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Leslie S. Klinger | |
|---|---|
 Klinger at the 2024WonderCon | |
| Born | Chicago, Illinois, U.S. |
| Education | University of California, Berkeley(B.A. in English) UC Berkeley School of Law(J.D.) |
| Occupation(s) | lawyer, writer |
Leslie S. Klinger is an American attorney and writer. He is a notedliterary editor and annotator of classic genre fiction, including theSherlock Holmes stories and the novelsDracula,Frankenstein, andStrange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as well asNeil Gaiman'sThe Sandman comics,Alan Moore's andDave Gibbons's graphic novelWatchmen, the stories ofH.P. Lovecraft, and Neil Gaiman'sAmerican Gods.
Klinger received a B.A. in English from theUniversity of California, Berkeley and a J.D. fromBoalt Hall School of Law at UC Berkeley.[1] It was in law school that he developed his interest in Holmes, leading him to amass a collection of thousands of books about the detective.[2] Klinger also has a substantial collection of pre-World War I crime fiction. As well as being an author and scholar, Klinger practices law.[3]
He is the editor ofThe New Annotated Sherlock Holmes, a three-book edition of all ofArthur Conan Doyle'sSherlock Holmes fiction with extensive annotations and an introduction byJohn le Carré. Hailed as "the definitive exegesis of Holmes and his times,"[2] the book won anEdgar Award.[4] He also edited the scholarly ten-volumeSherlock Holmes Reference Library, a heavily annotated edition of the entire Sherlock Holmes canon, andThe New Annotated Dracula, an annotated version ofBram Stoker'snovel[5] with an introduction byNeil Gaiman.[6] In 2011, he co-edited withLaurie R. KingThe Grand Game, a two-volume collection of classical Sherlockian scholarship published by the Baker Street Irregulars,[7] andA Study in Sherlock, a collection of stories by all-star writers inspired by the Sherlock Holmes tales (Random House).[8] Klinger and King edited another collection,In the Company of Sherlock Holmes, with more stories by great writers inspired by the Holmes canon, published by Pegasus Books in 2014.[9] Klinger also wrote a short story, "The Closing," for that collection, his first fiction to be published in book form. Klinger and King edited a third volume of stories for Pegasus, published in 2016 and entitledEchoes of Sherlock Holmes;[10] their fourth collection, titledFor the Sake of the Game, was published by Pegasus in 2018. The fifth volume, titledIn League with Sherlock Holmes, was published by Pegasus in 2020.
The first two volumes ofThe Annotated Sandman, a four-volume edition ofNeil Gaiman's award-winningThe Sandman comics forDC Comics, appeared in 2012;[11] the third volume was published in 2014, and the fourth volume appeared in 2015.Watchmen: The Annotated Edition was edited by Klinger for DC Comics withDave Gibbons, using extensive material fromAlan Moore's original scripts; the book was published in late 2017.
Klinger also editedThe New Annotated H.P. Lovecraft,[12] a massive illustrated collection of heavily annotated stories with an introduction by Alan Moore for Liveright/W. W. Norton, was published in 2014. A second annotated volume of Lovecraft tales, titledThe New Annotated H.P. Lovecraft: Beyond Arkham, with an introduction byVictor LaValle, was published by Liveright in 2019.[13] A single-volume trade paperback edition of 10 stories,The Call of Cthulhu and Other Stories, including Klinger's notes, was published by Liveright in 2022, and a second volume of 10 stories with notes, titledAt the Mountains of Madness and Other Tales of Weird Science, will be published in 2026.The New Annotated Frankenstein, also from Liveright/W. W. Norton with an introduction byGuillermo del Toro, was published in 2017.[14] In 2024, he wrote and recorded introductions for Audible'sThe Essential Lovecraft, a collection of 48 stories.
Klinger has also contributed introductions to numerous books of mystery and horror, written book reviews for theLos Angeles Times,Los Angeles Review of Books and other periodicals, and contributed an essay on vampires and sex, called "Love Bites," toPlayboy.[15] A collection of all of his essays from 2007 through 2016, titled "Baker Street Reveries," appeared in 2018 from Wessex Press.[16] He served as a consultant on the 2009 filmSherlock Holmes, starringRobert Downey, Jr.,[17][18] and on the sequel,Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, released in 2011, as well asEnola Holmes andthe sequel film, the new television seriesWatson (TV series) for CBS-TV, and a number of other film and television scripts, books, and comic book adaptations of the Holmes and Dracula stories.
In 2011, Klinger edited two collections of classic fiction,In the Shadow of Dracula andIn the Shadow of Sherlock Holmes, both from IDW.[19] In 2015, a third collection,In the Shadow of Edgar Allan Poe: Classic Horror, 1810-1916, was published by Pegasus Books. A fourth volume,In the Shadow of Agatha Christie: Classic Crime Fiction by Forgotten Women Authors, 1850-1917, was published by Pegasus in 2018,[20] and a fifth collection,Ghost Stories: Classic Tales of Horror and Suspense, co-edited withLisa Morton, came out in 2019. A second volume co-edited with Morton,Weird Women: Classic Supernatural Fiction by Groundbreaking Female Writers, 1852-1923, was published in 2020. A third volume,Weird Women 2: Classic Supernatural Fiction by Groundbreaking Female Writers, 1820-1945, was published in 2021, and a fourth volume,Haunted Tales, will appear in August 2022. In 2018, Pegasus Books publishedClassic American Crime Fiction of the 1920s, which includesHouse Without a Key (the firstCharlie Chan novel byEarl Derr Biggers),Red Harvest (the first novel-lengthContinental Op mystery byDashiell Hammett),The Roman Hat Mystery (the firstEllery Queen novel),The Benson Murder Case (the firstPhilo Vance novel byS.S. Van Dine), andLittle Caesar byW.R. Burnett, the basis for the first great gangster film.
Klinger, together withLaura Caldwell, who was a well-known writer and law professor at Loyola University Chicago and founder-director of Life After Innocence, edited an anthology, titledAnatomy of Innocence: Testimonies of the Wrongfully Convicted, published by Liveright/W. W. Norton in 2017. The anthology tells the stories of exonerees—individuals wrongfully incarcerated for crimes they did not commit—as told to major mystery and thriller writers. The volume is introduced byScott Turow andBarry Scheck and also contains a previously unpublished essay by the renowned playwrightArthur Miller on a wrongful conviction case. All authors' proceeds will be donated to Life After Innocence.
In 2020,Annotated American Gods by Neil Gaiman and Klinger—a fully annotated and illustrated edition of Gaiman's multi-award-winning 2000 novelAmerican Gods, was published . His next major book,New Annotated Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde byRobert Louis Stevenson, with an introduction byJoe Hill, was published in October 2022 by the Mysterious Press.
Klinger also served as general editor of the Haunted Library of Horror Classics, co-edited withEric J. Guignard and published by theHorror Writers Association and Poisoned Pen Press/Sourcebooks. The series consisted ofPhantom of the Opera byGaston Leroux, followed byThe Beetle byRichard Marsh,Vathek byWilliam Beckford,House on the Borderlands byWilliam Hope Hodgson,Of One Blood byPauline Hopkins,The Parasite and Other Tales of Terror byArthur Conan Doyle,The King in Yellow byRobert W. Chambers,Ghost Stories of an Antiquarian byM.R. James,Gothic Classics: The Castle of Otranto and The Old English Baron byHorace Walpole andClara Reeve, andThe Mummy! byJane Webb.
He is also the editor of the ongoing Library of Congress Crime Classics series, published by the Poisoned Pen Press/Sourcebooks in partnership with theLibrary of Congress. The first book in the series isThat Affair Next Door byAnna Katharine Green. This was followed byThe Rat Began to Gnaw the Rope byC.W. Grafton,Case Pending byDell Shannon,Final Proof byRodrigues Ottolengui,Last Seen Wearing byHillary Waugh,The Silent Bullet byArthur B. Reeve,The Dead Letter bySeeley Regester,Jim Hanvey, Detective byOctavus Roy Cohen,The Metropolitan Opera Murders byHelen Traubel,The Conjure-Man Dies byRudolph Fisher,Average Jones bySamuel Hopkins Adams,Room to Swing byEd Lacy,The Master of Mysteries byGelett Burgess,A Gentle Murderer byDorothy Salisbury Davis,The Thinking Machine byJacques Futrelle,The "Canary" Murder Case byS. S. Van Dine,In the Fog byRichard Harding Davis,V as in Victim byLawrence Treat, andTo Catch a Thief byDavid Dodge (novelist). Coming later in 2025 isUncle Abner byMelville Davisson Post, followed in 2026 byFlorentine Finish by Cornelius Hirschberg andDetective Duff Unravels It byHarvey J. O'Higgins.
Klinger is a member of the Sherlock Holmes literary club calledThe Baker Street Irregulars,[12] as well as numerous other Sherlockian societies such as The Illustrious Clients of Indianapolis. He served three terms as chapter president of the Southern California chapter of theMystery Writers of America from 2006 to 2009 and is again serving in that role and on the National Board. He is a member ofSisters in Crime, theHorror Writers Association (and served as the Treasurer of HWA[12]), theDracula Society, and theTransylvanian Society of Dracula. He is an honorary member of the Mystery Writers of Turkey[21] and currently serves on the editorial board of theJournal of Dracula Studies. Klinger is the chair of the Board of Trustees of the American Friends of the Toronto Public Library.
He was the general editor of a number of books published by the Baker Street Irregulars (BSI), including the Manuscript Series,[12] and is currently the general editor of the BSI's Biography Series and serves as "Buttons," a senior officer of the BSI. He has lectured frequently on Holmes,Dracula, Lovecraft,[12]Frankenstein, Jekyll and Hyde, and theVictorian world and has taught a number of courses forUCLA Extension on Sherlock Holmes. He also taught a course on "Dracula and His World" forUCLA Extension in November 2009. Klinger has also moderated or appeared on many panels for theLos Angeles Times Festival of Books.
In February 2013, Klinger filed a copyright lawsuit against Conan Doyle Estate Ltd, a UK-based private company which had demanded a license fee for the use of the Sherlock Holmes characters in theIn the Company of Sherlock Holmes short story collection.[3] In the United States in 2013, only ten of Conan Doyle's sixty original Sherlock Holmes stories were in copyright, and the proposed stories relied only on aspects of the characters defined inpublic domain stories (such as Holmes's bohemian habits, deductive reasoning, and many supporting characters).[22][23]
In December 2013, Judge Rubén Castillo ruled that stories published prior to 1923 were in the public domain but that ten stories published after then were still under copyright.[24] The stories in the public domain consist of the four novels and 46 short stories.[24] Judge Castillo rejected a claim by Conan Doyle Estate Ltd. that some aspects of Holmes in the pre-1923 stories were protected by copyright because they were "continually developed" through the protected ten stories, which would not enter the public domain until 2022.[24] Any author or creator is free to use characters and events in the pre-1923 stories, including Holmes and Watson themselves, but elements introduced in the copyrighted stories, such as Watson's rugby background with Blackheath and details of Holmes' retirement, remain protected by copyright law. In June 2014, in an opinion by JudgeRichard Posner, theUnited States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed the lower court decision in favor of Klinger and confirmed the public-domain status of the pre-1923 material.[25] In November 2014, theU.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a further appeal by Conan Doyle Estate Ltd, making the Court of Appeals' finding final.[26][27][28]
Klinger's awards for his editorial work include:
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2020:
