The final adventures of Sherlock Holmes: Completing the canon

Rating:
Summary: For completists
Review: Based on the limited information provided about this out-of-print book, I am not certain that the one I am about to review and that which is listed are one in the same. However, their titles are exact, so I will assume that this is the book collected by Peter Haining and published in the 1990s. This book is a great boon to the many obsessed fans and scholars of Doyle's work, as it reprints many obscure articles, stories, and plays that might otherwise be unavailable. Little of this material approaches the quality we expect of the regular Holmes canon, but much of it is interesting. This book contains: Two commentaries by Conan Doyle about his creation, neither of which sheds much new light. Two brief Doyle parodies of his own characters, neither of which are very funny. Two short stories in which a noted detective that many believe to be Holmes plays a small and unfruitful letter-writing part. A fascinating plot outline by Doyle for a story he never wrote. A poem Doyle wrote to defend himself against a critic. Two of Doyle's other short stories, that have much less to do with Holmes than Mr. Haining seems to imagine, but one of which, "The Mystery at Uncle Jeremy's Household" is a ripping good yarn anyway. A long story called "The Adventure of the Tall Man" which Mr. Haining wants to believe is written by Doyle, but which stylistically stinks to high heaven of being written by someone else. Two short plays by Doyle, one of which is an odd Holmes comedy and the other of which is an excellent stage version of what would become "The Mazarin Stone." Also, a most interesting list of Doyle's own favorite Holmes stories. All in all, this is a hodge-podge, valuable to completists and students of Holmes.