I don’t think Bret Harte’s read much today, but during his lifetime he was quite popular. He primarily wrote Westerns, but also penned a number of parodies of contemporary authors. I also don’t know if he personally knew Conan Doyle, but Doyle had read some of his writing and even admitted an early debt.

“The Stolen Cigar-Case” came out in 1900, a time when Doyle was still cranking out Holmes stories at a good clip. It’s very much a parody pastiche, with the narrator being the assistant of the great detective “Hemlock Jones.” It’s quite funny, but I wonder what Doyle thought of it. It has a real edge, playing up Watson’s sycophancy as a sniveling codependent (the story begins with his throwing himself at Jones’s feet and then caressing his boot) while giving us a Holmes who is just a brainless, bullying airbag with delusions of grandeur. This isn’t a gentle satire and I got the sense that there was something about the Holmes stories that really bothered Harte. The thing is, I don’t know if that would have upset Doyle. He’d already had his fill of Hemlock too.

Holmes index