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I’m unsure if there are many Holmes fans on here but I’m sure that most have read at least one story from the Canon (probably The Hound?) For anyone reluctant to simply dive back in and read one of the 56 short stories or the 4 longer ones I’d like to recommend dipping a toe into the world of the pastiche as you’ll never run short of a Holmes story to read. Of course they are of a varying standard but it’s not difficult to locate the good ones and some are far better than simply ‘good.’ Most of the ones that I’ve read I’d class as at leat ‘good.’ It might appear to be sacrilegious but many pastiches imo are better than some of the Canonical stories (some of which acknowledged to have been of a poorer standard) So I’d like to add a couple of recommendations. The standard is high.
MX publishing have produced many collections of excellent pastiches collated by a real Holmes expert called David Marcum. This is his excellent blog
He also writes pastiches himself, not only of Holmes but also Solar Pons. His favourite pasticheur is Denis O. Smith and I certainly would argue with him on that score. I’ve recently been trying to get all of his stories as they are brilliant. He captures everything that we love about Holmes stories. The only thing to keep an eye out for is the fault of publishers. They tend to produce volumes occasionally with stories that can be found in other volumes so it’s easy to fall into the trap of buying a collection od say 10 stories, 4 or 5 of which you may already have read elsewhere.
So if you love Sherlock Holmes or if you ‘used’ to like Holmes but stopped after reading the Canon I’d recommend dipping your toes into the world of the pastiche. More than worthwhile imo.
MX publishing have produced many collections of excellent pastiches collated by a real Holmes expert called David Marcum. This is his excellent blog
He also writes pastiches himself, not only of Holmes but also Solar Pons. His favourite pasticheur is Denis O. Smith and I certainly would argue with him on that score. I’ve recently been trying to get all of his stories as they are brilliant. He captures everything that we love about Holmes stories. The only thing to keep an eye out for is the fault of publishers. They tend to produce volumes occasionally with stories that can be found in other volumes so it’s easy to fall into the trap of buying a collection od say 10 stories, 4 or 5 of which you may already have read elsewhere.
So if you love Sherlock Holmes or if you ‘used’ to like Holmes but stopped after reading the Canon I’d recommend dipping your toes into the world of the pastiche. More than worthwhile imo.