Not so elementary …

… Sherlock Holmes, Pro and Con | commentary. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

What may in the end be most interesting about The Big Book of Sherlock Holmes, though, is the mere fact of its existence. Other fictional characters, prominent among them Ian Fleming’s James Bond, have been recycled by later writers, but Holmes’s posthumous life (so to speak) outstrips that of any of his competitors. Indeed, there are by now far more ersatz Holmes stories than original ones. And while it is amusing to see how the likes of Ring Lardner and P.G. Wodehouse went about resuscitating him, anyone who picks up Penzler’s book, fascinating as it is, will more than likely be inspired to return to “The Red-Headed League” or The Sign of the Four instead of digging deeper among the lesser apocrypha.