NE NEEDS NOT BE VERY ASTUTE to realise that this blog hasn’t been updated for quite a while. The reason has to do with another new web project, one also dealing with Sherlock Holmes, which will far surpass the meagre resources and writing within this site. More details to come as we get nearer to launch.

HE IRONY is not lost on me. My return to this blog, after my not-so-great hiatus, is marked by my vigil in an empty house. Unlike Holmes and Watson awaiting the notorious Colonel Sebastian Moran and Von Herder’s airgun, however, my situation is actually quite mundane. After some 8000 km of travel from Newfoundland to Yellowknife (in the Northwest Territories of Canada) to take up a new life with a new home and a new job, I sit most evenings in a house devoid of furniture, books, computer gear, or family. Thanks to a kindly neighbour, I now have a little computer desk propping up my work laptop, which is running on an intermittant network. The furniture and library are still several weeks off (and upon their arrival, I can send plane tickets for my wife and boys). In the meantime I’m going rather stir-crazy, occupying my spare time mostly with cycling and cleaning.

But I am not completely Holmes-less. (Ugh.) While I was packing up the old place, I used some spare cycles on my computer to convert a number of Jeremy Brett shows to iPod video format. And so, in addition to reading my two books –a beat-up “Wings” Strand facsimile edition of the uncopyrighted stories, along with Christopher Redmond’s amazing Sherlock Holmes Handbook– I’m happily lying on my air mattress each night watching Grenada episodes on a screen roughly the size of a large postage stamp, or listening to Rathbone/Bruce episodes of The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

While I await my books and gear, I’m going to take advantage of this downtime and start posting to this blog once more. A quick perusal of my Net queries, mailing lists, inbox, and other correspondences show that there has been much ado in the Sherlockian world, and so I’ll endeavour to cover as much of it as I can. Without my library, you’ll have to forgive me if the visuals are rare for the next little while, and my references aren’t quite as exact as I like. If you spot a mistake, please don’t hestitate to let me know, and if you’ve heard of something that you think is worth mentioning, please fill me in on the details. (My contact form is in the menu above.) A goodly number of postings here come from readers like you, and I appreciate every email I receive.

Oh, it’s nice to be home.

or those readers wondering why things suddenly became so erratic here, I ought to come forth with an apology, and some personal news. It’s been quite a month or two at the homestead, involving plenty of job-hunting, shuffling across the continent, taking care of young’uns, and –last week– the birth of our new son Daniel, simultaneous with a job offer requiring the packing up of our old life to begin another up north.

As Jenny is not yet fit to do much packing or moving, my spare time is being divided between taking care of our two-year-old Conor, packing up our worldly possessions, and trying to organise the transition. I’ll soon be heading up to Yellowknife to set up our new place (and life), and sending Jenny and the kids a plane ticket when everything is ready.

Needless to say, that doesn’t leave very much time for the blogs for the next few weeks. In fact, all my books except a beat-up Holmes collection and Chris Redmond’s handbook is already packed away and ready to go.

So, I’m terribly sorry for the lack of posts recently –and in the near future– but once I have a connection in Yellowknife, my online life will be getting back to normal. I assure you, I’m very much looking forward to daily Sherlockian postings once more. There’s still a tonne of stuff in queue that needs editing and nice graphics, and I can’t wait to get this site au courant again. In the meantime, if you come across a link or some Holmes-related information you wish to share, please don’t hesitate to use my contact form (see the menu above); I’ll be checking mail often, and these are the sort of things I can post even while on the road.

ESTERDAY, I outlined the first half of my Sherlockian Top Ten. Now, I’m sure that most of those were certainly no surprise to anyone who’s begun to dive into the depths of Sherlockian studies, but I’m hoping that this list (and my comments) might help guide the occasional poor soul who’s just now beginning to migrate from Sherlock-on-TV, and perhaps looking to part with his or her hard-earned shillings in a meaningful manner.

Herewith, the final five.

6. Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street, a “biography” by W. S. Baring-Gould. Although many people have attempted biographies of Holmes (and/or Watson), Baring-Gould’s is considered by most to be the classic. Although rife with speculation and educated guesswork, many of the ideas and events put forth in this out-of-print book seem to have become absorbed by scholars and writers to the point where it sometimes becomes difficult to remember what was in the Canon, and what wasn’t. This edges out June Thomson’s Holmes and Watson for my list, which is still an absorbing read, and foregoes speculation to concentrate mainly upon the facts as laid out in the Canon.
7. Sherlock Holmes in America, by Bill Blackbeard. A fairly difficult volume to find, this book is bursting with lush illustrations, advertising, articles, cartoons and more, and is a pride among my Sherlockian “coffee-table” books. Similar books, and almost as prized, include Peter Haining’s Sherlock Holmes Scrapbook, Life & Times of Sherlock Holmes by Peter Weller with Christopher Roden, and the beautiful and over-sized Pictorial History of Sherlock Holmes by Michael Pointer. I’ve seen the latter three many times in bookstore “sidewalk sales”, so I suspect there’s a lot of them about.
8. The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, by Vincent Starrett. It seems that reading this book has become the Sherlockian equivalent of puberty, heralding a crossing-over from neophyte fan to serious scholar. Published in 1933, this collection of essays was one of the first major books of Sherlockian scholarship, and remains one of the most critically acclaimed. Highly sought-after by most beginning collectors, it was re-issued a few years ago in paperback form.
9. The Baker Street Journal CD-ROM. Although I’d much rather the dead-tree versions of this long-lasting Sherlockian journal, my ailing bank account prohibits this. Still, $100 for all the journals from 1946 to 2000 is a very nice deal, especially when it’s possible to easily search and cross-reference most of the issues. (I’m in the midst of writing a review of this product for a later post, so check back if you’re interested.) There is also a CD-ROM version of the Sherlock Holmes Journal, but alas, I haven’t yet been able to afford one of these. O! the life of a poor scholar….
10. My weekly obsession. Okay, so I’m cheating a little here, but it’s because every week or so I become so completely engrossed in a book that it becomes indispensible. My livre du jour is The Science of Sherlock Holmes, by E. J. Wagner, a fascinating look at forensic science at the time of Holmes, illuminated throughout with examples from both the Canon and real-life crimes. Before that, it was The Real World of Sherlock Holmes: The True Crimes Investigated by Arthur Conan Doyle by Peter Costello, and before that, there were several books by Harrison and Hardwick. I confess I have no idea what the next one will be, but the wide array of Sherlockian books adorning the shelves is what makes this subject so interesting. Hmmm… perhaps it’s time for a pastiche, or something a little outré, like Rosenberg’s Naked Is the Best Disguise (note: not this one).

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HEN I hear tales of entire houses or condominiums chock-a-brick full with Sherlockian tomes, I feel positively ashamed by the meagre offerings afforded by my few hundred books. A glance at the Shaw 100 (the wishlist of every aspiring Sherlockian) reveals that I have about a third of these essential volumes. Mind you, very few of them are still in print, and some are so rare that you’d be extremely lucky to find a copy for less than a hundred dollars.

Still, in keeping with my reductionist lifestyle of late, I’ve begun to think about which books I consider absolutely essential to my Sherlockian addicti… er, hobby. Herewith, the first part of my top ten. (The final five will appear tomorrow.)

1. The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes (short stories and novels), edited and with notes by Leslie Klinger. No surprise here. I have at least a dozen copies of the Canon by now, but this finally displaces my well-thumbed Annotated Sherlock Holmes edited by W. S. Baring-Gould. The cornerstone of every modern Sherlockian as far as I’m concerned, this hefty three-volume set is a little pricey, but worth at least two years of rolling pennies. I don’t yet have Kinger’s Sherlock Holmes Reference Library or the Oxford annotated Canon, but I do covet them greatly.
2. Sherlock Holmes, the Published Apocrypha, edited by Jack Tracy. “Extensions” to the Canon from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, J.M Barrie, William Gillette and Arthur Whitaker, with commentary by Tracy. Also out of print, but slightly easier to find and with many of the same works, is Peter Haining’s The Final Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. (Many of these works are also available online over at the much-appreciated Diogenes Club library.)
3. The Encyclopedia Sherlockiana (a.k.a, The Ultimate Sherlock Holmes Encyclopedia), by Jack Tracy. Out of print, but fairly easy to find online. The essential reference for Canonical characters, places and things. Not to be confused with the Encyclopedia Sherlockiana: An A-To-Z Guide to the World of the Great Detective by Matthew Bunson, which is still a fine book, but equally concerned with non-Canonical things like films and pastiches.
4. The Sherlock Holmes Handbook, by Christopher Redmond. I am amazed by how much fascinating –if not valuable– information Mr. Redmond packs on every page: it covers the Canon, the characters, the times, Sir Arthur, print, modern media, Sherlockian societies, and so much more. If I have five minutes to spare, this is the book I pick up. Out of print, but I do believe the writer still has a few copies to sell (and of course, you may find him at his ubiquitous site Sherlockian.net).
5. Teller of Tales: The Life of Arthur Conan Doyle, by Daniel Stashower. In my opinion, this Edgar Award-winning book edges out Pierre Nordon’s Conan Doyle: A Biography, John Dickson Carr’s The Life of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and even Sir Arthur’s hard-to-find autobiography Memories and Adventures. Vivid story-telling, a balanced perspective on ACD’s Spiritualism, a general survey of his whole body of work, and a very human portrayal of the “good giant” make this a favourite in my collection.

Tomorrow, the last five, and some tips on where to find the more elusive tomes.

flamboyant tip o’ the deerstalker goes to Peter E. Blau of the most excellent Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press for pointing us to a listing of Holmes-related websites entitled, appropriately enough, Sherlockian Resources on the Internet: A Survey - by John Bergquist, BSI:

“Data! data! data!” [Holmes] cried impatiently. “I can’t make bricks without clay.” (COPP) The Sherlockian Web surfer of today has more data at his or her disposal than even the Master could have assimilated. Whether one is interested in pursuing serious research, seeking out rare books or memorabilia, or keeping up with the doings of other Sherlockians, the World Wide Web provides vast stores of information. This modest survey attempts to help one pick out a few choice strands to follow.

Link

R, the singular case of the detective, the mouse, and the washed-up pop star.

Depending on your country of origin, all or part of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s works on Sherlock Holmes, known affectionately as The Canon, are considered to have had their copyrights expire. For example, in Canada (where I’m based) and in the United Kingdom, as far as I know, all the works are now in the public domain and may be freely downloaded, shared, copied, printed and even sold, a fact which explains all those $2 classic paperbacks at your local mega-bookstore. Most Berne Convention countries have an expiry date of the life of the author plus fifty years, and Doyle passed away in 1930.

In the United States, however, it’s a little different. Several years ago, congressman Sonny Bono (formerly of the 60’s and 70’s duo Sonny and Cher) introduced an act to extend copyright [Wikipedia], an act that was supposedly lobbied for quite heavily by the Disney corporation in order to prevent Mickey Mouse from entering the public domain. Under its terms, no works created after 1923 would enter the public domain until 2019. The practical upshot of this is that the later Holmes stories are still considered protected under US law, even though in most of the world they are not. (Note that these dates seem to vary a little according to each of the sources I’ve read — all other things considered, the Wikipedia entry seems to have the most consistent facts.)

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received a few email asking me the origin of the somewhat familiar phrase “where it is always 1895″ in my welcome post. The line actually comes from a classic and oft-reprinted poem by one of the first –and most eminent– Sherlockians, Vincent Starrett, who wrote (among other things) The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1933) and 221 B: Studies in Sherlock Holmes (1940). This poem was first published in 1942 by Edwin B. Hill in a now very rare pamphlet called Two Sonnets. I’ve found some three dozen copies of this poem on the web already, and so I hope I’m not being too remiss in offering yet another.

hen I announced on one of my other blogs (a million monkeys typing) that I was going to launch a Sherlock Holmes blog, I had five people (two or three of whom were booksellers) appear out of the woodwork to tell me how much they enjoyed the D*I*Y Planner, and that they were going to send me books and other resources as a thank you. At first, I wasn’t quite sure how this would pan out, but sure enough, the past few days have seen a number of books arriving on my doorstep. Every package brings the same feelings that Christmas brought when I was a child: I’m happy, giddy, excited, and a thousand other joyous redundancies.

And so I must gratefully (and publicly) acknowledge the wonderful contributions of Jeffrey Cates, Eloah Simpson, Ralph Escott, Sherry Robbins, and “Ms. Adler and her husband”. Thank you, my friends, I’m glad you enjoy my other little project so much, and your gifts do mean a lot to me. They have plugged some rather critical gaps in my collection, and will certainly aid in the production of this site. Be sure to let me know if there’s anything I can do for you.

“Oh! a mystery is it?” I cried, rubbing my hands. “This is very piquant. I am much obliged to you for bringing us together. ‘The proper study of mankind is man,’ you know.”

“You must study him, then,” Stamford said, as he bade me good-bye. “You’ll find him a knotty problem, though. I’ll wager he learns more about you than you about him. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye,” I answered, and strolled on to my hotel, considerably interested in my new acquaintance.

nd so Stamford, having been instrumental in the introduction of the most famous pairing in literary history, disappeared forever, leaving Dr. John H. Watson, late of the British Army campaign in Afganistan, to move into lodgings with Mr. Sherlock Holmes at 221B Baker Street. The rest of the story, we all know.

Or do we?

Thousands of books have been written of Mr. Holmes, his companions, his cases and his villains. For a century now, thousands of films, television shows, theatrical performances, animations and radio plays have washed the airwaves, filled vast venues, and held captive untold millions in their homes while they awaited the startling deductions of the Great Detective. And yet, for all this, it’s difficult to capture the essence of the character. He is a chameleon, constantly shifting form in front of our eyes, mutating his guise in the hands and passions of those who attempt to breathe new life into the character. One moment, he is a calculating machine, incapable of human emotion, and the next he is a doe-eyed caricature embracing a love interest in a Japanese cartoon. And yet, there is still something recognisable, an archetype held deep within our subconscious, that stirs at the mere mention of his name.

This site seeks to explore the life and times, influence and cultural phenomenon that is Sherlock Holmes. As such, expect it to be entirely inconsistent in every way, except one: it is all borne out of a love and respect for this worthy creation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. A study in Sherlock can be a lifelong one, but I hope that you may see fit to join me, and the many others, for whom the year is always –in our hearts– 1895.

The photograph of The Strand appeared in Charles Viney’s Sherlock Holmes in London: A Photographic Record of Conan Doyle’s Stories.

hen I first conceived of the idea of a Sherlock Holmes blog, it seemed to show a lot of promise. After all, it gave me an excellent opportunity to learn more about a topic that’s been dear to me for decades, there seems to be none other out there, and then there’s the possibility of connecting with those of like minds or interests.

But upon reconsideration, I suddenly felt intimidated. After all, who am I, anyway? I don’t possess one-tenth the knowledge of the typical Holmes scholar. I envisioned being beseiged by critics who would laugh at my meagre attempts to expore the realm of the Sacred Writing, and dismiss my feeble pieces oncerning the cultural phenomenon that is the Great Detective as sheer ignorance. I would make a fool out of myself.

Just when I was bout to jettison this idea in the dustbin of improbable and ill-thought projects, I was suddenly hit by not one, but a series of epiphanies.

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t seems as though every civilisation in history has turning points that push its people into conjuring a hero who may lead them through difficult transitional times, and the hundreds of generations laying claim to the green isle of England are no exception. After the inexorable plunge into the Dark Ages, wherein barbarians ransacked what remained of culture and forced all people –whether they were peasants or nobility– to shiver with the uncertainties of a world without hope, a time without order, the legends of a king called Arthur and his Knights of the Table Round held aloft a banner to rally those who sought an ideal to lead them into an enlightened era. During the rampant corruption of king and clergy, the bugle call of Robin Hood was sounded amongst the forests, glens and dales, and the tales of a noble outlaw who demonstrated compassion to the poor and made fools of those in authority spread like fire in a dry hayfield.

Several revolutions of the wheel later, the late nineteenth century proved no different. The promises of prosperity following the Industrial Revolution brought the teeming hordes from the farmlands to pursue a better life in the cities, only to find themselves facing starvation in the squalour of cramped quarters filthy with sewage and rotten with thievery, prostitution and wanton murder. Still, the late Victorian and Edwardian eras brought new life-changing advances in science and technology every day –electricity, motorcars and telephones, to name but a few– and a new age of reason and scientific thought was dawning amongst the more learned classes of society. It was into this time, the temporal juxtaposition of rampant crime and intellectual potential, that was borne a new hero who embodied a sense of hope that seemed to transcend all class and geographical boundaries: the Great Detective, Sherlock Holmes.

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