In stock at the Mysterious Bookshop

Thanks to @always1895 we have pics of my latest book at the Mysterious Bookshop in New York. Click here to get your copy.

Ordering difficulties

It would appear that Amazon (both in the UK and US) are having issues with stock of my book An Entirely New Country. If you are eager to obtain it before Christmas I suggest you go to the following:

UK - Book Depository http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Entirely-New-Country-Arthur-Conan-Doyle-Undershaw-Resurrection-Sherlock-Holmes-Alistair-Duncan/9781908218193

US - Barnes and Noble http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/an-entirely-new-country-arthur-conan-doyle-undershaw-and-the-resurrection-of-sherlock-holmes-alistair-duncan/1106755431?ean=9781908218193&itm=1&usri=an+entirely+new+country

New book and Amazon UK

Amazon UK are quoting a rather long wait for delivery of my latest book. If you wish to get hold of it quicker I suggest you use Book Depository.

Launch Day

Today is the official worldwide launch date for An Entirely New Country. However Amazon (both UK and US) don't seem to have got their act together yet. Don't let their websites put you off. Place those orders now. You can also go to Book Depository.

Options for purchase are here.

No such thing as a free lunch (dinner)

My wife and I went for a lovely dinner at the Criterion Restaurant with Steve and Sharon Emecz last night.

However I seem to have come away with a pile of books to work my way through.

Stephen Fry as Mycroft Holmes - Image

Thanks to the Baker Street Babes for drawing my attention to this one:

http://bakerstreetbabes.tumblr.com/post/13620317451/oh-first-image-of-stephen-fry-as-mycroft

What if?

A thought just occurred to me. How would it affect Doylean scholarship if Conan Doyle's original script for the Sherlock Holmes play were to resurface?

It is generally believed to have burned, along with William Gillette's rewrite, in the Baldwin Hotel in San Francisco. This event forced Gillette to rewrite the play from memory.

A question that has been asked more than once is how much of Conan Doyle's script was retained for the play that was ultimately performed to much acclaim worldwide. Gillette never said anything on this matter which has left historians to make up their own minds. Despite the fact that the play was credited to both men with Conan Doyle's name at the top it has been widely assumed that little of Conan Doyle's material remained.

How interesting would it be if it surfaced after all this time?

A good "what if?"

2011 Recommendations for the season.

Here is a list of my 2011 highlights (in no particular order):

Some basic (but not too important) errors. Otherwise an excellent account of the relationship between the arch-sceptic and the arch-believer. Sandford deserves credit for not painting Conan Doyle as quite the gullible fool that some writers have been inclined to do (although it seems pretty clear that he is on Houdini's side).

Conan Doyle's previously unpublished first work that he wished to remain unpublished.

Charlotte Walters' different take on the Sherlockian pastiche. People seem to be polarised in their opinions but I thought that, apart from some issues over characterisation, it was a brave and novel angle to pursue.

One of the better collections of short-story pastiche to come out for a few years.

Henry Zecher's definitive(?) biography on America's Sherlock Holmes.