The strange case I am about to relate to you, gentle reader, began in the last days of a cold December morning in the year of ’09—that is—in the year 2009! That was when my wife, Lucille, presented me with a rather odd and certainly unique Sherlockian book as a Christmas gift. She knows I am enamored of nearly everything pertaining to Holmes, no matter how odd or scarce, and this book certainly fit the bill. However, what I did not know at the time was that this book would lead to my discovery of an entire realm of hitherto unknown Holmes books to me—which I now seek to share with you.
The large hardcover book was simply titled “Sherlock Holmes” embossed in gold leaf with the mysterious initials “V.B.” in the lower right corner, the only other information on the otherwise dark green simulated leather hardcover binding. There was no jacket. However, as intriguing as the title and mysterious initials were upon the cover of this ancient tome (I guess I should mention now that the book is from 1907 and well over 100 years old!), what was inside I found much more fascinating.
The book conained 12 individual Sherlock Holmes German dime novel type serials from 1907, bound together. I had never seen their like before but I was instantly fascinated by them, excited to find out more. It was not easy. The text was written in German, and I do not speak or understand the German language. However, some information was discernible from simple Holmesian observation, so I put the Master’s techniques to use to garner what facts I could.
This is a series of German dime novel type booklets entitled Detektiv Sherlock Holmes und Seine Weltbreuhmten Abventeur—which roughly translates into English as “Sherlock Holmes Most Famous Cases”—though another translation has it as “Detective Sherlock Holmes and His World-Famous Adventures.” Issue #1 is dated January 2, 1907 and is entitled Das Geheimnis Jurgen Witwe—or “The Mystery of the Young Widow.” Each 32-page issue sold for 20 pfenning, measured roughly 8.5 x 10.5 inches, or quarto size, and were published weekly in Germany. The covers featured really wonderful full color illustrations, many depicting Holmes and his ‘companion’ (more on this soon). There is also a small cover box with an illustration of the profile of the Great Detective smoking his ever-present pipe looking on in serious deductive thought.
The color cover art for these booklets is just terrific. Issue #1 shows an unmistakable Holmes in the sitting room at 221B standing before a soldier and his wife giving his deduction to their problem with his usual aplomb. A traditional image of what appears to be Dr. Watson is seated behind him at a desk. Issue #4 shows Holmes with a revolver, shocked as he grabs at a criminal’s arm—only to discover it detached from the man’s body, it is a prosthetic. That issue is a reprint, you may note the new title for the series. Issue #8 shows a startled and weeping woman, whom having removed a painting from where it was hanging upon the wall, reveals a hidden skeleton! It is most effective, as are many of the other covers in this series.
As I did more research on this lovely and fascinating book I began to discern more interesting facts about the series and the stories themselves. The most interesting being that the 12 stories I had in my book (all written in German, in a heavy Gothic font reminiscent of pre-World War I type), were not only all Sherlock Holmes stories—but none of them seemed to be Doyle stories! Even though my knowledge of the German language is severely limited I was able to discover this by going through the text of each story line-by-line looking for familiar names from The Canon. I found none. These are, in fact, all new Holmes tales. What I had found were original stories featuring an entirely new set of characters who had come to Holmes with new cases for him to solve—none of which were created by Doyle.
Even more startling to me was the discovery that while Holmes was indeed present in every story in dialog and in quotations, I could not find hide nor hair of his trusty companion, Dr. John H. Watson. Watson, it seemed did not exist in these stories at all! I was astounded. Then who was telling the stories? Well, I soon discovered that the narrator to these 12 tales was an apparently new companion and chronicler of the Great Detective—and that was the young and dashing Harry Taron—in some incarnations called “Taxson,” though the name is difficult for me to make out in the old Gothic German script. Taron is noted in the text as der famulus von Sherlock Holmes—or “the friend of Sherlock Holmes.” So, bye-bye Watson! Hello Harry! There is even a drawing of Harry on the first page of the third issue from January 30, 1907, for the story titled Das Ratfel am Spieltifche. He looks nothing like Watson at all.
There are in fact, two series, where a new one continues after the first. After issue #10, the series suddenly takes on a new title and drops the name “Sherlock Holmes“. I wondered why? Well, it seems that by issue #10 there was some concern (some researchers even call it wrath) by the lawyers for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle that the name of Sherlock Holmes was used in this series, so it was taken out of the title from issue #11 on.
The new title of the series became Ausdem Geheimakter des Weltdetektius or “The Secret Files of The King of Detectives.” Nevertheless, while the name of the Great Detective was deleted from the title of the series, nor was the name of Holmes used in the titles of any of the individual stories, he is unabashedly present under his true name in every story—along with his faithful companion and chronicler—Harry Taron!
The series was published by Verlagshaus fur Volksliteratur und Kunst (The Publishing House for Popular Fiction and Art), in Berlin. They had been successful with publishing groschenromane, the German equivalent of the dime novel (or penny dreadful). I was further interested to discover that those first issues were noted in English as being published under “privilege of copyright in the United States of America reserved under the Act approved March 3, 1905.” I believe that this means the German publisher contracted with and bought the rights to the character from the American reprinter of Sherlock Holmes, not from Doyle and his British publisher. I think that is the reason for the problem with Doyle’s lawyers (Doyle was after all alive at this time and still writing his own new Holmes tales), so his lawyers insisted the title of this German series be changed. It was. Though of course the German publisher never eliminated Sherlock Holmes from any of the stories. A rather neat trick of copyright infringement. In fact, during this era, Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes appeared in quite a few so-called “pirates,” or pirated book editions in America and other countries where Doyle received no payment. I can only imagine Sir Arthur’s frustration, and the fact that his solicitor must have had a full-time job insisting upon the protection of Doyle’s literary rights, as well as payment for the use of his creation or for reprinting stories in those long ago days before international copyrights, and almost a century before Holmes would legitimately enter the public domain.
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As I continued my investigation into this amazing area of Germanic Holmesia, I made use of various helpful sources on the Internet that really opened my eyes to what had gone on here regarding this early unauthorized version of Sherlock Holmes in Europe. This is being done, you must remember, all while Doyle was still alive and it must have been a constant source of irritation to him.
What I discovered next shocked and surprised even myself. For I soon learned that my copies of the first 12 issues of the rare booklets in my hardcover book were only the tip of the iceberg of this strange story. For with booklets apparently being published each week from January, 1907 until June, 1911—I discovered there were an amazing 230 issues in this series! Truly an incredible accomplishment.
