Dr. Watson, A Yellow-Backed Novel, and A Frisky Matron

 

I tried to interest myself in a yellow-backed novel.

Tonight I found myself avoiding the real work by "doing research."  The rabbit-warren I fell into was entirely Dr. Watson's fault. While searching for something that might have actually helped me accomplish my real task, I stumbled across Watson trying to interest himself in that  yellow-backed novel. You know, the one he eventually flung across the room because:

"The puny plot of the story was so thin, however, when compared to the deep mystery through which we were groping, and I found my attention wander so continually from the fiction to the fact..."

Of course I know what a yellow-backed novel is, but, in the spirit of my procrastination-fueled research, I took Les Klinger's annotated down from the shelf to review his note concerning Watson's reading in "The Boscombe Valley Mystery." As always, his work was interesting to consider:

A novel usually bound in vividly illustrated  yellow boards, intended for railway travellers. Also known as "sensation novels," books of this genre revelled in stories of adultery, bigamy, murder, and illegitimacy. For example, In Mary Elizabeth (M.E.) Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret (1862), the heroine abandons her child, murders her husband, and considers poisoning her second husband. Other very popular works were Wilkie Collin's The Woman in White (1860) and Ellen (Mrs. Henry) Wood's East Lynne (1861). Sensation novels were in many ways precursors to thriller and even detective fiction.

Now, I should have stopped right there and went back to the real work. But, no. In the spirit of my membership in the The Baker Street Guttersnipes: The Society for the Canonically Coarse, I started laughing at the use of the phrase "...through which we were groping..."; I wondered if he were feeling a little Canonically Coarse when he wrote it. And then I realized that I had never actually looked at a real yellow-backed novel from Watson's era. Time for a Google search. There was nothing else to do. (Well, other than going back to work.)

I quickly found a treasure trove of yellow-backed pages but I settled on viewing a nice collection at Emory Center for Digital Scholarship | Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library.

Some of the titles are an absolute delight: 

• Sir Harry and the Widows, or, Nothing hazard, Nothing Lose, a Love Story, Humorous and Pathetic
• Flower and Weed and Other Tales
• A Mental Struggle
• Princess Napraxine
• Moths
• Puck, His Vicissitudes, Adventures, Observations, Conclusions, Friendships, and Philosophies
• Uncle Ezekiel and his Exploits on Two Continents
• Gerard, or, The World, the Flesh, and the Devil, a Novel
  

Sounds very much like life in 2024, yes?  I think my favorite though was the simply titled A Frisky Matron. I'm willing to bet A Frisky Matron would sell better on Amazon than most "literature." (It is probably already there. I didn't look.)

Maybe the Guttersnipes should sponsor a writing contest: Who can write the best short story inspired by the title "A Frisky Matron for Dr. Watson." I may go suggest it. 

 

Poor Watson, he didn't have the internet in his pocket to help him waste his time while he waited for Holmes to return. But if the internet had existed then he might never have written a word at all and my life would have been half as much fun as it is now.