Friday, December 11, 2009

THE SIGN OF THE FOUR


(The Sign of the Four © 2009 SelfMadeHero)
30 August 1889. The Langham Hotel, London. Oscar Wilde and Arthur Conan Doyle met for the first time with Joseph M. Stoddart, to discuss contributions to the Lippincott's Monthly Magazine (a Philidelphian publication). The two works these gentlemen would produce as a result of this meeting would be The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Sign of The Four. An account of this 'golden evening' is discussed in Doyle's autobiography Memories and Adventures.

An explanation, albeit brief, with regard to the title as you'll sometimes see it referred to as The Sign of the Four (five-word title) or more commonly The Sign of Four(four-word title). The former is the book's original publication title, the latter being the re-serialisation. As we are given to defaulting to Doyle's original text our adaptation carries its former title (not least of all because that is also how 'the four' is referred to in the text regardless of which edition of the book you read).

Work, as mentioned in my previous post, is well under way on The Sign of the Four. Enough that I should be able to update more regularly with images of the book in production. The book will be out sometime in the spring next year (exact date to be confirmed) and will be followed by The Valley of Fear.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Totally bowled over by your Holmes work and your style generally! News of 'The Four' is doubleplus exciting. You're doing such a blinding job on a much loved hero. Superb news! It's like being a kid discovering Herge for the first time all over again (if that makes sense!?)Thank you...

I. N. J. Culbard said...

Thank you for your very kind and generous words. Much appreciated.