In 1923 the young reporter James Thurber was given a half a page in the Sunday Evening Dispatch of Columbus Ohio every week to fill with anything he wanted For most of that year he turned out book reviews humorous commentary jokes stories and even literary criticismHe also wrote a series of 13 short Sherlockian parodies 10000 words in all starring Blue Ploermell a psychosocial detective with a fondness for animal crackers Aided and occasionally impeded by his Chinese manservant Gong Low Ploermell investigates cases marked by his cockeyed deductions loopy logic and a knack for leaping to the wrong conclusionThese juvenilia represents Thurbers first attempts at learning the craft of humor writing Looking back at this work years later he even considered publishing the Ploermell storiesThe Cases of Blue Ploermell for the first time in a century collects the 13 stories Edited and annotated by Bill Peschel they show Thurber trying his hand at characterization story structure ethnic humor and serial writing in a style rarely seen at any newspaperIn addition to the annotations Peschel wrote essays on Thurbers years in Columbus Ohio journalism in the 1920s the state of Sherlockian parodies and depictions of Chinese men and women in American popular cultureNote The 13 stories are very short and take up 40 pages of this 200page book The rest of the book consists of these essays Becoming James Thurber 39 pages Journalism in Thurbers Time 4 pages Sherlockian Parodies in the 1920s 8 pages The Ancestors of Gong Low 13 pages The Chinese in Popular Culture 35 pages movie reviews 19 pages chronology 9 pages lists 7 pages