Short Stories

[Rosalba]

The speckled band was actually Doyle's personal favorite from his Holmes stories.

Artists and authors are not necessarily the best judges...

I enjoy reading the story but agree with the poster (Jo498) who pointed out that the Sherlock Holmes stories don't work all that well as crime puzzles; they have other good qualities which I actually value more, such as characterisation, humour, pace and atmosphere.

[Biffo]

Artists and authors are not necessarily the best judges...

I enjoy reading the story but agree with the poster (Jo498) who pointed out that the Sherlock Holmes stories don't work all that well as crime puzzles; they have other good qualities which I actually value more, such as characterisation, humour, pace and atmosphere.

When Conan Doyle wrote his Sherlock Holmes stories the crime/detective novel was still in its infancy and you could argue that he developed the genre. The 1920s and 30s seem to be regarded as a golden age for crime fiction but a lot of it is rather ropey - some of Agatha Christie's plots are rather creaky and I personally think Conan Doyle is superior in 'characterisation, humour, pace and atmosphere'.

[Florestan]

When Conan Doyle wrote his Sherlock Holmes stories the crime/detective novel was still in its infancy

One can safely make the case for E. T. A. Hoffmann's Mademoiselle de Scudéri being the very first crime/detective novel --- featuring a female detective no less.

E. A. Poe comes second chronologically.

[Biffo]

One can safely make the case for E. T. A. Hoffmann's Mademoiselle de Scudéri being the very first crime/detective novel --- featuring a female detective no less.

E. A. Poe comes second chronologically.

I am sure you are right but I made no claim to primacy for Conan Doyle. In our insular way we regard The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins as the first detective novel. I will have to dig out my volume of Hoffman.

[Florestan]

I am sure you are right but I made no claim to primacy for Conan Doyle.

Oh, I didn't imply that at all. I just took up "still in its infancy" (correct) and worked my way backward from there. 

In our insular way we regard The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins as the first detective novel.

AFAIK, this is correct too. 

[Rosalba]

When Conan Doyle wrote his Sherlock Holmes stories the crime/detective novel was still in its infancy and you could argue that he developed the genre. The 1920s and 30s seem to be regarded as a golden age for crime fiction but a lot of it is rather ropey - some of Agatha Christie's plots are rather creaky and I personally think Conan Doyle is superior in 'characterisation, humour, pace and atmosphere'.

Agreed.

There's nothing controversial in what you say and nothing that contradicts my earlier comments.

A writer having a favourite among his stories doesn't mean that it must be the best artistically. That will always be a matter of opinion.
(Conan Doyle also thought that his historical fiction was superior to Sherlock Holmes, but I've tried them and like many if not most readers, I disagree.)

Even if Writer A develops a genre, and even if Writer B is worse, I am allowed to criticise Writer A's plotting.

Plus, I've already said that I love Sherlock Holmes stories and think that they have wonderful dialogue, characterisation, atmosphere & humour - it's simply that I don't find the plot of The Speckled Band very realistic.

But what of that? Many of the Sherlock Holmes stories have bizarre plots and it's arguably part of the appeal.

[Jo498]

Doyle himself came to dislike the fact that he was famous mostly/only for the Holmes stories. I have yet to read the medieval stories (Sir Nigel, White Company) but I read some of the Professor Challenger years ago; they are also pretty good.

As I said, it had never occurred to me that one central point in "The speckled band" was rather implausible but when I re-read the stuff decades after my teenage years, I found them overall a rather mixed bag. It might have been that I had just been such a huge fan as a young teenager.

In hindsight, I'd say that Doyle in Holmes explored a lot of different terrain and what later became the "classic" crime mystery was only one aspect.

Whereas I was postively surprised when I re-read a handful of Agatha Christie stories/novels two years ago, I wanted to throw these old pbcks away but eventually kept them. They were obviously also all not at the same level but I found even the maybe most contrived (Ten little.../Then they were none) quite fascinating and "Mrs McGinty? is dead" has great humour and characterization of section of British ca. 1950 rural society with pampered Poirot suffering a lot because of poor food and accomodation, although the actual solution of the case is also rather contrived.
I am no expert in golden era crime but I could easily admit that several of the contrived puzzles in Ellery Queen and Dickson Carr (the first who come to my mind for "impossible puzzles") have hardly any atmosphere or characterization.
IMO the best writer as writer in the "classic" era is Dorothy Sayers but she is sometimes a bit too smart/educated for her own good. Apart from Wimsey, the unrealistic superman, there is a bit too much social commentary, too many details of train schedules, code cracking and Virgil quotations.
(Chesterton is also a good writer but maybe not at his best in the Father Brown, and he admitted himself that many of them aren't very good as crime mysteries.)

[Biffo]

When I made my posting I was going from memory, I read The Moonstone (and its Introduction several decades ago. Wikipedia suggests the 'some' commentators regard it as the first modern detective novel. Detectives and crime solving had appeared before then. In Balzac's A Harlot High and Low a magistrate, aided by some rather seedy police spies, track down the master criminal Vautrin but this is only one thread of the novel.

[Rosalba]

Doyle himself came to dislike the fact that he was famous mostly/only for the Holmes stories. I have yet to read the medieval stories (Sir Nigel, White Company) but I read some of the Professor Challenger years ago; they are also pretty good.

As I said, it had never occurred to me that one central point in "The speckled band" was rather implausible but when I re-read the stuff decades after my teenage years, I found them overall a rather mixed bag. It might have been that I had just been such a huge fan as a young teenager.

In hindsight, I'd say that Doyle in Holmes explored a lot of different terrain and what later became the "classic" crime mystery was only one aspect.

Whereas I was postively surprised when I re-read a handful of Agatha Christie stories/novels two years ago, I wanted to throw these old pbcks away but eventually kept them. They were obviously also all not at the same level but I found even the maybe most contrived (Ten little.../Then they were none) quite fascinating and "Mrs McGinty? is dead" has great humour and characterization of section of British ca. 1950 rural society with pampered Poirot suffering a lot because of poor food and accomodation, although the actual solution of the case is also rather contrived.
I am no expert in golden era crime but I could easily admit that several of the contrived puzzles in Ellery Queen and Dickson Carr (the first who come to my mind for "impossible puzzles") have hardly any atmosphere or characterization.
IMO the best writer as writer in the "classic" era is Dorothy Sayers but she is sometimes a bit too smart/educated for her own good. Apart from Wimsey, the unrealistic superman, there is a bit too much social commentary, too many details of train schedules, code cracking and Virgil quotations.
(Chesterton is also a good writer but maybe not at his best in the Father Brown, and he admitted himself that many of them aren't very good as crime mysteries.)

I don't rate Agatha Christie as highly as Conan Doyle, but I enjoy her writing - The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is very well-crafted and there's a lot of humour in the dialogue. I once read a novel she published as Mary Westmacott, Absent in the Spring, and I thought it was an excellent exploration of a selfish woman's psyche and had to lot to say about the decisions we take in life.

My husband enjoys Professor Challenger. I haven't read any Dorothy Sayers but her novels were a colleague's favourite crime novel. When I tried one, I found the style a little affected, but they do dramatise very well and I've enjoyed some Sayers TV serials.

[VonStupp]

I've never given much time to short stories, but I have a few collections sitting around that I still like to leaf through every once and a while:

Nathanial Hawthorne: A rill from the town pump. This captured my attention as a young person in school as it was from the perspective of the town pump.
Sherwood Anderson: Winesburg, Ohio: A Group of Tales of Ohio Small-Town Life

O. Henry Short Stories: Of which, Gift of the Magi is perhaps the most well known.
Roald Dahl Omnibus: The Great Automatic Grammatizator stands out along with the wicked Lamb to the Slaughter.

Ian Fleming: For Your Eyes Only & Octopussy collections, although I preferred the James Bond novels over these.
T. Coraghessan Boyle: Greasy Lake. His mid-to-late 20th Century pop-culture references remind me of composer Michael Daugherty.

I guess I have liked short stories that deal with small-town life or ones with a wry twist.

VS

[Rosalba]

Thanks, @VonStupp - some interesting points.

I remember reading O. Henry's Witches' Loaves and finding it funny but almost unbearably poignant.

[Jo498]

There are too many and too many I do not remember well enough. I got two or three fat volumes with anthologies of American and British short stories, starting with the tale of the headless Hessian horseman (that is actually humorous but was turned into a scary movie).
As I said above, I think some genres like Ghost (MR James was maybe the greatest, I got an Omnibus, but the story I'll never forget because it scared me considerably as a kid of 11 or so is "The room in the tower" by Benson), Horror (Lovecraft is better for me in small doses) and SciFi work best in Short stories (or sometimes novellas). I tended to prefer Asimiov's Robot short stories to several of his novels (although both Caves of Steel and Naked Sun are pretty good, too). A good one I read recently after having heard about it before is "The man who came early" (about a GI who lands by a time warp in 10th cent. Iceland). Another cool one is Arthur Clarke's "9 billion names of God".
One of Roald Dahl's I remember is about a man who learned from some Indian guru to see through cards and went on to bust the banks of casinos.

I recently got a collection by TC Boyle but the first? story was already so depressing (while getting drunk with new acquaintance a man tells the tale how his son died from a freak accident after a fraternity drinking game), I stopped reading...

[vandermolen]

The speckled band was actually Doyle's personal favorite from his Holmes stories.

It's definitely one of the best.

[Autolycus]

Chesterton's Father Brown stories. A mix of logic and surreal humour.

[Florestan]

Romanian literature has some excellent writers of short stories. My top 5 are:

I. L. Caragiale

I. A. Bassarabescu

Emil Gârleanu

Anton Bacalbașa

Anton Holban

[Rosalba]

Short Stories for children can be very funny or evocative too.

In the first category, I love the collection of northern-grit first person stories by George Layton, especially the title-story for the anthology, which is called The Balaclava Story, about a boy who can't join his classmates' boys' club of The Balaclava Boys because his Mum, a single parent, can't afford extras. So he steals a balaclava from the school cloakroom on impulse, and from there it all goes pear-shaped. It's poignant but also very funny, as are the other stories in the collection.

In the 'evocative' category, I love a short story by Philippa Pearce, who wrote the children's classic Tom's Midnight Garden. This is called The Great Blackberry Pick, and is about a girl trapped in a family with a very autocratic father. I can identify with that - and also with the forced family blackberry picking - but the story also features a contrasting household, warm and libertarian, to which the girl briefly escapes. This was a great story to read aloud to my high-school English students and then start a discussion.

[Florestan]

Jorge Luis Borges is another master of the genre.