The incomplete works of

Cafe Society
1

It’s common to see anthologies saying they’re “The Complete Works of…” or “The Complete Humorous Stories of …” But the truth is, it’s hard to get every last bit of an author’s works, even by completists.

Sherlock Holmes – There are plenty of copies of “THe Complete Sherlock Holmes Stories”. But they really aren’t. Neither the two-volume paperback editions nor the single thick hardcover editions, nor William S. Baring-Gould’s Annotated Sherlock Holmes nor Leslie Klinger’s later The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes really has all of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes writings collected within their bindings.

First, there’s the “Apocrypha” – three stories by Doyle in which a mystery is presented, and an un-named detective suggests solutions. “The Lost Special” and “The Man with the Watches” and one other. It’s been suggested that the detective was, of course, Holmes. Or, since his suggestions turn out to be wrong, maybe Watson.

Then there’s the play Sherlock Holmes, credited to William Gillette (who played Holmes, and is credited with the introduction of Holmes’ trademark calabash pipe) and Doyle. I’ll give this a pass, since the evdence is that Gillette wrote the play with no direct input from Doyle, except the Sherlock Holmes stories themselves.

But then there’s The Uncollected Sherlock Holmes, which contains two stories and two plays written entirely by Doyle and starring Holmes and Watson. They were written for unusual venues (one was for the library of a royal doll house) that kept these from showing up elsewhere. – “The Field Bazaar” from 1896 and “How Watson Learned the Trick” from 1924. The two plays are ones with the plots of “THe Speckled Band” and “The Mazarin Stone”. The one based on Th Speckled Band appeared after the story, but I suspect the one that shares its plot with The Mazarin Stone appeared before the story. All of Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories are told in the first person (all Watson, of course, except for a few that Holmes himsel narrates), with the exception of The Mazarin Stone, which is told in the third person, for reasons the story itself makes clear.

There are other cases. It was years after I’d read what I thought was the complete Horatio Hornblower stories of C.S. Forester (including “Hornblower During the Crisis” and “The Hornblower Companion”, which contain bits and outlines of other stories) that I learned there were still more stories uncollected in the collections I had. Four Hornblower short stories were omitted from those collections. For years the only way to read them was to root out copies of the original magazine publications from libraries of booksellers. All have since been reprinted in anthologies. Although, not to my knowledge collected into a single volume. The stories don’t fit neatly int the chronology that Forester put together in the 1960s. (Nor, for that matter, do even the “canonical” stories. Did Hornblower meet Bush as a midshipman? Or as a captain?)

Any others?

2

Every few years, Tolkien’s heirs find some napkin that he scribbled on once, or something, and publish it. We’ll never be sure we’re at the end of all of J. R. R.'s writings.

3

That’s true. I’ve bought a number of such things – Tolkien’s King Arthur poem, and his incomplete notes on Beowulf, and the story of Sigurd. There’s no end to them.

I’m a big Jules Verne fan, as should be pretty obvious. Years ago I started trying to read everything he’d written. At the time there were about five of his “Extraordinary Voyages” that had never been translated into English. They now have been, and I’ve read them. But now there are newer, more complete translations of some of his works. And translations of The Golden Volacno and The Danube Pilot and The Secret of Wilhelm Storitz and The Meteor Hunt that has the additions Michel Verne made removed. Or the story fragments that Michel rewrote into The Barsac Mission as Jules Verne originally wrote them. Or Verne’s plays – the editions of Around the World in 80 days or Michael Strogoff as he wrote them for the stage. Or his play Journey through the Impossible. Or the many things he wrote BEFORE the “Extraordinary Voyages”.

I’ve been reading all this stuff for years, and feel I’m no closer to the end than when I started. Tolkien scholars have nothing on Verne scholars.

4

As evidence of the theory in the OP I offer A Stroke of the Pen: The Lost Stories. I don’t think that I had read anything by Terry Pratchett previously but was intrigued by the details, as outlined in the link, of how these stories were found. And as a great fan of coincidence I loved the way an error helped things work out properly. Mind you, the stories themselves are only tolerable whimsy.

5

Jim Fixx wrote The Complete Book of Running.

Then he wrote Jim Fixx’s Second Book of Running.

Wonderful what waving money at a person can do.

OK, to the actual subject. I have all the Sherlock Holmes stuff. Including Sherlock Holmes: The Published Apocrypha, which I believe has all the extras that Cal was talking about. I read it once and probably never opened it again, because it’s all crap. If you read it, it will disappoint you.

That’s true for all the other books that go out and publish every napkin. “The Early Works of…” are crap. “The Juvenalia” is worse. “The Unpublished Stuff” is rancid.

I have the completist gene, so I have read many, many books of this nature. I can remember literally none that I thought was worth the paper it was printed on. There is a reason they are separated from the canons.

To be fair, some good stuff is hidden out there. Many authors sold stories to newspapers or magazines that were impossible to find later, and probably still are given how huge a percentage have not yet been scanned or have disappeared. Every once in a while, one will appear. I’ve found stories myself that were unknown previously, none by anyone you’ve ever heard of, unfortunately. Most famous authors write way too much, because they need money or pressure from fans, which is why Doyle brought Holmes back and also why the stories steadily got worse, like a stock market sinking into bear territory. The few up days don’t reverse the trend.

How about starting Completists Anonymous? We would have someone to talk us out of getting our hopes up by yet another lost work!

6

Then he died at 52 of a heart attack…while running.
Was never quite sure what to take from that!

7

Oh, you can’t just say that and not tell us the rest of the story.

8

A royal doll house, with incredibly detailed models of furniture and fittings. Working plumbing with actual running water. Model cars with working engines. Wine cellar with mini bottles filled with actual vintage wine. Included a library of mini books written by famous authors.

9

Neat. Colleen Moore’s Fairy Castle is better, though.

10

For those who haven’t read it, here is the text of the mini book, with photos of the actual book from the dollhouse.

https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php/How_Watson_Learned_the_Trick

11

I have to disagree here. Having read more than my share of pastiches of Holmes, I have to say that things like “How Watson Learned the Trick” is still a lot better than Philip Jose Farmer’s The Adventure of the Peerless Peer (In which Holmes and Watson meet Tarzan). Farmer never was able to capture the cadence of Sherlockian dialogue.

12

I don’t like Tribute Bands, and I don’t like current authors writing “Holmes Pastiches”… but I’ve been pleasantly surprised by a few of the stories included in Laurie King’s collections, like In The Company of Sherlock Holmes. And Donald Thomas’s The Execution of Sherlock Holmes.

And of course Neil Gaiman’s short story A Study in Emerald is a delight. Found a pdf of it online, styled as a Fleet Street broadside…

13

The writing in the Unfinished Tales version of Turin Turambar is some of the best I’ve ever read. The later full-length book was at least partly that; I don’t know how much of the rest was more stuff found from J. R. R., versus literary spackle from Christopher.

14

There’s a series of mystery anthologies titled Bodies from the Library that consists of stories from famous mystery writers that were either unpublished or only appeared once in another format, such as in a magazine article or radio play.

15

Dennis McMillan published an entire series of the mysteries of Fredric Brown in small hardcover and weirdly-sized paperbacks back in 1984. I bought as many of them as I could, but I’ve never even seen most of the series, which is too bad. (Haffner Press is now publishing the complete Fredric Brown mysteries, which are probably a lot easier to get hold of).

But, as one of the people asked to write introductions to the McMillan editions pointed out, some of the mysteries aren’t really all that good. One of them relied upon knowledge of a then-current radio program for the solution. Even the best writers have a few slips, or are forced to come up with copy just to pay the bills.

In this thread, I’m reminded of an old piece by Woody Allen – “The Metterling Lists” , about publishers so intent on squeezing out as much as possible from the writings of a beloved author that they started publishing his laundry lists.

https://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/books/review/1st-chapter-insanity-defense.html

16

I understand there have been significant advances in fishing technology since The Compleat Angler.

17

After L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt wrote The Incompleat Enchanter in 1941 they published The Compleat Enchanter in 1975, But then they kept writing Harold Shea stories, so they had to publish The Complete Compleat Enchanter in 1988.

Of course, even though Pratt was gone, de Camp couldn’t help himself, and wrote more Harold Shea stories with Christopher Stashieff. Even though deCamp himself is now gone, I haven’t heard of any plans for a “Complete Complete Compleat Enchanter”

18

And a handful of new episodes have aired since The Simpsons: A Complete Guide to Our Favorite Family.

19

Eh. None that matter. :smiley:

20

Adrian Conan Doyle, Arthur’s son, wrote a dozen Holmes pastiches in the 1940s, half co-written with top mystery writer John Dickson Carr. The mysteries were sound but the stories were dull. Arthur was a lunatic hack writer. He cared about the sensational aspects of the stories more than he did about sound plots. That helps make him readable today when other better contemporary constructors are forgotten. Adrian was not a lunatic. Only the most lunatic napkin readers bother to find him. Which means that I have them, of course.

Arthur’s wackiness also means that the parodies work much better than the faithful pastiches. The latter cannot deviate from the ruts of Holmsian tics. The former can use their imaginations to go off in loopy nonsense. That’s why the best parodies are from top mystery writer Robert Fish. They were published in two volumes and then nine more stories were added for the compilation: Schlock Homes: The Complete Bagel Street Saga. How good you do have to be that your parodies are sought by completists?

All your old Bagel Street friends are here…Schlock Homes himself, his partner and confidant Dr. Watney, his brother Criscroft Homes; Inspector Balustrade of Scotland Yard; the villainous Professor Marty, Colonel Moron, Irene Addled, and A.J. Lotteries; and of course (thanks to Dr. Watney’s excellent care) the immortal Bagel Street Regulars.