ELEMENTARY
HOLMES AND WATSON, A Miscellany, by S. C. Roberts; Geoffrey Cumberlege, Oxford University Press, English price 12/6. =a FOUND myself seated beside him in a hansom, my revolver in my pocket and the thrill of adventure in my heart." But Sherlockians and Watsonians are not satisfied with the published adventures. Their thirst for biographical data exceeds the output of the research students. One of the first was. Monsignor Ronald Knox, who wrote a delightful and gravity-removing essay. This short treatise by the Master of Pembroke College, Cambridge, is in the same vein and a worthy successor. He takes the learned "Knocksius" seriously to task. ("Knocksius’s incursions into critical exegesis are not wholly fortunate.") However, while concluding with professorial solemnity that Knocksius is unscholarly and careless, Mr. Roberts concedes the difficulty surrounding the work of the research student. "In justice to Knocksius it is only fair to say that the whole problem bristles with difficulties. Neither Keibosch nor Pauvremiitte seems to us- to have faced the central problem-the date of Watson’s marriage." After full examination of available evidence Mr. Roberts fixes the date and concludes that the ceremony took place in Camberwell. But he has some reservations. "It is possible, of course" (he says), "that the marriage took place at a register office. But on the whole Watson and his bride are likely to have preferred a religious service. Each of them spontaneously thanked God at the time of their betrothal."" Mr. Roberts completely demolishes the critic who maintains that Holmes’s arithmetical calculation on the speed of the train in the opening pages of "Silver Blaze" was a piece of bluff to impress Dr. Watson and was too overwhelmingly complex to be true. On the contrary it is shown to be elementary. This is the best piece of light reading to come my way in years, and buyers of the book will get more than
their moneys worth.
F. J.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19540219.2.26.2
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 761, 19 February 1954, Page 13
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321ELEMENTARY New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 761, 19 February 1954, Page 13
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