{"id":10913,"date":"2024-03-25T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-03-25T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=10913"},"modified":"2024-03-25T08:55:49","modified_gmt":"2024-03-25T12:55:49","slug":"sherlock-holmes-master-of-disguise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=10913","title":{"rendered":"Sherlock Holmes: Master of Disguise"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Contemporary writers of Sherlock Holmes pastiches take inspiration from real events and characters, as well as having occasional fun with familiar Holmes tropes. In the entertaining volume Sherlock Holmes: A Year of Mystery 1885<\/em><\/a>, published late last year by Belanger Books, editor Richard Ryan included several stories in which Holmes capitalized on his considerable talent for disguise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s what some of the anthology\u2019s authors say about that particular aspect of Holmes stories<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe \u2018manic,\u2019 childlike energy of Holmes\u2019s disguises\u2014particularly those in A Scandal in Bohemia<\/em> or The Hound of the Baskervilles<\/em>\u2014is an oft-overlooked part of his character. Holmes is often seen as sober and serious, so I wanted to explore a different side of him,\u201d says George Gardner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gustavo Bondoni said Holmes\u2019s disguises let the detective mix and mingle with all classes of people, bringing him \u201cout of the drawing room and into the world.\u201d In my stories in which Holmes takes on a disguise, I deploy it for humor, as well as information-gathering. Poor Watson, poor Lestrade! They never recognize him. But the Irregulars? Not fooled for a minute. In another clever twist, in Katy Darby’s story, Watson, not Holmes, is the one getting to act for a change, when he impersonates the Lock Hospital Inspector Q. Forrest? Luckily the head surgeon who meets him is rather short-sighted … !<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA frail and twisted old man\u201d with \u201crather strange personal grooming\u201d appears in George Jacobs\u2019s story, revealing himself to Watson in time to participate in a very interesting interview with a trio of Bengalis seeking justice. And in a Kevin Thornton story, an Irish navvy appears, \u201clooking for all the world like he\u2019d just finished a shift on the docks,\u201d fooling Holmes\u2019s astonished client, but this time, not Watson, who had guessed what Holmes was up to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s look at how two of these clever stories handle disguises:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gustavo Bondoni\u2019s story, \u201cThe Burning Mania,\u201d takes a cue from two significant events of 1885: a new law permitting the operation of crematoria and the Irish bombings in various London locations. Lestrade asks Holmes to investigate the recent disappearances of eight criminal gang members very possibly linked to the bombings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As they track the culprits, Watson says this about Holmes and disguises: \u201cI always felt more comfortable when he did that\u201d\u2014a consideration as Holmes\u2019s growing notoriety increases the possibility of recognition. Later, Watson acknowledges that, even without different hair or clothing, Holmes \u201ccould become completely unrecognizable in moments by changing the way he looked or even his personality,\u201d persuading others \u201cto see him as something different from what he was.\u201d An insightful comment from the good doctor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In \u201cThe Adventure of the Damaged Tomb,\u201d George Gardner\u2019s story, he similarly refers to heightened public alarm after the Fenian Bombings, so when Hamworth\u2019s Catholic church of St. Mary\u2019s is attacked with dynamite, severely damaging the ancient tomb of the Mountfalcon family, assumptions are made. In their lodgings one day, Watson nervously encounters \u201ca heavy-set, red-haired man of about fifty,\u201d with the \u201cdistinctive twang that categorized him with the Irish-American set.\u201d Another disguise success!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The authors mentioned above used disguises to good effect in their stories in Sherlock Holmes: A Year of Mystery 1885<\/em><\/a>. Their stories are:
George Gardner – \u201cThe Adventure of the Damaged Tomb\u201d
Gustavo Bondoni – \u201cThe Burning Mania\u201d
Victoria Weisfeld \u2013 \u201cA Brick Through the Window\u201d
Katy Darby – \u201cThe Adventure of the Lock Hospital\u201d
George Jacobs – \u201cThe Mystery of the Cloven Cord\u201d
Kevin Thornton – \u201cTracks Across Canada\u201d

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Contemporary writers of Sherlock Holmes pastiches take inspiration from real events and characters, as well as having occasional fun with familiar Holmes tropes. In the entertaining volume Sherlock Holmes: A Year of Mystery 1885, published late last year by Belanger … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[174,120,29],"tags":[2168,2098,275],"class_list":["post-10913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-first-draft-blog","category-short-story","category-writing","tag-belanger-books","tag-richard-t-ryan","tag-sherlock-holmes"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2Q1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10913"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10913\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10918,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10913\/revisions\/10918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}