The Mary Russell Companion Read Online Free PDF

Companion.  “Mrs Hudson’s Case”, “Beekeeping for Beginners,” and the supplemental “Laurie R. King’s Sherlock Holmes” can be found as ebooks through the website .)
     
    A Chronology of the Russell Memoirs
    The Beekeeper’s Apprentice opens in April 1915 and covers the four years of Russell’s apprenticeship, ending in August, 1919.
    Beekeeping for Beginners begins at that same April, 1915 meeting, telling the story largely from Sherlock Holmes’ point of view.  It ends shortly after the first Zeppelin bombardment of London, May 31, 1915.
    Mrs Hudson’s Case is set in October, 1918.
    O Jerusalem covers a segment of the time spanned by BEEK, although it was published out of sequence so as to tie in with JUST.  Its dates are December 1918 to early February, 1919.
    A Monstrous Regiment of Women starts on Boxing Day, December 26, 1920, when Russell is about to turn 21, and ends in early February, 1921 (with after-notes that reach forward some months).
    (The long gap in the Memoirs, the thirty months from February, 1921 to August, 1923, is a time that clearly contains much of private concern to Miss Russell.  She has, as yet, not chosen to share this time with her reading public—apart from, possibly, the case described in “Venomous Death”.)
    A Letter of Mary begins the more compact pace of the Memoirs, with its action taking place in weeks rather than months or years: from mid-August to early September, 1923.
    The Moor starts towards the end of September, 1923, and ends in early November.
    Justice Hall covers from Guy Fawkes Day (November 5) until December 21, 1923, with an epilogue five days later.  
    The Game begins January 1, 1924 and ends in early March 1924.
    [Russell and Holmes are then in Japan for three weeks, although those events are not described until Dreaming Spies ]
    Locked Rooms is set from May to early June, 1924.
    [ The Art of Detection , a novel not generally included in the Russell Memoirs, includes a June, 1924 case Holmes had in San Francisco, while Russell was seeing to family business in Southern California.  Her own experiences during this time may see future publication.]
    The Language of Bees covers a scant three weeks, from August 10 to August 30, 1924.
    God of the Hive, being a continuation of LANG, picks up in August 30 and finishes the case on September 9, 1924 (with an epilogue dated Oct. 31, 1924).
    Pirate King takes place in November 1924, roughly the 6 th through the 30 th .
    Garment of Shadows covers the closing weeks of 1924, and sees January dawn in 1925.
    Birth of a Green Man and Venomous Death are undated, although the first would appear to be some time in the early 1920s, and the second may take place during the summer of 1923.
    * *
    The actual events of My Story and A Case in Correspondence are from the spring of 1992, although they rest upon the 1924 episode called God of the Hive .
     

 
    Russell’s Fellow Actors:
    The characters of the Russell Memoirs
     
    Characters known to Conan Doyle
    Sherlock Holmes is known first and foremost through the sixty stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who was either A) the author of the 56 fictional short stories and four novels concerning Holmes, Watson, Mycroft, etc, or B) the literary agent of Dr Watson, the means by which Holmes and Watson became known to the reading public.  The Russell Memoirs are firmly based upon the latter assumption: that the Conan Doyle stories are true accounts of an extraordinary man.  And just as clearly, that the man had a life long after Conan Doyle’s stories left him at the dawn of the Great War, in August 1914 ( His Last Bow ).
    Unlike the main subject of his tales, Watson (or perhaps Conan Doyle) is not terribly interested in complete detail or strict accuracy.  Holmes’ precise age, birthplace, or family history are never given, although the Memoirs say that he is 54 when he and Russell meet in 1915.  Both accounts agree in Holmes’ fascination with beekeeping, although Conan