It Is Always a Joy . . . to Me to Meet an American, a Briton, a Japanese, a Canadian, a Swiss . . .

Review: An expensive, but also expensively produced is the first book from la Société Sherlock Holmes de France. It Is Always a Joy . . . to Me to Meet an American, a Briton, a Japanese, a Canadian, a Swiss . . ., the collected Sherlockian caricatures, cartoons and illustrations of Jean-Pierre Cagnat, is rightly described as a de luxe edition. There are 160 pages of drawings and paintings, with illuminating comments by the artist’s wife Christilla, translated into English by Wladimir & Nissa Bogomoletz.

Jean-Pierre Cagnat is a leading illustrator and political cartoonist and his wonderful drawings have featured widely in Sherlockian and other magazines over the past 15 years. It’s a revelation, though, to see them in full colour. Here are the images he captured in New York, California, London, Dartmoor, Meiringen, Santa Fe, Tokyo, Montpellier, Paris and his own home of Barbizon. A quick flick through the pages shows the faces of Albert Kunz, Tom Stix Jr, John Farrell, Frank Allen, Vosper Arthur, John Bennett Shaw, Bob Thomalen, Hirayama Yuichi and - er - Mickey Mouse among many others.

It Is Always a Joy . . . is the most handsome Sherlockian volume I’ve seen since Bill Blackbeard’s Sherlock Holmes in America. It really is worth the price.

You can get an idea of the book from the French society’s website

Reviewed by: Roger Johnson, [District Messenger 208, 2000]