The Second Sherlock Holmes Illustrated Omnibus
Subtitle: His Last Bow / The Valley of Fear / The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes
Edition: Reprint
Publisher: Nationwide Book Service
Published: 1979
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 388
Description: Here is the sequel to the popular first Illus- trated Omnibus published in 1978. Sidney Paget who illustrated the Adventures, Mem- oirs, Return, and The Hound of the Baskervilles, died in January 1908. So when Conan Doyle began yet again to write Sherlock Holmes stories later that year after a gap ofnearly four years, The Strand Magazine had to look around for another source of pictorial images to accompany the vivid verbal ones which its star writer provided. The solution adopted was not to plump for one particular artist. Instead the seven stories published between 1908 and 1917 and then collected in His Last Bow had seven different artists. The Valley Oj- Fear, appearing in the early months of the War, was a long story and needed a single artist — Frank Wiles. The Case Book stories of 1921 to 1927 were shared with two excep- tions between Wiles and Howard K Elcock.

There was no question ofa departure from the image of Holmes that Paget had created from the features Of his brother Walter (who incidentally did the drawings for 'The Dying Detective'). But within the convention of the masterly brow, inquisitorial nose and com— mandingjaw, there are some intriguing vari- ations of gauntness. While Watson continues to wear stick-up collars and Holmes a turned- down collar with bow tie tucked under, the deer-stalker only reappears at the last minute in ' Shoscombe Old Place'.

It is often regretted that Sidney Paget did not live to illustrate these last nineteen short stories and The Valley of Fear, but it must also be acknowledged that his successors rose to the challenge both of his example and of the stories themselves.