Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Nov 29, 2009 0:39:14 GMT
Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson have been very much on my mind over the past few months, as I've been working on my second book for Dark Regions Press, "The Impossible Casebook of Sherlock Holmes", in which the rational mind of Holmes is applied to a quartet of adventures which stray into the irrational realm of the supernatural.
This, of course, isn't the first attempt to merge Holmes with the supernatural, as there are an increasing number of stories and anthologies devoted to just that - "Shadows Over Baker Street" merges Holmes with Lovecraft, "The Tangled Skein" by David Stuart Davies is just one of a number of Holmes versus Dracula stories, Ron Weighell's excellent "Irregular Casebook of Sherlock Holmes" has meetings with M.R. James and Arthur Machen amongst others, and there are tons more.
But even aside from these literary pastiches, Holmes has always seemed, almost by default, to have become associated with the world of horror and the supernatural. Of course, stories like "The Hound of the Baskervilles" with phantom curses, or titles like "The Sussex Vampire" make it clear that Conan Doyle was quite happy to allow Holmes to at least venture close to that area (and hints of giant Sumatran rats suggest yet more bizarre adventures), without going full tilt into the uncanny. It's actually quite surprising that Doyle, who became a committed believer in spiritualism, didn't use his extremely popular character to espouse his views.
Of course, the period of the Holmes stories helps a modern audience to see Holmes in the same world as Dracula, Jack the Ripper, Jamesian ghosts, seances, curses, etc. And films like Rathbone and Bruce's "The Scarlet Claw" (glowing phantom in the mist stalks a terrified village), or "The Hound of the Baservilles" (which adds a seance to the proceedings) have probably helped foster that view. Even the (initially) faithful Jeremy Brett adaptations later verged toward the uncanny ("The Last Vampyre", and "The Eligible Bachelor", in which Holmes suffers surreal premonitions).
So, whether or not it would suit Mr. Holmes or the good doctor themselves, their gaslit Baker Street seems to me to have become part of the horror landscape
This, of course, isn't the first attempt to merge Holmes with the supernatural, as there are an increasing number of stories and anthologies devoted to just that - "Shadows Over Baker Street" merges Holmes with Lovecraft, "The Tangled Skein" by David Stuart Davies is just one of a number of Holmes versus Dracula stories, Ron Weighell's excellent "Irregular Casebook of Sherlock Holmes" has meetings with M.R. James and Arthur Machen amongst others, and there are tons more.
But even aside from these literary pastiches, Holmes has always seemed, almost by default, to have become associated with the world of horror and the supernatural. Of course, stories like "The Hound of the Baskervilles" with phantom curses, or titles like "The Sussex Vampire" make it clear that Conan Doyle was quite happy to allow Holmes to at least venture close to that area (and hints of giant Sumatran rats suggest yet more bizarre adventures), without going full tilt into the uncanny. It's actually quite surprising that Doyle, who became a committed believer in spiritualism, didn't use his extremely popular character to espouse his views.
Of course, the period of the Holmes stories helps a modern audience to see Holmes in the same world as Dracula, Jack the Ripper, Jamesian ghosts, seances, curses, etc. And films like Rathbone and Bruce's "The Scarlet Claw" (glowing phantom in the mist stalks a terrified village), or "The Hound of the Baservilles" (which adds a seance to the proceedings) have probably helped foster that view. Even the (initially) faithful Jeremy Brett adaptations later verged toward the uncanny ("The Last Vampyre", and "The Eligible Bachelor", in which Holmes suffers surreal premonitions).
So, whether or not it would suit Mr. Holmes or the good doctor themselves, their gaslit Baker Street seems to me to have become part of the horror landscape