For those who weren’t there, who didn’t live through the transition, it may be impossible to understand what it was like. Even for those who were, enough time has passed that perhaps the memory has dimmed under the successive tides of Sherlockian enthusiasm. But the fact is that 1974 is a watershed year in the history of Sherlock Holmes. The Great Detective went mainstream with the debut of Nicholas Meyer’s novel, The Seven-Per-Cent Solution. We now live in a Sherlockian universe permanently transformed by this single volume, a pastiche that inaugurated the modern Sherlockian age.You can enjoy the complete essay by Doyle (and what a convenient moniker that is!) simply by clicking here.
Just the Facts
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Tuesday, September 17, 2024
Living in the Modern Sherlockian Age
I recently finished reading author and screenwriter Nicholas Meyer’s splendid Sherlock Holmes and the Telegram from Hell (Mysterious Press), his sixth novel starring Holmes and the steadfast Doctor John H. Watson. So when I spotted Sherlock authority Steven T. Doyle’s article, in CrimeReads, looking back at the 1976 release of The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, I had to read it right away. It begins:
I was introduced to The Seven-Per-Cent-Solution back in the 80s. I had not read any Holmes stories other than the ones written by Doyle. Eternity Comics (part of Malibu Comics) published Scarlet in Gaslight, a Sherlock Holmes meets Dracula mini-series. It listed several non-Doyle Holmes books including The Seven-Per-Cent-Solution and also the Holmes-Dracula File by Fred Saberhagen. It was shortly afterwards I found both books in paperback. Since then I have all of Saberhagen's Dracula novels and all of Meyer's Holmes books. I have read the follow up The Canary Trainer. The last 2 I have but have not read. I would say 3 but I have yet to pick up SH and the Telegraph From Hell. I don't know if you have seen it but Meyer directed his own adaption of the Seven-Per-Cent Solution and it is good but he changed the ending of his own book for the movie.
ReplyDeleteMy error. He wrote the screenplay rather than directing it.
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