Solar Pons, an original Holmes pastiche

Sherlock Holmes, the world’s most well-known fictional consulting detective, has inspired a whole range of imitators and pastiches.

Because the character was copyrighted, some early authors choose to hide their copies under a range of silly take-off names such as “Herlock Sholmes,” “Holmlock Shears,” “Schlock Homes” (actually a parody), and many more.

I have already mentioned the Holmes pastiches in Europe who became more their own characters like Harry Dickson, the “American Sherlock Holmes,” and Sexton Blake, and hope to have articles on them soon.

But another excellent pastiche inspired by Holmes but who was a character in his own right is August Derleth‘s Solar Pons. Derleth (1909-1971), a young Holmes fan at the time, wrote to Doyle trying to get permission to write further Holmes stories, as Doyle had stopped doing so. Rebuffed, Derleth was inspired to create his own take on Holmes in 1928, making him a more original character.

Solar Pons is much like Holmes, but his stories are set instead in the Edwardian times (1920s and ’30s) — when they were first written — and would thus include cars and phones. While very similar to Holmes, even wearing a deerstalker hat, cloak, and smoking a pipe, he is not as moody or melancholy as Holmes is. And it’s actually hinted in some of the stories that Holmes exists in the world of Pons, so this makes it clear that Holmes and Pons are separate individuals.

Taking things further, Pons lives with an associate, Dr. Lyndon Parker, at 7B Praed Street. Pons has an older brother who works for the British government, Bancroft Pons. Pons also organized urchins into a “Praed Street Irregulars,” and yes, fans of Pons call themselves that and study the “Pontine canon.”  His housekeeper is Mrs. Johnson and his main contact with Scotland Yard is Inspector Jamison. But different from Holmes, we know the world of Pons also includes Fu Manchu and other famous fictional detectives, as well as possibly the Cthulhu Mythos. I have no idea if anyone has tried to tie him into the Wold Newton Universe.

The Pons stories are, in spirit, much like the Holmes stories. A few are more humorous, such as the story set on the Orient Express with pastiches of other famous detectives. Some of the tales have titles taken from unwritten Holmes stories mentioned by Watson. And interestingly, Derleth actually wrote more Pons stories than Doyle wrote Holmes stories.

Solar Pons largely appeared in short stories, and these would be collected in a series of books.  They originally appeared in pulp magazines around 1930, then came back in the 50s and on in various mystery digests.  I got the set that Pinnacle Books put out in the 1970s and early ’80s (though I got them much later) that included several more volumes with new stories by Basil Copper (1924-2013). Copper, who had been published by Arkham House, was authorized to continued to put out Solar Pons stories after Derleth passed away in 1971.

I should point out that I really liked the Solar Pons logo that Pinnacle later came out with for the books. Most likely to compete with the logos on the various pulp reprints like Doc Savage, et al, as the prior typeface used was quite boring and nondescript.  Strangely, they flipped the order of Casebook and Return from the original and moved Chronicles to being the second volume.

The Pinnacle series is:

1.  “Regarding Sherlock Holmes/The Adventures of Solar Pons”
2.  “The Chronicles of Solar Pons”
3.  “The Memoirs of Solar Pons”
4.  “The Casebook of Solar Pons”
5.  “The Reminisences of Solar Pons”
6.  “The Return of Solar Pons”
7.  “Mr. Fairlie’s Final Journal” (the only Pons novel)
8.  “The Dossier of Solar Pons” (Copper)
9.  “The Further Adventures of Solar Pons” (Copper)
10.  “The Secret files of Solar Pons” (Copper)
11.  “The Uncollected Cases of Solar Pons” (Copper)

After this, Copper came out with some additional Solar Pons works. With Fedogan and Bremer he had two additional collections, “The Exploits of Solar Pons” (1993) and “The Recollections of Solar Pons” (1995), which were planned to be the final two collections from Pinnacle. Then most recently with Sarob Press, the novel “Solar Pons Vs. the Devil’s Claw” (2004) and a collection “Solar Pons: The Final Cases” (2005), which are restored stories.

Mycroft & Moran, an imprint of Derleth’s Arkham House publications, in 1982, did “The Solar Pons Omnibus,” which contains all of Derleth’s Solar Pons stories previously published. The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box has since taken over publishing Derleth’s Solar Pons (and using the Mycroft & Moran imprint). They did a further, and probably final, collection of previously unpublished Derleth Solar Pons stories (including another novel) in 1998: “The Final Adventures of Solar Pons.” Then they put out the definitive omnibus edition, the “Original Text Solar Pons Omnibus” (which also fixed a lot of issues with the prior omnibus edited by Copper). Now they are making the Derleth Solar Pons stories available in a series of eight hardbacks and paperbacks. Further, they are also publishing other Solar Pons related works, such as the “Solar Pons Encyclopedia” and a CD of the Pontine Dossier, the newsletter and journal of the Praed Street Irregulars.

The accepted list of Derleth Solar Pons volumes is:

1.  “The Adventures of Solar Pons/In Re: Sherlock Holmes”
2.  “The Memoirs of Solar Pons”
3.  “The Return of Solar Pons”
4.  “The Reminiscences of Solar Pons”
5.  “The Casebook of Solar Pons”
6.  “Mr. Fairlie’s Final Journal & the Praed Street Dossier”
7.  “The Chronicles of Solar Pons”
8.  “The Final Adventures of Solar Pons”

Sadly, it seems Basil Copper’s Solar Pons stories are left out. Seeing as how the Sarob Press books were limited editions, I wish someone would do some kind of Copper Solar Pons Omnibus or the like.

So if you like Sherlock Holmes but want to check out a different take on him, please take a look at Solar Pons. I think you will enjoy them.

UPDATE

If you are looking for these stories in paperback and/or Kindle, David Marcum, who has done a collection of new, authorized, Solar Pons stories has put out an 8 volume approved set from Belanger Books.  It loosely follows the “accepted” list above, but added Derleth’s unpublished Solar Pons novel with “Mr. Fairlie”, and combines the materials from the “Praed Street Dossier” and most of the stuff in “Final Adventures” into one volume of “Apocrypha”.