well, read on!
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Actor Sheridan Haynes is hired to give a private rendition of his celebrated performance in the role of Sherlock Holmes at Castle Baskerville -- the very private and well-guarded retreat of Warren Waymark, an aging American tycoon who collects Holmes memorabilia. A conspiracy is clearly afoot -- to begin with, there have been rumors that Waymark is actually dead. Is the frail old man who wears dark glasses even in dimly lit rooms an impostor? Why does such unexpected violence surround the men who ask Haynes to take charge of a photocopy of an unpublished Sherlock Holmes manuscript in the hope that Waymark will purchase the original for a quarter of a million pounds? Haynes-as-Holmes, along with his wife Valerie as a co-investigator more intelligent (and less admiring) than Watson, has appeared in a previous Julian Symons mystery, A THREE PIPE PROBLEM. The story mixes the classical detective form with whiffs of the thoroughly modern. In addition to the basic locked-room puzzle of the fortified and electronically guarded castle, there are scenes in Copenhagen and Amsterdam that reek of international arms and drug deals. Beneath the action, however, is a core of intellectual puzzle, with ample convolutions, patent disguises, and red herrings aplenty. The cast is also acrawl with Sherlockians, and with the scholarly detail and literary detective work that will make the book essential for fans and followers celebrating the centennial of Sherlock Holmes's first appearance in print.
Copyright ©1990, Salem Press, all right reserved.
Document ID: SL19970613260000310
Subject(s): Books Mystery
Author(s): Julian Symons
PS I wrote to Julian Symons to see how he chose the name Waymark. He wrote back: "...I wanted something unusual, a name I'd feel in keeping with the Conan doyle atmosphere of the book. But why waymark? I had the idea, one that seems totally erroneous, that a waymark was something like a benchmark, and that I'd come across it in the OED. Basing myself on this dreamed-up dictionary entry I looked at my local telephone directory and found no Waymarks. In the London directory there was only one. So I went ahead and used it, a good invented name in what was I'm afraid a pretty inferior story. ...Its certain remarkable that three novelists have used the name in modern times, but I can assure you that I didn't derive it from either of the other two! With good wishes...Julian Symons.
July 5, 1991
Jack the Ripper - Casebook: George Chapman (a.k.a. Severin "Antoniovich Klosowski)
Another favourite Ripper suspect, George Chapman is said to have once been pointed out by Inspector Abberline himself as the Witechapel fiend. although the famous inspector would later recant his previous conviction, the theory has remained somewhat popular among the ranks of Ripperologists, and can be found in practically any worthwhile book on the subject. Was this haridresser/wife-poisoner capable of the Ripper murders?
The Waymarks enter this bizzare twist or nefarious notion: Elizabeth Waymark in 1887 is a nurse who "prepared the body (of the poisoned wife of George)for burial. It was a mere skeleton." Interestingly, a correspondent (Lorraine Johnson) whose ancestors were Waymarks had heard from her grandparents a story of someone in the family being involved with the Jack the Ripper case! This confirmed it. Sure beats going through census records and micro-fiche for details and proofs!
For full details see Ripper
First published in ELH 59 (1992) 911-938. Published here by permission of the author and The Johns Hopkins University Press. All rights reserved.
To this reviewer, the need for a truthful account of life justified the consideration of potentially distasteful topics. But the qualifications implied by his negative praise and by the article's title of "A Novel for Men" are even more revealing of the distinctive nature of English literature in the fin de siecle. For this anonymous nationalist takes pride in the observance of boundaries, whether those of morality or gender or geography.
In many respects,
the late-Victorian period saw conventional categories challenged and redefined,
whether by the decline of the circulating libraries that had enforced literary
morality or by the expansion in women's roles that potentially threatened
masculine identity. 2
However, despite the significance of these changes, it is curious how fundamentally
conservative English fiction remained.
49. "At this point
in Gissing criticism it is customary to observe that Gissing met his good
friend Eduard Bertz through a similar advertisement. While this is an interesting
biographical fact, I do not see that it provides us with conclusive evidence
of how we should value Waymark's ad in The Unclassed".
50. "One of Waymark's
addresses to Julian provides a good example. 'What cannot be purchased
with coin of the realm? First and foremost, freedom. . . . Even death [the
moneyed man] faces with the comforting consciousness that his defeat will
only coincide with that of human science. He buys culture, he buys peace
of mind, he buys love. - You think not? . . . Make me a millionaire, and
I will purchase the passionate devotion of any free-hearted woman the world
contains!' The new paragraph immediately succeeding this begins with the
deflationary remark, 'Waymark's pipe had gone out. . . (53)."
To see the full details of this whole review click Gissing
This was an action of trespass on the case, brought March 1, 1888, in the circuit court of Berkeley county, in the state of West Virginia, by John W. Martin against the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company, to recover damages in the sum of $10,000 for personal injuries caused to the plaintiff by the defendant's negligence at Bayview, in the state of Maryland, on May 22, 1887.
They had to refer to an English case of Kramer v. Waymark in order to establish law in West Virginia:
In Kramer v. Waymark,L. R. 1 Exch. 241, 4 Hurl. & C. 427, the point decided was that section 139 of the common-law procedure act, re-enacting the general provision of the statute of 17 Car. II. c. 8, 1, that the death of either party between verdict and judgment should not be alleged for error, if judgment should be entered within two terms after the verdict, included an action for a personal injury. Such an entry of judgment upon a verdict which has established the rights of the parties is equivalent, in substance and effect, to the ordinary entry of judgment nunc pro tunc upon such a verdict, and is quite a different thing from permitting a litigation to be prosecuted by or against an executor or administrator.
The necessary conclusion is that, the action having abated by the plaintiff's death, the entry must be writ of error dismissed. [151 U.S. 673, 704]
Mr. Justice HARLAN, (dissenting.) I cannot agree that this action abates, or that the writ of error should be dismissed, because of the death of the original plaintiff.
In the discussion at the bar of the question whether the action had abated by the death of the plaintiff, reference was made to chapter 103 of the Code of West Virginia, giving to the personal representative of one whose death has been caused by the wrongful act, neglect, or default of any person or corporation a right of action for damages against such person or corporation. The right to bring such action is limited to two years, and the damages recovered cannot be subjected to the payment of the debts and liabilities of the decedent, but must be distributed to the parties, and in the proportion provided by law in relation to the personal estate of those who die intestate. In my judgment, those provisions are of no consequence in the present inquiry. This suit was brought by the person alleged to have been injured, to recover compensation for such injuries as he sustained. It is not claimed that his death, since this writ of error was sued out, was caused by those injuries. And the question is whether this personal action was abated by his death. Its determination, it is agreed, depends upon the law of West Virginia.
The object of the first clause of the second section of chapter 127 of the Code of West Virginia was to dispense with the necessity of reviving an action in which there were several plaintiffs or defendants, one of whom had died pending the action, provided the cause of suit was one which, according to the settled principles of the common law, survived to or against the other parties. This clause had the same object as the sixth and seventh sections of the statute of 8 & 9 Wm. III. c. 11. These English statutes were examined in Kramer v. Waymark, L. R. 1 Exch. 241, 243, in which an infant plaintiff sued by next friend to recover damages for injuries sustained through the negligence of the defendant. The child died after verdict, and before judgment was signed. Upon a rule to show cause why the judgment should not be set aside on the ground of the death of the plaintiff before judgment, the court discharged the rule, saying that the proceedings could not be stayed...
The principal difference between the West Virginia statute, before it was amended in 1868, and the statutes of 17 Car. II. and 8 & 9 Wm. III., was that the latter did not apply to real actions, whereas the former embraced all actions,-real, mixed, and personal. The first clause of section 2 of chapter 127 of the West Virginia Code is important in the present discussion, because the words, 'if the cause of suit survive to or against' any one of several plaintiffs or defendants, show that, even when that section was adopted, the legislature had in mind the distinction at common law between actions that survived and those that did not survive. And in 1868, with this distinction still in view, the legislature added the second clause of the second section, providing that 'if a plaintiff or defendant die pending any action, whether the cause of action would survive at common law or not, the same may be revived and prosecuted to judgment and execution in the same manner as if it were for a cause of action arising out of contract.'
If the second clause of section 2 of chapter 127 had never been adopted, an action in tort would not have abated in West Virginia by reason of the death of the plaintiff after verdict, but judgment could have been entered upon the verdict. This, according to Kramer v. Waymark, above cited, was the construction placed on the English statute, upon which the first section and the first clause of the second section of chapter 127 of the Code of West Virginia were evidently based. But the second clause of the second section of that chapter was a step in advance...
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For full details see Findlaw cases
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