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The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes The Novels Slipcased Edition Vol 3 Arthur Conan Doyle Leslie S Klinger 9780393058000 Books

Download As PDF : The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes The Novels Slipcased Edition Vol 3 Arthur Conan Doyle Leslie S Klinger 9780393058000 Books

The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes The Novels Slipcased Edition Vol 3 Arthur Conan Doyle Leslie S Klinger 9780393058000 Books

In his preface the editor writes, "This is not a work for the serious student of Conan Doyle. While Doylean scholarship is vitally important, the reader of these volumes will not find reference to the literary sources of the stories or to biographical incidents in the life of Sir Arthur that may be reflected in the canon. Here I perpetuate the gentle fiction that Holmes and Watson really lived ..."

And that is exactly what I find maddening about this series of Annotated Sherlock Holmes books. Basically, the editor is admitting he chose to leave out a lot of vitally important real-world information in order to include a lot of ... well, basically, the higher-brow equivalent of nerdy fanboy theories. When I read an annotated book, I want real information on what went into the writing of the book. I'm not a "serious student of Conan Doyle," but neither am I a "Sherlockian." I'm a fan of the Holmes stories, not of Holmes fandom.

Frankly, I don't care how "Sherlockians" try to tie up all the loose ends and inconsistencies to make everything in every story fit into one continuity. I would find it much more interesting hearing Conan Doyle's real-life views on the discrepancies and inconsistencies in his stories. (Basically, he didn't care that much and thought readers wouldn't either.) That kind of thing reminds me of nothing so much as an intense discussion I once read in which comic book fans debated, "Why does no one recognize Clark Kent as Superman?" My favorite answer from one commenter: "Because it's a damned comic book!"

Even less do I care about Sherlockians' cute "reading between the lines" theories about, say, Mycroft Holmes really being a double agent who betrayed Holmes to Moriarty; or Moriarty being Watson's wife's first husband; or Sherlock Holmes really being a woman. In the introductory comment to "The Man with the Twisted Lip" the editor writes: "There are tantalizing hints of a romantic interlude between Holmes and the lovely Mrs. Neville St. Clair, but Watson's unexpected appearance on the scene leaves her longings apparently unfulfilled, and the reader is left to wonder whether Watson's cynical views of Holmes's feelings toward women are accurate."

Then you actually read the story and find there are no tantalizing hints of that at all, and you are left wondering no such thing. It was all just another smug Sherlockian fan theory. Frankly, I was left to wonder what "vitally important" information was left out to make room for all the paragraphs devoted to it.

In short, I WANT all that vitally important biographical and literary source material. I want to know the reality of what went into Doyle writing the Holmes stories -- the events, books, and stories he was influenced by, story-by-story, like editors give in other annotated books. Here was very likely a once-in-a-lifetime chance to include all that in one easy-to-find place for the general reader ... and the editor didn't take it, apparently because Sherlockian cleverness and showing-off took priority over the author and his life and work.

On the other hand, the books are really attractive and well-designed, with a lot of great, well-printed illustrations, and the annotations that actually explain the historical context of the stories are very helpful. That is what is so frustrating to me.


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The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes The Novels Slipcased Edition Vol 3 Arthur Conan Doyle Leslie S Klinger 9780393058000 Books Reviews

This one volume box edition compliments last year's two volume collection of the 56 short stories published by Arthur Conan Doyle. In nearly a thousand pages, the third volume contains the four Sherlock Holmes novels. There are many solid editions of these novels, but if the reader is looking for explanations of the background and history of the Victorian age in which these stories are set, then this edition is for you.

This large oversize book contains annotations that are placed alongside the text for easy reference plus many of the original illustations by Sidney Paget and period photos. Mr. Klinger's working assumption is that these stories and novels concerning Sherlock Holmes are historically true. This leads to some hysterical explanations of the many contradictory statements present throughtout these three volumes (Mr. Doyle evidently never went back to earlier writings to make them consistent).

If the reader should procure all three volumes together on , they are half of the $200 list price. These prices are a steal for nearly 3,000 pages of a beautiful edition of this quality (think of the Library of America publications) which will last a lifetime. All three books are more comprehensive than the two volume set by William Baring-Gould (1968) and less bulky than the nine volume edition from Oxford University Press. Mr. Klinger's annotations are clear, concise and well-informed by his considerable research of the world of Sherlock Holmes. This is an edition that the reader will return to again and again on a cold winter's night.
Beautiful edition for enthusiast or for introducing a motivated younger reader to Sherlock. It works very nicely for adult readers but also provides excellent motivation and room-to-grow for younger readers. Extensive marginal notes that you may or may not want to use; they're easy to ignore if that's your preference, but very convenient to selectively learn from if desired.
Unless the printers scrambled the text -- or used up all their black ink halfway through the press run -- or pulled some other, truly weird boner, there's no point in reviewing Sherlock Holmes for the 4,782,346,912,232nd time. (I counted all previous reviews. If you don't believe my numbers, count them yourself.) In lieu of criticism, I will just note that this latest from W.W. Norton could have been the last word in the print-media career of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes.

The only things the publisher hasn't done here are to annotate and footnote the annotations, gild all the page edges, and put the three volumes into full-color, hand-tooled, leather bindings, with slip-case illustrations drawn by Spain Rodriguez. I suppose the folks at Norton felt they had to leave a few things undone becuse their friends at The Folio Society also have kids to feed.

In any event, because I am 64 years old this is the LAST Sherlock Holmes book by Conan Doyle I will ever buy. After I see the new movie with Jude Law and little what's-his-name, Jr., the money I laid out for these books is the LAST money I will ever spend on Sherlock Holmes.

Unless somebody makes another movie.
In his preface the editor writes, "This is not a work for the serious student of Conan Doyle. While Doylean scholarship is vitally important, the reader of these volumes will not find reference to the literary sources of the stories or to biographical incidents in the life of Sir Arthur that may be reflected in the canon. Here I perpetuate the gentle fiction that Holmes and Watson really lived ..."

And that is exactly what I find maddening about this series of Annotated Sherlock Holmes books. Basically, the editor is admitting he chose to leave out a lot of vitally important real-world information in order to include a lot of ... well, basically, the higher-brow equivalent of nerdy fanboy theories. When I read an annotated book, I want real information on what went into the writing of the book. I'm not a "serious student of Conan Doyle," but neither am I a "Sherlockian." I'm a fan of the Holmes stories, not of Holmes fandom.

Frankly, I don't care how "Sherlockians" try to tie up all the loose ends and inconsistencies to make everything in every story fit into one continuity. I would find it much more interesting hearing Conan Doyle's real-life views on the discrepancies and inconsistencies in his stories. (Basically, he didn't care that much and thought readers wouldn't either.) That kind of thing reminds me of nothing so much as an intense discussion I once read in which comic book fans debated, "Why does no one recognize Clark Kent as Superman?" My favorite answer from one commenter "Because it's a damned comic book!"

Even less do I care about Sherlockians' cute "reading between the lines" theories about, say, Mycroft Holmes really being a double agent who betrayed Holmes to Moriarty; or Moriarty being Watson's wife's first husband; or Sherlock Holmes really being a woman. In the introductory comment to "The Man with the Twisted Lip" the editor writes "There are tantalizing hints of a romantic interlude between Holmes and the lovely Mrs. Neville St. Clair, but Watson's unexpected appearance on the scene leaves her longings apparently unfulfilled, and the reader is left to wonder whether Watson's cynical views of Holmes's feelings toward women are accurate."

Then you actually read the story and find there are no tantalizing hints of that at all, and you are left wondering no such thing. It was all just another smug Sherlockian fan theory. Frankly, I was left to wonder what "vitally important" information was left out to make room for all the paragraphs devoted to it.

In short, I WANT all that vitally important biographical and literary source material. I want to know the reality of what went into Doyle writing the Holmes stories -- the events, books, and stories he was influenced by, story-by-story, like editors give in other annotated books. Here was very likely a once-in-a-lifetime chance to include all that in one easy-to-find place for the general reader ... and the editor didn't take it, apparently because Sherlockian cleverness and showing-off took priority over the author and his life and work.

On the other hand, the books are really attractive and well-designed, with a lot of great, well-printed illustrations, and the annotations that actually explain the historical context of the stories are very helpful. That is what is so frustrating to me.