[R] Angst, sex, cross-dressing, and other deviance.

Introduction

A practically novel-length story about Holmes and Watson encountering each other at university in 1876, and what happens when they meet again in STUD.

Prelude is now available on Feedbooks as an ebook. That means it can be downloaded for free in a number of formats. You do not have to register at Feedbooks to download it, but you can register if you choose to. There are updated footnotes, as well as a slightly altered Chapter 4.

Prelude

by Miss Roylott

Normally the story text would go here. However, since Prelude is long, I've broken it up into parts that are linked to this index, and to each other:

Also, Prelude has now been translated into Chinese. It's posted over 11 pages on one forum thread, so it's difficult to pick out the individual chapters for me to link here. Chinese readers should probably have no problem, though. The translation follows the ebook version of Prelude, including the footnotes.

Comments

Now there's a guestbook from which I will copy the comments on the slash fiction. Sample comments would look like this:

• [Author]; [subject]; [date]
  [message text]

1. FairyBoy; Prelude; 3 October 2002
   Dear God woman, a 12 part story? Do you have any idea what you're doing to my schedule? Here I go innocently meaning to spend a few minutes online, and you get me sucked into another one of your beautiful stories for the better part of an hour!
   � � � Really, if I don't get that blasted essay done I hope you know I'm holding you responsible.
   � � � Just when I think that nothing could possibly make me adore the wonderful Miss Roylott more, you go and prove me wrong again. I love you, I worship you, I want to have your children ;). This story has inspired another round of me pestering my friends online and off to visit your wonderful site. The interactions between Holmes and Watson are superb as always. Holmes' wavering between aloof and vulnerable is perfect, as is Watson's sheer stubbornness. I do hope though, should you decide to write a sequel (please, *please* write a sequel), that we maybe see Watson overcome a little more of the guilt he still seems to be harboring at the end in spite of himself? As realistic and understandable as I know it to be, given the time period, I can't help hoping perhaps Holmes' apparent disregard for this social norm among others will eventually wear off a little. Nothing is quite as painful as undeserved guilt.
   � � � I also want to thank you for your delicate, understanding and realistic treatment of Miss Cooper's position. You are among the best slash authors I've ever had the good fortune to find, and you are the only one whom I have ever seen write about trans people so well. I'm trans (though ftm instead of mtf), and unfortunately the few other references to us in fanfic I've found have been unflattering to say the least. Your work is among the few diamonst that remind me why I bother sifting through the mountains of crap out there. And thank you for the trans history link!! I'd seen that site ages ago and lost the URL, you've made my week <g>.
2. Cress; to FairyBoy; 8 October 2002
   Dear God FairyBoy, what a long comment! :) You should have seen Prelude before, when I divided it into smaller portions and got 20+ parts! I really wanted to cut it down and skip the boring parts of the mystery, but Watson, after all, is writing this journal, and would want to record lots of detail. I hope you got your essay finished, anyway.
   � � � As for Miss Cooper, she was inspired by my reading stuff on the Gay History website, where different writers tried to define gay men under terms like "Urnings" and "inverts" and stuff like that. Someone argued that such men had the souls of women, and I personally thought that was a good definition for a mtf transsexual, not a gay man. So I decided to write Miss Cooper this way, and I'm happy with how it turned out. It makes up for the fact that in my earlier story "A False Position", I wrote myself into a corner where I couldn't figure just who Helena Watson was, and whether she'd be happier as a man or not.
   � � � Anyway, thanks for your visit and your recommending the site to your friends. I'll see what I can do about a sequel, but can't estimate how long it will take.
3. Ryn; "Prelude" story; 22 January 2010
   I would just like to say how well written this fic-series was. At first I was a bit apprehensive when the affair-at-the-university idea was introduced, but the characters were perfectly maintained and I soon began to enjoy the story immensely :) also, must express my glee (!) over a well-done trans character! The problem with trans characters is that they are usually badly done or the focus of the entire fic. That Rose was not really a main theme but still a good character was a pleasant surprise. And you got the pronouns right! Anyway, now I must go away and mourn the fact that I haven't got my own loving Holmes or Watson!
4. TJaye; general; 17 February 2010
   I'm reading "A Prelude to Partnership" and just wanted to say that I'm enjoying it. Thanx