*Crime, Spies & Sleaze: We’re continuing to introduce the new layout for our books categories, with an image for each book. August Derleth, the famous American author and Lovecraftian, was just 19 when he wrote to Arthur Conan Doyle asking for more Sherlock Holmes adventures; Doyle replied that there wouldn’t be any and furthermore, he wouldn’t give permission for Derleth to write his own. So the Holmes enthusiast came up with his own invention: the peculiarly named Solar Pons of 7B Praed Street, London and his assistant Dr Lyndon Parker. The similarities between Pons and Holmes are many (the main difference being the time setting of the former being between the wars), but in case you feel that Pons is just a rip-off, I’ve read many attempts by others to do Sherlock Holmes, and only in Pons have I found the same well-crafted mysteries and the same atmosphere as Doyle himself created. We present here six of the seven volumes of Solar Pons published in uniform paperback editions by Pinnacle in the USA in the 1970s, which first made these wonderful stories available to a mass audience (having been previously published in hard-to-obtain hardbacks). There were a further four by his successor, the British author Basil Copper. Although in later years previously unpublished stories were discovered by both authors, supplementing the canon, at the time these were everything of Pons, more in fact than there had ever been of Sherlock Holmes. Full details of these six volumes in our catalogue, all in remarkably good condition, many almost as new; highly recommended.
PICTURED: ALL BY AUGUST DERLETH ALL SOLD
SOLAR PONS #2: THE ADVENTURES OF SOLAR PONS Pinnacle 1974 1st US PB VF £12
SOLAR PONS #3: THE MEMOIRS OF SOLAR PONS Pinnacle 1975 1st US PB VF £12
SOLAR PONS #4: THE CASEBOOK OF SOLAR PONS Pinnacle 1975 1st US PB FN/VF £11
SOLAR PONS #5: THE REMINISCENCES OF SOLAR PONS Pinnacle 1975 1st US PB FN £10
SOLAR PONS #6: THE RETURN OF SOLAR PONS Pinnacle 1975 1st US PB FN/VF £11
SOLAR PONS #7: MR FAIRLIE’S FINAL JOURNEY Pinnacle 1976 1st US PB FN/VF £11