bnw@SDCSVAX.ARPA (06/27/85)
From: crash!bnw@SDCSVAX.ARPA >After all, if you go and look in your bookstore again, you will find >millions and millions of Sherlock Holmes stories not written by >Arthur Canon Doyle. . . Arthur Conan Doyle did not write any Sherlock Holmes stories. Doyle was a charlatan who tricked Dr. Watson and published the accounts of Holmes' cases under his own name. But SF-Lovers is not the proper venue for that discussion. /Bruce N. Wheelock/ arpanet: crash!bnw@ucsd uucp: {ihnp4, cbosgd, sdcsvax, noscvax}!crash!bnw
mte@busch.UUCP (Moshe Eliovson) (07/01/85)
While I realize Doyle wasn't a plagiarist I was grossly disappointed
when I read an Edgar Allen Poe story that was a forerunner of the detective
genre of stories of that period. The story was almost identical to a Sherlock
Holmes story except that the flow of logic, facts and setting had been changed.
Moshe Eliovson
{allegra, ihnp4}!we53!busch!mtebrust@hyper.UUCP (Steven Brust) (07/04/85)
> From: crash!bnw@SDCSVAX.ARPA > > >After all, if you go and look in your bookstore again, you will find > >millions and millions of Sherlock Holmes stories not written by > >Arthur Canon Doyle. . . > > Arthur Conan Doyle did not write any Sherlock Holmes stories. > Doyle was a charlatan who tricked Dr. Watson and published the accounts > of Holmes' cases under his own name. > But SF-Lovers is not the proper venue for that discussion. > /Bruce N. Wheelock/ > arpanet: crash!bnw@ucsd > uucp: {ihnp4, cbosgd, sdcsvax, noscvax}!crash!bnw I hate to disagree with you, Bruce, but there is a great deal of evidence to suggest that Doyle was a faithful literary agent, and that the publisher (the Strand, was it) made the errors, and Watson, who always did prefer to remain in the background, insisted that it not be corrected. -- SKZB
jagardner@watmath.UUCP (Jim Gardner) (07/04/85)
In article <441@busch.UUCP> mte@busch.UUCP (Moshe Eliovson) writes: > While I realize Doyle wasn't a plagiarist I was grossly disappointed >when I read an Edgar Allen Poe story that was a forerunner of the detective >genre of stories of that period. The story was almost identical to a Sherlock >Holmes story except that the flow of logic, facts and setting had been changed. For those who like tracing these things down, check out "Zadig", a novella-length story by Voltaire (about 100 years before Poe). Zadig is a Babylonian nobleman who uses VERY Sherlockian chains of reasoning in one or two places. It gets him into trouble too. Example: he is out walking when armed men appear looking for a missing hunting dog. They ask if Zadig has seen the dog. Zadig (observing various marks on the trail) says something along the lines of, "So you're looking for an elderly female, who has recently had a litter of pups, has a bad right leg and drools quite a bit? Haven't seen her." I have seen Voltaire cited as the great-grandfather of the detective novel for precisely this reason. Jim Gardner, University of Waterloo
JAFFE@RUTGERS.ARPA (07/08/85)
From: watmath!jagardner (Jim Gardner) In article <441@busch.UUCP> mte@busch.UUCP (Moshe Eliovson) writes: > While I realize Doyle wasn't a plagiarist I was grossly disappointed >when I read an Edgar Allen Poe story that was a forerunner of the detective >genre of stories of that period. The story was almost identical to a Sherlock >Holmes story except that the flow of logic, facts and setting had been changed. For those who like tracing these things down, check out "Zadig", a novella-length story by Voltaire (about 100 years before Poe). Zadig is a Babylonian nobleman who uses VERY Sherlockian chains of reasoning in one or two places. It gets him into trouble too. Example: he is out walking when armed men appear looking for a missing hunting dog. They ask if Zadig has seen the dog. Zadig (observing various marks on the trail) says something along the lines of, "So you're looking for an elderly female, who has recently had a litter of pups, has a bad right leg and drools quite a bit? Haven't seen her." I have seen Voltaire cited as the great-grandfather of the detective novel for precisely this reason. Jim Gardner, University of Waterloo
brust@hyper.UUCP (Steven Brust) (07/10/85)
> In article <441@busch.UUCP> mte@busch.UUCP (Moshe Eliovson) writes: > > While I realize Doyle wasn't a plagiarist I was grossly disappointed > >when I read an Edgar Allen Poe story that was a forerunner of the detective > >genre of stories of that period. The story was almost identical to a Sherlock > >Holmes story except that the flow of logic, facts and setting had been changed. > > For those who like tracing these things down, check out "Zadig", a > novella-length story by Voltaire (about 100 years before Poe). Zadig > is a Babylonian nobleman who uses VERY Sherlockian chains of reasoning > in one or two places. ............................................. > > Jim Gardner, University of Waterloo Alexander Dumas also used this technique in _Vicomte De Bragalonne_, with D'Artagnon performing the detective work. A thoroughly delightful scene, too. -- SKZB