Investigating Sherlock Holmes: Solved and Unsolved Mysteries Paperback – September 1, 2014

The character of Sherlock Holmes occupies a special place in the hearts and minds of most readers. But those of us who have only a nodding acquaintance with the 56 short stories and four novels that make up the Holmes “Canon” must wonder at the intensity of “Sherlockians” who treat Holmes as a real person and his creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, as merely the “literary agent” for the good Dr. Watson who narrates the Holmes stories.“Investigating Sherlock Holmes” solves this puzzle. In a series of papers presented to Sherlock societies over the years, Hartley Nathan and Clifford Goldfarb decipher the ways in which Holmes enthusiasts have created a parallel universe in which Doyle’s characters would have lived and done their work.Hartley Nathan, in a piece entitled “Sherlock in Jerusalem,” explains how the Sherlockians “consider Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson to have been real persons who lived at 221B Baker Street in London. Dr. Watson was the scribe and Conan Doyle the literary agent who arranged for the stories to be published. This is known as “playing the game…”And a great game it is. The dozen papers in this charming book cover the gamut, from determining “Who Was That Hebrew Rabbi?” to identifying the possible real life Toronto bootmaker who served as the model for the maker of the mysterious boot that gave clue to solving the murder in The Hound of the Baskervilles.The Holmes stories, Nathan and Goldfarb remind us, keep alive all the glittering contradictions of an age known variously as the Gay Nineties or the Belle Epoque. Their investigation of the Sherlock Holmes stories adds to our understanding of Doyle’s rich literary creativity and gives us a new entry into the life and times of that era.

Cliff Goldfarb and Hartley Nathan, Q.C. are prominent Toronto barristers and solicitors, long-time members of the major Sherlockian society The Baker Street Irregulars as well as the leading Canadian society "The Bootmakers of Toronto" [the reference is to "Meyers Bootmaker Toronto" from "The Hound of the Baskervilles], and Sherlockian writers and scholars of the first rank. This book collects their joint and several writings on the Canon, i.e. the four novels and 56 short stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The distinctive thing about this book is that it collects their writings on specifically Jewish aspects of the Canon - - though a good portion of the chapters are on other subjects. It is quite informative; but for their research, for example, most readers would be unaware of the genuine historical character mentioned in the Canon, Sir George Lewis, a real London solicitor who was a friend of the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) and the leading 'go-to' man in London for aristocrats and others involved in scandals. Cliff and Hartley are not only sound scholars, they write very well. If you have any interest at all in matters Holmesian, you should have this book.

Extremely interesting angles on the Sherlock Holmes stories.. I found it valuable for my next Sherlock Holmes novel ('Sherlock Holmes And The Sword of Osman')