Discovering Sherlock Holmes

November 20, 2005 4:17 PM

Discovering Sherlock Holmes. From January through April 2006, Stanford University will be republishing a collection of Sherlock Holmes stories, "just as they were originally printed and illustrated in The Strand Magazine." (These pages have images of some of the original covers.) You can subscribe to receive paper facsimiles of the original magazine by mail or be notified when the PDFs are published online. The project is a followup to their Discovering Dickens project, which republished Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, and Hard Times. [via MonkeyFilter]
posted by kirkaracha (19 comments total)

This is great. I signed up for the paper facsimilies and cannot wait to enjoy them.

Thanks, kirkaracha.
posted by codswallop at 4:44 PM on November 20, 2005

This is free?

Unbelievable. You made my day, and my brother's too, since this is now one of his Christmas gifts.
posted by Miko at 5:00 PM on November 20, 2005

This makes me so happy.
posted by selfmedicating at 5:00 PM on November 20, 2005

Nice link, thank you and I surmise by your use of italics that your a 195 lb male, left handed, who enjoys shuffle board, and was raised in the Blue Mtns of Virginia!
posted by Mr Bluesky at 5:11 PM on November 20, 2005

Thanks for posting this - I'm not a big fan myself, but I forwarded the link to a few friends who will be delighted.
posted by Wolfdog at 5:12 PM on November 20, 2005

suhweet!
posted by Edible Energy at 5:23 PM on November 20, 2005

A couple of months ago I picked up several years' worth of old Strand magazines cheap, including original stories by Conan Doyle, H G Wells, E Nesbit and many others, and had the idea of punting them out onto the web as monthly PDFs of the entire magazine -- for precisely the same reason: so people could enjoy the magazine's episodic features and fiction as they originally appeared. Someone has just saved me a ton of scanning work.

On the other hand, if you ever see the old Victorian Strands for sale, grab them. They're amazing: still very contemporary, and the non-fiction articles are fascinating.
posted by Hogshead at 5:35 PM on November 20, 2005

Thanks so much; I am really looking forward to these!
posted by amro at 6:08 PM on November 20, 2005

Yes! At last, a Christmas present for my father!

(and I signed myself up for the .pdf's, and may go back and do the paper mailings too - thank you!)
posted by kalimac at 7:20 PM on November 20, 2005

Awesome. Thanks so much.
posted by eustacescrubb at 7:39 PM on November 20, 2005

Does anyone know the Copyright status of the PDF's? ie. can I upload to LuLu and print a book? LuLu would charge about $12 a copy to do so, and it would be a lot better than printing out 8x11', or reading on the screen.
posted by stbalbach at 7:47 PM on November 20, 2005

BTW not entirely impressed with the scan quality. The paper has ripples in it from age and this results in wavy out-of-focus areas on the page as it lifts off the glass. I'm not a technical pureist, it just makes reading notably more difficult.
posted by stbalbach at 8:03 PM on November 20, 2005

[this is sweet]
posted by teferi at 8:28 PM on November 20, 2005

Huzzah!! Oh oh oh, I am totally signed up!

Yeah, see, the Sherlock Holmes is at the top of my list of favourite fictional characters (Elwood P. Dowd being a close second), and ... er ... well, this is all very exciting for me. First the blind white rapper, then this loveliness. I think I need a cigarette.
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 8:33 PM on November 20, 2005

This is an amazing project and quite a gift you've given us, kirkaracha. I just hope that they are not so inundated with requests that they have trouble supplying these to all who are interested.

I've signed up for the paper version and it will be a lovely thing to look forward to next year. Thanks again.
posted by melissa may at 8:54 PM on November 20, 2005

This is great!
I also signed up for the paper version.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 10:03 PM on November 20, 2005

"Nice link, thank you and I surmise by your use of italics that your a 195 lb male, left handed, who enjoys shuffle board, and was raised in the Blue Mtns of Virginia!"

Emphasis, my dear Bluesky, emphasis!

[/mycroft]

Took the digital option, being in the UK. Big Shlerock fan. Thank you.
posted by nthdegx at 12:40 AM on November 21, 2005

I too immediately signed up for the paper versions, although I'm not exactly sure why. There have been so many books that have reprinted the Strand magazine articles already. Now if they were sending out original copies of the Strand, that would really be something! Still, it will be nice to get these in the mail, and maybe read them by a roaring fire, while the wind howls like a child in the chimney--or however it was that Watson described it. "Come, Watson, come! The game's afoot!"
posted by Man-Thing at 4:21 AM on November 21, 2005

Like most people I signed up for the paper version. I will also get the PDFs, so I don't know why I want the paper version, it just seemed like I should get it, since they offered. I am a huge Sherlock fan, although I haven't gotten the new annotated versions yet. Thank you for posting this, it made me very happy.
posted by HSWilson at 11:43 PM on November 21, 2005