Crossover Covers: Adler

 

In 1902, nurse Jane Eyre returns from the Boer War and takes up rooms at Briony Lodge with Irene Adler. Soon, they must stop Ayesha, She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed, from destroying London. Along with various characters from the Holmes stories, also appearing are Estella Havisham (from Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations), Carmilla, Arthur Raffles, King Rudolf V of Ruritania, Queen Flavia, Rupert of Hentzau, Dr. Seward, the Demeter, Phileas Fogg, and Dr. Jekyll. Various anachronisms and reinterpretations of characters make this an AU. 

This crossover is one of over a thousand covered in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, coming this summer from Meteor House! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Crossover Cover: Enter Sir Robert

 

A resemblance is noted between Mr. Scratcherd’s studio and Mr. Krook’s Rag and Bottle Warehouse near Lincoln’s Inn. There is also a reference to “those depressed hangers-on of titled families, like the Bonds’ old cousin the Honorable Juliana Starter, youngest of old Lord Mickleham’s eighteen children and formerly Lady-in-Waiting to Princess Louisa Christina, daughter of Prince Louis of Cobalt and one of the Hatz-Reinigens; or, to compare small things with great, Miss Volumnia Dedlock: only neither of these ladies had families to complicate their lives, not being married.” Sir Robert Graham belonged to a Dining Society at Oxford that also included “that young Lord Lundy who became Governor of New South Wales later.” Like Thirkell's other novels, this book is set in the titular locale of Anthony Trollope's The Chronicles of Barsetshire. Mr. Krook and Volumnia Dedlock are from Charles Dickens’ Bleak House. Dickens’ novel is also mentioned as a real book here, but we can assume it’s based on a true story, particularly since Thirkell has crossover references to it in some of her other novels. Lord Mickleham is from Anthony Hope’s The Dolly Dialogues. Lord Lundy is the title character of a poem in Hillaire Belloc’s Cautionary Tales for Children.

This crossover is one of over a thousand included in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, coming this summer from Meteor House! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2! 

Crossover Cover: Miss Bunting

 

In this novel by Angela Thirkell, set like many of her works in Anthony Trollope's Barsetshire, Dr. Dale, the rector of Hallbury in Barsetshire, asks Bishop Joram if he worked in Borrioboola-Gha, but Joram says it was Mngangaland. Borrioboola-Gha is from Charles Dickens’ novel Bleak House.

This crossover is one of hundreds covered in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, which will be published by Meteor House! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Crossover TV Episode: Exeunt

 

Are you a Charles Dickens fan?

Then you'll love the series finale of Endeavour, which has a shout-out to Oliver Twist, as well as the movie Trouble in Store!

For more information, be sure to pick up a copy of my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3 when Meteor House publishes it! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Crossover of the Week

December 24, 1783; December 24, 1928 

THE GIFT THAT KEPT ON TAKING 

In 1783, young Ebenezer Scrooge receives a monkey’s paw that will supposedly grant wishes as a Christmas gift from his father but abandons it after making two wishes. On Christmas Eve 1928, Fascinax investigates the deaths over the years of schoolchildren who have suffered the same fates as the subjects of Scrooge’s wishes more than a century ago. He believes the murderer to be a creature variously identified as the Krampus, Hans Trapp, Belsnickle, and Père Fouettard. The occult investigator believes the first victim this Christmas will be Pinkie Brown. The spirit of Scrooge tells Fascinax that toward the end of his life, an old friend and three spirits showed him the error of his ways, that a Mr. White and his wife have another monkey’s paw, and that this paw can undo the curse that has lasted for over a century. 

Short story by Matthew Dennion in Tales of the Shadowmen Volume 18: Eminences Grises, Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier, eds., Black Coat Press, 2021. Ebenezer Scrooge is from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. The Monkey’s Paw is from W. W. Jacobs’ story of the same name. Fascinax is the title character of a 1920s French pulp magazine by an anonymous author. The Krampus, Hans Trapp, Belsnickle, and Père Fouettard are all from European folklore. Pinkie Brown is from Graham Greene’s novel Brighton Rock, in which Pinkie takes over the gang of the late Kite, whose murder is described in Greene’s novel A Gun for Sale. 

This crossover writeup is one of hundreds included in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, which will be published by Meteor House! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Crossover TV Episode: Zenana

 

Are you a fan of the classic Universal monster movies?

Then you'll love this episode of Endeavour, which has a nod to The Wolf Man, as well as Charles Dickens' Bleak House!

For more information, be sure to pick up a copy of my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3 when Meteor House publishes it! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Crossover Cover: The Old Bank House

 

In this novel by Angela Thirkell set in Anthony Trollope's fictional English county of Barsetshire, the Times runs correspondence about the need for a College of Empire Economics in Borrioboola-Gha, from Charles Dickens' Bleak House.

This crossover is one of hundreds covered in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, to be published by Meteor House! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Crossover Cover: Northbridge Rectory

 

Captain Powell-Jones, an officer in the Barsetshires and expert on Welsh languages, eats his food and thinks but poorly of a place where no one has probably heard of Morgan ap Kerrig, or Crumlinwallinwer, or Mewlinwillinwodd. Sir Alwyn Talbot is the ex-Principal of the Board of Tape and Sealing Wax. Barsetshire, the setting of many of Thirkell’s novels, is from the works of Anthony Trollope. Morgan ap Kerrig, Crumlinwallinwer, and Mewlinwillinwodd are mentioned in Charles Dickens’ Bleak House. The Tape and Sealing-Wax Office appears in four books by William Makepeace Thackeray: Vanity Fair, The Newcomes, The Bedford Row Conspiracy, and The History of Samuel Titmarsh and the Great Hoggarty Diamond. 

This crossover is one of hundreds covered in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, to be published by Meteor House! Much like the first two volumes, this one is an official and AUTHORIZED companion to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Crossover Cover: Beyond Life

 

Are you a fan of author James Branch Cabell?

Then you'll love this novel, which features a number of fictional books from the works of authors such as Charles Dickens, Honore de Balzac, Rudyard Kipling, and more!

For more information, consult my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, to be published by Meteor House! Like its predecessors, this volume is an AUTHORIZED companion to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Crossover of the Week

November-December 4, 1804

NAPOLEON’S VAMPIRE HUNTERS 

Jean-Pierre Séverin, the director of the Paris Morgue, and exorcist Franz von Karnstein are recruited by Napoleon Bonaparte to prevent the vampire Marquis de Saint-Evremonde and his army of werewolves from taking his life before he can be crowned Emperor. Appearing or mentioned are a harridan knitting as people were guillotined, Kronos, Grost, Vicomte de Meilcour, Countess Mircalla of Styria, Baron Vordenburg, the Scholomance, the Deep School, the Rue Morgue, Estaminet de l’Epi-Scié, Châteaupers, a man named Thénardier and his wife, the Dark Academy, the Brotherhood of the Ram, the Necronomicon, Bertrand des Amis, the Vicomte de Valmont. Geof, Cabot, the legendary Monsieur de Bergerac, the Marquis de la Tour d’Azyr, Father Sandor, a being in a pale robe of indeterminate color and a yellow mask, Saint-Evremonde's descendant, the Domdaniel, Dr. Patou, and the Countess Marcian Gregoryi. 

Novel by Frank Schildiner, Black Coat Press, 2017. Jean-Pierre Séverin, Dr. Germain Patou, and Countess Marcian Gregoryi are from Paul Féval’s The Vampire Countess. The Estaminet de l’Epi-Scié is from Féval’s novels about the criminal conspiracy known as the Black Coats. The Karnstein family, including Countess Mircalla, and the Barons Vordenburg are from J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s “Carmilla.” The knitting harridan (Madame Defarge) and the Marquis de Saint-Evremonde's descendant (Charles Darnay) are from Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. Captain Kronos and Professor Hieronymous Grost are from the movie Captain Kronos – Vampire Hunter. The Vicomte de Meilcour is from Crébillon fils’ novel Strayings of the Heart and Mind, or Memoirs of M. De Meilcour. The Scholomance and the Deep School are supposedly real schools of magic mentioned in Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Manly Wade Wellman’s John Thunstone stories, respectively. The Rue Morgue is from Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.” Captain Phoebus de Châteaupers is from Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre-dame. The Thénardiers are from Hugo’s Les Misérables. The Dark Academy is from the video game Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin. The Brotherhood of the Ram is from Dennis Wheatley’s The Satanist. The Necronomicon is the most infamous tome of H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. Bertrand des Amis and the Marquis de la Tour d’Azyr are from Rafael Sabatini’s Scaramouche. The Vicomte de Valmont is from Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’ novel Dangerous Liaisons. “Cabot” is French for “Mutt,” making Cabot and Geof the title characters of Bud Fisher’s comic strip Mutt and Jeff. For an explanation of the duo’s longevity, see Dennis E. Power’s article “Immortal Befuddled,” found on the Wold Newton Universe: A Secret History website. Geof’s relative is the Vicomte de Valvert from Edmond Rostand’s play Cyrano de Bergerac. Father Sandor is from the Hammer film Dracula: Prince of Darkness. Presumably the nineteenth century Sandor is a descendant of the eighteenth-century priest. The being in the pale robe and yellow mask is the King in Yellow, from Robert W. Chambers’ collection of the same name. The Domdaniel is from “Dom Chaves” (Denis Chavis) and Jacques Cazotte’s Arabian Tales; or, A Continuation of the Arabian Nights Entertainments. 

This crossover writeup is just one of the hundreds included in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, which will be published by Meteor House! Much like its predecessors, this book is an AUTHORIZED companion to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Crossover of the Week

April 17, 1922

THE COVENTRY STREET TERROR 

Charles St. Cyprian and his assistant Ebe Gallowglass are called in by Special Branch to investigate a series of apparent vampire attacks. Inspector Boothroyd thinks it might be poison, “like that business in Brichester last year.” Vampires are, save for that brief, unpleasant incident during Victoria’s reign so inventively described in Stoker’s book, mostly extinct in England. St. Cyprian says maybe Thibaut de Castries was right when he said, in Megapolisomancy: A New Science of Cities, that cities were the new dark forest of man’s fear. St. Cyprian considered placing a call to the Westenra Fund but decided against it. Edwin Drood helped the fund’s founding members kill a frisky Wallachian. The head of the fund is Lord Godalming. St. Cyprian tells Gallowglass, “Trout isn’t the most imaginative sort, but he and Cuff know the score. They were involved in that Myrdstone business, a few years back.” They are helped against the vampire by Baron Palman Vordenburg, who mentions a certain theater in the Boulevard du Temple where the undead congregate at times. He identifies the vampire as Lothar Karnstein, who was the lover of Countess Dolingen of Graz. St. Cyprian tells Trout and Cuff that Lothar is not exactly Raffles, running about in disguise. 

Short story by Josh Reynolds in Casefiles of the Royal Occultist Volume Two: Hochmuller’s Hound, 18thWall Productions, 2020. Brichester is a town in the Severn Valley in Ramsey Campbell’s Cthulhu Mythos stories. The brief, unpleasant incident during Victoria’s reign is a reference to Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The Westenra Fund is named after the late Lucy Westenra, who was turned into a vampire by Dracula and subsequently staked by Van Helsing and company, including her fiancé, Arthur Holmwood, Lord Godalming. Countess Dolingen of Graz is from Stoker’s “Dracula’s Guest.” Thibaut de Castries and his book Megapolisomancy: A New Science of Cities are from Fritz Leiber’s novel Our Lady of Darkness. Edwin Drood is from Charles Dickens’ unfinished novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Inspector Trout is from the movies The Abominable Dr. Phibes and Dr. Phibes Rises Again. Cuff may be a descendant of Sergeant Cuff from Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone. “The Myrdstone witch-cult” is mentioned in Lin Carter’s Anton Zarnak story “Curse of the Black Pharaoh.” Baron Palman Vordenburg is a descendant of Baron Vordenburg from J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s “Carmilla.” The Karnsteins are Carmilla’s family. The theater in the Boulevard du Temple is the Théâtre des Vampires from Anne Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles. A. J. Raffles needs no introduction now. 

For many more crossover writeups like this, check out my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, to be published by Meteor House! Much like the first two volumes, this book is an AUTHORIZED companion to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Crossover Cover: Artful

The Artful Dodger and young Abraham “Bram” Van Helsing struggle against vampires seeking to rule England. The Baker Street Irregulars also appear, and it is stated that their leader is always called Wiggins. Apparently the concept of the Irregulars predates Sherlock Holmes’ involvement with them. In the preface, A Christmas Carol is described as a biographical study. David, explaining how the Dodger avoided being shipped off to Australia, writes “By now, you are doubtless becoming impatient in wondering just how it was that the Artful was walking the streets of London rather than striding the deck of a ship bound for the land of Oz (an excursion not to be confused with his later unexpected journey to the Land of Oz, an astoundingly unlikely sequence of events that will remain unexplored for the duration of this history.”) The portrayal of Fagin as a vampire, and the revelation in the novel’s final sentence that he will later become Jack the Ripper, place this novel outside CU continuity.

A Massive Crossover Endeavour

Colin Dexter has written a series of novels about Inspector Endeavour Morse, which were made into a 33-episode TV series that ran from 1987-2000. Morse's partner Inspector Lewis eventually got his own spin-off. In 2012, the television series Endeavour debuted, a prequel series featuring the young Constable Morse in the 1960s. The show, which has run two seasons so far, with a planned third next year, has had many references to other works of pop culture, including some that have already been linked to the Crossover Universe. The Morse of the novels would be older than the television version of the character in the mid-60s, and therefore it can be assumed that the TV Morse is in the CU, and his literary counterpart, who has no crossover connections, is in an alternate reality to the CU. What follows is an episode-by-episode breakdown of the crossovers found in the series.

In the TV movie that led to the series, Morse is seconded from the Carshall Newtown police force to Oxford to investigate the murder of a 15-year-old girl. In the end, Morse decides to transfer to Oxford full-time. Morse’s new landlady tells him that the other two lodgers are named Goldberg and McCann. Carshall New Town (or Newtown as it is spelled here) is the setting of Angus Wilson’s novel Late Call, while Goldberg and McCann are from Harold Pinter’s play The Birthday Party. Both the movie and Series 1 take place in 1965.

In the second episode of Series 1, "Fugue," Morse attempts to apprehend a serial killer whose methods are based on the deaths of characters in various operas. Chief Superintendent Bright calls in Dr. Daniel Cronyn, an expert on serial murders, as a consultant on the case. Cronyn refers to killings in the States in the last ten years: the Starkweather case, the bodies in the swamp at Fairvale, and DeSalvo in Boston. The bodies in the swamp at Fairvale are a reference to Alfred Hitchcock’s film Psycho, based on Robert Bloch’s novel of the same name. Since Psycho takes place in the CU via a reference in Christopher Farnsworth’s novel Red, White and Blood, we have the first piece of evidence that Endeavour is as well.

In the third episode, "Rocket," Morse looks into the death of a worker at a munitions factory owned by the Broom family, which occurred during a visit by Princess Margaret. The factory’s union shop steward is Reg Tracepurcel. The youngest Broom, Johnny, boasts to Morse that his car is the new Bellini. The Bellini is a fictional brand of car driven by Raymond Delauney in the 1960 film School for Scoundrels. Some elements of this episode’s plot reference the British film I’m All Right Jack, which featured a character named Bertram Tracepurcel. Perhaps Bertram and Reg are related. I’m All Right Jack starred Terry-Thomas, who also played Raymond Delauney in School for Scoundrels. The plot is also heavily influenced by the movie The Lion in Winter, but none of the references to that film count as crossovers.

The fourth and final episode of Series 1 is "Home," in which Morse investigates the hit-and-run killing of an Oxford don. One of the suspects in the case is retired gangster Vic Kasper, who is now persona non grata with Sid and Gerald Fletcher. Later, one of Vic’s employees tells the ex-criminal’s son Vince (who is secretly in a partnership with the Fletchers on a construction deal) that Thorpey is on the phone. Gangsters Sid and Gerald Fletcher are Jack Carter’s bosses in the 1971 film Get Carter. One of the gangsters in Get Carter is named Thorpe (also referred to as “Thorpey”), and is an old acquaintance of Jack’s. Thorpe must have worked for the Fletcher brothers for a time before switching his loyalties to rival crime boss Cyril Kinnear.

Series 2 takes place in 1966. In the first episode, "Trove," Morse investigates an apparent suicide, a missing girl, and the theft of valuable Anglo-Saxon treasures from Beaufort College, with the first two cases turning out to be intimately connected. Miss Great Britain, Diana Day, launches Burridge’s Spring into Summer Fashion Collection. Morse passes a billboard advertising Grimsby Pilchards, and interviews Diana’s manager Val Todd, whose wife tells him that Mr. White from Play-Tone called. In Soho, Morse visits the third floor office of the apparent suicide, a private investigator, which is in a building that also hosts the Pacific All-Risk Insurance Co.; the Ex-Officers’ Employment Bureau, Est. 1917; and R. Duck, Theatrical Agent, 4th Floor. Later, Morse questions Todd about his connection to the missing girl, who has turned up dead. Todd’s wife interrupts again, to tell him that Lane from SCDP is on the phone. Burridge’s Department Store is from the film Trouble in Store. Grimsby Pilchards appeared in “The Bowmans,” an episode of the British sitcom Hancock, bringing comedian Tony Hancock’s fictional persona Anthony Aloysius Hancock into the CU. Mr. White is the talent agent for Play-Tone Records played by Tom Hanks in the 1996 film That Thing You Do!, which is set in 1964. The Pacific All-Risk Insurance Co. is from Billy Wilder’s film noir Double Indemnity. Evidently Pacific All-Risk has offices in both America and Britain. The Ex-Officers’ Employment Bureau, Est., 1917, is one of the alleged businesses in the building in Fitzrovia that is actually the headquarters of the intelligence agency WOOC(P) in Len Deighton’s Harry Palmer novels. Apparently WOOC(P) also kept an individual office in Soho. In the 1987 film Withnail and I, set in 1969, Withnail’s Uncle Monty, an actor, says that his first agent was “Raymond Duck…four flights up at Charing Cross…” At some point after the end of his representation of Uncle Monty, Duck must have taken up a new office in Soho. Obviously, he preferred his offices to be on the fourth floor. Lane is Lane Pryce, co-owner of the advertising agency Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce (SCDP), as seen on the television series Mad Men, which is set in the years 1960-1969. In “The Moms,” an episode of the sitcom 30 Rock, Liz Lemon’s mother reveals that she once worked at Sterling Cooper, SCDP’s forerunner, thus bringing that show into the CU as well.

In the second episode, "Nocturne," Morse investigates a murder at a museum, and visits a girls’ school in Slepe that was having a field trip to the museum when the man was killed. A signpost giving directions to Slepe, Midwich, and Crampton Hodnet is seen. One of the students is named Bunty Glossop, and the groundskeeper’s son is Billy Karswell. Morse also questions an elderly couple that visited the museum on that day, Nahum and Tabby Gardiner of Kingsport, Massachusetts. Morse walks past the billboard for Grimsby Pilchards again, which now has graffiti on it of the name “Titch Thomas.” Morse and his superior, Detective Inspector Fred Thursday, visit the College of Arms in London, where the victim was formerly employed. They are told that Sir Hilary is on holiday. The murder soon turns out to be connected to an unsolved homicide from a century ago, which was investigated by Detective Constable Cuff. Midwich is from John Wydnham’s novel The Midwich Cuckoos. Crampton Hodnet is from Barbara Pym’s novel of the same name. Bunty Glossop is probably a relative of the Glossop family seen in P.G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves novels, while Billy Karswell and his father Wilf are likely relatives of Karswell from M.R. James’ story “Casting the Runes.” Despite the slight difference in the spelling of their surnames, Nahum Gardiner may be a relative of Nahum Gardner from H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Colour Out of Space.” Kingsport, Massachusetts is a recurring locale in Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. Titch Thomas is from Philip Larkin’s poem “Sunny Prestatyn.” In Ian Fleming’s novel On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Sir Hilary Bray is a genealogist at the College of Arms whom James Bond briefly impersonates. Detective Constable Cuff may be related to Sergeant Cuff from Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone.

Episode 3, "Sway," utilizes Burridges Department Store again, but has no other crossovers that I know of.

The final episode of Series 2, "Neverland," has Morse visiting the law offices of “Vholes, Jaggers, Lightwood, Solicitors” in the course of a case. The members of the law firm must all be descendants of lawyers from the works of Charles Dickens: Mr. Vholes (Bleak House); Mr. Jaggers (Great Expectations); and Mortimer Lightwood (Our Mutual Friend.)

The episode title "Trove" is vastly appropriate, as this series has been a treasure trove of crossovers. Hopefully Series 3 will continue that pattern.