THE WORLD OF SHERLOCK HOLMES

by Michael Harrison ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1975

Harrison, who twice before has carried on investigations into the personal and professional life of the Great Sleuth of Baker Street (In the Footsteps of Sherlock Holmes; The London of Sherlock Holmes), renews his attempt to penetrate the maddening discretion of Dr. Watson. His deductions from the Sacred Canon, though fruitful, are labored and pedantic. Harrison establishes Holmes as the third and youngest son of Siger Holmes, captain in the East India cavalry; he settles--at least to his own satisfaction--the persistent quarrel over Holmes' university career by ingeniously proving that Holmes attended both Oxford and Cambridge, but graduated from neither. Before moving with Watson to the beloved Baker Street domicile, Holmes ""had rooms"" at 26 Montague Street, Bloomsbury. From this small piece of Watsonian intelligence Harrison deduces that there was a Mrs. Holmes who proved ""unsuitable."" Harrison ventures no theories on how this unfortunate marriage came to pass and hard-core Sherlockians will be loath to accept a respectable woman in the great detective's life (even Harrison acknowledges Holmes' attraction to flashy strumpets like Irene Adler). More generally, Harrison sets Holmes' progress against the ""inventions and social improvements"" of Victorian England--telephone, telegraph, phonograph, incandescent light. And yet, one may wonder whether indeed Holmes, the man for all seasons, the unconventional rebel, the loner, was ""the most typical Victorian of them all"" as Harrison would have us believe. Harrison somehow makes Holmes the cocaine-user, Holmes the man of a thousand disguises, into a Tory fuddy-duddy fighting off the machinations of the Devilish Foreigner while adulating frowzy Queen Victoria. We reject this straight-laced Holmes, this narrow British chauvinist. Holmes' political leanings deserve a less partisan study--and we're sure that it won't be long before his true colors are revealed.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1975

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Dutton

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1975

Categories: FICTION