I'll Be Holmes for Christmas

It's the Christmas season at SteynOnline. As has been traditional round these parts for many years, we have bargains galore among our Steynamite Christmas specials - and as always we will have a full panoply of seasonal programming in the days ahead, including Tales for Our Time, my monthly series of audio adventures that come December turns to more festive fare.

I'm happy to say the first of this year's Yuletide tales - Little Women at Christmas - was well received, at least by Sol, a first-weekend Founding Member and fearless sailor on October's inaugural Steyn Cruise:

What a talent Louisa May Alcott is to create believable children's characters in the space of a few pages. I suppose this is in a way like A Christmas Carol, and probably like some other favorite Christmas stories (including the Gospels') in the anti-framing, one might call it, of what has been left out. The anticipation and expectation being frustrated doesn't serve to frustrate, in these Christmas stories, and instead turns inward to the spirit of Christmas.

To borrow and para- a phrase, it's a wonderful choice.

Thank you, Sol. The second of our Christmas entertainments this year is very different, but we hope also to your tastes. It brings us back to the author who launched this series, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and his most famous creation, last glimpsed round these parts in an unusual detour into Great War espionage. This rather more domestic mystery was first published in Strand Magazine in 1892 and its central character is a familiar Christmas figure, at least to Victorian London. In this first episode of The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle, prefaced by my introduction, Dr Watson calls on Holmes and finds the great man fascinated by an old, worn hat:

'Its owner is unknown. I beg that you will look upon it not as a battered billycock but as an intellectual problem. And, first, as to how it came here. It arrived upon Christmas morning, in company with a good fat goose, which is, I have no doubt, roasting at this moment in front of Peterson's fire. The facts are these: about four o'clock on Christmas morning, Peterson, who, as you know, is a very honest fellow, was returning from some small jollification and was making his way homeward down Tottenham Court Road. In front of him he saw, in the gaslight, a tallish man, walking with a slight stagger, and carrying a white goose slung over his shoulder. As he reached the corner of Goodge Street, a row broke out between this stranger and a little knot of roughs. One of the latter knocked off the man's hat, on which he raised his stick to defend himself and, swinging it over his head, smashed the shop window behind him. Peterson had rushed forward to protect the stranger from his assailants; but the man, shocked at having broken the window, and seeing an official-looking person in uniform rushing towards him, dropped his goose, took to his heels, and vanished amid the labyrinth of small streets which lie at the back of Tottenham Court Road. The roughs had also fled at the appearance of Peterson, so that he was left in possession of the field of battle, and also of the spoils of victory in the shape of this battered hat and a most unimpeachable Christmas goose.'

Maxine Waters could impeach a Christmas goose if the battered hat said "MAGA" on it. But we're reasonably confident that's not what Holmes has in mind. To hear Part One of The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle, prefaced by my own introduction to the story, please click here and log-in.

We launched The Mark Steyn Club last year, and I'm very touched by all those SteynOnline supporters across the globe - from Fargo to Fiji, Vancouver to Vanuatu, Cook County to the Cook Islands - who've signed up to be a part of it. As I said at the time, membership isn't for everyone, but it is a way of ensuring that all our content remains available for everyone - all my columns, audio interviews, video content, all our movie features and songs of the week. None of it's going behind a paywall, because I want it out there in the world, being read and being heard and being viewed, and maybe changing an occasional mind somewhere along the way.

That said, if you've enjoyed our members-only bonus features such as our Steyn Club radio serials and you're looking for a Yuletide present for someone special, I hope you'll consider our limited-time-only Christmas Gift Membership, which this year includes a personalized Christmas card from yours truly along with a handsomely engraved Tales for Our Time sampler. Aside from our monthly audio adventures, The Mark Steyn Club does come with other benefits:

~Exclusive Steyn Store member pricing on over 40 books, mugs, T-shirts, and other products;
~The opportunity to engage in live Clubland Q&A sessions with yours truly;
~Transcript and audio versions of The Mark Steyn Show, SteynPosts, and our other video content;
~My video series of classic poetry;
~Priority booking for the second Mark Steyn Club Cruise (following October's sell-out inaugural cruise);
~Advance booking for my live appearances around the world, including my upcoming tour with Dennis Miller;
~Customized email alerts for new content in your areas of interest;
~and the opportunity to support our print, audio and video ventures as they wing their way around the planet.

To become a member of The Mark Steyn Club, please click here - and don't forget that special Gift Membership. As soon as you join, you'll get access not only to The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle but to all the other audio adventures listed below.

One other benefit to membership is our Comment Club privileges. So, whether you appreciate the subtleties of my reading of this Christmas Tale for Our Time or find it far too elementary, my dear Watson, then feel free to comment away below. And do join us tomorrow for the concluding installment of The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle.

For previous Tales for Our Time, click below:

#1: The Tragedy of the Korosko
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

#2: The Time Machine
by H G Wells

#3: The Secret Agent
by Joseph Conrad

#4: The Prisoner of Zenda
by Anthony Hope

#5: The Cat That Walked By Himself
by Rudyard Kipling

#6: The Diamond as Big as the Ritz
by F Scott Fitzgerald

#7: The Rubber Check
by F Scott Fitzgerald

#8: A Christmas Carol
by Charles Dickens

#9: Plum Duff
by Mark Steyn

#10: To Build a Fire
by Jack London

#11: The Overcoat
by Nikolai Gogol

#12: The Thirty-Nine Steps
by John Buchan

#13: The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
by Robert Louis Stevenson

#14: The Man Who Would Be King
by Rudyard Kipling

#15: His Last Bow
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

#16: Greenmantle
by John Buchan

#17: Metamorphosis
by Franz Kafka

#18: The Scarlet Pimpernel
by Baroness Orczy

#19: Little Women at Christmas
by Louisa May Alcott