Crossover Cover: Any Approaching Enemy

Lieutenant Jack Aubrey of the Leander delivers two mast sticks to the ship Louisa, captained by Charles Edgemont. Edgemont is already in through an encounter with Horatio Hornblower in his first appearance, Sails on Horizon. The appearance of Patrick O’Brian’s naval hero Jack Aubrey further confirms Edgemont’s presence in the CU.

Crossover Cover: Hoare and the Matter of Treason

Captain Bartholomew Hoare makes conversation with Horatio Hornblower, who has just come out of the Port Officer's office. Hoare first met Hornblower (from C.S. Forester's novels) in Perkins' story "Hoare and the Frog Prince." Vice Admiral Sir Hugh Abercrombie asks Hoare to look into the disappearance of one of his senior confidential clerks, after his underling Lestrade fails to turn up any results. Given his investigative work and his description as resembling a ferret, this Lestrade is probably meant to be an ancestor of Inspector Lestrade from the Sherlock Holmes stories. Abercrombie also has a meek clerk named Cratchit, presumably a relative of the equally mild-mannered clerk Bob Cratchit from Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Hoare and his gunner’s mate, Titus Thoday, find a figurine of a falcon inside the man’s room. Hoare “had seen a similar figurine before, somewhere in the Med, in ninety-one or thereabouts—in Malta, if memory served him correctly.” The figurine Hoare previously encountered was the Maltese Falcon, of course.

Crossover Cover: Hoare and the Headless Captains

In this novel by Wilder Perkins, the second of three naval mysteries featuring Bartholomew Hoare, one of Hoare's men uses the phrase "the lesser evil," which reminds Hoare of “the jape invented by one of the more successful frigate captains—Bolitho? Cochrane? He was wont to challenge a new acquaintance to a wager upon which of two beetle larvae, chosen at random from among those tapped from a piece of ship’s biscuit, would be the first to reach the edge of the table. The unwitting newcomer naturally chose the larger grub. When it lost, as it always did, Captain Whoever would joyfully advise the stranger ‘always to select the lesser of two weevils’ and nearly burst his breeches with laughter at his own paltry jest. Aubrey. That was the joker’s name. Lucky Jack Aubrey, they called him, from the wealth of prize money he had won at sea—and squandered ashore.” Lucky Jack Aubrey appeared in a series of novels by Patrick O'Brian, and was brought into the CU by a reference in Jess Nevins' story "Rocambole: Red in Tooth and Claw." The "lesser of two weevils" quote first appeared in O'Brian's The Fortunes of War. Richard Bolitho is the protagonist of a series of novels by Alexander Kent, and this crossover brings him in as well. Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald, is not a fictional character, but a real person who served as a Naval captain during the Napoleonic Wars. In the third Hoare book, Hoare and the Matter of Treason, which I have not yet read, Hoare encounters Horatio Hornblower, a clerk named Cratchit (presumably a relative of the Cratchit family from Dickens' A Christmas Carol) and a man named Lestrade (who is described as resembling a ferret, as was Inspector Lestrade in the Sherlock Holmes stories, suggesting that Perkins' Lestrade is an ancestor of Doyle's character.)

Crossover Cover: Sails on the Horizon

In this naval tale by Jay Worrall, Charles Edgemont, commander of the Louisa, briefly meets Lieutenant Horatio Hornblower. Their encounter takes place in December 1797, during Hornblower's captivity in Ferrol documented in the last chapter of C.S. Forester's Mr. Midshipman Hornblower. Edgemont reappeared in Any Approaching Enemy (in which he briefly encounters Patrick O'Brian's own naval hero Lucky Jack Aubrey) and A Sea Unto Itself. I haven't read the sequels yet, but I will at least read Any Approaching Enemy so I can include it as well.

Crossover Covers: Enter the Lion

According to William S. Baring-Gould's Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street, Sherlock's older, much heavier, and even more brilliant brother Mycroft was born on February 12, 1847. Therefore, in honor of Mycroft's 167th birthday, here is the cover to an account of one of his exploits alongside Sherlock (who had yet to meet Dr. Watson), edited by Michael P. Hodel and Sean M. Wright. At one point, fighting ships such as the more recent four-deckers of Nelson and Hornblower are mentioned, providing further evidence that C.S. Forester's naval hero Horatio Hornblower is in the Crossover Universe. (It is worth noting that Philip José Farmer stated in Tarzan Alive that Tarzan's son married Hornblower's great-great-granddaughter.) There is an apparent continuity conflict between this novel and Farmer's work: Farmer identified Professor James Moriarty as the illegitimate son of housemaid Morcar Moriarty in Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life, whereas this account identifies his father as Jerrold Moriarty, who plays a prominent role in the tale. Win Eckert reconciled the two versions by stating that Jerrold was actually Urania's brother, and a beloved uncle and father-figure to James.