Sherlock Holmes is the most famous fictional detective ever created. He and Dr Watson, will forever be associated with the gaslit and smog-filled streets of late 19th and early 20th century London. Yet Holmes and Watson were not the only ones solving mysterious crimes and foiling the plans of villainous masterminds in Victorian and Edwardian England. The years between 1890 and 1914 were a golden age for English magazines and most of them published crime and detective fiction. The startling success of the Holmes stories that appeared in "The Strand" magazine spawned countless imitators. This volume highlights some of those 'Rivals of Sherlock Holmes'.In the fifteen tales which Nick Rennison has brought together in this anthology, readers can meet: Martin Hewitt; The Old Man in the Corner; Dr Thorndyke; Romney Pringle; Addington Peace; The Thinking Machine; Carnacki The Ghost Finder; and many more. It may well be true that there never has been and never will be a detective quite like Sherlock Holmes but he did not stand alone. He did have his rivals and, as this collection of short stories shows, many of their adventures were as exciting and entertaining as those of the master himself.