In 2026 I plan to read all the Conan Doyle “Sherlock Holmes” works – 56 short stories and 4 novels (here’s why and how). If you haven’t already read it, Michael Green’s “undiscovered letter” from John Watson is fricking hilarious. I may also read various Holmes homages/pastiches etc. Who knows? (btw I’d recommend theSeven Per Cent Solution, by Nicholas Meyer where Watson has to trick Holmes into going to Vienna to be treated by Sigmund Freud).
In February my target is to read all (or at very least most) of the 12 stories in Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

Published: July 1893
Wikipedia here
Online here
Review: I would recommend this.
What’s interesting about this one is that it deals with the typical questions of actions in the colonies coming back to bite people on the ass in the Metropole, and also with the sexual choices, sexual desires of women. These are two of the things that drive Holmes stories, as far as I can tell, not entirely, but usually it hinges on.
If I knew my Bible well enough, I would have understood the reference to David!
Also – has anyone written about animals (dogs etc) and Holmes? There’s a freaking mongoose here…
Best sentence(s): xx
“Excellent!” I cried. “Elementary,” said he. “It is one of those instances where the reasoner can produce an effect which seems remarkable to his neighbor, because the latter has missed the one little point which is the basis of the deduction. T
******
The Colonel possessed a varied collection of weapons brought from the different countries in which he had fought, and it is conjectured by the police that his club was among his trophies
[classic mis-direction]
*****
Hudson Street – what did Doyle have against the Hudsons??
*****
It was midday when we found ourselves at the scene of the tragedy, and, under my companion’s guidance, we made our way at once to Hudson Street. In spite of his capacity for concealing his emotions, I could easily see that Holmes was in a state of suppressed excitement, while I was myself tingling with that half-sporting, half-intellectual pleasure which I invariably experienced when I associated myself with him in his investigations.
*****
“My God! Are you in the police yourself?”
“No.”
“What business is it of yours, then?”
“It’s every man’s business to see justice done.”
*****
| The Ichneumonidae, also known as ichneumon wasps, ichneumonid wasps, ichneumonids, or Darwin wasps, are a family of parasitoid wasps of the insect order Hymenoptera. They are one of the most diverse groups within the Hymenoptera with roughly 25,000 species described as of 2016.[2] However, this likely represents less than a quarter of their true richness as reliable estimates are lacking, along with much of the most basic knowledge about their ecology, distribution, and evolution.[1] It is estimated that there are more species in this family than there are species of birds and mammals combined.[3] Ichneumonid wasps, with very few exceptions, attack the immature stages of holometabolous insects and spiders, eventually killing their hosts.[4] They play an important role as regulators of insect populations, both in natural and semi-natural systems, making them promising agents for biological control.[5] |
Leave a comment