If you’re reading the paperback version of My Particular Friend, you can’t just click on the # sign to go to the relevant footnote, so I present them here on one page, divided amongst the various chapters and affairs. These are a work in progress, so please feel free to comment if you find mistakes, although I may remove those comments after I have repaired any errors so as not to confuse future readers or give them pause to consider my infallibility.
My Particular Friend can be downloaded for your Kindle for free on Sunday, May 20. What, don’t have a Kindle? Well with Kindle for the PC or Kindle for the Mac or Kindle for the iPad or Kindle for your Android device or Kindle for your toaster, you can read Kindle books without a Kindle. And when you finally do get your Kindle, My Particular Friend will be in its library.
But the offer’s only from midnight to midnight Pacific time. In related My Particular Friend news, the paperback is now available for purchase in Europe through your country specific Amazon store. For instance in the U.K., you can get it here.
Or it might be the other way around. Regardless, I thought I might share a few occasions in which I’ve achieved the former and failed the latter. When I was much younger, I met a friend upon the street and after a few minutes conversation, I asked how well her wisdom teeth extraction was healing.
The Syfy channel has some footage from the new CBS show Elementary, which teams Sherlock Holmes with Dr. Joan Watson in modern-day New York City, something of which I’m sure most Sherlockians are aware. The casting of Jonny Lee Miller as Holmes and Lucy Lui as Watson and the decision to place it in modern day have inevitable drawn comparisons, generally not favorable, to the current Sherlock produced by the BBC and shown in America on PBS.
But I have to say, this Holmes acts differently and my impression in watching this clip is that they are trying for something quite different from the regular Sherlock/Watson dynamic. Watson is more his minder than friend and Miller is not trying to play Holmes a la Brett or Cumberbatch. It should be interesting.
I don’t often go off tilting at windmills. I’m more content to grumble and savor my disappointments like fine wine and friends still have to endure my moaning about J.J. Abrams ruining Star Trek, or why the powers that be can’t find a way to put Stargate back on TV. But I’ve limited my real yearnings to just a few things, like a campaign to get the BBC to create a Fifth Business miniseries based on Robertson Davies magnificent triology, or convince the Jim Henson Company to film The Muppets Pride and Prejudice.
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Think about it for a second. In The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton, we read of Sherlock Holmes and his biographer Dr. John H. Watson breaking into the home of the master blackmailer, witnessing his murder, allowing the murderer escape and then their own near capture by the police.
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It shows a great deal of charity to think kindly on the odious Mr. Collins of Pride and Prejudice. Sure, we all feel for Charlotte Collins née Lucas, who, knowing that her marital prospects are not good, accepts his offer of marriage.
(NOTE: There are potential spoilers below, but come on, did you think an Austen continuation would end unhappily?)
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Here’s Christopher Sandrawich’s account of his tour in Worthing with the Midlands chapter of the Jane Austen Society. He learned of the “Library Passage” on this tour.
Friday 7th October
Keele University – Lichfield – Corley Services (M6) – Worthing – and a late Dinner
Worthing, West Sussex (by the sea) whose motto is, “Ex terra copiam e mari salutem” which translates to “From the land plenty and from the sea health”, was this year’s inspired Tour choice. It is considered with good evidence to be the town on which Jane Austen’s final novel, The Brothers later becoming known as Sanditon, was to be based; and Jane herself, aged 29, visited the town in 1805.
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I have to admit I had low hopes for putting Sherlock Holmes and John H. Watson on the Titanic, but The Titanic Tragedy surprised me and I don’t think I was unduly influenced by the hoopla surrounding the 100th anniversary of the sinking … but it helped.
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I am a fan of Stuff You Missed in History Class at HowStuffWorks.com and often listen to it while cleaning the house or on long car trips and there are two Holmes-related podcasts that should be of interest to Sherlockians.
(NOTE: The link in the above paragraph says the page has a improper identity certificate for twitter. I don’t believe the page to be malicious, but you can click the links below or follow Stuff You Missed in History Class on facebook.)
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In My Particular Friend, the worlds of Jane Austen and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle collide in the persons of Miss Charlotte House, who has the intellect of Sherlock Holmes, and Miss Jane Woodsen, who has the sense of Miss Elizabeth Bennet.
