The Pursuit of the House-Boat is an 1897 novel by John Kendrick Bangs, and the second one to feature his Associated Shades take on the afterlife. The original full title was The Pursuit of the House-Boat: Being Some Further Account of the Divers Doings of the Associated Shades, Under the Leadership of Sherlock Holmes, Esq. and it has also been titled In Pursuit of the House-Boat and Pursuit of the House-Boat. There are 12 chapters in the book. They were first published as a serial, under the full-title and including the Newell illustrations, in Harper's Weekly from February 6 to April 24, 1897. After the House-Boat was hijacked by Captain Kidd at the end of A House-Boat on the Styx, the various members of its club decided that in order to track it down, a detective would have to be called in. So they hired Sherlock Holmes, who, at the time of the book's publication, had indeed been declared dead by his creator...

This is John Kendrick Bangs' 1897 novel, “The Pursuit of the House-Boat”. A deceased Sherlock Holmes is employed by the Associated Shades club to help them after the House-Boat has been commandeered by the nefarious Captain Kidd. An amusing and entertaining detective romp set in the afterlife, “The Pursuit of the House-Boat” constitutes a must-read for lovers of quirky fiction and is not to be missed by fans of Bang's work. John Kendrick Bangs (1862–1922) was an American editor, author, and satirist. Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. It is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now in an affordable, high-quality edition complete with a specially commissioned new biography of the author.

The book begins with Charon, ferryman of the Styx startled--and annoyed--by the arrival of a house boat on his mystical river. At first afraid that the boat will put him out of business, he later finds out that he is to be appointed the boat's janitor. What follows are eleven stories set on the house boat. There is no central theme; each chapter features various souls from history and mythology, and in the twelfth chapter the house boat disappears, seguing into the sequel, Pursuit of the House-Boat.

"A House-Boat on the Styx is a fantasy novel written by John Kendrick Bangs in 1895.The original full title was A House-Boat on the Styx: Being Some Account of the Divers Doings of the Associated Shades. The novel was first published by Harper Brothers in 1896 with illustrations by Peter Newell (24 plates)"