N AN ARTICLE IDEALLY WRITTEN for newcomers to the Sherlockian mythos, the Crime Library site presents All about Sherlock Holmes by Anthony Bruno:

Created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and presented through the narration of the fictional Dr. Watson, Holmes is the most brilliant detective ever. His powers of observation seem supernatural until he utters the famous phrase, “Elementary, my dear Watson,” and proceeds to enumerate the logical steps that have brought him to a prescient conclusion. The most innocuous detail can lead Holmes to profound revelations. But where did these amazing powers of deduction originate? Did Sir Arthur Conan Doyle make up Sherlock Holmes out of whole cloth, or did he have a model in mind when he created the great detective?

Bruno seems to come at the topic as an outsider, but he has done due diligence with his homework here. The article covers a lot of ground and facts without getting bogged down in scholarly issues of debate, and although it barely skims the surface of Conan Doyle and Sherlockian matters, it may inspire readers to learn more. (Yes, there are a few small factual errors, but I think we can forgive him for those.)

HERE have been so many depictions of Sherlock Holmes over the years that, to many people, they all become an amorphous blob of characteristics, such as a long gaunt face, a well-endowed proboscis, and (of course) some smoking implement, usually of a wooden nature — an adjective which seems to apply equally well to many of the lesser-known actors falling flat in their ulsters.

Bob Bryne, in his essay The Definitive Holmes, writes:

The name Sherlock Holmes is uttered, and we all form an image in our minds. It might be a drawing by Sidney Paget or Frederic Dorr Steele, or maybe Basil Rathbone or Peter Cushing. Over a century with the great detective has given us very clear images of how we think he looks.

Since Charles Brookfield did a short skit entitled “Under the Clock” in 1893, Sherlock Holmes has been portrayed on stage, screen and radio far beyond anyone’s ability to count. Each medium (publishing, stage, movies and television) has seriously affected the way Holmes is viewed by current and succeeding generations.

This excellent piece has many graphics included (be sure to click on the links to see them), and serves as a tight little survey of the most popular depictions — to include them all would be next to impossible.

Byrne also has a series of other great Sherlockian content on this site of his, Sherlock Holmes on Oxford Lane (a.k.a., HolmesOnScreen.com), including pieces on various key actors, quizzes, original fiction, an essay on how the Canon’s themes reflect Joseph Campbell’s journey of the hero, and much more. Well worth a visit.

AVE PARKER notes in his blog that The Arthur Conan Doyle Collection Richard Lancelyn Green Bequest is allowing the public to view the late author and collector’s vast array of Conan Doyle materials in Portsmouth, England:

Portsmouth has been chosen by the late Richard Lancelyn Green as the home for his extraordinary collection of Conan Doyle-related books, papers, artifacts and assorted memorabilia.

Academics, specialists and the general public, will be able to access Richard’s life’s work, once it has been catalogued and made available.

There will be an introductory exhibition in 2006, and a more substantial display in 2007.

Green wrote extensively about Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes, and was the co-author/compiler of the definitive bibliography of ACD’s work, as well as various volumes of uncollected stories, letters to the press, and so forth, so this exhibition should be quite fascinating indeed.

The introductory exhibit started on June 10th and runs to September 24th. For further information, The Arthur Conan Doyle Collection Richard Lancelyn Green Bequest Website has notes about the collection, as well as a PDF newsletter. Thanks, Dave!

OME of the most intriguing bits in the biographies of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle concern the strange relationship he had with the great escape artist and magician Harry Houdini. The latter needs no introduction, I’m sure: the tales of his death-defying stunts still amaze and astonish today. But what fewer people realise is that Houdini took it upon himself to expose those tricksters and charlatans working as so-called “mediums,” who were swindling gullible and grief-stricken people seeking only to hear from their dearly departed relatives and friends once more. Of course, one may contrast this to Sir Arthur, one of the greatest champions of the Spiritualist cause, and consider the two an unlikely pairing. Yet, the two were friends, though a falling-out seemed inevitable.

One of my favourite online essays delves into this relationship, and how it began and ended. The fascinating piece called Houdini and Conan Doyle: The Story of a Strange Friendship is by Massimo Polidoro, and appears courtesy of Uno Studio in Holmes, the Florentine Holmes website.

They were both profoundly interested in the subject of Spiritualism; however, their views differed completely. Houdini was the skeptic, the exposer of psychic frauds; Doyle the believer, the St. Paul of Spiritualism. How could these two persons have become affectionated friends and then bitter enemies is a fascinating tale which deserves telling.

Curl up with a nice cup of tea or cocoa and read the rest. More information can be found at Doyle, Houdini and The Strand Magazine (BakerStreetDozen.com), and Polidoro’s own acclaimed book on the subject, Final Seance: The Strange Friendship Between Houdini and Conan Doyle.

OT content to let the adventures of Sherlock Holmes rest at a mere sixty stories, thousands of authors have determined to place the Great Detective in every country of the world, meeting every possible person who’s lived from 1860 to 2300, and seeking mystery of every possible concoction, from plausable to positively ridiculous. It seems like an impossible task to keep track of them all.

But that doesn’t mean that someone hasn’t tried.

The other day, I found myself wondering in which pastiche I read of Holmes’ encounter with Oscar Wilde. A standard old Google search proved fruitless. And then I remembered the site called Sherlock Holmes Pastiche Characters (at www.SchoolAndHolmes.com). A work of great effort and obvious devotion,

The site is essentially a listing of historical, fictional and canonical characters appearing, or mentioned in published Sherlock Holmes pastiches, parodies and other Sherlockian writings.

The site owner has thoroughly catalogued some 1200 works, providing everything from plot summaries to exceedingly detailed character appearances, and has even gone so far as to include book covers and a pastiche writer’s dictionary (with “translations” of Americanisms). This is truly an amazing labour of love and dedication.

As for Mr. Wilde, I was absolutely astounded by the number of his appearances in various pastiches. (By the way, it was Nicholas Meyer’s The West End Horror: A Posthumous Memoir of John H. Watson, M.D. that I was trying to remember.)

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).

(more…)

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.

OW that E. J. Wagner’s The Science of Sherlock Holmes : From Baskerville Hall to the Valley of Fear, The Real Forensics Behind the Great Detective’s Greatest Cases has been released to an eager public, the reviews have started to appear, the first I could find being CSI: Sherlock Holmes? at the Christian Science Monitor:

Yet, this revelation about Holmes only scratches the surface. E.J. Wagner, a well-known crime historian and lecturer, has taken it one step further.

In her fascinating book, The Science of Sherlock Holmes, Wagner juxtaposes some of Holmes’s famous cases with a number of real mysteries, and finds some surprising similarities. She sets Holmes’s work in the context of the forensics of his time and proves that the detective’s scientific mind was more than a mere work of fiction.

Read the full review.

I was lucky enough to receive a copy, and I must say that it’s quite a fascinating read, combining history, forensics and Sherlock Holmes in a way that I’ll be unlikely to forget. I’ll be posting a review of my own here soon.

AST weekend, I received an email from a college-age friend of mine wondering if he should spend what little money he had on Leslie Klinger’s The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes, or, well… eat. To which I replied: “There are plenty of places to find semi-edible sustenance, from the mushrooms under rotten logs to the bins behind restaurants. And you’re still young enough to recover from short-term malnutrition.”

A little poking around for opinions which mean far more than my own yielded the following review in the UK Guardian: A four-pipe poseur.

As a single reference work designed to bring Baring-Gould’s original annotated edition up to date, The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes seems unlikely to be superseded for some time. There is no more comprehensive repository of arcane Sherlockiana to be found in one place. Yet the curious situation remains that the more information one stores up about the detective, the less one actually seems to know. No amount of erudite commentary can alter the fact that Holmes remains an unfathomable enigma, as much a product of the information Conan Doyle withheld as the tenuous clues to his character he actually put down.

Amazon.com has a pretty good price right now, certainly better than the prices at my regional megastore. And remember, Dan: it is possible to live off no-name peanut butter, Mr. Noodles, and a dandelion/fern shoot salad (from the nearest park or ditch, of course), at least for three months or so. You can even make coffee by dry-roasting the dandelion roots. Just spring for an orange if the teeth get too loose.

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

HILE many people are familiar with the good Dr. John H. Watson, the beginning of A Study in Scarlet, in which he (briefly) relates some of his war experiences, can leave a number of readers confused. What were in fact quite current events in 1887 are nowadays relegated to historians, and so it was of no little pleasure to come across a site discussing Watson and The Second Anglo-Afghan War 1878-1880:

Watson’s participation in the war follows his being attached to the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers as an Assistant Surgeon and finding, by the time he landed at Bombay, the regiment had already been sent to Afghanistan at the outbreak of war. He was packed off to join them at Kandahar and afterwards attached to the Berkshires, accompanying them into the chaos of Maiwand and being wounded there by the bullet from a jezail. Watson’s orderly, ‘Murray’, managed to pull him out of danger to join the retreat, and he was soon recovering at Peshawar before he was able to get home and up to London, looking for lodgings and employment of some kind.

The explanations include a number of interesting tidbits that give a decent background to Watson’s experiences, and also examine whether Watson and his orderly Murray did in fact take part in the battle. Also on the site are timelines, maps, articles, and more, for those interested in what was really happening behind the scenes.

WO days ago, I received an email from a poor high school student named Veronica who, working on an assignment about detective fiction, followed some links from this site and became terribly bewildered. The issue, specifically, was this: are the Sherlock Holmes tales fictional, written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, or was Holmes a real person whose exploits were recorded by Watson and passed along to his literary agent, Conan Doyle? Given the links that she followed, I can see where she might have become confused. It all has to do with The Game.

While I’m sure that many scholars will disagree with this definition (because they are scholars, and disagree for a living…), “the Game” is a playful exercise based upon the premise that Sherlock Holmes was real, that Watson recorded and wrote all the tales, and that any blunders in the sacred writings are not actually errors of editing or memory, but rather clues to things that Watson does not relate. The scholar then uses Holmes’ own methods of deduction and observation to come up with inferences and conjectures that suit the text. For example, at no point in the Canon are we actually told what Dr. John H. Watson’s middle initial stands for. However, in the story The Man with the Twisted Lip, his wife says to a visitor,

“It was very sweet of you to come. Now, you must have some wine and water, and sit here comfortably and tell us all about it. Or should you rather that I sent James off to bed?”

Hmmm… James? Why did she call him James? Some Sherlockians have seized upon this to infer the Scottish version of “James” as his middle initial, that being Hamish. Meanwhile, others have said that she called him James because the name John reminded her of Jonathon Small in the horrible ordeal of The Sign of Four. Of course, the other theories are too numerous to mention.

The point of this game therefore lies in clever debate and the exercise of one’s knowledge of the Canon, including the hundreds (or likely, thousands) of pieces written about the texts, most of which play the Game themselves. The ideas and theories proposed can be outlandish indeed –for example, the famous mystery writer Rex Stout (the creator of Nero Wolfe) once proposed that Watson was a woman– but if these fall in line with the text of the Canon, such innovation can be applauded. Or systematically deconstructed, refuted and ridiculed. Or both.

In short, Veronica, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did indeed write the sixty stories of Sherlock Holmes, but sometimes it’s more fun to play make-believe and pretend he didn’t.