The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories Part II Read Online Free

Street Journal , for always responding so nicely whenever one of my emails drops in from out of the blue.
    Matthew Elliott , for all that he’s done, and also for helping with the description of what he’s accomplishing at Imagination Theatre.
    Maxim Jakubowski , who introduced me to a great new set of people.
    Mark Gagen , who gave me permission to use that absolutely perfect picture of Holmes on the back cover.
    And last but certainly not least, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle : Author, doctor, adventurer, and the Founder of the Feast. Present in spirit, and honored by all of us here.
    This collection has been a labor of love by both the participants and myself. Everyone did their sincerest best to produce an anthology that truly represents why Holmes and Watson have been so popular for so long. This is just another tiny piece of the Great Holmes Tapestry, which will continue to grow and grow, for there can never be enough stories about the man whom Watson described as “the best and wisest... whom I have ever known.”
    David Marcum
    August 7 th , 2015
    163 rd Birthday of Dr. John H. Watson
    Questions or comments may be addressed to David Marcum at [email protected]

Study and Natural Talent
    by Roger Johnson
    Greenhough Smith, editor of The Strand Magazine , hailed Arthur Conan Doyle as “the greatest natural storyteller of his age”. Over a century on, Conan Doyle’s genius keeps us reading, and, because many of us feel that sixty adventures of Sherlock Holmes just aren’t enough, we write as well. The original tales are exciting and often ingenious; they’re intelligent without being patronising, and they’re never pretentious. The characters of Holmes and Watson - the apparently contrary forces that actually complement each other like Yin and Yang - stimulate our imaginations. Surely every devotee believes that the world needs more stories of Sherlock Holmes, and as, barring a true miracle, there’ll be no more from his creator’s fondly wielded Parker Duofold pen, we should provide at least one or two ourselves. We know the originals inside-out, or we think we do; we have a grand idea for a plot, and the style seems to be - well - elementary. How hard can it be?
    In fact it’s a sight harder than most of us think. Believe me: I know! To set a story convincingly in late Victorian or Edwardian London can require a fair deal of research just to avoid simple anachronisms and similar errors of fact. There are aspects of personality that may need careful attention - not just Holmes and Watson, but other established characters such as Messrs Lestrade and Gregson, and Mrs. Hudson (who really was the landlady at 221B, and not the housekeeper). Vocabulary and speech-patterns are important...
    Some will say, of course, that it’s impossible to replicate the Doyle-Watson style. Nevertheless, there are writers who have come acceptably close to the real thing. Edgar W. Smith declared that The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes by Adrian Conan Doyle and John Dickson Carr should be re-titled Sherlock Holmes Exploited , but it is actually a remarkably good collection. Nicholas Meyer, L. B. Greenwood, Barrie Roberts, and Michael Hardwick are other names that come to mind, of authors who have, as Holmes himself said in a different context, applied both study and natural talent to the writing of new Sherlock Holmes adventures. For the current monumental collection, conceived and published for the benefit of the house that saw the rebirth of the great detective, David Marcum has coaxed stories from the best of today’s generation of Holmesian chroniclers. Some of the contributors are famous, and some perhaps are destined for fame, but all of them bring intelligence, knowledge, understanding and deep affection to the task - and we are the gainers.
    Roger Johnson, BSI, ASH
    Editor: The Sherlock Holmes Journal
    August 2015

Foreword
    by Catherine Cooke
    It all depends on your point