The Rise And Decay Of The Rule Of Islam by Archibald J. Dunn. British Library Historical Print Editions. Like Holmes’s brother Mycroft, Sir Edward Grey must have read Dunn’s polemic on the Eastern Question expressed in the 1877 edition because he quotes him nearly verbatim when explaining the matter to Holmes and Watson.
The Sherlock Holmes Miscellany, by Roger Johnson & Jean Upton. Foreword by Gyles Brandreth. The History Press. 2012. A beautifully produced book of pocket size, a must for all Sherlockians. www.thehistorypress.co.uk/index.php/the-sherlock-holmes-miscellany.html
Arthur Conan Doyle, A Life In Letters. Harper Perennial 2008. Ed. Jon Lellenberg, Daniel Stashower, Charles Folley. 710pp. Valuable background expressed through Doyle’s profuse correspondence, much to his mother Mary.
My Dear Holmes, A Study In Sherlock. Gavin Brend. Allen & Dunwin 1951.
His Last Bow: Some Reminiscences of Sherlock Holmes was published in 1917, a collection of seven previously-published Sherlock Holmes. Five of the stories were published in The Strand Magazine between September 1908 and December 1913. The final story, an epilogue about Holmes’s war service, was first published in Collier’s on 22 September 1917 - one month before the book’s premier on 22 October. Some later editions of the collection include The Adventure of the Cardboard Box, which was also collected in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1894). The Strand published The Adventure of Wistaria Lodge as A Reminiscence of Sherlock Holmes, and divided it into two parts, called The Singular Experience of Mr. John Scott Eccles and The Tiger of San Pedro. Later printings of His Last Bow corrected Wistaria to Wisteria. The first US edition adjusted the subtitle to Some Later Reminiscences of Sherlock Holmes.
The Adventure of the Naval Treaty. One of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories. Conan Doyle ranked it 19th in a list of his 19 favourite Sherlock Holmes stories. Watson receives a letter from an old schoolmate, now a Foreign Office employee, who has had an important naval treaty stolen from his office. Has the theft been made on behalf of Czarist Russia or France (both perceived at the time to be potential enemies)? The Naval Treaty is one of the first in the emerging genre of spy story.
Fly Fishing. On trout, sea trout and salmon. Written by Edward Grey when he was thirty years of age, before his eyesight began to deteriorate sharply. Considered the equal of Walton’s much-better-known Compleat Angler.
The Charm of Birds. First published in 1927 with woodcuts, it was an immediate popular success. Full of sensitive observation and beautifully written.
Twenty-Five Years 1892-1916, by Viscount Grey of Falloden. Hodder And Stoughton. 1925. Wonderfully written memoires by one of the most famous British Foreign Secretaries. I have used some of his descriptions in The Sword of Osman. A must for anyone interested in the period leading to the First World War.
The Sultan, by Joan Haslip. Reissued by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. 1973. Excellent list of illustrations, written in lively style.
The Harem, by N.M.Penzer. Subtitled ‘an account of the institution as it existed in the Palace of the Turkish Sultans with a history of the Grand Seraglio from its foundation to modern times’. First published by George G. Harrap & Co. 1936.
Everyday Life in Ottoman Turkey, by Raphaela Lewis. B.T. Batsford Ltd. 1971. Really excellent 206 pages. The part titled ‘Portrait of a City’ is especially worth reading.
The Best Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Edited by Octave Thanet. A. C. McClurg & Co. Second Edition 1901. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762) was the wife of the British Ambassador to Turkey. In 1715 she had survived but been terribly scarred by smallpox while her brother had died from the disease. She was fascinated by the culture of the Ottoman Empire and in 1717 described the Turkish practice of inoculating healthy children with a weakened strain of smallpox to confer immunity from the more virulent strains of the disease. She immediately had her seven-year old son inoculated in Turkey and on her return to England, she had her daughter publicly inoculated at the royal court of George I to popularize the technique. In this she was only partially successful as inoculation continued to be dangerous and often resulted in death and scarring of infected children.
M. Şükrü Hanioğlu. The Second Constitutional Period, 1908–1918 Volume 4: Turkey in the Modern World. Cambridge Histories Online. Nov. 2009.
Diary of an Idle Woman in Constantinople (1892). For a prevailing, sometimes contemptuous view of Stamboul (‘ill-smelling mob’) by an itinerant English ‘Idle Woman’ travel-writer Frances Elliott, see https://archive.org/details/diaryanidlewoma03elligoog
The Sultan and His Subjects Volume 1-2 by Richard Davey. General Books, Memphis, USA.
Lords of the Horizons, A History of the Ottoman Empire, by Jason Goodwin. Chatto & Windus 1998. A lively account of the machinations of the major players in the Ottoman Empire from its origins to its collapse centuries later.
My Mission To Russia And Other Diplomatic Memories, by Sir George Buchanan. Little, Brown And Company. 1923.
With a Field Ambulance At Ypres: Being Letters Written March 7 - August 15, 1915. William Boyd. George H. Doran Company.
In Unknown Africa, by Percy Powell-Cotton, Hurst & Blackett, 1904. An account of a ‘wanderer’ and collector shooting his way through British East Africa in the Edwardian period.
The Urban Sea, Cities of the Mediterranean, by Dennis Hardy. Blue Gecko Books. 2013. Valuable and nicely-written account ranging across geography and history, with an appeal to a wide audience who visit the various cities around the coast of the world’s most famous Sea.
The Life And Times Of Sherlock Holmes, by Philip Weller with Christopher Roden. Studio Editions. 1992. Coffee-table size, packed with illustrations and informative background material.
Conan Doyle, The Man Who Created Sherlock Holmes, by Andrew Lycett. Phoenix. 554pp. 2007. Just about the best book on Doyle himself. Filled with interesting accounts right through Doyle’s life, including that 10 horsepower blue Wolseley with red wheels.
The Sherlock Holmes Companion, by Michael and Molly Hardwick. First published 1962 by John Murray, London.
The London of Sherlock Holmes, by Michael Harrison. David & Charles, Newton Abbot. 1972.
A Study In Surmise, by Michael Harrison. Subtitled ‘The Making of Sherlock Holmes’. Introduction by Ellery Queen. Gaslight Publications. 1984.
The Sherlock Holmes Scrapbook. New English Library, 1973. Introduction by Peter Cushing.
Investigating Sherlock Holmes by Hartley Nathan and Clifford Goldfarb. Mosaic Press, 2014.
The Influence of Royal Tours on the Conduct of British Diplomacy 1901-1918. Matthew Glencross. PhD Thesis. Argues the importance of royal diplomacy (e.g. Edward V11).
The Foreign Policy of Sir Edward Grey 1906-1915. Gilbert Murray. Forgotten Books. Originally published 1915.