Series: II - The game is Afoot

Sherlock Holmes

by

 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 

The subject of only four novels and a smattering of short stories, Sherlock Holmes managed to cement himself in the collective conscience of a large portion of the civilized world. He was often the object of scorn by his frustrated creator, but it didn't seem to faze him in the least.

Some say that he was the greatest detective ever. Others believed that only a thin shroud separated him from the greatest of evils. But all seem to see in him something of themselves.

I ran across another argument about which Sherlock Holmes series happens to be the best. The bulk of the discussion focused on which of them managed to stayed true to the original Conan Doyle 'vision.'

Oh, the irony!

(Have you ever noticed how few people actually understand the meaning of that word?)

You see, if you actually go back and reread the original stories, not one book, movie, or series in existence can really claim to be true to the original. Not one.

Last year I reread the entire cannon, and it reminded me how much I enjoy the real Holmes. Modern writers who take on the Holmes mythos always seem to find something wrong, missing, or lacking in the great detective, and rewrite him and his compatriots accordingly. (Some more successfully than others.)

We spend so much time these days with the stories as interpreted by others, in movies and television, that it is easy to loose track of the originals; and it is well worth taking the time to reacquaint ourselves. Most interpretations tend to focus in on a small selection of details to the exclusion of the larger picture. In this way Sherlock Holmes becomes just what the story teller needs him to be, and it also says a great deal about her/his own psyche.

Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

Novels: A Study in Scarlet * The Sign of Four * The Hound of the Baskervilles * The Valley of Fear *

Short Story Collections: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes * The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes * The Return of Sherlock Holmes * His Last Bow * The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes * The Complete Sherlock Holmes Short Stories *

Some Other Sherlock Holmes Treats

* Auguste Lupa - John Lescroart * Mary Russell - Laurie R. King * The Baker Street Letters - Michael Robertson * Sherlock Homes - Adrian Conan Doyle * Arthur Conan Doyle Series - Mark Frost *

Elementary      *      Sherlock

*  The Sherlock Holmes Page  *

A Lay of the Links

by Arthur Conan Doyle 
 

It’s up and away from our work to-day,

    For the breeze sweeps over the down;

And it’s hey for a game where the gorse blossoms flame,

    And the bracken is bronzing to brown.

With the turf ’neath our tread and the blue overhead,

    And the song of the lark in the whin;

There’s the flag and the green, with the bunkers between—

    Now will you be over or in?

The doctor may come, and we’ll teach him to know

    A tee where no tannin can lurk;

The soldier may come, and we’ll promise to show

    Some hazards a soldier may shirk;

The statesman may joke, as he tops every stroke,

    That at last he is high in his aims;

And the clubman will stand with a club in his hand

    That is worth every club in St. James’.

The palm and the leather come rarely together,

    Gripping the driver’s haft,

And it’s good to feel the jar of the steel

    And the spring of the hickory shaft.

Why trouble or seek for the praise of a clique?

    A cleek here is common to all;

And the lie that might sting is a very small thing

    When compared with the lie of the ball.

Come youth and come age, from the study or stage,

    From Bar or from Bench—high and low!

A green you must use as a cure for the blues—

    You drive them away as you go.

We’re outward bound on a long, long round,

    And it’s time to be up and away:

If worry and sorrow come back with the morrow,

    At least we’ll be happy to-day.