[Proposal] Arthur Morrison short fiction

[David]

While plodding my way through Romola, I've also been thinking about producing some of Arthur Morrison's detective fiction: his "Martin Hewitt" was (I believe) the original "alternative to Sherlock Holmes".[1]

[1]: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20083856

But Morrison wrote a *lot*. I've put together what I believe is a complete compendium of his fiction (or quasi-fiction) in a research spreadsheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eCYV4070Dxzj2nd9yNGvJiv0UjM93qT4-wspmMujaXA/edit?usp=sharing

The ones I'm interested in are the four collections of Martin Hewitt stories, which I'm guessing could appear in a single ebook (like some of the Wodehouse ones, e.g. Ukridge) as "Martin Hewitt Stories":
- Martin Hewitt, Investigator (this is a "Haycraft-Queen Cornerstone" title)
- Chronicles of Martin Hewitt
- Adventures of Martin Hewitt, Third Series
- The Red Triangle: Being Some Further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, Investigator

There is also Horace Dorrington, a kind of rogue, anti-hero detective, who has one collection of stories published as "The Dorrington Deed-Box". It would make sense for this to appear on its own, much like a Father Brown book. If it works, I would plan to do this one first (and would start a new thread when the time comes).

That leaves a lot left over. Aside from the novels (we really should have _A Child of the Jago_ some day), there are plenty of shorts. One collection (Tales of Mean Streets) is something of a partner or complement to _Jago_. There's a collection of supernatural stories that purport to be non-fiction(?). And that leaves:

- The Green Eye of Goona (= The Green Diamond in the USA)
- Divers Vanities
- Green Ginger
- Fiddle o' Dreams and More (1933)
+ six uncollected shorts

The last of those is 1933, but I believe it's a collection of earlier published stories, so if we had the original magazine publications, they would already be PD, I believe.

("Zig Zags at the Zoo" is an odd collection literary and pencil sketches, copiously illustrated, something like Robert Wood's _How to Tell the Birds from the Flowers_.)

I have only included *collections* in the spreadsheet so far, but hopefully that's sufficient for our purposes. (There was only one duplicate to weed out.) It is, at least, I hope a decent starting point.

David / Fife, UK

[Vince Rice]

The rule Alex has followed the last several years is that if there are overlapping or extra stories, we do a collection, if there isn’t, we produce the individual books. In order to determine that, we would need the stories in the spreadsheet, not the books.

If there are no overlaps and no extras for the Martin Hewitt stories, we would produce the books individually; that’s what we’ve done with Chesterton’s Father Brown stories, e.g., for that reason.

On Mar 19, 2026, at 7:45 AM, David <djre...@gmail.com> wrote:

While plodding my way through Romola, I've also been thinking about producing some of Arthur Morrison's detective fiction: his "Martin Hewitt" was (I believe) the original "alternative to Sherlock Holmes".[1]

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[David]

I don't know whether you had a peek at the spreadsheet, Vince? All the stories are listed.

On Thursday, 19 March 2026 at 15:38:51 UTC Vince Rice wrote:

The rule Alex has followed the last several years is that if there are overlapping or extra stories, we do a collection, if there isn’t, we produce the individual books. In order to determine that, we would need the stories in the spreadsheet, not the books.

If there are no overlaps and no extras for the Martin Hewitt stories, we would produce the books individually; that’s what we’ve done with Chesterton’s Father Brown stories, e.g., for that reason.

On Mar 19, 2026, at 7:45 AM, David wrote:

While plodding my way through Romola, I've also been thinking about producing some of Arthur Morrison's detective fiction: his "Martin Hewitt" was (I believe) the original "alternative to Sherlock Holmes".[1]

[Vince]

Hah, no, you said “I have only included collections in the spreadsheet,” and I took your word for it. :) Sounds like you meant you only included stories from collections, but I was reading on the run…

Doesn’t change the main point, though.

[David]

Yeah, mea culpa! Badly worded at that point - I meant I had only included "collections" in the spreadsheet, and not original magazine publications (for all the stories). :)

But the main point is the main point!

D.

On Thursday, 19 March 2026 at 20:54:41 UTC Vince wrote:

Hah, no, you said “I have only included collections in the spreadsheet,” and I took your word for it. :) Sounds like you meant you only included stories from collections, but I was reading on the run…

Doesn’t change the main point, though.

[Alex Cabal]

OK, I've copied the spreadsheet here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XYujYaycEILQEWBGwg24ujhnYpxLpa1gJqQHA9pNrwk

Please use that new sheet when making changes.

As Vince said, if there are no uncollected Martin Hewitt stories than we
can do each collection individually.

As for the rest, if they're all unthemed then we could put them in a
short fiction omnibus with the handful of uncollected stories.

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[David]

Great! The other themed/complete set of stories is the "Dorrington Deed-Box", and as I say I'll likely start with those ... Maybe the "Hewitt Investigator" (HQ title) one, though, since my assumption of a "collection" of those was misplaced.

[Alex Cabal]

OK- I suggest you fill out all of the "se omnibus name" fields for all
of the stories now, to organize them right out of the gate. That way if
you don't want to do all of them right now, we can go back in the future
and understand how we've divided them up.

On 3/19/26 4:40 PM, David wrote:
> Great! The other themed/complete set of stories is the "Dorrington Deed-
> Box", and as I say I'll likely start with those ... Maybe the "Hewitt
> Investigator" (HQ title) one, though, since my assumption of a
> "collection" of those was misplaced.
>
> On Thursday, 19 March 2026 at 21:19:37 UTC Alex Cabal wrote:
>
> OK, I've copied the spreadsheet here:
> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/

> d/1XYujYaycEILQEWBGwg24ujhnYpxLpa1gJqQHA9pNrwk <https://
> docs.google.com/spreadsheets/
> d/1XYujYaycEILQEWBGwg24ujhnYpxLpa1gJqQHA9pNrwk>

>
> Please use that new sheet when making changes.
>
> As Vince said, if there are no uncollected Martin Hewitt stories
> than we
> can do each collection individually.
>
> As for the rest, if they're all unthemed then we could put them in a
> short fiction omnibus with the handful of uncollected stories.
>
> On 3/19/26 7:45 AM, David wrote:
> > While plodding my way through Romola, I've also been thinking about
> > producing some of Arthur Morrison's detective fiction: his "Martin
> > Hewitt" was (I believe) the original "alternative to Sherlock
> Holmes".[1]
> >

> > [1]: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20083856 <https://
> www.jstor.org/stable/20083856>

> >
> > But Morrison wrote a *lot*. I've put together what I believe is a
> > complete compendium of his fiction (or quasi-fiction) in a research
> > spreadsheet:

> > https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/ <https://docs.google.com/
> spreadsheets/>

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