{"id":3110,"date":"2016-10-23T13:17:38","date_gmt":"2016-10-23T13:17:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/greydogtales.com\/blog\/?p=3110"},"modified":"2018-07-19T15:31:54","modified_gmt":"2018-07-19T15:31:54","slug":"carnacki-the-second-great-detective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/greydogtales.com\/blog\/carnacki-the-second-great-detective\/","title":{"rendered":"Carnacki: The Second Great Detective"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s a thought. Astonishingly, there are more stories written in homage to Carnacki the Ghost Finder<\/strong><\/em> than there are of any Victorian or Edwardian detective save Sherlock Holmes<\/strong><\/em>. That’s not just occult detectives, that’s all of them, from the amateur investigator to the perspicacious policeman. He may be a niche interest to some, but he’s an impressive one. His creator William Hope Hodgson<\/strong> would probably be shocked, and H P Lovecraft<\/strong> a little puzzled (he wasn’t fond of Carnacki).<\/p>\n

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copyright m s corley 2016<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There were rumours of C Auguste Dupin<\/em> (from Edgar Allan Poe<\/strong>) in the side-wings, but as you’ll see below, I think we can show that Carnacki has the distinct edge over any other detective of the period. We’re discounting multi-authored characters such as Sexton Blake<\/em> or Nick Carter<\/em>. Sexton Blake first appeared in 1893, and was a ‘house’ character written by dozens of people (including even the SF author Michael Moorcock, <\/strong>later on) for various magazines.<\/p>\n

Nick Carter, first appearing in 1886, was the same, a ‘house’ character with at least a dozen authors, though this series does bear the distinction of being one of the first of its kind to have one or two female authors contributing over the years.<\/p>\n

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Last October we had a month-long celebration of William Hope Hodgson, in which we ran a series called The Inheritors<\/em>, covering writers who had taken his themes or characters and written new, related fiction. Today we’re concentrating only on the Ghost Finder and those who follow in his footsteps. You’ll find some cracking stuff below, if you haven’t already been there before us.<\/p>\n

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We’ve argued elsewhere why Carnacki might be so popular, so here we’re only going to do a head-count. But given that we’ve pitted Carnacki against Holmes, it may be worth reminding ourselves of their approaches, which must be part of the attraction. Both Great Detectives believed in:<\/p>\n