This long-awaited second collection of pastiches of the immortal Sherlock Holmes offers eleven new adventures of Solar Pons, who has been called by Vincent Starrett "a clever impersonator, with a twinkle in his eye, which tells us that he knows he is not Sherlock Holmes, and knows that we know it, but that he hopes we will like him anyway for what he symbolizes." Here are such fascinating stories as "The Adventure of the Paralytic Mendicant", an account of as unique a vengeance as was ever perpetrated between boards; "The Adventure of the Circular Room", a tale of a diabolic plot which will rouse many a memory of the old Master; the complex puzzle which will be of particular interest to bibliophiles told in the Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine Contest prizewinning "The Adventure of the Six Silver Spiders"; the curious affair which is "The Adventure of the Tottenham Werewolf'; and others which will bring back old, long-vanished Baker Street days. Once again in the London of years ago "the game is afoot." Certainly no living writer has brought the Holmesian pastiche to a higher development than this. There is very little difference, indeed, in the atmosphere of the stories, once they have begun to unfold; No. 7B Praed Street readily becomes 221B Baker Street; and Solar Pons, attended by his Dr. Lyndon Parker, often becomes curiously interchangeable with the Master of Baker Street and his Watson. "There is no intention to deceive," as Vincent Starrett wrote in his introduction to the first collection. "These nostalgic reminders of vanished days and nights in Baker Street are intended only to please."

Reader who have exhausted the Sherlockian cannon and the various modern pastiches of the Master, might well be advised to investigate the strange case of Solar Pons. Mr. Pons was created nearly seventy years ago by Wisconsin-born writer, August Derleth -- who paid Doyle the courtesy of cloning the great detective. Names and biographical details were changed, and the setting was moved from the Victorian period to the 1920's.Mr. Copper was then authorized by Arkham House, Inc. to continue the series in a series of paperback originals. While maintaining the sly mixture of pastiche and homage to its creator, Copper brought his own voice and a sure sense of place and period detail to the series. Two previously unpublished collections from that series have been released by Fedogan & Bremer. A third book is planned for late 2000.

The Solar Pons Omnibus is a collection of detective fiction stories by author August Derleth. The set collects all of the Solar Pons stories of August Derleth. The stories are pastiches of the Sherlock Holmes tales of Arthur Conan Doyle. The stories are arranged by their internal chronology, rather than by the date of their release. The stories had earlier appeared under the Arkham House imprint of Mycroft & Moran.

In the 1920's, college student August Derleth wrote to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, asking if any more Sherlock Holmes adventures were going to be published. Upon receiving a negative reply, Derleth decided to provide some of his own. However, rather than relating more tales of Holmes and Dr. Watson, he ended up introducing the world to Solar Pons and Dr. Lyndon Parker, living in London during the 1920's and 1930's. Pons solved crimes using deduction and ratiocination, often referring to Holmes as "The Master" or "My illustrious predecessor." Since his first appearance, Pons has been a favorite with Sherlockians. Now, for the first time ever, the estate of August Derleth has authorized the first ever anthology of Solar Pons stories! These twenty new adventures range from soon after Pons and Parker met in 1919 to a story that occurs after Germany has been defeated in World War II. Each of them fully and traditionally falls within the Pontine Canon.The authors of these stories have contributed their royalties to the Jan Stauber Grant Fund for the Beacon Society, which provides scholarships to educators, schools, and Sherlockian Scion societies, allowing them to purchase Sherlock Holmes books and materials in order to introduce young people to The Canon.Join us again at 7B Praed Street where The Game is Afoot!