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163 pages

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Diane Gilbert Madsen's new book from MX Publishing, Cracking the Code of the Canon, breaks the Canon wide open to offer a totally unique and different way of looking at Holmes and Watson and all the stories in the Canon you know and enjoy. It was written by lifelong Sherlockian and award winning mystery author Diane Gilbert Madsen (The Conan Doyle Notes: The Secret of Jack the Ripper; Hunting for Hemingway; and A Cadger's Curse.). She brings her amusing style to a remarkable overview of the Canon that will intrigue Sherlockian novices and aficionados alike. Her very readable and entertaining take on the Sherlock Holmes approach to crime, criminals, victims and justice may alter many of your views of the Canon. Statistics can be fun when they relate to Sherlockian lore.

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Publié par	Andrews UK
Date de parution	19 septembre 2016
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781780929729
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0300€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Title page
Cracking the Code of the Canon:
How Sherlock Holmes Made His Decisions
Diane Gilbert Madsen

Publisher information
2016 digital version converted and published by
Andrews UK Limited 2016
www.andrewsuk.com
Cracking the Code of the Canon: How Sherlock Holmes Made His Decisions © 2016 by Diane Gilbert Madsen, USA.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
The right of Diane Gilbert Madsen to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998.
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without express prior written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted except with express prior written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended). Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damage.
MX Publishing
335 Princess Park Manor, Royal Drive, London, N11 3GX. UK. www.mxpublishing.co.uk
Cover design by Brian Belanger, MX Publishing
Editing by: Simon Hetherington

Cover Painting
“WHERE IT’S ALWAYS 1895”
Pencil sketch by Albert Earl Gilbert
Albert Earl Gilbert did this freehand copy at age 15. It is based on Robert Fawcett’s color painting in Collier’s Magazine in the 1950’s on The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes by Adrian Conan Doyle and John Dickson Carr. Gilbert dedicates his pencil drawing to the memory of the great American illustrator, Robert Fawcett, who studied art at the Slade School in London.

Dedication
To the wonderful Tom, husband extraordinaire, the inspiration for this statistical analysis of the Holmes stories. Doing this was one of the really fun things in my life.

Acknowledgements
Heartfelt thanks to my friend across the pond, Sheriff Valerie Johnston, member of the Scottish Judiciary, for sharing her knowledge of British and Scottish law. Her kind assistance was invaluable in every chapter, and she never failed to extricate me from terminology dilemmas.
Special thanks to Mr. Simon Hetherington, Publisher of Halsbury’s Laws of England from 2002–13 , and a Member of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London, for reviewing the chapter on the crimes of Holmes and Watson and providing valuable advice and editing.
Thanks to Mr. Martin Wishnatsky for sharing his interesting article entitled, The Theology of Sherlock Holmes, at http://goodmorals.org/doyle

Epigraph
“Lang may yer lum reek”
- Olde Scottish Saying
“Live long and prosper”
- Translation by Mr. Spock of Star Trek

Foreword
The genesis of this book came from research I did for my novel, The Conan Doyle Notes: The Secret of Jack the Ripper . The thesis of that book is that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, together with Dr. Joseph Bell, discovered the identity of Jack the Ripper and having done so, decided not to reveal the identity to the public. Early on, I discussed the thesis of that book with a friend who strongly objected. His view was that Conan Doyle would never have kept this identity a secret. He cited Conan Doyle’s well-known probity, using the example of Doyle’s tombstone inscription, “Blade straight, steel true,” to dispute that Doyle would have kept the identity a secret.
This was a serious objection, and I set out to resolve it. I used the theory that a novelist’s core values and fundamental beliefs were inevitably revealed when examining the plots and protagonists of the novel. This theory seemed especially applicable since the Holmes adventures were written over a span of 40 years and the Canon itself is a substantial volume of work.
I reread the entire Canon - I have been a lifelong Sherlockian - and found many surprises. All of my previous readings had been for enjoyment or to analyze a single story. When I began to consider the entire Canon as a whole, I was struck by the diverse nature of the outcomes of the cases and how they were affected by Sherlock Holmes himself as he implemented his own brand of justice, and certain themes began to emerge. First, that Holmes let many criminals, including murderers, escape legal justice. Second, that Holmes considered himself to be outside of the law when investigating. He and Watson committed many criminal acts themselves and also felt free not to advise the authorities of their findings. And third, that discretion was one of the hallmarks of Holmes and Watson and that a problem was often far better resolved privately.
With my concerns on this matter resolved, I wrote my novel, The Conan Doyle Notes , which I hope you will enjoy along with the others in my DD McGil Literati Series of murder mysteries. As for all the research I did on the Canon, I’ve compiled it into this book you are now reading, and I want to thank my publisher, MX Publishing, for the early interest and encouragement in this project. I hope you will enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it. I think some of the conclusions may be eye-opening.

Introduction
My analysis led me to find that the outcomes of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories could be organized into five categories, as follows:
1. Category 1 - Cases with no legal crime
2. Category 2 - Cases wherein the Villian IS Brought to the Law
3. Category 3 - Cases wherein Villain is NOT Brought to the Law
4. Category 4 - Cases in which Holmes and/or Watson take the law into their own hands and commit crimes
5. Category 5 - Cases in which Sherlock Holmes is wrong
Chapters 1 through 3 examine what we really know about Sherlock Holmes, including his ideas of justice and how his personal ideas are firmly embedded in the Victorian and Edwardian eras with all of their complex spoken and unspoken rules.
Chapter 4 details which stories fit into each of the five categories and provides a brief statistical analysis of each category.
Chapters 5 through 9 review Category 1 through Category 5 stories in detail with discussions on various cases, villains, types of justice, and statistical analyses.
Chapter 10 profiles the crimes and the victims. Chapter 11 profiles the Holmesian villain and also compares both psychologically and physically the villains Holmes sends to the law to those he does not.
These chapters all provide an analysis of some Holmesian decisions on justice and consider questions such as whether revenge can ever be justified and the question of whether it is morally right to avenge past crimes.
Chapter 12 profiles victims. Chapter 13 looks at impersonations, aliases and disguises in the Canon, and Chapter 14 examines Watson as the fixed point in the Canon. An Afterword reveals Doyle’s own favorite stories and what they have in common.
I hope you will be as interested in the information about Sherlock Holmes and his decision-making process as I was, and that you, too, will enjoy looking at an overview of cases in the 56 stories by category and see how each category of justice fits into the Canon.

1. Who is Sherlock Holmes?
Sherlock Holmes is the “most portrayed literary human character in film & TV,” according to the award given by the Guinness Book of World Records . When his name is mentioned, we picture him calling “the game is afoot,” and urging Dr. Watson to bring his revolver along as they hail a hansom cab on the foggy streets of London, ready to right a wrong and catch a criminal.
Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective, fascinated the world when Conan Doyle’s stories appeared. The “great brain” [1] of Sherlock Holmes amazed readers. They loved his idiosyncratic traits - smart and quirky - and he knew God-knows-what about you before you ever opened your mouth. He was a man “whose knowledge was not that of other mortals.” [2] His remarkable attention to detail and analytical reasoning were far superior to those of the everyday man. His keen intelligence, superior powers of observation, incisive analytical prowess, wide ranging knowledge of ephemera and minutiae, and his love and pursuit of justice formed the basis of his famous “Method” - the technique he employed to unravel a mystery, unmask a villain and solve a case. Dr. Watson notes, “There was something in his masterly grasp of a situation, and his keen, incisive reasoning, which made it a pleasure to me to study his system of work, and to follow the quick, subtle methods by which he disentangled the most inextricable mysteries.” [3]
Above all, he was a man of science - “an automaton” [4] -a man who seemed more like a machine than a man - a machine that considers logic, fact and cold hearted analysis instead of empathy, sympathy and accommodation. “I am a brain, Watson. The rest of me is a mere appendix.” [5]
Holmes was the epitome of scientific rationalization. “He was ... the most perfect reasoning and observing machine the world has ever seen ... [6] He was a machine that never failed, according to Watson. “So accustomed was I to his invariable success that the very possibility of his failing had ceased to enter into my head.” [7]
Holmes the scientific man is someone special, someone unlike the average man. Holmes makes it clear to Watson and the reader that his rational, scientific approach doesn’t approve of emotions, and his nature doesn’t contain the stuff of romance nor does it invite casual friendship. He is highly self-disciplined, but his asceticism is not strictly austere or self-denying. The closest counterpart of a well-known character reflecting Holmes’