If Samuel Johnson's Shakespearean gumshoeing failed to impress (for which, q.v.), perhaps a Shakespeare mystery with Sherlock Holmes would fare better.
But that's mere speculation—the canon of Holmes stories, though containing quotations from an allusions to Shakespeare (the most notable being Sherlock's "The game's afoot" quote from Henry V), don't involve Shakespeare in their mysteries.
But Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's death didn't stop others from taking his most famous character on a host of other adventures. Vincent Starrell is one of those who have tried their hands at Sherlocking.
His "The Adventure of the Unique Hamlet" involves the theft of the one copy of the earliest quarto of Hamlet: The 1602. For those of you keeping track, Q1 of Hamlet was printed in 1603; Q2 came in 1604–1605. That would make this quarto Q0, I suppose.
Not only is it the earliest possible Hamlet, it's also inscribed and signed by the author. It's delightful to imagine such a remarkable find, as these opening pages of the story don't hesitate to contemplate:
The rules of Fair Use (both governmental and in terms of avoiding spoilers) prevent me from providing more, but the mystery story was much more satisfactory than the one with Dr. Johnson.
As with most pastiches, this one makes Watson a bit less astute than he is in the canon while making Holmes' powers of deduction a bit more fantastic. But the story invents an intriguing artifact and carries the mystery through to its conclusion in a fairly adept manner.
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