Thanks to Pen and Sword for giving me a copy of this to review.
I’ve only read the Sherlock Holmes novels once, but I loved them, and this book certainly wants to make me read them again. I’m eyeing up the beautiful Wordsworth editions I have to admit. I’ve been to London quite a few times, where many of the Sherlock Holmes stories are set, but I didn’t think about the places I visited and how they tied into the stories, nor did I realise that Sherlock visited quite so many familiar places!
This book is set out as a series of walks around London, taking in locations frequented by Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle as well. It gives you the backstory to Conan Doyle and how he came to write the books. Sherlock Holmes is such an iconic character in literature and it’s really interesting to find out which places were actually real, and which were fictitious, with Conan Doyle mixing up the two seamlessly.
I don’t know what I expected from this book; I guess I thought that there wouldn’t be quite as much detail linking the London we know today with stories based in Victorian London. Browning tells you exactly where to go and what was there in the days of Sherlock Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle, and there is a surprising amount that doesn’t really seem to have changed.
I loved the appendices at the back as well, with lists of the stories in chronological order, lists of the actors who have played Sherlock Holmes on screen and a miscellany. A must have for any fan of Sherlock Holmes.
Chapters:
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the Creation of His ‘most notorious character’, Sherlock Holmes
- London: Where it all began – a walk in Baker Street and immediate area
- London: A Walk along Northumberland Avenue, up the Strand, Fleet Street and on to St Paul’s Cathedral
- London: Walking along Oxford Street, Regent Street, around Piccadilly Circus and into Haymarket
- London: Around Tottenham Court Road and into Holborn and Covent Garden
- London: At the centre of Government – a walk in Westminster and Victoria
- London: Trafalgar Square, Pall Mall and Mayfair
- London: A Walk around the City and East End
- Walks and Trips elsewhere … in London; in the UK as a Whole
- On the Trail of Sherlock Holmes
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