Sherlock Holmes remains the most famous of all fictional detectives. But he was not the only solver of crimes to patrol the gaslit streets of late Victorian and Edwardian London. The years between 1890 and 1914 were the heyday of the English (and American) story magazines and their pages were filled with platoons of private detectives, police officers and eccentric criminologists. These were the Rivals of Sherlock Holmes and this second anthology of stories edited by Nick Rennison, author of Sherlock Holmes: An Unauthorised Biography, highlights fifteen of them:
- Mr Booth created by Herbert Keen - Max Carrados created by Ernest Bramah - Florence Cusack created by LT Meade and Robert Eustace - John Dollar, 'The Crime Doctor' created by EW Hornung - Dick Donovan created by JE Preston Muddock - Horace Dorrington created by Arthur Morrison - Martin Hewitt created by Arthur Morrison - Judith Lee created by Richard Marsh - Madelyn Mack created by Hugh Cosgro Weir - Lady Molly of Scotland Yard created by Baroness Orczy - Addington Peace created by Fletcher Robinson - Mark Poignand and Kala Persad created by Headon Hill - John Pym created by David Christie Murray - Christopher Quarles created by Percy Brebner - John Thorndyke created by R Austin Freeman Praise for The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes 'A book which will delight fans of crime fiction' - Verbal Magazine '[An] intriguing anthology' - Mail on Sunday
"'Rennison set out to demonstrate the range and variety of late Victorian and Edwardian detective fiction ... I'd say that he has succeeded in this aim'"
Do You Write Under Your Own Name
"This collection, like its predecessor Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, is a delight for fans of the history of crime writing and lovers of the short story mystery format. I can't think of a more pleasant afternoon's reading than this. Fun and informative"
