Barry Day

Sherlock Holmes and the Shakespeare Globe Murders

Robert Kimball

Johnny Mercer

Eric Davis

Miles Kreuger

The seventh volume in Knopf’s critically acclaimed Complete Lyrics series, published in Johnny Mercer’s centennial year, contains the texts to more than 1,200 of his lyrics, several hundred of them published here for the first time. Johnny Mercer’s early songs became staples of the big band era and were regularly featured in the musicals of early Hollywood. With his collaborators, who included Richard A. Whiting, Harry Warren, Hoagy Carmichael, Jerome Kern, and Harold Arlen, he wrote the lyrics to some of the most famous standards, among them, “Too Marvelous for Words,” “Jeepers Creepers,” “Skylark,” “I’m Old-Fashioned,” and “That Old Black Magic.” During a career of more than four decades, Mercer was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Song an astonishing eighteen times, and won four: for his lyrics to “On the Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe” (music by Warren), “In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening” (music by Carmichael), and “Moon River” and “Days of Wine and Roses” (music for both by Henry Mancini). You’ve probably fallen in love with more than a few of Mercer’s songs–his words have never gone out of fashion–and with this superb collection, it’s easy to see that his lyrics elevated popular song into art.

The Complete Lyrics of Johnny Mercer

“[Barry Day] always captures the flavor of Conan Doyle and always comes up with a new, fresh plot” (The Sherlockian Times). Sherlock Holmes can tell the woman pacing outside of 221B Baker Street is an actress. She mutters to herself and practices gestures in preparation for her meeting with the world-famous detective. It’s a matter of life, death, and theater. Flora Adler has come on behalf of her father—the American impresario Florenz Adler, who turned Times Square into a circus, staged Wagner in the Grand Canyon, and has come to England to rebuild Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. This last is a magnificent dream, but anonymous threats have turned it into a nightmare. A series of notes adorned with quotations from the Bard suggest that something terrible will happen at the venue’s inaugural performance, when none other than Queen Victoria will be in attendance. To save queen and country, as well as the English stage, Holmes is taking on Shakespeare.

Investigating a crooked tabloid magnate, Sherlock Holmes is drawn across the continent Dr. Watson has never been much of an angler, and he is perplexed when Sherlock Holmes invites him on a Scottish fishing expedition. "Come if convenient," reads the telegram. "If not, come anyway." A few years after his near-death experience at the hands of Moriarty, the great detective is restless. If any man needs a vacation, it is Sherlock Holmes. But Watson knows better than to expect a peaceful fishing trip. As it happens, Holmes has dragged Watson to Scotland not for the fishing—but for a party. The celebration is hosted by John Moxton, an American muckraker who has recently expanded his tabloid empire across the pond. When his paper, the Clarion, turns out to be one step ahead of Holmes in investigating a baffling series of crimes, the detective suspects that Moxton isn't just breaking the news—he's making it.

Sherlock Holmes and the Alice in Wonderland Murders

Investigating a crooked tabloid magnate, Sherlock Holmes is drawn across the continent Dr. Watson has never been much of an angler, and he is perplexed when Sherlock Holmes invites him on a Scottish fishing expedition. “Come if convenient,” reads the telegram. “If not, come anyway.” A few years after his near-death experience at the hands of Moriarty, the great detective is restless. If any man needs a vacation, it is Sherlock Holmes. But Watson knows better than to expect a peaceful fishing trip. As it happens, Holmes has dragged Watson to Scotland not for the fishing—but for a party. The celebration is hosted by John Moxton, an American muckraker who has recently expanded his tabloid empire across the pond. When his paper, the Clarion, turns out to be one step ahead of Holmes in investigating a baffling series of crimes, the detective suspects that Moxton isn’t just breaking the news—he’s making it.

A hallucination of Sherlock Holmes helps hardboiled PI Jack Watson solve a perplexing case in this unique take on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s legendary detective. In the city of Los Angeles, there’s no private detective quite like Jack Watson. A tough-as-nails gumshoe, he’s made a reputation as the kind of sleuth who will take any case, no matter how sleazy or small. He’s in the middle of a particularly nasty divorce investigation when his client’s mistress sees fit to club Watson on the back of the head with an iron. When he comes to, he’s in the hospital looking at Sherlock Holmes. Holmes is translucent and floating slightly above the floor—a figment of Watson’s imagination that has come to transform a mediocre detective into a great one. Hired by the notorious Hollywood producer Osgood Kane, Watson is about to stumble onto a truly baffling case, the sort only Holmes can solve. They’re thousands of miles from Baker Street, and a lifetime away from the Victorian era, but when Watson’s brawn teams up with Holmes’s brain, the game is afoot once again. Written by legendary Holmes expert Barry Day, whose Sherlock Holmes: In His Own Words and in the Words of Those Who Knew Him is the quintessential biography of the great sleuth, this is an adventure that even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle couldn’t have dreamed up. Witty, exciting, and irresistibly fun, Two for One bridges the gap between the modern mystery and history’s greatest private eye.

A Sherlock Holmes/Jack Watson Novel

Two for One

The members of an old Oxford club are targeted, and Mycroft Holmes may be the next victim: “[Day]always captures the flavor of Conan Doyle” (The Sherlockian Times). Six months after the bloody return of Jack the Ripper, Sherlock Holmes is starved for entertainment. When a friend of Dr. Watson’s suggests a shooting trip in Scotland, Holmes leaps at the invitation. But after nearly a week of dreary Scottish weather, and hardly any shooting at all, Holmes is worse off than before. Watson fears the holiday has been an utter bust—until they are confronted with a murder baffling enough to be worthy of the great detective. One of the local gentry has been found dead in his library, suffocated in the safe where he kept his most valuable documents. Holmes recognizes the dead man as a member of the same secret society as his brother Mycroft—the Oxford group known as the Seven Sinners. One sinner down, six to go . . . but if Mycroft falls, so does England, and Holmes must be quick in order to save both his brother and his country.

Sherlock Holmes and the Seven Deadly Sins Murders

Noël Coward

Musical based on Oscar Wilde's "Lady Windermere's Fan."

A Concert Version : Based on Oscar Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan

After the Ball

Noel Coward

For fans and newcomers to Noel Coward's work, this compendium presents the very best in one entertaining volume.

The Very Best of His Work, Life and Times

The Essential Noël Coward Compendium

Chronicles the life and accomplishments of the man known as "The Master," and includes removable pieces of facsimiles of personal letters, sheet music, and drawings along with a DVD of previously unseen personal footage.

Star Quality

The Treasures of Noël Coward

What We Have Here is a Failure to Communicate

In Coward on Film: The Cinema of Noël Coward, author Barry Day documents every film based on Coward's work and/or in which he appeared. The result is an astounding list of film credits, including--on occasion--that of composer. Judged on his contribution to cinema alone, Noël Coward would have left a legacy matched by very few. With this detailed chronicle--which includes quotes from Coward himself and a complete filmography--Coward on Film stands as a fitting tribute to that legacy.

The Cinema of Noël Coward

Coward on Film

(Limelight). The story of one man's dream fulfilled, This Wooden "O" tells of American actor Sam Wanamake's efforts to reconstruct Shakespeare's Globe Theater. "A tale of intrigue and bitter rivalry, it reads more like a political thriller than a slice of recent theatrical history." Time Out (London) "...an extraordinary document of human endeavor. When I got to the final pages I found there were tears running down my face." Rosemary Harris

Shakespeare's Globe Reborn : Achieving an American's Dream

This Wooden 'O'

There are many revelatory passages about the personal and professional lives of Sherlock Holmes spread throughout the array of Doyle's works. This work has arranged them like a biography in quotes of the personal life and public career of the famous detective.

In His Own Words and in the Words of Those who Knew Him

Sherlock Holmes

From the publisher of the acclaimed collector's Wodehouse editions, P.G. Wodehouse In His Own Words is a sparkling collection of excerpts from the master's own writings that reveals a wonderfully entertaining gloss on Wodehouse's own life story. Quotations from a literary career spanning more than seventy years are arranged in chapters that move from childhood, to school years, to the various preoccupations of the grown man. a linking narrative, skillfully supplied by Wodehouse aficionado Barry Day, and former President of the International Wodehouse society Tony Ring brilliantly ties all the material together. Full of the scintillating wordplay and comedy that characterize Wodehouse's novels, stories, letters, and nonfiction, this handsome volume is the perfect addition to anyone's library.

Barry Day

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