Holmes in London (photo album)

    Regent Street

Charles Viney. Sherlock Holmes in London (1989/1995) Viney links Holmesian locations to photos of late 19th and early 20th century London. A feast both for the nostalgia buff, and for Holmes fans. The photos are generally good, and all are as well reproduced as half-tone letterpress permits.
     Besides the excerpts from the stories with at least  one photo for each, what attracted me was the record of a London long since gone. And yet it lives on. Many of the elegant new buildings still stand. The great hotels were established then, and many still exist (some have been rebuilt). Advertisements fastened or painted on walls and windows and busses fascinate. The habit of “stocktaking”sales was already well-established. London was a commercial city, rapidly expanding and creating what we now often deplore as car-focussed suburbs, but their wide streets were built to attract people who could afford to own or hire carriages.
     An enjoyable book, well worth the $2 I paid for it at the local food-bank yard sale. ***