“New York is a place long shaped by the forces of unbridled capital, where form follows finance and landowners get to build “as of right”, citizens be damned.” — Oliver Wainwright Recently I read John Kendrick Bangs‘ 1912 short story collection, A Little Book of Christmas. Bangs was a short story writer and magazine editorContinue reading “Christmas Tales from Gilded Age New York”
Tag Archives: Raffles
A Triple Parody
An anonymous triple parody, from the Bridgeport (Connecticut) Evening Farmer, January 29, 1910, though it can be found in other newspapers across the country at about the same time. Sheer-Luck Blake The modern Sexton Blake climbed through the kitchen window, followed by his faithful ally, Bunny–or was it Watson? “Ah,” exclaimed Blake, surveying the surroundings.Continue reading “A Triple Parody”
Mrs. Raffles
John Kendrick Bangs was an American satirist in the Gilded Age and a contemporary of Mark Twain. He’s largely unknown today, and I wouldn’t know of him were it not for his Sherlock Holmes writings. He wrote several comic novels; one of them, A Houseboat on the Styx, features Sherlock Holmes in the afterlife afterContinue reading “Mrs. Raffles”
Raffles in the World of Sherlock
Sherlock co-creator Steven Moffat has said recently that Matt Smith, former Doctor Who star, could appear in Sherlock, if it were the “perfect part.” What could that “perfect part” be? My first thought was Stanley Hopkins, the best of the Scotland Yard inspectors and the one closest to Holmes in intellect. What if Sherlock hadContinue reading “Raffles in the World of Sherlock”
Sherlock Holmes against the Irrational
Yesterday I received in the mail the latest Faction Paradox novel, Philip Purser-Hallard’s Of the City of the Saved….. The novel takes place in the City of the Saved, essentially a secular heaven after the Big Crunch where humanity in all of its forms, from Homo habilis to post-human intelligences that bear no physical relationContinue reading “Sherlock Holmes against the Irrational”