Letters to Sherlock Holmes

Letters to Sherlock Holmes, edited by Richard Lancelyn Green (son of Arthurian scholar Roger)and published in 1985, was an impulse buy to pad out an order from Brotherhood Books -- it looked like a lot of fun. 

For decades, people had written to Sherlock Holmes at 221b Baker St, even though that address was occupied by a bank (it's now the site, sensibly, of the Sherlock Holmes museum). Some letter writers seemed genuinely hazy about the reality of Holmes, while others clearly realised that they were partaking in a shared fiction. He received letters inviting him to solve crimes, congratulations on his birthday, general admiration, or burning questions. The bank employed someone to answer these queries, which apparently arrived at the rate of a couple a day.

Well, all this sounds like a delightful whimsy, and the subtitle of the book promises 'the most interesting and entertaining letters,' but I'm sorry to say that in fact most of the letters are pretty dull. The questions are repetitive, the expressions of fandom are boring. It must have seemed like a cracking idea for a book, but it was a sorry disappointment. Luckily, it didn't take long to read.