"Detection by Gaslight"

This week's podcast is a review of the anthology "Detection by Gaslight," edited by Douglas G. Greene. Subtitled "14 Victorian Detective Stories," it's an anthology of short stories, featuring both well-known detectives such as Sherlock Holmes and The Man in the Corner and far more obscure ones.

For me, the real joy here is in the obscure stories. Even the more popular authors are represented by lesser-known stories; the Sherlock Holmes story, for example, is "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches," which I believe is anthologized far less often than some of the more popular stories. There's a rather curious R. Austin Freeman story called "The Dead Hand," which is one of his inverted detective stories - we see the crime committed and the story itself revolves around the way in which detectives are able to find evidence against the criminal. There's a story by Rudyard Kipling, which is more supernatural than pure detective story. And so forth. It's an interesting - and very inexpensive - anthology; if you're not very familiar with some of Doyle's contemporaries and followers, this might be a very good book for your library.