August Derleth, Basil Copper, an odd detective of whom you might not have heard, and more. Not content with simply drifting around Sherlock Holmes, J G Reeder, Thomas Carnacki and other classic detectives, we thought that we ought to bring you news of a whole heap of stories about Solar Pons, ‘The Sherlock Holmes of Praed Street’. You’ll hear more about Solar himself later, but first, we couldn’t resist the allure of Praed Street itself, because it has some interesting real and literary trivia surrounding it.

Praed Street Blues

The street was named after William Praed (1747-1833), a businessman and somewhat dodgy British politician who was obsessed with his ‘magnificent undertaking’ of the Grand Junction Canal. We say dodgy, but in those days there was so much buying and selling of votes and constituencies that it’s hard to tell if he was much worse than the others. Praed Street is next to Paddington Station in central London, and runs southwest from Edgware Road.

In October 1883, during a period of serious Fenian agitation, a bomb was thrown from a first-class carriage of a train entering the station, injuring seventy people (another bomb was detonated the same day elsewhere). It’s notable that only six months before, a new detective department had been formed at Scotland Yard under Adolphus Williamson and Inspector John Littlechild.

Known at first as the Special Irish Branch, this later became Special Branch and its operations were extended to investigate a range of agitators and political threats – Fenians, Bolsheviks, anarchists and the like. Never one to miss an opportunity, Mr Linwood Grant would like to point out that Special Branch plays a key part in some of his Edwardian tales, such as his Holmes story ‘The Affair of the Red Opium’ and his Holmes/Redvers Blake novella ‘A Study in Grey’. What an annoying old codger he is.

A Different Kind of Lancelot

Praed Street crops up again in the work of Cecil John Charles Street (1884-1964), writing as John Rhode. The Murders in Praed Street was first published in 1928, and is worth noting also because it features a character who probably deserves his own article on greydogtales – the investigator Dr Priestley.

‘John Rhode’ wrote seventy two novels featuring Dr Lancelot Priestley, of which The Murders in Praed Street was, we believe, the fourth. The series regularly featured Priestley, Inspector Hanslet and Inspector Jimmy Waghorn, though Priestley slid slowly from active investigation to more of an armchair role. He was a man who didn’t believe in sentiment clouding a crime:

“But in nearly every case Dr. Priestly’s interest in the problem ceased when he had solved it to his own satisfaction. The fate of the criminal was a matter of complete unconcern to him. He treated detection much as he would have treated a game of chess.”

John Rhode, The Claverton Affair (1933)

We might return to Lancelot one day, but you can read more about the relevant Praed Street book here:

http://apenguinaweek.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/penguin-no-98-murders-in-praed-street.html

As a last extra, the street was also mentioned in Ira Levin’s Rosemary’s Baby:

“There was a house in London, on Praed Street, in which five separate brutal murders took place within sixty years. None of the five was in any way connected with any of the others; the murders weren’t related nor were the victims, nor were all the murders committed for the same moonstone or Maltese falcon. Yet five separate brutal murders took place within sixty years. In a small house with a shop on the street and an apartment overhead.”

On to the real literary meat for today…

The Papers of Solar Pons

In rather fun news, Belanger Books LLC and Arkham House Publishers Inc. have launched a Kickstarter campaign to publish the first new Solar Pons story collection in over 20 years.

“It is with great pleasure & excitement we announce this news; the Derleth Solar Pons character will be coming back to life in the 21st Century!” said Danielle Hackett and Damon Derleth, co-owners of Arkham House, in a joint statement. “We are pleased to be working on this project with Belanger Books and look forward to this release and future projects together.”

The story collection is titled The Papers of Solar Pons: New Adventures of the Sherlock Holmes of Praed Street and features new stories by bestselling author David Marcum. Marcum is most known for his Sherlock Holmes fiction (The Papers of Sherlock Holmes) as well as collections he’s edited such as The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes stories, currently on Volume VIII.

“I first read a Solar Pons story at age eight, two years before I discovered Sherlock Holmes, and I credit the enjoyment of that Pons story with giving me an appreciation for that type of adventure,” said Mr. Marcum.

Solar Pons was created by August Derleth in the 1920s as a continuation of the Sherlock Holmes canon. Derleth, who famously created Arkham House Publishing to preserve the writings of his friend, author HP Lovecraft, had corresponded with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, asking whether Doyle would be providing any new Holmes adventures. When Doyle said no, Derleth determined to write some himself. However, instead of writing more Holmes tales, Derleth came up with Solar Pons, a detective very similar to Holmes, and Dr. Lyndon Parker, his Dr. Watson. Eventually, between the 1920’s and his death in 1971, Derleth wrote over seventy Pons tales, set in that period between the end of World War I and 1939.

one of our own battered books in the longdog library

“The Pons stories clearly take place in Holmes’s world, as the Great Detective himself is referenced by Pons and Parker on several occasions,” explained Marcum. The Papers of Solar Pons: New Adventures of the Sherlock Holmes of Praed Street contains twelve new Pons adventures, ranging from the early 1920’s to the late 1930’s – the range of time described in the original Pontine Canon. Additionally, one of the tales contains a flashback to one of Pons’s early cases, soon after he set up his London practice. “And as something extra, the book also contains a Holmes story that I wrote a few years ago, explaining the origin of Solar Pons.” Other Sherlock Holmes connections include a story where Pons is called upon to investigate the theft of Watson’s Tin Dispatch Box from Cox & Co., and another where Pons and Parker revisit the site of one of the Holmesian Canon’s murders. And then there is the murder that occurs in the lab at Barts, where Holmes and Watson first met so many years before.

“I very much appreciate the Derleth Estate allowing me to bring these stories to the public, and hopefully to generate some new interest in one of the greatest detectives of all time, Solar Pons,” said Mr. Marcum.

The Kickstarter has already gone past its initial target, and you can see the details here:

Pons Galore from PS Publishing

We would have mentioned the above in passing anyway, but curiously we came across a further Praed Street announcement only days later, so thought you’d want to know about that as well. This time it’s about the work of British writer Basil Copper (1924-2013), who picked up on the Praed Street saga after August Derleth.

PS Publishing sent us the following:

This week is a bumper crop with not one or two but SEVEN paperback volumes gathering together the complete Basil Copper’s Solar Pons stories. You would not believe how many requests we—and editor Stephen Jones [pictured below with Basil]—had to come up with more accessible editions of Basil’s tales and, well, you called, hombres and we answered.

Here’s what Stephen Jones had to say about the original two-volume slipcased set ( a limited edition), the contents of which (plus a few more goodies) are included in the seven paperbacks.

“Basil never had the pleasure of seeing all his Pons stories collected in a definitive omnibus edition. However, before his death in April 2013 at the age of 89, he and I started working on these two volumes. I also wanted to collect all his macabre fiction together and, with the help of PS Publishing, we did just that in 2010. Two years later we collaborated again to publish Basil’s Gothic novel The Curse of the Fleers in a version that the author originally intended.

“Although it saddens me that he never lived to see this handsome presentation of his entire Solar Pons Canon from the same imprint, I’m also heartened to know he was aware that we were working on it.

“It has taken forty years but here, finally, are The Complete Adventures of Solar Pons by Basil Copper. Once again prepare to be plunged into an idyllic English countryside or the chill and foggy streets of London, as that great city’s second most famous consulting detective—ably supported by the reliable Dr. Lyndon Parker—uses his “ratiocinative” powers of logical deduction to solve murders both mysterious and macabre…”

With art by Les Edwards, we’ll give you the full contents, as if you’re already a Solar Pons enthusiast, you may want particular volumes.

The Dossier of Solar Pons #1

The Editor’s Note
Explanation by Dr. Lyndon Parker
The Adventure of the Perplexed Photographer
The Sealed Spiral Mystery
The Adventure of the Six Gold Doubloons
The Adventure of the Ipi Idol
The Adventure of Buffington Old Grange
The Adventure of the Hammer of Hate

The Further Adventures of Solar Pons #2

The Editor’s Note
The Adventure of the Shaft of Death
The Adventure of the Baffled Baron
The Adventure of the Surrey Sadist
The Adventure of the Missing Student

The Secret Files of Solar Pons #3

The Editor’s Note
The Adventure of the Crawling Horror
The Adventure of the Anguished Actor
The Adventure of the Ignored Idols
The Adventure of the Horrified Heiress

Some Uncollected Cases of Solar Pons #4

The Editor’s Note
The Adventure of the Haunted Rectory
The Adventure of the Singular Sandwich
Murder at the Zoo
The Adventure of the Frightened Governess

The Exploits of Solar Pons #5

The Editor’s Note
The Adventure of the Verger’s Thumb
The Adventure of the Phantom Face
Death at the Metropole
The Adventure of the Callous Colonel

The Recollections of Solar Pons #6

The Editor’s Note
The Adventure of the Cursed Curator
The Adventure of the Hound of Hell
The Adventure of the Mad Millionaire
The Adventure of the Devil’s Claw

The Solar Pons Companion #7

The Editor’s Note
Once A Pons a Time – Stephen Jones
Foreword – Basil Copper
In the Footsteps of Sherlock Holmes – Basil Copper
Plots of the Stories – Basil Copper
Characters in the Stories – Basil Copper
The Sayings of Solar Pons – Basil Copper
Solar Pons Plot and Dialogue Notes – Stephen Jones
The Adventure of the Northleach Stocks – Stephen Jones
Painting Pons: Artist Ben Stahl – Stephen Jones
The Adventure of the Defeated Doctor – Basil Copper
The Adventure of the Agonised Actor – Basil Copper
The Adventure of the Persecuted Painter – Basil Copper

You can see (and order) the whole range at PS Publishing’s site here:

http://www.pspublishing.co.uk/forthcoming-titles-26-c.asp

Enough detecting for one day. We’ll be back soon, probably with lurchers and with dark and strange folklore. Oh, and congratulations to Calvin Demmer, Daniel del Valle and Sarah Mooring, who won an e-format of the new ‘A Persistence of Geraniums’ collections by that darned Linwood Grant.