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Article: Imagined memoirs of the famous; 'Lost' manuscripts are a staple of this burgeoning whodunit genre.(Features)(Books)
- Article from:
- The Christian Science Monitor
- Article date:
- August 12, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 The Christian Science Publishing Society. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Sherlock Holmes and the rune stone mystery By Larry Millett Viking 336 pp., $23.95 THE CRIMES OF CHARLOTTE BRONTE By James Tully Carroll & Graf 284 pp., $24
Given the current popularity of autobiographical reminiscences, it's not surprising that the mystery memoir is almost a whodunit category. An author finds a hidden, handwritten document featuring a well-known literary name. With footnotes, commentary, or afterword, the resulting book can be fun to read and a delight to fans of the original.
But writers who practice the art of the imagined famous-person memoir run risks. Their supposedly "lost" manuscripts may be only clever echoes of a familiar ...