David Marcum

Once more the most successful of pastiche-detectives, Solar Pons, walks on stage with a new sequence of adventures. In this fourth major collection, Solar Pons is engaged with an intriguing variety of problems - the curious puzzle of the antique sovereign boxes narrated in the novelette, "The Adventure of the Mosaic Cylinders"; the sanguine riddle of the body in the thirteenth coffin told in "The Adventure of the Mazarine Blue"; the perplexing matter of the man devoted to British bowlers - "The Adventure of the Hats of M. Dulac"; the incredible plot to foment a religious war - "The Adventure of the Black Cardinal"; the disturbing facts in the murder of a psychic client - "The Adventure of the Blind Clairaudient" - and others. Solar Pons has won a place for himself among the outstanding exponents of the deductive. Almost two decades ago Vincent Starrett hailed his initial adventures as "the best substitutes for Sherlock Holmes known to this reviewer." The stories in this book - like their predecessors - are, as Ney MacMinn put it in The Chicago Tribune, much more than imitations - "an excellent series of adventures in detection in their own right." Here once again is the atmosphere of Baker Street and the London of Sherlock Holmes.

This long-awaited second collection of pastiches of the immortal Sherlock Holmes offers eleven new adventures of Solar Pons, who has been called by Vincent Starrett "a clever impersonator, with a twinkle in his eye, which tells us that he knows he is not Sherlock Holmes, and knows that we know it, but that he hopes we will like him anyway for what he symbolizes." Here are such fascinating stories as "The Adventure of the Paralytic Mendicant", an account of as unique a vengeance as was ever perpetrated between boards; "The Adventure of the Circular Room", a tale of a diabolic plot which will rouse many a memory of the old Master; the complex puzzle which will be of particular interest to bibliophiles told in the Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine Contest prizewinning "The Adventure of the Six Silver Spiders"; the curious affair which is "The Adventure of the Tottenham Werewolf'; and others which will bring back old, long-vanished Baker Street days. Once again in the London of years ago "the game is afoot." Certainly no living writer has brought the Holmesian pastiche to a higher development than this. There is very little difference, indeed, in the atmosphere of the stories, once they have begun to unfold; No. 7B Praed Street readily becomes 221B Baker Street; and Solar Pons, attended by his Dr. Lyndon Parker, often becomes curiously interchangeable with the Master of Baker Street and his Watson. "There is no intention to deceive," as Vincent Starrett wrote in his introduction to the first collection. "These nostalgic reminders of vanished days and nights in Baker Street are intended only to please."

Once again in old London, "the game is afoot." In these pastiches of the Sacred Writings, written when he was nineteen and twenty, August Derleth has recreated the London of Sherlock Holmes. It does not matter that the familiar name has become Solar Pons, or that the familiar Baker Street has become Praed Street - something of the nostalgic charm and fascination, of the remembered quickening of the pulse and the familiar settings of the original London of Sherlock Holmes, has been recaptured in these pages. And what intriguing titles there arc to these twelve pastiches, chosen from among a greater number Here are "The Adventure of the Frightened Baronet" - about a spectral image of Siva seen at a country estate beyond London; "The Adventure of the Purloined Periapt" - which is the purest of pastiches and perhaps the closest of all the tales in this book to the original spirit; "The Adventure of the Norcross Riddle" -containing some of the neatest deduction in the book; "The Adventure of the Man with the Broken Face" - a tale of "dark waters"; and eight others. "No doubt," writes Vincent Starrett in his Introduction, "we - and by we, I mean those frantic and incurable Sherlockians who, with August Derleth, deplore the paucity of canonical entertainments - should rather have more of the great originals, but we accept the imitations, faute de mieux, to satisfy a normal appetite. And we accept them with enthusiasm. They are the work of affectionate minds and hands. There is no intention to deceive. These stories, and others in their field, are intended only to please. They are nostalgic reminders of vanished days and nights in Baker Street."

Once again, the adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson continue in this acclaimed anthology series, with thirty-seven new tales presented in two companion volumes - more Holmes than could fit into one book In 2015, The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories was first published, a huge three-book set featuring over sixty new traditional Holmes exploits, all set within the correct time period. Soon, the demand for even more traditional Holmes adventures led to further volumes. The next year brought Part IV: 2016 Annual, and then Part V: Christmas Adventures. In spring 2017 there was Part VI: 2017 Annual, and that fall revealed the massive two-volume set, Parts VII and VIII: Eliminate the Impossible. Now we present another two simultaneous volumes, Parts IX and X: 2018 Annual (1879-1895) and (1896-1916). There can be no argument that Sherlock Holmes is one of the most famous and recognizable figures in the world. There were only sixty narratives brought to us by the original Literary Agent, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Clearly that is not enough. Watson once wrote that he kept his unpublished cases in his old Tin Dispatch Box. Now, with the publication of these latest volumes, that box has again been explored by some of today's best Sherlockian writers, all of whom are donating their royalties from these anthologies toward the restoration of Undershaw, one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's houses, and the location where The Hound of the Baskervilles and many later Holmes stories were completed. Climb the seventeen steps to the sitting room at 221b Baker Street. Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson are waiting . . . . The game is afoot

2017 is the 130th anniversary of the publication of A Study in Scarlet, the first recorded adventure of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John H. Watson. What an amazing journey it's been In addition to the pitifully few sixty tales originally presented in The Canon, published between 1887 and 1927, there have been literally thousands of additional Holmes adventures in the form of books, short stories, radio and television episodes, movies, manuscripts, comics, and fan fiction. And yet, for those who are true friends and admirers of the Master Detective of Baker Street, where it is always 1895 (or a few decades on either side of that ) these stories are not enough. Give us more In March 1998, legendary radio dramatist, producer, writer, director, and founder of Imagination Theatre listened to this request and broadcast the first of an astounding number of Holmes radio shows over their United States network of stations. In the intervening years, 128 original Holmes episodes (and one recently found "lost" episode") were broadcast before Imagination Theatre closed its doors in early 2017. Additionally, the cast and crew performed their version of the entire Holmes Canon between 2005 and 2016, featuring the same actors as Holmes and Watson, (John Patrick Lowrie and Larry Albert, respectively, ) as well as having every script adapted by the same author, M. J. Elliott - something that has never been done before. Astonishingly, this great number of episodes were written by a relatively small group of dramatists. Imagination Theatre's departure from the airwaves left a great void, both in terms of those seeking "movies for your mind", but also those wanting new quality stories about the true Sherlock Holmes, set in the correct period, and featuring tales that truthfully represented Holmes and Watson. This book serves both to honor Jim French and his lifetime of achievements, and also Mr. Sherlock Holmes, along with the dramatists, cast, and crew who brought the new adventures to life. Inside this volume, you will find a script by every one of the authors who wrote about Holmes for Imagination Theatre, representing some of the finest new Holmesian storytelling to be found, and honoring the man described by Watson as "the best and wisest . . . whom I have ever known." All royalties from this collection are being donated by the writers for the benefit of the preservation of Undershaw, one of the former homes of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Featuring fourteen scripts from every writer who contributed to the series run of Imagination Theatre's Sherlock HolmesJim French, M. J. Elliott, Lawrence Albert, John Patrick Lowrie, Gareth Tilley, Matthew Booth, J. R. Campbell, Jeremy Branton Holstein, Roger Silverwood, Teresa Collard, John Hall, Steven Phillip Jones, David Marcum, Iain McLaughlin and Claire Bartlett, and Daniel McGachey, and with forewords by David Marcum, Jim French, Lawrence Albert, John Patrick Lowrie, M. J. Elliott, Dennis Bateman, Rick May, and David Natale.

Part 1 : 1881 to 1889. Part One of a record breaking three-volume collection, bringing together over sixty of the world's leading Sherlock Holmes authors.

Part 3 : 1896 to 1929. Part Three of a record breaking three-volume collection, bringing together over sixty of the world's leading Sherlock Holmes authors.

Part 2 : 1890 to 1895. Part Two of a record breaking three-volume collection, bringing together over sixty of the world's leading Sherlock Holmes authors.

Sherlock Holmes's investigations were not always the neat and self-contained stories that were presented for publication. As Watson writes in his "Foreword": Holmes's cases overlapped one another considerably, often with the next beginning while the current was still in motion. Some moved linearly from start to finish without interruption, while others stretched, a piece here and a piece there, across weeks, months, or even years and decades. There are cases from the past that resonated into the present, or times when Holmes's path was detoured from the middle of one case into a completely different matter without warning. A few never reached any conclusion at all. Sometimes ... Holmes would find himself surrounded by the returning ripples of a matter that he had believed to be concluded years earlier, with the guilty miscreant supposedly far behind him. Watson chose the stories in this collection to represent this tangled skein. Join us as we ascend the seventeen steps to the sitting room at 221b Baker Street, discovering cases that range from Holmes's earliest days in practice to his activities during his supposed retirement on the South Downs of Sussex. The game is afoot!

Special edition hardback containing Volumes 1 and 2. Spanning events over thirty years, The Papers of Sherlock Holmes relates narratives of Holmes and Watson's days in Baker Street, as well as particulars of Holmes's supposed retirement. Follow along as The Master and his Boswell travel from the streets of London to the Kent countryside, to Oxford and Sussex. Written in traditional canonical style, these stories provide fresh details of Holmes's world. Join us as we climb the seventeen steps to the Baker Street sitting room, where Holmes and Watson prepare to begin their next adventure.

Nothing that is secret can remain secret forever. But is it possible that some crimes are better left undiscovered? Join Holmes and Watson as they travel from London to storm-wracked Bedfordshire, where the Great Detective finds himself uncovering the grisly truth concerning a half-century old murder.