Michael Harrison

In 1915, at the height of his career, Sherlock Holmes wrote his Memoirs and deposited the manuscript for safekeeping at the British Museum. Released by the Museum sixty years later, the manuscript has now been edited by the world’s leading authority on Holmes. To Dr Watson, Sherlock Holmes was the best and wisest man that Watson had ever known. But what was he really like—this man of modest birth who made himself the most famous private detective of all time, trusted agent, friend and confidant of the Great? Here is the great sleuth’s own fearless analysis of his complex nature: his drug-taking; his ambitions; his reasons for not marrying; and his passion for the One Woman who would always be beyond his reach. The Memoirs are full of surprises even for confirmed Holmesians, revealing aspects of Holmes’s life that neither Dr Watson nor Sir Arthur Conan Doyle were aware of. For instance, they show that the most powerful influence in shaping Homes’s career, by finding him illustrious clients, was the American financier William H. Vanderbilt. But if the Memoirs take us into a world of wealth and power, there is another world with which Holmes became equally well acquainted: that raffish demimonde his half-dozen carefully contrived ‘other selves’ could penetrate without endangering the life—of reputation—of Sherlock Holmes. The adventures of these masquerade characters, ranging from ‘a groom out of livery’ to a female temperance campaigner, throw new and amusing light on Holmes’s ‘undercover’ activities. Holmes touches only occasionally in these Memoirs on his actual methods of detection; he is concerned primarily with describing the world in which he flourished, and his place in it. Almost every great name in modern history up to World War I—in the United States as well as in the Old World—appears in the dramatis personae of Sherlock Holmes’s astonishing life. (front flap)

Fire from Heaven is a 1969 historical novel by Mary Renault about the childhood and youth of Alexander the Great. It reportedly was a major inspiration for the Oliver Stone film Alexander.

Infernal machine / John Lutz -- Final toast / Stuart M. Kaminsky -- Phantom chamber / Gary Alan Ruse -- Return of the Speckled Band / Edward D. Hoch -- Adventures of the unique Holmes / Jon L. Breen -- Sherlock holmes and "The Woman" / Michael Harrison -- Shadows on the lawn / Barry Jones -- Adventure of the Gowanus abduction / Joyce Harrington -- Dr. and Mrs. Watson at home / Loren D. Estleman -- Two footmen / Michael Gilbert -- Sherlock Holmes and the muffin / Dorothy B. Hughes -- Curious computer / Peter Lovesey -- Adventure of the persistent marksman / Lillian de la Torre -- House that Jack built / Edward Wellen -- [The Doctor's Case]/ Stephen King -- THE SECOND TREATY / Daniel Stashower THE ADVENTURE OF THE VENOMOUS LIZARD / Bill Crider Hostage to fortune / Anne Perry Afterword: Moriarty and the real underworld / John Gardner.

> A triumph of dedicated detective work, set against the romantic nostalgic splendor of Victorian England, The World of Sherlock Holmes reveals a wealth of unsuspected facts about the master sleuth. What was the scandal involving Queen Victoria's son and grandson? Why did Holmes visit the United States, and what did he do for Vanderbilt? Why did he remain silent about the identity of Jack the Ripper? What was the secret of the Vatican cameos? Why did the kings of Denmark, Sweden and Holland, the Sultan of Turkey, the Czar of Russia and the President of the United States confer on Sherlock Holmes their countries' highest decorations? >Mr. Harrison also sheds new light on Holmes' youth, including the unusual nature of his university career, his brilliant achievements at the top level of Victorian diplomacy and his close and curious relations with the Britsh crown.