The review elsewhere on these pages by Scott Ryan is quite good and tells the prospective reader most of what he or she needs to know about this book, so I will contribute not a complete review but a sort of interlinear commentary.

It's a great idea to have the pre-Watson Sherlock's adventures written up by the "young Stamford" who first introduced Holmes and Watson at Barts Hospital. However, Charnock has adopted a sort of "fundamentalist" approach here, dealing mainly with cases mentioned by Holmes to Watson as taking place in his early career--- many of the problems presented are hardly worthy of the mature Holmes.

There are some more serious problems. In what I think may be the first Holmes story written by the author, "Aluminium Crutch," the narrator is Holmes himself (always a problematical conceit) and the "solution" to the problem that Holmes presents is a preposterous and completely supernatural urban legend, which cheats Holmes' client as totally as it cheats the modern reader. Other stories end abruptly, with more loose ends than the average mop, particularly "Ricoletti," where Holmes expends a page meditating on the social horror of a lesbian relationship in Victorian England, without clarifying any aspect of the mystery that has been presented! Where the hell has the living yeti got off to?!?

One of the more interesting stories is "Opal Tiara," which has obvious echoes of "Musgrave Ritual," but achieves a number of fine twists at the end. The "Giant Rat" episode has the problem that all action occurs offstage, and Holmes himself never directly appears.

Characterizations are good, the simulation of a Victorian style is adequate, and Holmes' conversational dialogue particularly sounds "bang-on," in the fashion British pastiche writers often achieve, and American pastiche writers never seem to accomplish.

One of the better Holmes collections offered in fairly small printings by publisher Martin Breese. Get it while copies remain.

In A STUDY IN SCARLET, I believe the first Holmes story to be published, we are introduced to Dr. John H. Watson, late of the Royal Army in India. While recuperating from wounds received in combat, he renews an acquaintanceship with "young Stamford", from his University days. Who introduces him, in turn, to his friend, Sherlock Holmes. Thus begins one of literatures most famous and enduring partnerships. During his chronicles, Watson refers to many adventures Holmes had before he and Watson met. In this book, Ian Charnock tells us of some of those adventures; those he shared or related to his friend, "young Stamford". At the time he tells these stories, Stamford is 91 years old, no longer young. His memory is, in places, foggy; in others, brilliantly clear. This device, plus Holmes' youth at the time allows Charnock quite a bit of leeway in creating his characters before Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would. Thus, we see a Holmes whose character and habits are still forming. We also see slices of life in an earlier Victorian England than we are used to, as seen by Sir Arthur. One other thing of interest, you will note that Ian Charnock uses the same device pioneered by Sir Arthur: the story is told by a second party involved in the tale. In the original stories, Dr John H. Watson narrated a story in which he was involved. In these, "young Stamford" tells tales involving himself and the very same man. Interesting stories, told well. Very much worth your book dollar.

Ian Charnock has helpfully made available a series of Holmes tales from a surprising source: Stamford, the young fellow at Bart's who introduced Holmes to Watson. According to the volume's introduction (purportedly written in 1951, when Stamford was 91), the writer left strict instructions that the manuscript was not to be published until forty years after his death. We are probably expected to infer that this event came to pass in 1959.

All but two of the cases recorded here are the ones to which Holmes referred in "The Musgrave Ritual". Stamford narrates for us the cases of the Tarleton murders and of Vamberry the wine merchant, the matter of the old Russian woman, the singular affair of the aluminum crutch, and the full account of Ricoletti of the club foot (and his abominable wife). Two other cases appear here as well, one of which -- the case of the _Matilda Briggs_ and the giant rat of Sumatra (to which Holmes briefly alludes in "The Sussex Vampire") -- stands, to my mind, a greater chance of being "the real thing" than the enjoyable but clearly inauthentic work by Richard Boyer published some twenty-five years ago. (Likewise, some of the other cases have been written up elsewhere in what are clearly pastiches rather than historical accounts.)

These cases mostly take place, as Holmes mentions in "Musgrave," before his biographer has come to glorify him. And the reader may well wish that Watson _had_ gotten round to writing these cases up; Stamford (if he is indeed the author) has not quite got the good doctor's touch with a tale, and for the most part the cases themselves are frankly not all that intrinsically interesting. (Moreover, the writing style limps a bit in places. The writer has the odd British habit of omitting punctuation altogether allowing sentences to run on and on like this and suddenly inserting a gratuitous comma somewhere near the end which makes for occasionally, confusing reading.)

However, as Stamford notes in his introduction to the volume, he possesses valuable information about Holmes's early years that is not available elsewhere. In some cases the reader will have to watch carefully: Stamford is not above burying or encoding such information and leaving it to the reader to ferret it out. (For example, in a clear imitation of a famous "contradiction" in the canonical Holmes stories, Stamford refers to one character as "John" on one page and as "James" just a few pages later. In this case, however, the "error" is a clue to the real identity of the character.)

But on the whole, the information has at least the ring of plausibility. And to my mind the somewhat artless style of the narrative tells in favor of its authenticity: it really does seem to be a reminiscence of an elderly Stamford rather than something cooked up by a professional writer. (I would have been suspicious if the style _had_ been too much like Watson's.)

And perhaps most importantly, the character of Holmes rings true. In these tales we are encountering Xenophon's Socrates rather than Plato's, but it is clearly the same man -- or a very good imitation.

Sherlockians/Holmesians will therefore probably enjoy this collection. As I suggested, the tales themselves are not all that gripping -- but that too is a point in favor of their authenticity, considering that they are alleged to date from so early in Holmes's career. And the (alleged) insights into the character and early history of Holmes himself will be of interest to all fans of the great detective.

Naturally, of course, every reader will wish to judge their authenticity for himself or herself. But in my own view, these tales may well be genuine -- as opposed, for example, to the altogether enjoyable but clearly fictional "reminiscences" of Mary Russell in the Laurie King novels.

Charnock is to be commended for making this collection available to the public. Readers seeking titillation or edge-of-one's-seat excitement will be mostly unimpressed. But those seeking information on the young Holmes himself will probably be pleasantly surprised at how well these tales satisfy their purely historical interest.

Giovanni di Francesco de CREVELLERIA was an architect of the Seventeenth Century. He erected Galileo's tomb in Santa Croce.

Lippi's assistant was not this Crevelleria but Giovanni di Francesco da ROVEZZANO ( J. Ruda) [1439 -1459]. A predella hangs in the Louvre, beside Lippi's Madonna . Da Rovezzano's masterpiece can be admired in the Casa Buonarroti, Firenze.

The Carmelite Saints in the cathedral of Santo Stefano, in Prato, were painted by Fra Diamante, not by Lippi (see Mannini: The Restoration of Lippi's Nativita, 1998).

Like Vasari, Milanesi's editions have been accepted as the norm for several decades (Vasari's for several centuries).

A brillant effort: beautiful reproductions with informative, well written, and sensative text. It is the best book on Fra Lippi I have seen. I wish however that the number of full page reproductions had been at least tripled and the text abridged. I was frustrated by page after page of postcard size reproductions surrounded by text. I purchase art books for the pictures not the words.

Holmes' book looks like a sumptuous coffee table art book and is a splendid example of a well produced one. The contents, in addition to the excellent illustrations, add up to an exhaustive and definitive study of Lippi's life and work by setting him firmly in the detailed religious and social context of his time and place. All of the artistic influences on his life are thoroughly catalogued. The significance of Florence's Santa Maria del Carmine is well documented, since it was the site of Lippi'a artistic training as well as his religious formation, and the lasting Carmelite infuences on Lippi's great works are described in great detail. Many historical misconceptions are corrected: Lippi was no orphan; he apparantly never severed completely his membership in the Carmelite Order. There is so much detail in this marvelous book, I wanted more informatoin about what happened to Lucrezia Buti and her son and daughter. They look out at the viewer from more than one of Lippi's masterpieces, as does he. This wonderful study connects us to their rich and complex lives, and the artistic treasures produced.

I would have rated this book 1 star if not for the discovery of August Derleth and his Solar Pons story. Although one can easily solve the riddle at the very beginning because of the telltale "circular room", it fully restores the atmosphere of the canon and sends chill down one's spine. However, the section titled "6 classic Pastiches" seems to be the only valueable part of this collection. Others include some studies of Holmes' life and habits (apparently they forgot Holmes is not a real person, even if he were, I would not care about his private life), and some not so serious stories with a character named Sherlock Holmes who is apparently not the one of Baker Street (how curious some authors think that if they have enough fame they can borrow this name to decorate their nonsense). If one is looking for more tales of the great detective, one'd better not waste time on this book.

...mostly interesting, occasionally excellent or pedestrian. I found the editor's own essay tedious. Overall good fun.

I enjoyed this anthology immensly. Some of the pastiches Mr. Kaye included were among the best Neo-Sherlocking I've ever read (I particularly enjoyed "The Unmasking Of Sherlock Holmes" by Arthur Chapman.) and I agree with most of his opinions on The Canon. But who does he think he is calling the brilliant performance of Jeremy Brett as Holmes an "outrage and an abomination"?! He also says he will not mention the Brett series in his Holmesian catalogue. You just did Marv!

Could the author of this book possibly stroke her ego even more? I mean, come on, lady, if you were that good, you wouldn't have to put your book on your own list of great books.

Are you related to Allen Ginsberg, by any chance?

Take that ego, and shove it.

Humanophone, with its exploration of the work and life of three fascinating, radical composers, does an amazing job of bringing words to music, music to words.

With Humanophone, Janet Holmes has created a new musical sound that jumps off of the page. Like the musical styles she invokes in the subject of many of these poems, Ms. Holmes poetic voice mimics with the instrumentality of her images. This innovate collection of poetry plays with language in exciting new ways.

i agree with the only other review. i was set to buy, but do not own a MAC. what were they thinking?

I have not experienced this latest by Chris Marker -- but it's by Marker so how can it miss -- for 13.00+ you can't afford not to pick this puppy up -- (see review for this cd-rom in the latest bookforum spring 2003) -- buy now -- find a friend with a mac - (hopefully and G4 with a wideass monitor!)

Why this is being released as a Mac-only CD-ROM is not clear. Since more than 90% of the personal computers in use are Wintel (MS Windows with x86 processors) machines (used to be called "IBM Compatibles"), it seems silly to release a CD-ROM that only works on a Mac (great as they are).

The title says it all. This book is filled with "Advice" from the experts but there is hardly any information on actually navigating. I have read this book and heard a lot of nice stories but I am still more or less clueless on what to do. I am rating this book 2 starts because it lacks information on how to navigate.

Each chapter is worth reading for the insights from the experts, but don't expect to learn how to read an FIA timecard, put together a shipping plan for an overseas event or work out which intercom is the best.

"Rally Navigation" provides a great deal of insight into several different aspects of rally racing. While the lion's share of the book focusses on what it takes to make it as a successful rally co-driver, Holmes also explores rally organization, logistics and coordination and each chapter is given over to someone who works on a different aspect of the rally world. Derek Ringer (World Champion 1995) has the final chapter and the Forward. If you are interested in any aspect of rally--especially co-driving, this book is a must have.

I can understand why this book is out of print. Novick could not decide whether he was writing for the mass market or other law professionals. He evidently gathered abundant research materials, arranged them chronologically, and tried to organize them into coherent chapters. Novick's discomfort in dealing with Holmes' private life results in a rather stilted account of the pivotal events in his life. Novick did not even attempt to connect these events to his works before and after he sat on the Massachusetts bench. Furthermore, no insight whatsoever enlightens our understanding of Holmes' thoughts at the time he rendered his most important judicial decisions. Don't bother trying to find this book now that it has been buried.

I read it as a books-on-tape title. I enjoyed listening to it, it was quite fascinating learning about the life of a man who fought in the Civil War and went on to become a Justice of the Supreme Court of the USA; his significant influence into our country's judicial thinking has been a source of inspiration for me to further understand it and its origins

This is an excellent book for any pre-law student who is interested in learning more about Justice Holmes. I read the first review that was written by another reader, and was shocked. Sheldon M. Novick did an excellent job researching the material and writing it in such a manner that any reader can understand. Before reading this book, I did not know anything about Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. However, sense completing it, I feel that I know every aspect of his life. The book begins with his childhood in Boston, Massachusetts. It takes you into the 19th century in time when cobblestones were the roads many of the carriages and early motor vehicles drove on. It describes in detail critical information about Justice Holmes and how his character was shaped by his parents, and mentors that included former presidents. I was especially impressed with the role he played as a son, a brother, and a devoted and caring husband. The book describes his role as a judge in the Supreme Judicial Court in Boston, and moves on onto his appointment by President Theodore Roosevelt to the Supreme Court. It helped me understand many of the case's I had to brief last semester. This is my first review, so I will end here.

Scholars and criminologists beware! Behind a paper-thin scholarly veneer, this volume is worse than useless to any serious reader. The authors open with self-congratulation of their own "research vigor," denouncing competitors who produce books "loaded with errors," then deliver a slim volume containing literally hundreds of careless mistakes--countless names misspelled, cases misplaced geographically and chronologically (one killer hanged in 1896 is described as active in the 1940s!), etc. The index is a joke, with most of the page citations inaccurate, and that's only the beginning. Some killers appear twice under different names (their own and some garbled version), while others appear to be mythical characters (e.g., "Leslie Hooten"). The most hilarious error finds a list of "Serial Killer Victims" in the index naming several authors from the book's bibliography ... plus O.J. Simpson! Worst of all, the book appears to be one massive ego stroke, with the primary author referring to himself by name more than 80 times in less than 160 pages. At a hardcover cost of 28 cents per page, anyone desiring accurate information on serial murder is well advised to shop around.

Two important things must first be noted: Amazon.com is listing a 1988 title (Serial Murder)by Holmes and DeBurger. That book was received with very positive reviews and was widely recognized as a "first" in the attempt to deal systematically with this particular form of homicide. It appears that Amazon.com is publishing reviews that do not pertain to this first edition, but which are based on evaluation of SERIAL MURDER by Ronald and Stephen Holmes, published in 1998 by Sage. The Holmes'(father-and-son) effort represents a buttressing of the 1988 edition with considerable expansion of specific cases and developments in the intervening decade. While there is a bit of "hurrying to completion" evident here with attendant errors, typos, missing or misplaced names, etc., this book--which builds well on the first edition by Holmes and DeBurger-- does represent the best systematic work available on the topic. Amazon.com should pay closer attention to its listings and get book titles linked correctly with their actual authors.

This book was extremely helpful in my research on serial murder. It is a good, concise, rendition of research, & theories,of multiple homicide. I recommend this book to anyone writing a research paper or who wants to learn more on the topic of serial murder.

Here's another candidate for what I hope will remain a fairly short shelf, the Holmes pastiche whose author thought enough of it to pay to have it published, but not enough of it to revise and rewrite it up to any acceptable literary standards. The other volumes on this shelf at my abode are Fullenkamp's SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE ADVENTURE OF THE THREE DRAGONS, and Stefanie's THE CHARTERS AFFAIR.

What we get here are three short novels, averaging about 90 pages apiece. Both dialogue and narration are best described as "rough," and the book has many misprints on top of the author's own continual gaffes. [See if you can guess what punctuation has been inexplicably replaced by a capital C, on p. 57 and many other places in the first adventure! See if you can spot the reference to the "annuls of crime." See Mycroft say, "You must drop it," when he really means (to judge from remarks immediately following) that Sherlock needs to solve the crime as soon as humanly possible.]

What is one to make of a spying adventure during WW I in which the female villainess (who, alas, remains mostly offstage) is named Frederica Von StRada? [I guess it is a mercy she wasn't named Emmie Amelingling, if we have to keep the operatic reference!] What is one to make of Holmes depending upon pendulum dowsing to locate a German submarine base, in the same adventure? Not even Conan Doyle, despite his gullibility and fanatic devotion to what we now call the New Age, would have let Holmes mingle with the supernatural... a realm where Holmes, functioning as Holmes, could only act as a debunker to the foolish beliefs Conan Doyle would have been terrified to have debunked. [See the recent, fine biography of Conan Doyle by Daniel Stashower for more on this point.]

The three cases, apart from the spy adventure, which is all frantic action, involve a not very mysterious murder near Stonehenge, leading to an incomprehensible climax involving buried treasure, and a complex case of art forgery. The art forgery adventure suffers from lack of a Holmesian summing up, so that the reader is left even more mystified than Watson by some of the events. The Stonehenge adventure suffers from total and complete predictablity from the earliest pages onward.

If, like me, you think there was something to be said for Edward D. Wood Jr. as a writer of prose fiction, you may also find a place in your heart for works like this one. Otherwise, I think you really must drop it, Mister or Ms. Gentle Reader!

First, I'll admit that I read only the posted excerpt for this book, so take these comments and the rating with a grain of salt. Just from reading the few pages posted, however, I must concur that the earler negative review of this book is probably correct. In just those few pages, I found numerous sloppy and unnecessary punctuation errors. What's worse, the case in the excerpt is supposed to take place in 1884 -- and yet Watson discusses Holmes' experience with coal tar derivative, which took place during the Great Hiatus of 1891-94; his book, "A Study In Scarlett," which hadn't even see magazine publication in 1884, much less book publication; and the Dreyfus affair, which didn't take place until 1894. Either the author is horribly inept on his historical and Sherlockian facts (which seems unlikely given his back cover bio) or he simply made the careless error of writing 1884 when he meant 1894 and never caught it in proofing the copy. Either way, it doesn't bode well for the rest of the book. Having written a pastiche or two myself, I know it isn't as easy a genre as it may appear, so I'm inclined to be sympathetic toward the author. But he really needs to do a better proofing job in the future--or hire a professional to help out next time.

What a pleasure to read a Holmes and Watson critique where they are not chasing Drakula or Frankenstein , or worse yet dealing with a chase on Planet Mars. These 3 short stories take us back to "Victorian and Edwardian Times" and have all the atmosphere of those times which was so interesting in the original stories by Arthur Conrad Doyle.

Overall, I was disappointed by the book. The information provided is accurate but limited. Of the some 400 Primula species that exist, 5 are listed, similarly, the 70 Aquilegias are covered by only 4 species and the over 500 Potentillas have only one species described. Granted this is a "one-volume reference" with photos of the 1000 so-called "best plants", the book does not claim to be exhaustive. This book ranks low in my library. The photographs are often out of focus and the colours are poorly produced. The brief plant descriptions are separated from the photographs and are not overly helpful. The book may be useful to the less ardent gardeners of the world but given the hefty price tag, I would spend my money elsewhere. Anyone taking this volume to the nursery to buy plants would only have the barest notion of what to buy. I would urge others to purchase the smaller more focused guides in the Taylor's series.

I found this book to be very helpful. As stated in one of the other reviews, it is not an exhaustive reference, nor does it highly detailed. However, it is an excellent guide to gardening principles and ideas. The plant encyclopedia is comprehensive enough for the average gardener, and expains basic plant characteristics. I like the pictures, and think the basic layout of the book is ok, but it could use some improvement. I was able to buy my copy used, and would not recommend paying the full price.

We purchased this book on buying a new home to search out trees, shrubs and flowers to include in our landscape design. As such, the book is excellent. I would not buy this book for plans and actual design patterns. The first chapters of the book give general introductions to gardening strategies; then beautiful and thorough plant identification. The ending chapters are on hardiness zones, plant care. Makes a wonderful reference book. Highly recommend.