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Sherlock Holmes
Edited by Tom Ue and Jonathan
Cranfield
Fan Phenomena Series Bristol: Intellect Books, 2014 Paperback. 153 p. ISBN 978-1783202058. £15.50
Reviewed
by Malcah Effron Case
Western Reserve University, Cleveland (Ohio)
Despite its title, Tom Ue
and Jonathan Cranfield’s edited collection Sherlock
Holmes does not investigate the famed late nineteenth-century serial
written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. As is appropriate for a book in the Fan
Phenomena series published by Intellect, Ue and Cranfield’s collection takes as
its primary texts the fan behavior, especially the fan fiction produced around the late Victorian detective. The editors highlight how Conan Doyle himself
authorized the figure’s adaptation in different cultural contexts, citing the
author’s famed comment to the playwright William Gillette “do what you like
with him” [5]. Situating their collection as public embrace of this authorial
permission, the types of chapters in the collection epitomize fan production,
as they not only include academic articles but also statements from and
interviews with producers of Holmes fan fiction. Each section of the book
incorporates essays alongside interviews, providing material of interest to a diverse
readership ranging from print culture scholars to Holmes fans. Comprising the majority of
the collection (two-thirds of the essays and about half the collection), the
critical essays range from chapters that engage with the popularity of the
form, like Tom Ue’s “Sherlock Holmes and Shakespeare” to the criteria for
marketability, like Russell Merritt’s “Holmes and the Snake Skin Suits.” Others
pay attention to how icons like Sherlock Holmes can be appropriated and
reinterpreted to communicate values intrinsic in the society producing the
adaptations rather than the source texts, like Luke Benjamin Kuhns’s “Doyle or
Death? An Investigation into the World of Pastiche” and Benjamin Poore’s
“Getting Level with the King-Devil : Moriarty, Modernity and
Conspiracy.” Some of the strongest
scholarly arguments in the collection provide useful understandings of fan
experience in addition to illuminating the historical and ideological work of
the fan cultures evolving around Conan Doyle’s creation. Two exemplars of this
good work are Jonathan Cranfield’s “Sherlock Holmes, Fan Culture and Fan
Letters” and Noel Brown’s “Sherlock Holmes in the Twenty-Second Century:
Rebranding Holmes for a Child Audience.” Cranfield describes the fan culture
during the life of Arthur Conan Doyle, paying particular attention to how fans
can blur the lines between reality and fiction, treating the fictional
character as a person in the real world. Brown’s article looks at how fictional
characters are appropriated, recreated, and remarketed in new ideological
contexts, counting on later audiences’ familiarity with the brand (the name
Sherlock Holmes), but not with the product. Brown explores how ITV and Fox used
the association of the detective with the notion of ‘problem-solving’ to create
cartoons that met the 1990s’ ideological emphasis on ‘educational’ programming
for children. Together, while the critical chapters tend to address primary
texts that might only be well-known by ‘cult’ followings, the aggregate
description of fan behavior calls attention to the force of the figure of
Sherlock Holmes that exceeds the confines of the Conan Doyle canon. The author statements are
self-reflective pieces by the authors of Sherlock Holmes adaptations. These
chapters, Jonathan Barnes’s “On Writing New Adventures on Audio” and Shane
Peacock’s “The Creation of ‘The Boy Sherlock Holmes’,” outline the inspirations
and challenges involved in the production of Sherlock Holmes adaptations for
radio and into children’s novels. These chapters will be of particular interest
for scholars interested in the process of art production and especially for
fans of all things Sherlock. Fans of all things Sherlock
will be particularly delighted in the chapters described in the table of
contents as “Fan Appreciations.” These appreciations consist of interviews with
the authors and artists who have produced a variety of Sherlock Holmes
adaptations across various media. These include the artists responsible for The House of Silk, Steampunk Sherlock, The Young
Sherlock Holmes Adventures, Sherlock
Holmes : Year One, and Dead
Man’s Land. These interviews are written as dramatic dialogues between either
Ue or Cranfield and the interviewee. The two editors have very distinct
interview styles. Cranfield’s conversations focus more heavily on the primary
texts and the themes and symbols used in them, whereas Ue adheres very closely
to the concept of “appreciation,” praising and congratulating as much as he
asks about motivations and processes. When required, the interviewers have
indicated whether or not there are any spoilers, in case readers are
encountering the adaptation for the first time. While the primary interest
of the edited collection is in its chapters, the book’s production is unique
enough to merit comment. The table of contents is the first signal of the
attention to production, as it is not presented in simple linear fashion.
Rather, the “Fan Appreciation” sections are set out in boxes with lines drawn
into the listed chapters to locate them in the book. This formatting indicates
that these sections should be read differently than typical chapters in an
edited collection and perhaps calls into question whether they should, in fact,
be considered chapters. Additionally, sections are created within the book by a
stylized epigram from a canonical (Conan Doyle’s) Sherlock Holmes story. Lastly
as the bibliographies for each chapter are titled “Go Further,” the book
overtly claims that it is clearly designed to whet the fan’s appetite for further
explorations of Sherlock Holmes. The art of this book, both
in terms of the pieces selected for inclusion and their physical arrangement
foregrounds the collection’s participation in a series focused on understanding
how certain figures become icons that work in the public consciousness. The best pieces in the book
clearly articulate positions on fan culture while documenting the phenomenon as
illustrated through the figure of Sherlock Holmes, exploring the variety of
communities into which the popular detective has been appropriated. By using
the thoughts of both scholars and artists, the collection highlights the
authors’ and editors’ participation in the fan community that they study. This
collection seems particularly suited for non-academic audiences, especially
Sherlock Holmes fans, but some of the academic chapters might be particularly
of interest to scholars of print culture or fan phenomena.
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