What happened in the decade (1893–1903) between Sherlock Holmes’ disappearance over the Reichenbach Falls and his resurrection before an astonished Watson in “The Empty House,” a decade which Conan Doyle planned to devote to his “more serious” writing? It is the argument of Clifford Goldfarb’s The Great Shadow that in those years Doyle created his second most memorable character, Brigadier Etienne Gerard. A faithful adherent to Napoleon Bonaparte, and a man as gallant in the boudoir as on the battlefield, Gerard appears in 15 short stories in the Strand Magazine, later gathered in two collections, The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard (1896) and The Adventures of Gerard (1903).

By close analysis, supplemented by individual plot summaries contained in one of two very valuable appendixes, Goldfarb makes a fair case for these largely neglected stories. Goldfarb is an enthusiast, but he commendably avoids the excesses of Andrew Lang, who thought the Gerard stories superior to the Holmesian canon, or of another critic, who compared them, in their treatment of the Napoleonic Wars, to War and Peace.

This admirable book is not at all limited, however, to the Gerard stories, or even to the other works set in the Napoleonic period. It examines Doyle’s many sources, and pursues Doyle’s fascination with Napoleon himself (Moriarty, it will be remembered, was “the Napoleon of crime,” so that by implication Holmes was no less of an imperial figure), and places these stories squarely and illuminatingly in the context not only of Doyle’s work, but also of the early 20th century. Goldfarb’s book becomes, eventually, a book on Doyle himself, and his place (perhaps a touch inflated here) in English literature.

Especially valuable is the chapter comparing Gerard and Holmes: the Brigadier’s narratives are first-person, suiting the boastful, essentially comic persona, whereas Holmes requires for his aggrandizement as the Great Detective the worshipful observation of his Boswell; Gerard’s stories allow Doyle to exploit his interest in and grasp of history, which he thoroughly researched, whereas Holmes was Doyle’s contemporary, some of whose à clef cases had to be disguised; and, above all, Gerard was a lover of women, whereas Holmes “never spoke of the softer passions, save with a gibe or a sneer.”

In deploring the attitude of academic critics to Conan Doyle, Goldfarb makes a few sideswipes at the academy, which will appeal to the literary bleachers; but in The Great Shadow he has written a book of scholarship and balance, as well as of popular interest, that any academic would be proud to have written.