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.

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.

[3] After the Houseboat 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.