On the Scent with Sherlock Holmes

the long version

There is always something new to be said about Sherlock Holmes and the world in which he lived, and here, among other unusual items, we have the first ever survey of the forgotten smells and odours which assailed that "hawk-like nose" in the London of the 1890s. There are six other dissertations on various elements of the Holmes saga, including an illustrated account of how Dr. Watson got his double wound in Afghanistan, a geological demonstration of the site of his bee-farm in Sussex, and an exposé of some howlers committed by Dr. Watson and the naturalist Stapleton. In 1978, Walter Shepherd delighted readers with On the Scent with Sherlock Holmes. The volume you are holding began as an elaboration of that charming book and so bears the same title, but the character of this new work is very different. It deals mainly with Holmes's London, a city in which Shepherd lived and worked for half a century. And it deals with what we today would call environmental concerns. Air, water, and noise pollution, and their unique effect upon an era, as seen through the activities of a most uncommon man, give us an engrossing glimpse of life in Victorian London just 100 years ago. - Jacket.