The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, Graeme Davis
The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, Graeme Davis
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The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes
The Greatest Detective Stories: 1837–1914

Author: Graeme Davis, various authors, Leslie S. Klinger

Narrator: Paul Boehmer, Maxwell Caulfield, Gabrielle de Cuir, Alex Hyde-White, John Lee, Jim Meskimen, John Rubinstein, Stefan Rudnicki, Arthur Morey, various narrators

Unabridged: 18 hr 30 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 12/24/2019


Synopsis

This masterful collection of seventeen classic mystery stories, dating from 1837 to 1914, traces the earliest history of popular detective fiction.Today, the figure of Sherlock Holmes towers over detective fiction like a colossus―but it was not always so. Edgar Allan Poe’s French detective Dupin, the hero of “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” preceded Holmes’s deductive reasoning by more than forty years with his “tales of ratiocination.” In A Study in Scarlet, the first of Holmes’ adventures, Doyle acknowledged his debt to Poe―and to Émile Gaboriau, whose thief-turned-detective Monsieur Lecoq debuted in France twenty years earlier.If “Rue Morgue” was the first true detective story in English, the title of the first full-length detective novel is more hotly contested. Two books by Wilkie Collins―The Woman in White (1859) and The Moonstone (1868)―are often given that honor, with the latter showing many of the features that came to identify the genre: a locked-room murder in an English country house; bungling local detectives outmatched by a brilliant amateur detective; a large cast of suspects and a plethora of red herrings; and a final twist before the truth is revealed. Others point to Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s The Trail of the Serpent (1861) or Aurora Floyd (1862), and others still to The Notting Hill Mystery (1862–3) by the pseudonymous “Charles Felix.”As the early years of detective fiction gave way to two separate golden ages―of hard-boiled tales in America and intricately-plotted, so-called “cozy” murders in Britain―the legacy of Sherlock Holmes, with his fierce devotion to science and logic, gave way to street smarts on the one hand and social insight on the other―but even though these new sub-genres went their own ways, their detectives still required the intelligence and clear-sightedness that characterized the earliest works of detective fiction: the trademarks of Sherlock Holmes, and of all the detectives featured here.

About Graeme Davis

Graeme Davis has been fascinated by horror fiction since his teens, devouring late-night reruns of the classic Universal and Hammer movies on his parents’ black-and-white TV and stripping local thrift-stores of horror titles. He began writing for tabletop role-playing games in the early 1980s, and among many other credits he helped develop Games Workshop’s blockbuster Warhammer dark-fantasy franchise and the 90s gothic hit Vampire: The Masquerade, as well as more than forty electronic games. This is his second anthology for Pegasus, following on from the 2017 collection Colonial Horrors. He lives in Lafayette, Colorado.

About Leslie S. Klinger

Leslie S. Klinger is one of the world’s foremost authorities on Sherlock Holmes. He is the editor of the three-volume set The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes. The first two volumes, The Complete Short Stories, won the Edgar for Best Critical/Biographical work. His New Annotated Frankenstein was nominated for a World Fantasy Award. Klinger is a member of the Baker Street Irregulars and lives in Malibu.

About Paul Boehmer

Paul Boehmer attended his first Shakespearean play while in high school; he knew then that he was destined to become the classically trained actor he is today. Graduating with a master's degree, Paul was cast as Hamlet by the very stage actor who inspired his career path. A nod from the Universe he'd chosen aright! Paul has worked on Broadway and extensively in regional theater. Coinciding with another of his passions, sci-fi, Paul has been cast in various roles in many episodes of Star Trek. Paul's love of literature and learning led him by nature to his work as a narrator for audiobooks, his latest endeavour. Paul is married to the love of his life, Offir, and they live in Los Angeles with their two midnight-rambling tomcats, Dread and David.

About Maxwell Caulfield

Maxwell Caulfield is a film, stage, and television actor best known for his roles as Michael Carrington in the 1982 film Grease 2 and Miles Colby in the television shows The Colbys and Dynasty. His other acting credits include the films Gettysburg, The Real Blonde, and Emmerdale. He has won six AudioFile Earphones Awards.

About Gabrielle de Cuir

Gabrielle de Cuir is a Grammy-nominated and Audie Award-winning producer whose narration credits include the voice of Valentine in Orson Scott Card’s Ender novels, Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Tombs of Atuan, and Natalie Angier’s Woman, for which she was awarded AudioFile magazine’s Golden Earphones Award.  She lives in Los Angeles where she also directs theatre and presently has several projects in various stages of development for film.

About Alex Hyde-White

Alex Hyde-White is an actor and a producer of two films and hundreds of audiobooks thru his label Punch Audio.

About John Lee

John Lee has read more than 100 audiobooks.  His work has garnered multiple Earphones Awards and won AudioFile's Best Voice in Fiction & Classics in both 2008 and 2009.  Lee narrated the audiobook for A Feast for Crows by George R. R. Martin, volume four of A Song of Ice and Fire. He has also read for Jack London, John Banville, Charles Dickens, and Barbara Taylor Bradford.  In addition, Lee narrates video games, does voice-over work, and writes plays.  He is also an accomplished stage actor and has written and co-produced the feature films Breathing Hard and Forfeit.  He played Alydon in the 1963–64 Doctor Who serial The Daleks.

About Jim Meskimen

Jim Meskimen is a stage, film, and television actor who has appeared in many well-known movies and television shows. He acted in Apollo 13 and Frost/Nixon for director Ron Howard, both of which were nominated for Best Picture Oscars. His television appearances include The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Friends, Lie to Me, Criminal Minds, and Parks and Recreation. He is also a painter, award-winning audiobook narrator, and audiobook director for Galaxy Audio.

About John Rubinstein

Kevin Baker is the author of one previous novel, Sometimes You See It Coming, and served as chief historical researcher for the recently published The American Century by Harold Evans. He is married and lives in New York City.John Rubenstein won a Theater World Award, a Tony, and a Drama Desk Award for his performances in Pippin and Children of a Lesser God.

About Stefan Rudnicki

Stefan Rudnicki is an award winning audiobook narrator, director and producer. He was born in Poland and now resides in Studio City, California. He has narrated more than three hundred audiobooks and has participated in over a thousand as a writer, producer, or director. He is a recipient of multiple Audie Awards and AudioFile Earphones Awards as well as a Grammy Award, a Bram Stoker Award, and a Ray Bradbury Award. He received AudioFile’s award for 2008 Best Voice in Science Fiction and Fantasy. Along with a cast of other narrators, Rudnicki has read a number of Orson Scott Card's best-selling science fiction novels. He worked extensively with many other science fiction authors, including David Weber and Ben Bova. In reviewing the twentieth anniversary edition audiobook of Card’s Ender's Game, Publishers Weekly stated, "Rudnicki, with his lulling, sonorous voice, does a fine job articulating Ender's inner struggle between the kind, peaceful boy he wants to be and the savage, violent actions he is frequently forced to take." Rudnicki is also a stage actor and director.

About Arthur Morey

Arthur Morey has recorded over two hundred audiobooks in history, fiction, science, business, and religion, earning a number of AudioFile Earphones Awards and two Audie Award nominations. He was an editor at two publishers and has taught writing at Northwestern University. His plays and songs have been produced in New York, Chicago, and Milan, where he has also performed. Arthur attended Harvard and the University of Chicago.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Jill

For Hutchinson Hatch. For Doctor Jervis. For Mary Granard. For Gus (Augustus) Darley. For M. Plantat. For Brett. For Sainclair. For Walter Jameson. For Wilson. (That poor, cheap copy.) For Dupin's nameless roommate. Mostly for Bunny Manders. For all these pieces who aren't missing because we have an expectatio......more

Goodreads review by Rubin

This collection of early Detective stories that predate compete with and even emulate Sherlock Holmes are very dry,dull,and underwhelming as a whole while 2 stories are excellently narrated by Maxwell Caulfield the rest are substandard and the only 2 stories that actually good are the Man with Naile......more

Goodreads review by Ruth

Admittedly a DNF. I never much cared for mystery, crime, or detective stories before I fell down the Sherlock Holmes hyperfixation rabbit hole recently and evidently I still can’t maintain interest if it’s not Holmes the sleuthhound and good old Watson. As a young person I enjoyed the aesthetic text......more

Goodreads review by Dennis

As with any anthology, this one had its brighter and duller moments. I didn’t read any of the extracts from the novels: they were there to give the flavor of the author’s writing, I think, so for documentary purposes rather than pleasure reading. I did discover a couple of writers I would read again......more


Quotes

The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes…features exploits of both the great detective’s predecessors…and his numerous literary progeny.” Washington Post

“Davis’s collection offers the pleasure of undiscovered countries.” Booklist

“A welcome addition to early English detective fiction anthologies. Solid entries will be new to many.” Publishers Weekly