This is going to be a long newsletter, but only because I want to describe the latest doings. We’ll have the return to the usual nonsense in the next edition!
INTO THE WILD
Here we are, halfway through the fourth month of the year. Just in time to announce that we’ve published three books through the Peschel Press: 2 in the 223B Casebook Series and the last book in the “Rugeley Poisoner” trilogy!
“Sherlock Holmes Edwardian Parodies and Pastiches II: 1905-1909”
This 385-page slab of text and art contains some of my favorite stories. Australia’s “Banjo” Paterson uses Holmes to decipher the meaning of a governor’s mysterious telegrams. Theatrical critic Max Beerbohm uses Holmes and Watson ─ in a dandy bit of mimicking of Conan Doyle’s style ─ to critique a popular play involving a man who changes places with another man without his wife knowing. A cub reporter in muckraker Lincoln Steffens’ story turns the tables on a crooked police captain who claims Holmes-like powers.
Probably the centerpiece of the book is Jacque Futrelle’s “The Great Suit Case Mystery.” Written for William Randolph Hearst’s Boston-American, the story has Holmes investigating, and solving, the real-life murder of a chorus girl whose body was found in a Boston bay. Futrelle went on to write the Thinking Machine stories, his attempt at emulating the sleuth, before going down on the Titanic. This one is long and somewhat gruesome, but a colorful example of speculative journalism that can’t be published by newspapers today.
There are also more light-hearted pieces. As a Harvard student “Charlie Chan” creator Earl Derr Biggers, wrote a piece poking fun at college athletics that parodied the Dooley stories of Finley Peter Dunne. Even more than 100 years ago, it was recognized that colleges were recruiting students who think better with a ball in their hands than books. Then there’s English journalist Maurice Baring, who sends Holmes to Russia to seek out a missing score book. Based on his travels in the land before the Russian Revolution overturned everything, Baring’s story conveys the idea of a land where aristocrats live with peasants and make the rules.
I’ve written more than 270 footnotes to this collection, touching on subjects as diverse as Tom Lerher, Test matches, Shakespeare, German puns, and horse illnesses.
This book is available as a trade paperback (with additional art to fill the blank spaces) and ebook on all the platforms. Thanks to Amazon Match, buyers of the trade paperback can get the ebook version free. (This option is available for all books in the 223B series).
“Sherlock Holmes Great War Parodies and Pastiches II: 1915-1919”
Yes, the years are correct. I skipped over Great War I for a very good reason. Great War II has a story in it by George Orwell, written when he was 15, that I paid the estate to republish before a certain date. The Great War I book covering 1910-1914 will come out later this year.
Got it? Good.
Great War II was a bear to research and edit, but great fun to read. Each book contains stories that move Holmes and Watson into new environments: medical stories where Watson bests his friend, legal stories that put Holmes on the witness stand, stories involving local elections and scandals.
This time, Holmes and Watson went to the trenches and behind the lines. On every front, in every army, there were groups of soldiers who came across printing presses and type and got busy when they weren’t killing each other publishing magazines. These “trench journals” were passed around until the pages fell apart, or they were mailed home to give civilians a taste of what war was like. They were filled with in-jokes and dark humor, and shared gossip and stories that were amusing and comforting. Even while enduring terrible times, there was some solace in knowing that you’re not alone in your feelings.
So I’m pleased to publish “The Mystery of 2643, Pte. Chugwater” that appeared in the Fifth Gloster Gazette, “Herlock Shomes at It Again,” “Narpoo Rum,” and “Zero!” from The Wipers Times (Wipers was how British soldiers pronounced Ypres, the Belgian village around which the British Expeditionary Force fought over throughout most of the war.)
From behind the lines came “Water, Water Everywhere and Not a Drop for Tea,” set in a German intern camp for British civilians, and “The Mystery of the Missing Group,” involving the English draft system.
There are also the expected humorous pieces, this time from Ring Lardner (“A Study in Handwriting”), Carolyn Wells (“The Adventure of the Clothes-Line,” “Cherchez la Femme”), Stephen Leacock (“An Irreducible Detective Story”), and John Kendrick Bangs (“Intercepted Communications,” a parody of the Zimmermann Telegram).
As with all books in the series, this one contains the usual biographical essays, this time taking Conan Doyle through the war years and his public conversion to spiritualism. (Some of the stories deal with that as well).
This book is available as a trade paperback (with additional art to fill the blank spaces) and ebook on all the platforms. Thanks to Amazon Match, buyers of the trade paperback can get the ebook version free. (This option is available for all books in the 223B series).
“The Life and Career of William Palmer”
Yay! It took two years and a lot of research and PhotoShop, but Vol. 1 of “The Rugeley Poisoner” series is out, completing the cycle! (For those keeping score, Volume 3, “The Life and Career of William Palmer” (1926) appeared in June 2014, and Volume 2, “The Times Report of the Trial of William Palmer” came out in February 2015.
I must say, however, that I saved the best for last. TL&COWP was the first “quickie” book (or at least the earliest I can find) that was published to cash in on the notorious trial. It covers the whole of the poisonous doctor’s life, from the origins of his family’s fortune (cheating the local lord out of his profits from felling timber on his land) to Palmer’s execution.
The pleasures in this book are many. The anonymous writer threw in everything he could find, and when the book wasn’t big enough, added sidelights into horse-racing scams, the wild life of London medical students, and the music halls and gambling dens Palmer probably visited. The prose is readable and vivid and I went to great pains to add footnotes to explain who these people were and what they’re talking about.
Instead of writing original essays in the back, like I did for the Christie and Sayers’ novels, I found these pieces instead:
* Charles Dickens writing about Inspector Field, who investigated one of Palmer’s insurance claims. Field himself was quite a character, as you’ll see when Dickens describes him visiting the hovels and boardinghouses of the St. Giles’ district.
* Two stories about Palmer, excerpted from judges’ memoirs and never seen outside those books.
* “Jorrick Goes to the Races,” a chapter from Robert Surtees’ Jorrick’s Jaunts and Jollies, a popular book from that time. This gives you the atmosphere of visiting the races and the betting scene in Palmer’s time than any essay I could write.
* “The Physiology of the London Medical Student.” Adapted from Punch, this 1847 story takes a humorous look at medical training in Palmer’s time, written by someone who obviously knew what he was talking about.
* “The Jane Letters.” A series of notes written by Palmer to his mistress in Stafford (and daughter of the sheriff!) covering the course of their affair, including assignations, evading town gossip, her pregnancy and abortion, followed by her blackmailing him over the notes! The last notes coincide with his fateful visit to Shrewsbury with John Parsons Cook, and subsequent poisoning.
* A timeline of events tying it all together.
Like The Times Trial of William Palmer, this book comes with a ton of woodcuts, cleaned up for publication, as well as more I threw in that describe particular locations in Rugeley. If you’re a fan of Victorian true crime, this relic from 1856 can be read with pleasure.
The trade paperback can be found at Amazon and elsewhere. The ebook is being produced and should be available before the end of April.
COMING UP
Here’s what we’re planning for the rest of the year. Stay tuned for updates in the newsletter:
* Ride of My Life (space shuttle comic novel by Bill)
* Sherlock Holmes parodies, volume 4 (1910-1914)
* Her Martian Tiger (Claudia Moon’s first book, a science-fiction romance set on a terraformed Mars three centuries from now)
* Sherlock Holmes parodies, volume 6 (1920-1924)
* Suburban Stockade, based on webposts by Teresa Peschel
* Sherlock Holmes parodies, volume 7 (1925-1930, and we’re done!)
* The Best of 223B Casebook
* Career Indie Author
READING AND WATCHING
My latest obsession is “Pushing Daisies,” a very strange sitcom that lasted only 2 seasons. We’re watching the season 1 DVD set now.
I almost don’t want to describe this series. It’s sweet, romantic, a bit suggestive if you know where to look, and very death-oriented. I think of it as a fairy tale, about a young man who can bring people back to life under a very strict set of rules, and what happens when he brings back the girl he loves long after (unintentionally) killing her father.
Then it gets weird.
We’re also watching a series of BBC sort-of documentaries: “Victorian Farm,” “Edwardian Farm,” and “Tales from the Green Valley.” In each, three historians (the same crew in each) spend a year learning how their forebears in that era farmed (“Green Valley” covers the Tudor era).
They raise animals and crops, learn what crafts were available to them at the time, and give us the feeling of what it was like to spend your days working hard around animals you’re going to kill to stay alive. Watching this series, you understand why it was imperative for farmers to marry and have children, and how liberating it can be to have frozen foods, fruit and vegetables available year round, and birth control.
See you next time!