Harold Schechter

Holmes commenced his handwritten account in midsummer 1895. By early fall, Holmes' Own Story was already on the stands, published by the Philadelphia firm of Burk & McFethridge. [...] Though Holmes had a taste for good fiction [...], his own book is more or less completely devoid of literary merit, veering wildly between mawkish sentimentality and lurid melodrama. What unifies the work is its overwritten style—prose, as one commentator put it, 'of the most vibrant purple'—and its shamelessly self-serving intent. For all his attempts to project an air of candor and sincerity, his deeply manipulative nature comes through in every line.