Mark Twain’s fans know that he did not approve of Sherlock Holmes. He even parodied the detective and his methods in “A Double Barreled Detective Story.” But why?
“The Adventure of the Whyos” hints at an answer. The first in a series of short stories reveals that Twain had participated in several misadventures with Holmes.
Reeling from financial disaster after the failure of his publishing house, Mark Twain’s flight to Europe is interrupted by a friend who is negotiating to marry off his daughter to an English lord. She is resisting and has fallen ill. Could Twain talk her into agreeing? There is also a little matter of blackmail, and for that, Twain reluctantly calls on Sherlock Holmes to help find the answers.
Drawn from papers found in a box marked “Burn This!” at a Carlisle, Pa., auction, the Twain/Holmes stories promise to open an unsuspected aspect of Twain’s life.
NOTE: While the Amazon page lists the story as at 58 pages, the story itself is 8,000 words (about 27 pages). The rest consists of excerpts from “Writers Gone Wild” and an essay from the annotated editions of novels by Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers.
“The Adventure of the Whyos” (99 cents) can be found only on the Amazon Kindle: