The Amazing Philip K. Jones

Mr. Jones is himself a contributor to the literature of Sherlock Holmes

I've been guilty of writing a few pastiches. I've even written an essay on how to write pastiches, which appeared in Baker Street Beat. But nobody knows pastiches like Philip K. Jones.

Mr. Jones has compiled a database of a mind-boggling 10,205 Sherlock Holmes pastiches. And, perhaps more amazingly, he has generously made it available online to anyone with access to a computer!

The spreadsheet includes not only pastiches, but also parodies and related fiction. For example, my Sebastian McCabe-Jeff Cody mysteries are included in the database, even though are set in modern day (but each one with a Sherlock Holmes angle).

It's understandable that anyone with such a strong interest in pastiches would be equally consumed by the topic of untold tales - those cases of Holmes that Watson mentioned but never wrote up. Many of these stories have been written up as pastiches by other writers, usually many times.  (How many versions of "The Giant Rat of Sumatra" are out there?)

So, in another astounding feat of scholarship, Mr. Jones went through all the Canonical stories (and even the apocryphal ones by Arthur Conan Doyle) and itemized every untold tale by the story in which it was mentioned. He originally published his results in the Summer 2011 Baker Street Journal. But you don't need to find a copy if you don't own one. This, too is online at the same website.

Here's to Philip K. Jones for his wonderful work. I hope he's ready for the deluge that is sure to follow the U.S. court rulings that Sherlock Holmes is in the public domain!