As a preface to this, I should say that I was 14 when I got a copy of The Complete Sherlock Holmes, and I still have it. I've been a fan forever.
Batty made a remark in her comments which contained sufficient mystery for it to remind me of the Giant Rat of Sumatra, a tale mentioned in the Sherlock Holmes story The Sussex Vampire; the kicker in the story was the description of the events surrounding the rat as "a tale for which the world is not yet prepared." Upon investigation, there are no fewer than 930 listings in a Google search which contain the words "Giant Rat of Sumatra" in some order. I couldn't resist looking up some of them, and I found these. Additionally, the Firesign Theatre titled one of their later albums after the beast; I had thought I was familiar with their work, but that record was new to me.
This is an intriguing suggestion linking the tale of the rat to a later Holmes case. A discussion of the mysterious critters which appear in the stories can be found here. Like audio? This is a list of many of the classic Basil Rathbone Holmes radio broadcasts, with links to Amazon and B&N where cassettes are available.
Here's a list of cases mentioned in the tales but left untold, and for those who want pastiches, see this list.
Posted by Linkmeister at July 14, 2002 10:07 PM