His Last Blog
Well, Dear Readers, we are coming to the end of the public domain* Arthur Conan Doyle stories about Sherlock Holmes.
Doyle died in 1930, so his works are legal to distribute freely in many countries. Life+70 years is a common term, and some countries follow the “rule of the shorter term”, saying that if a story is in the public domain in its country of origin, it is in the public domain in their country as well.
It has been a marvelous adventure, if a somewhat unsuccessful experiment. I love the idea of serialized stories, and I realize that the audience for e-literature is exploding.
The question for you is this:
What does 221B Blog Street do after the Doyle Holmes stories?
One choice is to simply repost the stories, beginning the cycle all over again. That would allow people to jump into at any point, and eventually read all of the stories. However, I would guess that wouldn’t appeal to those of you who have loyally been there from the beginning.
Another choice would be to stop posting to the blog. That isn’t my favorite option, although it does seem like the “purest” way to follow the concept of the blog.
A third choice would be to begin posting other Doyle materials. While many people only associate Doyle with Holmes, his Professor Challenger stories are very interesting as well. Although The Lost World is well-known, The Poison Belt (for example) is less so.
I could also switch to other public domain detectives.
I wanted to ask my readers what you think. That will help me make a decision.
Oh, I should say: I do intend to post a modern Holmes story I’ve written when I finish the Doyle Holmes stories. It was well-received, and I think you might enjoy it.
Feel free to leave me a comment as well (or instead of) voting, if you prefer.
My heartfelt thanks to all of you who have partaken of 221B Blog Street so far…I really appreciate it!
*Works “in the public domain” belong to the public. This commonly happens when a work has run the term of its copyright. In the United States (of which I am a resident and where this blog is hosted), works first published in another country between 1923 and 1977 have a copyright term of 95 years. It’s a bit more complex than that, but some of the Doyle Holmes stories fall into this category. For example, the Adventure of the Sussex Vampire, was published in 1924. It would fall into the public domain in the US on January 1, 2020.
This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in 221B Blog Street.
