What book introduced me to Sherlock Holmes as a kid?

December 23, 2008 3:56 PM

ChristmasNostalgiaFilter: Help me find the book that introduced me to Sherlock Holmes as a kid.

I've recently gotten interested in all things Holmesian after having not read much Conan Doyle since childhood. I'm halfway through the canon at the moment (Sherlock has just returned from the dead!) and am reading Shadows Over Baker Street and much other ancillary material.

I'd like to find the edition that got me interested in Sherlock Holmes as a kid. I read it one Christmas vacation in the early 1970s in Montreal. It might be the Educator Classic Library edition of The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes, which is not the same as the original volume of the same title but more of a Holmes miscellany (see link for contents).

The cover of this edition was immediately familiar when I found it online. I also distinctly remember reading some of the stories in this edition, such as "The Adventure of the Speckled Band" and "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle", but I seem to recall the volume I read also had "The Final Problem", in which Holmes wrestles Moriarty at Reichenbach Falls. I also seem to recall large color illustrations for the stories (including one of the Falls), but my wife has the Educator Classic Library edition of Around the World in Eighty Days, and while it has a vivid color cover, it has only small black and white interior illustrations.

It's possible that I actually read a couple of books as a kid, only one of which is the edition I found online. In that case, what is the book with "The Final Problem" and the color illustrations of Reichenbach Falls?

It's also possible that the notional color illustrations were the result of a vivid kidhood imagination. Or perhaps unlike my wife's book in the same series, this one has color interior illustrations.

I'd be grateful for any light MeFites can shed.

posted by rwhe to media & arts (7 comments total)

I can't help you with that, but you might want to read The Seven Percent Solution if you're trying to read everything. I read it as a kid, and really couldn't tell you if it was any good, but I've remembered the title over about 20 years...
posted by tjistudios at 4:55 PM on December 23, 2008

The Original Illustrated Sherlock Holmes I have looks like it was published around 1980, but it's a facsimile reprint, so there probably was an earlier edition, maybe under a different name. It has black and white illustrations, but the illustration of Reichenback Falls is full-page, as are many others. And it does have Speckled Band, Blue Carbuncle, and Final Problem.
posted by hades at 4:57 PM on December 23, 2008

I don't know, but I bet someone on the Hounds of the Internet mailing list could tell you. I subscribed for a couple of years when I got pretty deeply into Sherlockian matters. There are lots of nice and very knowledgeable individuals subscribed to the list.
posted by paulg at 6:51 PM on December 23, 2008

tjistudios: Thank you. I saw the movie in college and was planning on reading the book.

hades: Thanks. This book is already on my wishlist. It's a fine suggestion, but I don't think it's the one I was looking for. The book I read as a kid was much less massive; it had only a few stories in it.

paulg: Thank you very much for this tip! I'll certainly release the Hounds as soon as I get subscribed.
posted by rwhe at 9:10 PM on December 23, 2008

Do you remember what the illustrations were like? The illustrator (cover and interior, per a couple of sites) for that Educator Classic Library edition was Don Irwin, who seems to have had a pretty distinctive N.C. Wyeth-y style. (First two results here, plus the cover you linked to.)

(As for The Final Problem, I hesitate to offer this long a shot, but I do know of a 1975 young-readers adaptation of the story in question, with large, "atmospheric" color illustrations, that your young self might have run across. As I said, long shot.)
posted by ormondsacker at 11:36 PM on December 23, 2008

ormondsacker: Thanks for those images. Irwin could well have been the illustrator of the Reichenbach Falls scenes I seem to remember, but I think the painting(s) used a slightly more subdued palette. Hard to tell at this remove of years, of course.

Your long shot was certainly worth a shot, but that wasn't it. It's an interesting comics cul de sac, though...
posted by rwhe at 12:43 AM on December 24, 2008

Since I posted this question, I've read further in the Canon. I read "The Six Napoleons" and remembered having read it before in a profusely illustrated educational anthology in junior high school, one containing stories by many other authors. It's quite likely that I read "The Final Problem" in some similar anthology, but I'm just too lazy to trace it.

I'm marking paulg's suggestion of asking the Hounds of the Internet as the best answer, because I've joined the list, and I can vouch that if anyone knew about it, the Hounds would. I'm grateful for being introduced to them.
posted by rwhe at 11:10 PM on January 7