wytchcroft

i've been working out a list of my favourite Sherlock Holmes tales (not as easy as it sounds!) - not necessarily the best dozen but those which i can read and re-read with undiminished pleasure despite the passage of time.

the illustrious client - casebook
the devil's foot - last bow
the red headed league - adventures
the dancing men - return
charles augustus milverton - return
the greek interpreter - memoirs
the bruce partington plans - last bow
the man with the twisted lip - adventures
the final problem - memoirs
the lion's mane - casebook
the cardboard box - memoirs
a scandal in bohemia - adventures

As for which stories i dislike... well there are a few of course, considering the number of stories, the time span in writing (30 odd years) and the circumstances of their composition it would be impossible for there NOT to be a few duds. 

However, there is a story that i dislike strongly but which is often touted as one of the very best in the canon: The Speckled Band, that melodramatic blot on the Holmesian copybook.

Here's why:

… or The Adventure of the Chattering Teeth.

An interesting day, if I do say so myself.

There I am doing the wytchy rounds of sundry drab public offices, all for some housing related reasons too dull to describe, but wait – things pick up of a sudden when a complete stranger in the seat next to me falls into conversation and we get to talking, talking about Sherlock Holmes.

Why? I have no idea, (at the risk of sounding like Tony from the second season of Skins) I don’t remember. But, mostly due to the intelligent stranger, it was a really fascinating chat about the nature of Holmes and Watson as people, their different attributes and characters, and why they so clearly needed each other.

The Adventure of the Holy Terrors:

Over the years some few cases brought to conclusion by Mr Sherlock Holmes whilst still in the callow blush of his early manhood have become a matter of public record, both through my efforts as biographer and by various journalists and members of the literary press; such cases as the Gloria Scott and The Musgrave Ritual.

However, such scattered anecdotes aside, the background and personal history of my esteemed companion have remained as much a mystery, as abstruse a puzzle, as any of his famous cases. It was indeed fortunate therefore that having been driven into the attic by a mixture of boredom and the frustrations of the early March gales, I once again obtained some insight into the early career and personality of my friend.

I have remarked elsewhere, that such humble efforts as I have made to chronicle the cases of my friend Sherlock Holmes, were met, despite the widening they caused to both his reputation and his clientele, by the Detective himself with at best a shrug and at worst a diatribe on the folly of romanticism and the need for cold objectivity; the application of which would produce something resembling lecture notes – or perhaps his own abstruse monographs. ( Read More... )