Red book about Sherlock Holmes author Arthur Conan Doyle’s Southsea stories now made in blue to sell more copies

Yet shopkeepers told Matt Wingett that old rivalries between Portsmouth and Southampton might turn off some customers from his book Southsea Stories and Beyond, containing the stories the Sherlock Holmes author wrote while living in Portsmouth.

Linzi Kelly, owner of Southsea Rock, Marmion Road, said: ‘Some die-hard Portsmouth fans won’t buy a book with too much red on it. I told Matt that actually he’d sell a few more copies if he produced it in blue.’

Seeing the humour in the matter, Matt Wingett duly obliged – and has now produced a blue version of the book especially for Portsmouth die-hards. ‘Red is the colour that really attracts the eye on the shelf, but of course thanks to PFC blue is the colour most people associate with Portsmouth,’ said Matt. ‘So of course, I had to do a version in blue.’

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Matt chose ‘Strand Blue’ for the hardback version of the book because it recalls the original Strand magazines that featured many of Conan Doyle’s stories, including the Sherlock Holmes tales.

Be it in red or blue, Southsea Stories and Beyond celebrates how Portsmouth and Southsea inspired and influenced Conan Doyle’s work – containing many of the stories he wrote while living in the city, where he created his world-famous sleuth Sherlock Holmes.

The book reveals how Conan Doyle wrote about Portsmouth, and with the notes at the end of each short story, it shows how he developed many of the ideas for later Holmes novels in the city. Matt added: ‘So much is made of other aspects of the city, especially maritime history with our absolutely extraordinary world class offer at the Historic Dockyard that we sometimes forget the amazing pedigree of writers associated with Portsmouth.’

‘For Conan Doyle, the town (as it was then) was a land of opportunity, and it’s through his Southsea Stories that you really begin to see him moving towards creating his most famous character, Holmes.’

Blue and red copies of the book are available at Portsmouth Central Library. It is also available from his website, www.lifeisamazing.co.uk and can also be bought at Southsea Rock, Marmion Road and Portsmouth Museum.