A Bedside Book of Early Sherlockian Parodies and Pastiches by Charles Press

Author:Charles Press
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Sherlock Holmes, mystery, crime, british crime, sherlock holmes novels, sherlock holmes fiction, sherlock holmes short fiction, sherlock holmes parodies
ISBN: 9781780926315
Publisher: Andrews UK Limited 2014
Published: 2014-06-11T00:00:00+00:00

Sherlock Among the Spirits

Anonymous

As soon as Conan Doyle revealed in 1917 his belief in Spiritualism, “Other World” Sherlockian parodies began to appear. Three even were published in a Spiritualist magazine having Sherlock come to the defense of Spiritualists, something Conan Doyle never made him do.

This one is an anonymous parody that turned up in a magazine edited by G. K. Chesterton (1878-1936.) It bears the marks of Chesterton himself, for unlike most parodies, it is a little more serious in tone. To the writer, Spiritualism seems to be more than just a bad joke.

Chesterton began as an illustrator but soon was drawn into journalism. He wrote over 80 books, 200 short stories, 4000 essays, plus numerous poems and plays. One book was a well received study of Charles Dickens. And he created one of the major detectives of the classic period - Father Brown, a Roman Catholic priest.

His greatest influence though was as a witty literary and social critic and an apologist for orthodox Christianity. He loved to turn common ideas on their head with paradox and this occurs frequently in his series of detective stories about the Father Brown.

In his early years he too was fascinated by the occult and experimented with the Ouija board. This was published in G. K.’s Weekly on August 15, 1925.

***

The Spiritualist Séance, which my friend Conan Doyle had induced me to hold in my old rooms in Baker Street, was just over. It had been a tremendous revelation. The medium, Dr. Magog, whom I assumed from the first to be a charlatan (for my training had been strictly scientific and rational), because of his long white hair and beard and his Lithuanian name, astounded me with the accuracy of his suggestions. He even converted Sir Arthur’s other friend Dr. Challenger, whom readers of the Strand Magazine may remember as having discovered a world of prehistoric animals, whose manners and demeanour he seemed to share. He had begun by having grave doubts, which he expressed by hurling the table to the end of the room and dancing on several the enquirers after truth; but half way through the proceedings he burst into sobs that shook the building.

I could understand his feelings. The medium mentioned things that could only be known in the innermost domestic circle; such as a knock given to a girl when she was a child, now recalled by the spirit of her brother killed in the war. Sometimes this intimacy was even distressing; as in the picture called up before us of a girl sobbing in a remote chateau in France, and the gloomy admission by a young man present that the memory moved him to remorse. Perhaps the most remarkable case was that of the spirit of a daughter who told her father not to neglect his appearance from grief at her death, seeing that the Shining Ones liked to see him in a single eyeglass and spats. Now the man in question was indescribably shaggy and shabby, but he admitted that he had indeed been thus adorned in happier days.

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