book details

Book: 1894: Some Cases of Mr. Sherlock Holmes by Hugh Ashton

categories: Book, Victorian, Sherlock, Crime, Classic, Doyle, London, Holmes, Detective Mystery

Hugh Ashton

about this book: In many ways this is one of my favourite collections of Sherlock Holmes adventures (and I have written quite a lot – almost as many as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle).

Dr Watson left us a wonderful list of the most prominent cases solved by his famous friend in 1894, but neglected to publish the accounts.

"When I look at the three massive manuscript volumes which contain our work for the year 1894 I confess that it is very difficult for me, out of such a wealth of material, to select the cases which are most interesting in themselves and at the same time most conducive to a display of those peculiar powers for which my friend was famous. As I turn over the pages I see my notes upon the repulsive story of the red leech and the terrible death of Crosby the banker. Here also I find an account of the Addleton tragedy and the singular contents of the ancient British barrow. The famous Smith-Mortimer succession case comes also within this period, and so does the tracking and arrest of Huret, the Boulevard assassin." 

I therefore took it upon myself to edit and publish his notes, and added the case of the Two Coptic Patriarchs, which occurred at a later date.

These stories take us with Holmes and Watson from London (naturally) to suburbia, to East Anglia, where Holmes displays an interest in archeology, to a Tudor country house, and in spirit at least, to the southern United States.

The cover was designed as a tribute to Watson's famous memorandum book, complete with the stain of a whisky-glass which the good doctor absent-mindedly left on the book one evening.

I hope you enjoy reading these adventures of the celebrated consulting detective, written in the authentic style of the originals, as much as I enjoyed their creation.