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Post by dem bones on Mar 14, 2008 19:42:44 GMT
August Derleth - The Return Of Solar Pons (pinnacle, July 1975) Ben Stahl Edgar W. Smith - Introduction
The Adventure Of The Lost Dutchman Pursuit Detective Story Magazine (Jan. 1955) The Adventure Of The Devil's Footprints Double-Action Detective Stories # 4 (1956) The Adventure Of The Dorrington Inheritance The Saint Detective Magazine (March, 1958) The Adventure Of The "Triple Kent" The Saint Detective Magazine (April, 1957) The Adventure Of The Rydberg Numbers Three Problems For Solar Pons (Mycroft & Moran, 1952) The Adventure Of The Grice-Paterson Curse Pursuit Detective Story Magazine (Nov. 1956) The Adventure Of The Stone Of Scone The Adventure Of The Remarkable Worm Three Problems For Solar Pons (Mycroft & Moran, 1952) The Adventure Of The Penny Magenta The Saint Detective Magazine (Nov, 1954) The Adventure Of The Trained Cormorant The Saint Detective Magazine (Oct, 1956) The Adventure Of The Camberwell Beauty Three Problems For Solar Pons (Mycroft & Moran, 1952) The Adventure Of The Little Hangman The Saint Detective Magazine (Sept, 1957) The Adventure Of The Swedenborg Signatures Nero Wolfe Mystery Magazine (June, 1954) The London Map Of Solar Pons Attention All Pons Faithfuls Blurb: "These stories recall, as nothing else has done, those delicious days and nights on Baker Street, days and nights that have vanished forever."— The Louisville Courier-JournalWho is Solar Pons? Who, indeed, is Sherlock Holmes?
They are the inventions of two superlative storytellers .... the invincible Arthur Conan Doyle of London, the prodigious and prolific August Derleth of Wisconsin.
The whole world knows of the legendary Holmes and his Baker Street beat. But only a few of the most died-in-the-wool aficionados of detection have been privileged to make the acquaintance of Solar Pons and his Praed Street office.
Here then is Solar Pons at his best. Only Watson himself could distinguish between the footsteps of Pons or Holmes. If you've not yet joined us in the chase, you are about to discover new joy in a tradition that, alas, has disappeared. Come, the game is afoot! Prior to finding this in the charity shop today, the only Solar Pons story I've read is The Adventure Of The Tottenham Werewolf in which the wonderfully named Septimus Grayle believes himself to be a man-beast responsible for a gruesome murder but really it's all a sinister plot to drive him .... barking. The Tottenham in question isn't the one in North London but a remote Yorkshire village. Needless to say, Pons knew it all along and solves the case without any great difficulty. It is, as you might expect, somewhat on the derivative side.
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Post by andydecker on Mar 15, 2008 19:15:59 GMT
Never read one of those. Frankly alone the Name sounds so stupid. Are these straight Holmes pastiches?
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Post by dem bones on Mar 2, 2012 11:12:51 GMT
(three years later) yes, Andy, they're pastiches for sure, but so help me, i'm warming to them. Derleth, with typical modesty, cheerfully admitted he'd created him to fill what Anthony Boucher had termed "the abominable vacuum" and intended to quit when more capable authors stepped in with their own take on Holmes.
So, in Derleth's hands, 221b Baker Street relocates to 7b Praed Street, Parker is Watson via Dr. Trowbridge, dear old Mrs. Hudson makes way for Mrs. forgotten-her-name-already. Regardless of season, Pons favours an Inverness cape and deerstalker, is much given to "sawing away at a tuneless melody" on his violin, has a brother - Bancroft - at the Home Office, etc, etc. If he's acquired a heavy drug habit then, he's keeping that to himself and as yet no hint of a personal Moriarty on the horizon, though you'd not rule it out. Otherwise Derleth has every base covered, far as i can see.
The Adventure Of The Grice-Paterson Curse: Uffa, a private island off the coast of Penzance. When a third member of the Grice-Paterson's dies in the same mysterious circumstances, suspicion falls on the late Sir Ronald's sinister orderly, Aram Malvades, as it's he stands to inherit all should the line die out. In his lifetime, Sir Ronald, once Governor-General of Malaya, was noted for his keen interest in tropical plants and a pathological hatred of all mankind, not least his kith and kin. A legacy of his botanical pursuits are the thick vine which cling to the wall of the East Side and provide the family home with its name, The Creepers. Pons of course, has the case solved before they've left Praed Street, but manfully insists on spending a hot August night in the room where the deaths took place, though he knows it will be one filled with horror! Essentially E & H. Heron's The Story Of The Grey House with a new cast, but a gripper from start to finish and the climax is especially suspenseful.
The Adventure Of The Devil's Footprints: Tetford village, near Aylesbury, Bucks. The Rev. Ambrose Diall, 67, is a kindly soul, much-loved by his parishioners, but if there's one quirk in his character, it's his morbid fear of owls. So, when, one bitterly cold January night in the late' thirties, he hears a familiar "twit twoo" from the churchyard, he takes up his gun and heads out into the snow.
Next morning, and he's still not returned. His housekeeper, Mrs Kerruish and Silas Elton, the sinister sexton search the churchyard. What is their horror when they discovers that the Reverend's footprints lead only so far as a tree, whereupon they give way to a trail of huge, cloven hoof-marks and what looks like the imprint of an enormous tail! Can the mild-mannered Rev really have been carried off by the Devil?
The mystery provides the sleuth with yet another excuse to go rummaging in a vault where this time he finds both the murdered Reverend's frozen corpse and a case full of money. Pons has already identified the culprit (so have you) and the final piece to the jigsaw is supplied by a paragraph in The News Of The World, and if it's not quite the salacious 'Kinky Vicar' exposé we'd hoped for, it sheds much light of the Rev. Diall's colourful past and the motive for his murder.
The Adventure Of The Remarkable Worm: Hampstead Heath, 1925. Reclusive Mr. Idomeno Persano, the corpulent entomologist, is popular with the local children as he gives them sixpence for every interesting creepy crawly they bring for his inspection. When he dies suddenly, his housekeeper informs Pons that he'd recently been very upset about two items he'd received in the post, namely a card depicting a badly drawn fat man being chased by a small dog, and a parcel containing a very peculiar looking caterpillar about which he could find absolutely nothing in the reference works, How could the two have brought about his death, and why is Pons so insistent that Persano was murdered? Pons explains all which is just as well: the poor reader has absolutely no chance. Suffice to say that, as with the Rev. Diall in Devil's Footprints, so Mr. Persano's criminal past has finally caught up with him. The adventures are by now getting samey, but the revelations regarding the exact nature of the manufactured worm go beyond outrageous!
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Post by andydecker on Mar 2, 2012 12:55:38 GMT
If he's acquired a heavy drug habit then, he's keeping that to himself This is such a shameless rip-off, it has to be fun. And for the life of me I can´t see Derleth going the drug habit Didn´t Edward Hoch later did a few stories of this? I like Hoch, a much better writer then Derleth. I really have to dust my copy of this of and give it a go. Holmes is more alive then in years, when I read the Americans must have their own Holmes "re-imagining" I groaned, but after reading that the Watson is played by Lucy Liu it at least is demeted enough to give it a try. Wonder what they will nick from Gatiss and Moffet. Now there is only missing the Fu Manchu revival. In the 80s I guess they could have made Fu Manchu the sinister but reformed apothecary grandfather in China Town whose Kung Fu grandchildren will right wrongs - filmed on the Paramount backlot - but today I guess they will have to be a bit more original
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Post by dem bones on Mar 2, 2012 20:15:01 GMT
This is such a shameless rip-off, it has to be fun. And for the life of me I can´t see Derleth going the drug habit Didn´t Edward Hoch later did a few stories of this? I like Hoch, a much better writer then Derleth. could be the novelty wears off after you've read too many, but i'm finding them quite addictive. For all i know, Ed Hoch may have written a few, but it's Basil Copper who picked up the baton after Derleth's death with four volumes of originals including The Further Adventures Of Solar Pons (Pinnacle, 1979). Funny you should mention Fu Manchu, because someone very like him just showed up in ..... The Adventure Of The Camberwell Beauty: It's 193-, Dr. Parker is now married and practising in South Norwood when he receives a call from Pons to assist in his latest investigation. Karah, the beautiful ward of criminal mastermind , 'The Doctor' (aka 'The Yellow Peril', 'The Terror of The Tongs', 'F' & Co.), is missing, presumed abducted. Unless she's returned unharmed, the Doctor will unleash the full force of his international syndicate versus the alleged perpetrator, his bitter rival Baron Alfred 'Old Crow' Corvus, the peg-legged terror of Teddington Lock. Parker goes ballistic that he would even consider taking on such a disreputable client, but Pons assures him that, as psychotic torture fiends go, the Doctor isn't so bad once you get to know him - he even saved his life on one occasion. Besides, as both Pons and the Doctor are aware, Corvus is innocent and Karah's not been taken against her will. The Adventure Of The Stone Of Scone: Inspired by Sir Compton McKenzie's The North Winds Of Love, four young Scottish Nationalists liberate the Stone of Scone from Westminster Abbey in the early hours of Christmas morning. Pons easily anticipates the amiable gang's next move but leaves Scotland Yard's finest to dredge the Thames anyway. It's all resolved peacefully, no arrests and no harm done. Bancroft Pons, Mrs. Johnson (the Pons' landlady) and a Sergeant Trowbrige guest. This next from The Casebook of Solar Pons (Pinnacle, 1975: originally Mycroft & Moran, 1965) The Adventure Of The Haunted Library: ( Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, 8, No. 11, Nov. 1963). Having lived in Kenya for most of her life, Mrs. Ashcroft returns to her roots at Sydenham to find the area much changed and none of the improvements to her liking. To top it all, there's a terrible, wild-eyed old tramp seems to materialise at will in her library, and her sleep is disturbed by a disembodied voice belting out sea shanties. She invites Carnacki to give the place a once over, but when the great ghost-finder declares the premises spectre free and loses interest, she turns to Solar Pons as a last resort. "I've sent for a cab," said Pons. "Who is Mr. Carnacki?" I asked. "A self-styled psychic investigator. He lives in Chelsea, and has had some considerable success, I am told." "A charlatan!" "If he were, he would hardly have turned down our client."Pons quickly locates a lever in the library which raises a door leading directly onto the abandoned tunnels of the derelict Nunhead-Crystal Palace railway line. After that, it's all plain sailing - the 'ghost' is exposed as a permanently pissed old sea dawg and bibliophile. Captain Jason Brensham was in debt and set to lose his house when he faked his own death so his nephew could cash the insurance. To make it look that bit more convincing, they'd murdered another broken-down old seaman and buried him in Bresham's place. It was only the unexpected death of the nephew thwarted the plan and saw the property sold to Mrs. Ashcroft. The 'dead' Captain had little option but to live in the rubbish-strewn tunnels if he wanted easy access to his collection. This is more like it. Pons gets to say "The game's afoot!", Parker tosses off a casual "I dined at the Diogenes club", and there's a lively sense of fun about the proceedings.
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Post by andydecker on Mar 3, 2012 10:17:58 GMT
For all i know, Ed Hoch may have written a few, but it's Basil Copper who picked up the baton after Derleth's death with four volumes of originals Cooper it was. I had some wires crossed. I am after Hoch´s Simon Ark collections these days, but at the moment they are too expensive for my taste. The Adventure Of The Stone Of Scone: Inspired by Sir Compton McKenzie's The North Winds Of Love, four young Scottish Nationalists liberate the Stone of Scone from Westminster Abbey in the early hours of Christmas morning. Pons easily anticipates the amiable gang's next move but leaves Scotland Yard's finest to dredge the Thames anyway. It's all resolved peacefully, no arrests and no harm done. Bancroft Pons, Mrs. Johnson (the Pons' landlady) and a Sergeant Trowbrige guest. Sometimes you just wonder. There was a episode of Highlander which had exactley the same plot (okay, not exactly, but they also stole the Stone at Christmas and nobody lost his head), one of the comedy eps with Roder Daltry guest-starring. Hmm ... if this wasn´t at least inspired ... All those story almost sound like parody from todays viewpoint. To think people took this earnestly. And if nobody liked this, Derleth wouldn´t have sold so many of this. While checking him I discovered a good Derleth Biblio. (Okay, no big deal, it is no.7 on the first google page ) Still, it lists the content of his anthologies. He really liked writers like Carl Jacobi, FB Long or CAS. August DerlethAnthologies
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