More Holmes trivia than you can shake a stick, or a pipe, at.

Anyone who is a fan of Sherlock Holmes would be estatic to read this new edition. So many facts and elements to get into not only Sir Arthur Conan Doyles head but to also understand the time period. Sherlock Holmes has never been read better..

"Hurry Watson! The games afoot!!" What's not to love.

THE CASE OF THE ANNOTATED DETECTIVE


"So what did you make of it?"

"Well, it's a handsome volume, Holmes. I think a fitting tribute to the many cases you've solved over the years."

"No more than that, Watson? Come come, what of this man Klinger?"

"The annotator?"

"Precisely."

"Well, he seems a trifle fussy, a bit like an over-eager terrier jumping up and barking all the time. But he's also very knowledgeable."

"Anything else? You know my methods."

"Now Holmes, I know you just wish to bamboozle me again – let's have it."

"Did you not observe that Mr Klinger has a stoop, has suffered from pneumonia, and recently returned from a trip to the Caribbean? Also that he has a daughter but no sons, his favourite tipple is cointreau, and his wife is thinking of leaving him."

"Ah, now I know you are pulling my leg, Holmes."

"Not a bit of it…" [Holmes then continues with an unlikely series of outrageous deductions, assumptions and inferences which would explode the brain of any passing logician.]

***

This is a very curious volume and well deserves a little investigation. I have come to the following tentative conclusions.

1. It is by far the most beautiful book I have had the pleasure of actually reading. As you turn the exquisitely printed pages and feast upon the abundant illustrations and photographs, you feel like the Prince of Readers. At last you're in first class! Wow, the leg room and the service! For lovers of the physicality of books, the smell, the heft, the font, the flyleaves, the whole kit and caboodle of a book, this edition is very heaven.

2. This is the HEAVILY ANNOTATED Sherlock, but also it's the MORE THAN SLIGHTLY DEMENTED Sherlock. The whole of the annotating enterprise is built on a crazy foundation, as follows :

The reader of these volumes will not find reference to the literary sourcers of the stories or to biographical inidents in the life of Sir Arthur that may be reflected in the canon. I perpetuate the gentle fiction that Holmes and Watson really lived and that (except as noted) Dr John H Watson wrote the stories about Sherlock Holmes, even though he graciously allowed them to be published under the byline of his colleague and literary agent Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

This "gentle fiction" leads the jovial Sherlockians into many Byzantine attempts to make the fictional world consistent with itself. I see this as a tiresome, blokeish and wholly unnecessary pursuit; they see it as a hugely amusing "game" (their word.) Given that Conan Doyle did not have the benefit of a computer database housing every last detail of every last story, there are many loose ends and contradictions in the stories. The Sherlockians have been writing umpteen learned essays in the last 100 years trying to resolve all this stuff. It's all slightly barmy. About half of the annotations, then, are useless for the reader who does not want to participate in the "gentle fiction" that Holmes was real.

An example of what they get up to from p 184 - the text reads

He took off his coat and waistcoat, and put on a large blue dressing-gown

This is annotated as follows

In "The Blue Carbuncle" Holmes wears a purple dressing gown; in "The Empty House" and "The Bruce-Partington Plans" he sports a "mouse-coloured" gown. Whether Holmes owned three dressing gowns or one is addressed by Christopher Morley : "This particular gown was blue when new… It had gone purple by the time of "The Blue Carbuncle". During the long absence 1891-1894, when Mrs Hudson faithfully aired and sunned it in the back yard, it faded to mouse.

3. Another very noticeable and very curious aspect of these Sherlockian annotations is their occasional attempts to undermine Holmes' unique deductions. You might think that fans would frown on this sort of thing, but no, they are eager to point out how ridiculous or plain wrong their hero is :

There are numerous improbabilities in this line of reasoning, helpfully desconstructed by JB Mackenzie in 1902. First, it would seem unnecessary for this individual to bring his hat upstairs at all etc etc … it is a bit rash to assume etc etc

4. However, the half of the non-silly annotations are great – in a short succession of pages you will get, for instance, potted histories of English assize courts, the role of coroners, what constituted a legal marriage in England, the Australian gold rush, diabetes, the Ku Klux Klan, the Thames water police, the Opium Wars and the use of opium in England, London Bridge, bowler hats, Christmas, Christmas cards, whether big heads = big brains = great intellect, Elizabeth Browning, the Bloomsbury Group and very numerous capsule histories of places in London like Covent Garden, Shoreditch and the British Museum. All of this is most delightful.

Therefore, taking all in all - 5 stars and a perfect Xmas present for the old buffer in your life



******************


PREVIOUSLY

In Waterstones yesterday, my vacant gaze fell upon a large oblong I initially took to be part of the shop furnishings. But it wasn't, it was this. It's big. It's nearly bigger than big. They had a copy I could peruse. So with the help of a few sturdy fellow browsers, I wrestled one of the volumes out of its box (they come in a box which if you put four legs on it you could have your dinner off it) and flipped open the pages. Lushness and vibrancy filled my eyes and my brain. There were pictures (not all by the same damned illustrator) and there was typography which had clearly been selected and honed by a rare typographer of authority and grace. There were annotations, by the pailful, the kind of mentalist let's pretend Sherlock Holmes is real sort of thing. More fun than putting your arm into a tank of piranhas with phds (they discuss your arm at length before they eat it). So I will be getting this. Even though my shelves groan with unread books. I know you understand my pain. I could not not get this.

AMAZING. That is all.

Have read all of Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and probably others as well, just never bothered to put them in to amazon or goodreads, so dates wrong. Some KU some paperback some hardback some collections.

Decided to take on the reading of the complete canon of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and Dr. James Watson. I'm very glad to have done so via the annotated versions (this is the first of three volumes). The annotated versions allow you to understand archaic Victorian terms and context of the stories - which is incredibly handy and makes thorough understanding of the stories possible. I can't wait to start on volume 2!

A completely justified classic. Wonderful, well played out plots, and one of the greatest characters literature has produced.

If you've never read the Sherlock Holmes canon this is NOT the place to start. You're better off going with a more portable, straightforward edition without all the notes. But if you're a hardcore fan this is an awesome book. You'll be amazed at the attention to detail and the contortions the editors go to make some sort of continuity ouf of Conan Doyle's stories.

A lot of excellent background information, but for people who claim to love the stories, the annotators don't half spend a lot of time finding fault with them, picking holes in the details or in Holmes' methods...

Took me two years to read both volumes. Beautiful edition. A complete rendition of Holmes stories (and kind-of wacky annotations)

Awesome!! As a dedicated Sherlockian I cannot recomend this set high enough.The research alone that went into these 3 volumes must have taken years. Not to mention the stories themselves. There are very few books ever written that people still read for pleasure that are this old. I give this twelve stars out of five.