case of the Missing Name Plates / “A. Donan Coyle”

  In Baker Street / Ralph Bingham

  From the Diary of Sherlock Holmes / Maurice Baring

  Holmes’ Untold Adventure / Thomas J. Gray

  The Adventure of the Lost Manuscripts / Edmund L. Pearson

  The Sleuths / O. Henry

  The Adventures of Shamrock Jolnes / O. Henry

  Maddened by Mystery: or, The Defective Detective / Stephen Leacock

  The Case of the Man Who Was Wanted / Arthur Whitaker

  Sparks from the Troubleman’s Department / L.A. Robbins

  The Duchess of Quinton’s Diamonds / Frank Richardson

  M(ainly) A(bout) D(uchesses) / Frank Richardson

  1912

  The Adventure of the Mona Lisa / Carolyn Wells

  The Death of Sherlock Holmes / Anonymous

  Sure Way to Catch Every Criminal. Ha! Ha! / Carolyn Wells

  The Mystery of the Missing Shirt / A.E. Swoyer

  Sherlock Holmes Jr. Locates a Bomb Thrower / Robert Sidney Smith

  The Arsene Lepine-Herlock Soames Affair / S. Beach Chester

  1913

  The Adventure of the Lost Baby / Carolyn Wells

  The Mystery of the Three Grey Pellets / “Not by Sherlock Holmes” (Laurence Kirk)

  Sherlock Holmes and the Drood Mystery / Edmund L. Pearson

  The Episode of the Bold Bad Undergraduate and the Postage Stamps / “P”

  Latest-Desiccated Detective Stories, Boiled to the Bone / “A. Conning Goil”

  How the Great Detective-Editor Solves a Chinese Murder Mystery / “Ole Doc Watson”

  Raggs’ Weekly Letter / Anonymous

  Some Adventures of Mr. Surelock Keys / Herbert Beeman

  The Indiscretions of Dr. Carstairs / “A. De O.”

  1914

  The Adventure of the Strange Sound / Murray Marble

  Sherlock Holmes Solves Mystery of Missing Platinum at University / “Boswell Whatson”

  The Mystery of the Elastic Band / Anonymous

  The Mystery of the Acetylene Lamp / Anonymous

  Three Timelock Foams Stories / Wex Jones

  The Terrors of War / N.R. Martin

  Our Man in Tangier / Bill Peschel

  About the Editor

  Bibliography

  “Our Man in Tangier” Bibliography

  Footnotes

  Copyright Page

  Introduction

  The title of this collection is something of a dodge. The Edwardian period ended with the death of King Edward VII, “Bertie” to his friends and many mistresses, in 1910. His brother George V succeeded him, but nobody calls this the Georgian period. The Great War appears only in the last year of this volume—the last five months to be precise—so it could more accurately be called the Edwardian III book. But I hate that it spoils the symmetry of the series, and wars do not begin from an isolated point, but build up over years until a spark sets the powder keg alight. Europe was preparing for the next war by this time, and Conan Doyle rang the alarm to get his country’s military to adopt the new technologies of airships and submarines, as well as his own ideas. War was in the air, so for that reason and my desire for symmetry, I chose to call this the first Great War volume.

  This book represents the end of an era. After this, to the usual parade of crimes and domestic concerns, Holmes and Watson will confront the war, from conscription and food rationing on the home front to trench fighting and prisoner-of-war camps. It will take many years for many writers to forget the horror and stresses of those times; some never will.

  How the Book Was Organized

  The 223B Casebook Series has two goals: To reprint the majority of the parodies and pastiches published in Conan Doyle’s lifetime, especially rare items not readily available, and stories collected about a single subject, such as The Early Punch Parodies of Sherlock Holmes.

  The stories in the chronological books appear in the order in which readers of the time would have seen them. This way, we can see how writers changed their perception of Sherlock as the canonical stories were published. Stories for which dates could not be found, such as those published in books, were moved to the back of the year.

  Each chapter begins with a description of Conan Doyle’s activities that year. I tried to keep the essays self-contained, but some events, such as Conan Doyle’s longtime relationship with Jean Leckie, span years, and you may need to read the essays in previous books in the series to fully understand them.

  The stories were reprinted as accurately as possible. No attempt was made to standardize British and American spelling. Some words have undergone changes over the years—“Shakespere” instead of “Shakespeare” and “to-morrow” for “tomorrow”—they were left alone. Obvious mistakes of spelling and grammar were silently corrected, except in certain stated cases, and solid blocks of paragraphs were broken up to aid readability.

  Acknowledgements

  As each volume went to press, I’m reminded again of how many people helped make this series larger and better than I could have done alone. Research assistant Scott Harkless provided rare and crucial stories. Denise Phillips at Hershey Public Library worked hard to acquire the books and articles I asked for. Peter Bla
u generously shared the fruits of his researches. Charles Press provided me with a shopping list from his Parodies and Pastiches Buzzing ’Round Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and happily filled in the gaps with extremely rare items from his researches.

  Adrian Nebbett supplied a clean typescript and art for “The Adventure of the Lost Baby.”

  Then there are the writers whose books led the way: Otto Penzler for The Big Book of Sherlock Holmes Stories; Bill Blackbeard for Sherlock Holmes in America; Frederic Dannay and Manfred Lee (“Ellery Queen”) for their ill-fated The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes; Philip K. Jones for his massive (10,000 entries!) database of Sherlockian pastiches, parodies, and related fiction; John Gibson and Richard Lancelyn Green for My Evening With Sherlock Holmes and The Uncollected Sherlock Holmes; Paul D. Herbert for The Sincerest Form of Flattery; Peter Ridgway Watt and Joseph Green for The Alternative Sherlock Holmes: Pastiches, Parodies and Copies; The Sciolist Press, Donald K. Pollock, and the other editors behind The Baker Street Miscellanea.

  By digitizing the nation’s newspapers and making them searchable, The National Library of Australia enabled me to find previously unknown parodies and research their local references so we can appreciate what was going on in New South Wales, Mudgee, and Perth.

  A great effort was made to determine the copyright status of these pieces and obtain permission to publish from the rightful copyright holders. If I have made a mistake, please contact me so that I may rectify the error.

  Finally, my love to Teresa, wielder of the red pen and owner of my heart.

  Got parody?: If you have an uncollected Sherlock Holmes story that was published between 1888 and 1930, please let me know the title and author. If I don’t have it and can use it, you’ll earn a free trade paperback of the book it’ll appear in plus an acknowledgement inside! Email me at [email protected] or write to Peschel Press, P.O. Box 132, Hershey, PA 17033-0132.

  Get the newsletter: If you want to learn more about my books, my researches and the media I eat, sign up for the Peschel Press newsletter. You’ll get a chatty letter occasionally about what we’re publishing plus a glimpse behind the scenes at a growing publishing house. Visit either www.planetpeschel.com or www.peschelpress.com and look for the sign-up box.

  Arthur Conan Doyle in 1910.

  1910

  At 50, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was as energetic and active as when he was a young doctor at Southsea. He was happily married to his 35-year-old second wife, Jean. They had already begun his second family in March 1909 with the birth of Denis, and would add his brother, Adrian, in November 1910. After having to keep their relationship a secret for nearly a dozen years, Conan Doyle must have felt invigorated at these signs of a new life.

  The only reminders of his past were the children from his first marriage, and they were kept away from Windlesham as much as feasible. Approaching twenty-one, Mary was in Dresden studying music and singing, while Kingsley was educated at Eton with an eye toward a career in medicine. In the coming years, they would be reminded frequently that their father’s attitude towards them depended much on their stepmother. “It is Jean and not Daddy with whom I shall have to reckon with,” Mary wrote to her brother.

  Meanwhile, Conan Doyle kept up his public campaigns against the atrocities in the Belgian Congo and for reforms in divorce law. He also became a theatre impresario. After The Fires of Fate failed in 1909, he couldn’t find a manger to take on his play, The House of Temperley, which demanded 43 actors, multiple sets, and a long bare-knuckle boxing match. So Conan Doyle took a six-month lease of the Adelphi Theatre and financed it himself. His investment ran into the thousands of pounds. He bought antique furniture and props from the Regency period. To make the fighting as realistic as possible, he hired a military boxing instructor to coach the actors, one of whom lost a tooth and broke a finger and a rib during the run.

  The play opened on Feb. 10 to a curious and packed house. The audience sat quietly through the love story involving Sir Charles Temperley, the gambler who bets his fortune and honor on the climactic boxing match. Conan Doyle was worried until the boxing match electrified the crowd, and one reviewer noted “the play obtained the heartiest first-night reception of any of the year.” When a beaming Conan Doyle appeared for the ovation, he was certain he had another success.

  But attendance dropped off once word spread of the realistic in-ring violence. “Ladies were afraid to come,” Conan Doyle wrote, “and imagined it would be a brutal spectacle.” To fix the problem, Conan Doyle added a one-act curtain-raiser. A Pot of Caviare was a grim ironic tale of a group of Europeans besieged by rebellious Chinese Boxers. One of its members, believing that the relief force in the distance would not arrive in time, poisons the delicacy to preserve their women’s dignity, only to see rescue arriving after all.

  Hoping to attract women to a violent boxing play by adding a downer opener about the threat of rape during wartime is a curious gamble that failed. Then King Edward VII died on May 6. “Bertie” had spent most of his life as a pleasure-seeking prince. Queen Victoria believed he was unfit to rule, but he proved to be a surprisingly capable ruler. In his nine years on the throne, he lent his name to a style of dress and a historical era.

  With the theatres closed during the funeral and month-long mourning period, Conan Doyle had to think fast and work hard to fix what he called a “difficult—almost a desperate—situation.”

  In the meantime, he agreed to report on Bertie’s funeral for the Daily Mail and The New York Times. Unbeknownst to everyone, it turned out to be the last gathering of the old order. Nine kings attended, plus dozens of princes and princesses. Conan Doyle watched them ride to Paddington Station to take the train for the funeral service at Windsor. The parade of royalty was led by two of Queen Victoria’s grandchildren: George V and his cousin, the German Kaiser Wilhelm II.

  Also there was former president Theodore Roosevelt, who had been appointed special ambassador to represent the U.S. Conan Doyle later spent time with the boisterous Teddy, “a very loud hearty man with a peculiar wild-beast toothy grin” who was also a Sherlock Holmes fan. At Teddy’s speech at London’s Guildhall, he heard him lecture Britain on its need to maintain control of its colonial empire as a major source of international stability. As he worked his way through the crowds afterwards, he spotted Conan Doyle and shouted: “I say, I let them have it that time, didn’t I!” Conan Doyle agreed. “A calculated indiscretion,” he wrote later, “and very welcome.”

  When he wasn’t enjoying Teddy’s company, Conan Doyle was furiously working on salvaging his investment. In a few weeks, he wrote and cast a new play, this time starring his reliable money-maker, Holmes. He called it The Stonor Case, but he was persuaded to change it to a more popular title. When the curtain rose June 4, The Speckled Band debuted. Conan Doyle was unhappy with the play. He had created a villain that outshone Holmes, and he had trouble finding a serpent, real or mechanical, that suited him. But the play recovered the £5,000 he had lost on Temperley, and a success was a success. He also learned his lesson: The best way to invest in the theatre, he advised a friend, was with someone else’s money.

  Publications: Holmes stories: “The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot” (Dec.). Other: “The Marriage of the Brigadier” (last Gerard story; Sept.)

  Newspaper illustration showing scenes from The Speckled Band.

  Sherlock Bones, Editor

  He Applies Deduction to Manuscripts and Surprises Watson

  Anonymous

  Many writers wonder what makes an editor prefer one short-story over another. Is it the length? The reputation of the writer? The quality of the paper it’s printed on? Whatever standards editors use, I’m sure they do not follow the method as explained by managing editor Sherlock Bones to his literary editor Watson. This story is from the New York Sun newspaper of Jan. 16.

  “I hardly find it necessary to read a manuscript now, at least in the first instance,” said Sherlock Bones, who had taken to editing a magazine. “Somehow by
the look, I might almost say the touch of a manuscript, I can judge of its suitability for our magazine. Briefly, I call it intuition. Much in the same way that a bank cashier can detect a false bill passing through his hands, an editor should instinctively feel the wrong note in a manuscript as applied to his particular publication.”

  Just then the literary editor entered with a contribution. Mr. Bones had been engaged in studying a manuscript folder through a pocket lens. He glanced in the literary editor’s direction.

  “I see, Watson,” he remarked, “our contributor follows the rules, also that the entry clerk is becoming negligent.”

  An expression of surprise swept over the literary editor’s face.

  “Why, how do you know that, Mr. Bones?” he asked.

  Mr. Bones tossed the lens on the desk and leaning back in his chair joined the fingertips of both hands together.

  “Briefly, Watson, in the simplest manner possible. When you entered, a two-cent stamp dropped to the floor. It was undoubtedly attached to the manuscript. That proves the contributor understands the rules. That it was not removed by the entry clerk also, I am afraid, proves a certain slackness in the staff.”

  The literary editor smiled faintly.

  “We have a new contributor here,” remarked the literary editor, placing the manuscript in the managing editor’s hand. “I think he’s worth encouraging.”

  The managing editor barely ran his fingers through the sheets, looked sharply at the last page, and after passing the manuscript before his face returned it to the literary editor.

  “On the contrary, Watson, the usual printed slip will, I hope, discourage him. The hero of the story is, I presume, a rollicking fellow.”

  “Why, yes, somewhat so, but—”