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Sherlock Holmes is everywhere these days: movies, two recent television series, innumerable memes, online fanfic... In Arthur Conan Doyle's day, the situation was much the same, though the mediums have changed. Numerous Victorian writers picked up their pens to write parodies, pastiches, and even advertisements featuring their own version of Sherlock Holmes. Today we are going to look at Sherlock stories by one of these writers: James M. Barrie. That's right - the guy who went on to write Peter Pan. Barrie and Doyle were friends. In fact, they were on a cricket team together along with writers P.G. Wodehouse,...

A Girl Called Foote falls into the category of books I found while randomly flipping through the ebook offerings of the local library. Isn’t it wonderful how the library lets us take a chance on books we wouldn’t normally consider? In all honesty, I chose the book because of its cover. It stands out from other library offerings in its simplicity. subtle, elegant, as enigmatic as the title, and reminiscent of old books – thus well-suited for a novel about a 19th century bookworm The book begins as an episodic novel, showing glimpses into the childhoods of the two protagonists:...

For many books, different editions are broadly similar, with a few corrections and updates in later editions. This is not the case for Malvina Blanchecotte's Rêves et Réalités. Later editions include a significant amount of added material. The following poem, Déshéritée, was added for the 2nd and 3rd editions. I struggled with a translation for the title of this poem. "Déshéritée" means underprivileged or disinherited (female person), but that isn't poetic and in the context of the poem, this woman is a black sheep, rather than financially deprived. After weeks of pondering and looking through thesauri and dictionaries, I came...

A book is always more than a book, but some instances are more obvious than others. Such is the case of this copy of As You Like It, a facsimile from the first folio. Its former owner stuffed it full of articles and other Shakespeare-related ephemera.   The title page                                                                                          A look inside                                                                                           Verse numbering bookmark included! A list of other titles available Ephemera, mostly from Shakespeare's 400th birthday A very fancy brochure from an exhibition Classic portrait of William James I with the Globe Theater in the background  "That Man Shakespeare" "Why not Pattern Dinner after the Bard of...