Sherlock Holmes: The Hero With a Thousand Faces – Volume 2 - Hardcover
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Picking up the trail with the incredibly influential films of Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, Volume II goes on to explore the antiheroic Sherlock Holmes films of the 1970s, and then the somewhat rocky journey of Holmes into the medium of television (actors Alan Wheatley, Douglas Wilmer, and Peter Cushing all declared their respective TV series as the worst experience of their professional careers).
Television finally found its "definitive" Holmes in Jeremy Brett's portrayal for Granada Television, and then the BBC's "Sherlock" had flashed brilliantly across the cultural sky before crashing and burning in spectacular fashion. Still, despite its ignominious end, Benedict Cumberbatch's version of Sherlock Holmes quite literally changed the face of Sherlockian fandom overnight, as studious middle-aged white men now found themselves sharing uneasy ground with a younger, more diverse, and more female audience.
Now a full-fledged transmedia phenomenon, Sherlock Holmes can be any gender, ethnicity, or species, and is celebrated in fan fiction and fanvids, as well as conventions that are far more inclusive than Sherlock Holmes societies of the past. Vincent Starrett's poetic notion that Sherlock Holmes is a character "who never lived and so can never die" has never been more true, and the Digital Age promises any number of new versions of Sherlock Holmes to come.
Review
“Sherlock Holmes: The Hero With a Thousand Faces” is in a league with "From Holmes to Sherlock: The Story of the Men and Women Who Created an Icon" by Mattias Boström, which was Winner of the Agatha Award for best nonfiction work. As a lifelong Sherlockian and compiler of the “Sherlock Holmes Cyclopædia; Holmes on Screens,” I can attest to how extremely well researched and accurate this work is. I highly recommend it for beginner to advanced Sherlockians.”
Howard Ostrom – Author of the "Sherlock Holmes Cyclopædia; Holmes on Screens" series.
Author David MacGregor
Pages 348
ISBN 9781787056527
Date 10th September 2021
Format Hardcover (also available as paperback)
Note: With special permission BBC Sherlock's Benedict Cumberbatch appears on the spine of Volume 1.
