detective fiction as Ellery Queen (Frederic Dannay), Anthony Boucher, Vincent Starrett, and Howard Haycraft. In his 1944 volume The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes, Ellery Queen wrote of Derleth's The Norcross Riddle, an early Pons story: "How many budding authors, not even old enough to vote, could have captured the spirit and atmosphere with as much fidelity?" Queen adds, "...and his choice of the euphonic Solar Pons is an appealing addition to the fascinating lore of Sherlockian nomenclature." Vincent Starrett, in his foreword to the 1964 edition of The Casebook of Solar Pons, wrote that the series is "...as sparkling a galaxy of Sherlockian pastiches as we have had since the canonical entertainments came to an end." Despite close similarities to Doyle's creation, Pons lived in the post-World War I era, in the decades of the 1920s and 1930s. Though Derleth never wrote a Pons novel to equal The Hound of the Baskervilles, editor Peter Ruber wrote: "...Derleth produced more than a few Solar Pons stories almost as good as Sir Arthur's, and many that had better plot construction." Although these stories were a form of diversion for Derleth, Ruber, who edited The Original Text Solar Pons Omnibus Edition (2000), argued: "Because the stories were generally of such high quality, they ought to be assessed on their own merits as a unique contribution in the annals of mystery fiction, rather than suffering comparison as one of the endless imitators of Sherlock Holmes." Some of the stories were self-published, through a new imprint called "Mycroft & Moran", an appellation of humorous significance to Holmesian scholars. For approximately a decade, an active supporting group was the Praed Street Irregulars, patterned after the Baker Street Irregulars. In 1946, Conan Doyle's two sons made some attempts to force Derleth to cease publishing the Solar Pons series, but the efforts were unsuccessful, and were eventually withdrawn. Derleth's mystery and detective fiction also included a series of works set in Sac Prairie and featuring Judge Peck as the central character. Youth and children's fiction Derleth wrote many and varied children's works, including biographies meant to introduce younger readers to explorer Jacques Marquette, as well as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Arguably most important among his works for younger readers, however, is the Steve and Sim Mystery Series, also known as the Mill Creek Irregulars series. The ten-volume series, published between 1958 and 1970, is set