The Baker Street Irregulars is a literary society, and so
are the hundreds of BSI scions and other Sherlock Holmes associations. And
literary societies tend to create literature in the form of literary journals.
A relatively new group, the Sherlockians of Baltimore, has
joined Watson’s Tin Box of Ellicott City, MD, the Norwegian Explorers of
Minnesota, and the Crew of the Barque Lone Star as scions publishing a volume
every year. I picked up The Newspapers: An Irregular Journal of Sherlockiana,
Number 3, at Baker Street Irregulars Weekend in New York.
The variety of old and new in this journal is fascinating.
There are articles on astronaut Harrison Schmidt taking Holmes to the moon,
William Gillette’s last appearance in Baltimore, Holmes on the radio, Rex Stout
at the BSI dinners, Sherlockian friendship, and much more. Mike McSwiggin’s
touching memoir of his grandparents alone is worth the $20 price of admission.
The journal is edited by Greg D. Ruby, founder of the
Sherlockians of Baltimore. (Investitured members are known as Certified SOB’s.)
“Originally,
I was hoping to get 60 pages of material but nearly doubled that in the first
volume,” he said, “and the next two volumes just kept growing to where we were
nearly 200 pages. I’ve been very lucky to have several members and friends
convert presentations to the written format and sprinkle in some items from old
local newspapers.”
The
title of the publication honors five great Sherlockians who worked for
Baltimore newspapers at various times. That ties into origin of the journal.
“I had
seen some interesting feature articles from old local newspapers that had not
been seen by many Sherlockians,” Greg said, “and I thought there was a lot of
great talent in the area that could also support the project based on some of
their presentations at other groups.”
The fourth volume of
The Newspapers is due out this summer. learn more about Volume 3 here.
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