tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-40846076865703598072024-03-13T11:17:25.855-07:00Dan Andriacco's Baker Street BeatUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1053125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4084607686570359807.post-10836483099678144392024-03-04T06:58:00.000-08:002024-03-04T06:58:25.514-08:00A Screwball Mystery with a Sherlockian Angle<p><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgikJ4l7hBO2o4LownurbUOR7FuHiBv_oxYvyF_A6N1gbE8yClK7OtB7GGrZHiGG0JUHJWUzcYGksm1LghJ5G22rQ_3IIV6kJTJNGw57EaohJpq-NI-i7ixtKUg9s_RxL1HZ5TDz_1Mq7wrjmrHRV5xynbzVUOo4g9-XPwKMRDCxXf5eTt0epWsK-uFqOU7/s925/Hounds-Cover-web-RGB.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="925" data-original-width="625" height="565" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgikJ4l7hBO2o4LownurbUOR7FuHiBv_oxYvyF_A6N1gbE8yClK7OtB7GGrZHiGG0JUHJWUzcYGksm1LghJ5G22rQ_3IIV6kJTJNGw57EaohJpq-NI-i7ixtKUg9s_RxL1HZ5TDz_1Mq7wrjmrHRV5xynbzVUOo4g9-XPwKMRDCxXf5eTt0epWsK-uFqOU7/w381-h565/Hounds-Cover-web-RGB.jpg" width="381" /></a></span></div><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>The Hounds of the
Hollywood Baskervilles</i>, by Elizabeth Crowns, is a mystery novel set during the
Golden Age of Hollywood. Struggling young private detectives Babs Norman and
Guy Brandt are trying to keep their business alive by unmasking the force
behind the dognapping of Asta from the <i>Thin Man</i> movies and Basil
Rathbone’s cocker spaniel, among other canines.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: #FDFDFD; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Hijinks ensue, not the
least of which is the embarrassment that follows “Sherlock Holmes” losing his
dog. For good reason the book has been compared to Hollywood screwball comedies of the 1930s and
40s. We put the author under the magnifying glass to learn more. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: #FDFDFD; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: #FDFDFD; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><i><span style="font-size: medium;">Q. This book is much different
from your Time Traver Professor trilogy. What prompted you to go in that
direction?</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: #FDFDFD; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Boy, oh boy is it different!
That’s saying it mildly. Obviously, while having Arthur Conan Doyle as one of
the featured characters in the Time Travel Professor series and, by the way,
there will be one more book before that adventure is complete, I read not only
about him and what he wrote in the Sherlockian Canon, but many of his other
books like <i>The Lost World</i>, obvious from the most recent book in that
series, <i>A War in Too Many Worlds</i>. So much of it is a mashup between that
and H.G. Wells’s <i>The Island of Doctor Moreau</i>. Those books, however, are
in the “alternate history” genre which is a subgenre of science fiction and
fantasy.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: #FDFDFD; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: #FDFDFD; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I’ve been veering away from that
direction and into good old-fashioned traditional historical mysteries and
started with contemporaries or inspirations for Doyle, like Poe and Agatha
Christie, but for some reason I couldn’t seem to divorce myself from the humor.
My agent and I got into a debate when it came time to pitch this project to
publishers. She wanted to label my novel as a cozy, and I disagreed. Usually
when I describe a cozy mystery to someone unfamiliar with the term, I say,
“Think of <i>Murder She Wrote</i>.” Cozies might have dead bodies or other
crimes, but there never is a lot of blood or violence and no graphic sex. It’s
always implied or behind closed doors.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: #FDFDFD; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: #FDFDFD; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">When I think of a cozy, it has an
amateur sleuth. It takes place in a quaint small town. It’s a Hallmark mystery
with someone who owns a bakery or works as a librarian. It’s usually a female
who is dating the town’s sheriff, and she has a “talking” cat or dog. Yes, I
know I’m exaggerating about the talking pet, but there are quite a few cozies
where someone might have a magical or psychic cat—but not in my books. As
Sherlock Holmes would say in <i>The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire</i>, “…no
ghosts need apply,” but there are authors who do that, and some do the
paranormal element well. I have a hero dog in my book, but he’s more like a
self-taught search and rescue dog and smarter than the actual K-9 on the police
force.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: #FDFDFD; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: #FDFDFD; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Hounds of the Hollywood
Baskervilles</i>
falls into the subgenre of soft-boiled crime, versus hardboiled noir, because
it involves two professional private eyes in the large city of Los Angeles. They
might be young and inexperienced and sometimes make blunders, but they have
legit licenses and this is the way they make their living. In noir, everyone
seems bad-to-the-bone with a bleak ending. <i>Hounds</i> has a feel-good
ending, and many of the characters will prove themselves worthy of redemption.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: #FDFDFD; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><i><span style="font-size: medium;">Q. Basil
Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, William Powell, and Myrna Loy are among the major characters
in this book, with Errol Flynn and Humphrey Bogart in minor roles. Dashiel
Hammett and Lillian Hellman also appear. How long did you spend researching the
people and the era of this book before you began writing?</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I laugh when
I’m asked to do an author interview and one of the questions is: “Do you have a
hobby, or what do you do in your spare time?” Who has spare time? Writing
historical fiction, which I can’t seem to tear myself away from, takes an
enormous amount of research. The name I go by in my ASH investiture is A
Collector of Obscure Volumes from <i>The Adventure of the Empty House</i>. As
you can imagine, I own a crazy library collection beyond Doyle. Besides a lot
of nonfiction and biographies, I try to read a lot of fiction written in the
time period that my novel is in and, of course, I watch a lot of Turner Classic
Movies. A little less than two years ago, I won a trivia contest at a prominent
mystery convention. Apparently, I was the only one in the entire room who had
read the book version of <i>The Thin Man</i> and knew a specific thing
different in the book than from the movie. I’d tell you, but if you read my
book you’ll find out.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><i><span style="font-size: medium;">Q. Which
came first—the plot or the research? In other words, how much of the storyline
emerged from immersing yourself in that time and place?</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The answer to
that question will surprise you. Obviously, in writing my alternate history
series with Doyle, I had to read the Canon over and over. Besides <i>A Study in
Scarlet</i>, where Holmes meets Watson for the first time, the other stand-out
story for me has always been <i>The Hounds of the Baskervilles</i>. It was also
the first of the fourteen Rathbone-Bruce films. What’s ironic is that both
Rathbone and Doyle had something in common—they hated being typecast. Doyle
wanted to kill off Holmes and write other things. Rathbone wanted to return to
theater and Shakespeare.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">But getting
back to your question, my background is in film production and film history.
One of my best friends, who sadly is no longer with us, used to be an actress
in Hollywood during the forties. She gave me the legal rights to her life
story, but the challenge of putting those adventures into print was she wasn’t
famous. However, she was the type of person who always read mysteries and
watched everything from <i>Murder She Wrote</i> on television to TCM to <i>NCIS</i>
and <i>Law & Order</i>. If she wasn’t watching a mystery on television, she
watched Animal Planet or Nat Geo Wild, because she was a major animal lover. One
day, the lightbulb went off in my head. I told her, “I figured out how to write
your story. We’ll turn you into an actress-turned-PI and you will solve
mysteries. How does that sound?” She loved that idea and gave me her blessing.
She was my inspiration for Babs Norman who would solve celebrity cases. Who
would be her first big client? That’s where my Holmes background came in. During
the forties, Basil Rathbone was synonymous with Sherlock Holmes in Hollywood.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><i><span style="font-size: medium;">Q. From the
title onward, there are a lot of Sherlockian references and Easter eggs in this
book—such as characters named Jefferson Hope and Wiggins—as well as Canonical
quotes. Is it fair to say this book owes a lot to our Baker Street hero?</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Dan, you know
the answer to that. But of course!<i> </i>Also to Basil Rathbone. As a kid, I
grew up in Cincinnati just like you. Having only three network channels on an
analog television set, my only exposure to Holmes was through the old Basil
Rathbone films on Saturday afternoons or late at night. William Gillette? Who
was he? I didn’t luck into Granada Television or Jeremy Brett until much later,
and I had a lot of catching up to do.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><i><span style="font-size: medium;">Q. What’s
next for the B. Norman Agency?</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In the last
chapter of <i>Hounds</i>, the reader discovers that one of the missing dogs
belonged to Humphrey Bogart. He and one of my hero private detectives exchange banter
and business cards. So now, I’ll let you play Sherlock Holmes. If <i>Hounds</i>
takes place and solves the crime towards the end of 1940, in what famous movie does
Humphrey Bogart star which is filmed and released in 1941? That’ll clue you in
to what the next major crime novel is about. Now, I’ll keep my mouth shut and
let you do the sleuthing.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><i><span style="font-size: medium;">Q. What
question haven’t I asked that you want to answer?</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">You might run
out of space. Just kidding.<i> </i>If you want updates, sign up for my free
monthly newsletter at elizabethcrowens.com. Don’t worry, I won’t spam you. Who
has time if you’re writing historical mysteries? Newsletter subscribers also
get inspirational insights and free eBooks of <i>Best of the Caption Contests</i>
based on a popular post I have on Facebook at facebook.com/thereel.elizabeth.crowens.
If you send me a FB request, send me a private message to say you heard about
me through Dan’s blog so I know you’re not a robot. You can also find me on Instagram.com/ElizabethCrowens
and x.com/ECrowens.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4084607686570359807.post-25686020859312574402024-02-14T13:02:00.000-08:002024-02-14T13:02:42.266-08:00A Children Mystery Series Worth Revisiting<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVx4ymbEK1TTNV79uumslkHfyM6D_prTE-4kSSbn-IljZeE73fWls6E-6dm1ouGRWD6f0a0Mo7vyn6G2JGEgpzU3WstcZsUacgdc5twQyAgZx0E2q_ylc0pHr9APD7AMZTtw7l00OUSUMUHvEAjGT5ssm-GmxND-ai4v3ssNnPIJdXQvtwnDJb8QV8_IwW/s279/TalkingSkull.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="279" data-original-width="185" height="415" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVx4ymbEK1TTNV79uumslkHfyM6D_prTE-4kSSbn-IljZeE73fWls6E-6dm1ouGRWD6f0a0Mo7vyn6G2JGEgpzU3WstcZsUacgdc5twQyAgZx0E2q_ylc0pHr9APD7AMZTtw7l00OUSUMUHvEAjGT5ssm-GmxND-ai4v3ssNnPIJdXQvtwnDJb8QV8_IwW/w275-h415/TalkingSkull.jpg" width="275" /></a></div><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">Encountering Christian Monggaard, a Danish Sherlockian, at
Baker Street Irregulars Weekend in New York last month led me to renew my
acquaintance with some old friends—the Three Investigators.</span></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: times;">Christian’s essay on “Sherlock Holmes and the Three
Investigators” in the Autumn 2021 issue of the <span style="font-variant: small-caps;">Baker
Street Journal</span> explores the connection between this children’s mystery
series and Sherlock Holmes. Suffice it to say that those connections were significant
over the 43-year run of the original series, from 1964 to 1987. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: times;">I just happen to own the entire series, a gift of our
daughter who picked them up at a flea market, and I read many of them when I
was young. A couple of weeks ago, I picked up #11, <i>The Mystery of the
Talking Skull</i>, the last book written by the series creator, Robert Arthur,
Jr., and was soon back in the small town of Rocky Beach, California, with
Jupiter Jones, his friends Bob and Pete, and the introducer of their early
adventures—Alfred Hitchcock!<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: times;">It was a delightful book, most of all for me because it
involves a magician’s trunk. And the title of my next McCabe & Cody mystery
novel is <i>The Magician’s Trunk</i>! Aside from that, the tale is full of twists
and turns on its way to a surprising and satisfying solution.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: times;">Then I read series finale #43, <i>The Mystery of Cranky
Collector</i> by M.V. Carey. I found it entertaining, but somehow lacking the
spirit of the Robert Arthur book. The former was a better mystery with
more interesting elements—a magician, a talking skull, the surprise ending.
There were more ingredients in the soup, even though the number of words was
slightly less. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: times;"> “The Robert Arthur
books are the best,” Christian agreed. “He deliberately set out to make a
series for kids that had a certain literary quality—at least compared with
Stratemeyer’s Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys.”<br />
<br />
If you’ve never read the early Three Investigators mysteries, they are well
worth a couple of hours of your time. </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4084607686570359807.post-90326502603828923742024-02-07T08:30:00.000-08:002024-02-07T08:30:09.709-08:00One Year in the Editor's Chair: Reflections<p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhADIS6aMT2vPepba9hRLf67yrMbdBKFBYL75hG48_CgRufZoJg7zvB87SVnf_wFJgBvziHf8ylTpcsvWfRVrJ_nkTZ9tc5Qg4im6-sGzZEHYVxaH9PVDLdtb2DkmN_c3Lz7Cbqt8vUiu5IdJV4NaYskMqJMQIfE2xn2fc7RKez39JZ-GZf_LLmz7H3JFky/s1080/Ann's%20Cover%20with%20Steve.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="798" data-original-width="1080" height="387" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhADIS6aMT2vPepba9hRLf67yrMbdBKFBYL75hG48_CgRufZoJg7zvB87SVnf_wFJgBvziHf8ylTpcsvWfRVrJ_nkTZ9tc5Qg4im6-sGzZEHYVxaH9PVDLdtb2DkmN_c3Lz7Cbqt8vUiu5IdJV4NaYskMqJMQIfE2xn2fc7RKez39JZ-GZf_LLmz7H3JFky/w524-h387/Ann's%20Cover%20with%20Steve.jpg" width="524" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Publisher Steven Doyle with Winter issue; cover by Ann Brauer Andriacco </td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Whew!
I’ve now completed a year as editor of the </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: small-caps; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal;">Baker
Street Journal—</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">four quarterly issues and the </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: small-caps; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal;">Christmas Annual</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">. It continues to be an amazing honor to be
the tenth editor in such a distinguished line from Edgar W. Smith to Steven
Rothman. But what have I learned?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">The writers
have been a dream to deal with, even the ones whose submissions I had to edit significantly
or not use at all. </span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">Comments from readers
indicate they’ve noticed the variety of offerings in each issue, which has been
one of my goals.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">My often-stated
observation that the <b>BSJ</b> is published <i>by </i>the Baker Street
Irregulars but not just <i>for</i> the Baker Street Irregulars is demonstrably
true: Many of the writers and readers are not BSIs. The <span style="font-variant: small-caps;">Journal</span> has always served the entire Sherlockian community. <o:p></o:p></span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">The availability
of good material has not been a problem. After all these years, there are still
new things to say about Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle, the Canon, and the
world they created. <o:p></o:p></span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Being editor of
the <b>BSJ </b>can be very time-consuming but is rewarding in equal measure.<o:p></o:p></span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">And even after
a year, I still occasionally go to the always-helpful editor emeritus Steven
Rothman for advice and information. <o:p></o:p></span></li></ul><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Of
course, production of a quarterly publication is a team effort. Steven Doyle is
publisher; Mike McSwiggin, associate editor; Rich Krisciunas, copy editor; Mark
Gagan, art director; and Ann Lewis, subscription manager. They’ve been a
pleasure to work with.</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4084607686570359807.post-43814313543160773242024-01-24T11:30:00.000-08:002024-01-24T11:30:23.182-08:00Holmes, Doyle, & Friends: Sherlocking in Spring <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhafMQ8dK1X1msaqDrVRXgCOZPDVBTMWSPOBoW9QHXW0bYY-7Abkdg3F-UqNyW9itbOtrqbjd-JLITq0lMzowQYqU85mTf_Kry5z-yDAkKw6C7xABmGw3TrixUkWNt4JBf4F2je4kUXcxlj0Unb2trCHhGkzgEvR4VoWASwLq2uoV_1M8aByIHekqFXuPwn/s2048/Dayton%202023.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhafMQ8dK1X1msaqDrVRXgCOZPDVBTMWSPOBoW9QHXW0bYY-7Abkdg3F-UqNyW9itbOtrqbjd-JLITq0lMzowQYqU85mTf_Kry5z-yDAkKw6C7xABmGw3TrixUkWNt4JBf4F2je4kUXcxlj0Unb2trCHhGkzgEvR4VoWASwLq2uoV_1M8aByIHekqFXuPwn/w566-h424/Dayton%202023.jpg" width="566" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>In a fairly busy Sherlockian life, one of the things I'm happy to make time for is organizing speakers for the annual Holmes, Doyle, & Friends conference in Dayton, OH, each spring. This year's event, the ninth such under that name -- although the "Dayton Symposium" has a history of more than four decades -- takes place March 22-23. And once again we have a great lineup! </p><p>Speakers and their topics: </p><p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Setting Up Camp: How I Build a Scene”—David Harnois, BSI (on how to put together a Holmes radio production)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">“We Love Sherlock, But Would Sherlock Love Us?”—Kira Settingsgaard (on Holmes and intimacy)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">"Playing the Game” —Tim Kline (on collecting Sherlock Holmes games)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a name="_Hlk152503750"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">“I Hear
Sherlockians Everywhere”—</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Madeline Quiñones (on the world of Sherloockian podcasts)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan
Doyle, and </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Liberty</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> Magazine”—Ira Matetsky</span><a name="_Hlk156296885" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">, BSI</a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">“No Ghosts Need Apply”—George
Skornickel, BSI (on ACD and spiritualism)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Becoming a Sherlockian”—Max Magee (on the adventures of a newly minted devotee)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">“ACD: Adventurous Life, Enduring
Memories”—Burt Wolder<a name="_Hlk155504675">, BSI (on t</a><o:p></o:p></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: large;">he life of Arthur Conan Doyle and the lessons it holds for us in making memories)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><a name="_Hlk155504675">There will also be a hilarious playlet called <i>The Mysterious Adventure of the Syntax</i>. </a></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 107%;"><a href="http://www.agratreasurers.net/holmes--doyle----friends--2024.html" name="_Hlk155504675"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: large;"><b>Learn more and sign up at the Holmes, Doyle, & Friends website.</b></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4084607686570359807.post-37975856002203550912024-01-21T10:24:00.000-08:002024-01-21T10:24:03.947-08:0017 Steps to a Solid Sherlockian Library<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ48tCJprRuHxssp3f8KdYgaJ4ermfo9Rxg7WzCNus5nq9BSXeyDAzZO3-UrpbjejaXn2F6fAQNdGKiuUT7A8kvf-8aaTp_2i_UV4Z1jLeIEMwrjjfQjjIne5ebife9zAbMmGZbsa0TC_aspL5EQUAkC5165SGzkpYxTGXlTXpWjRbNDlmggr4KisBgnfE/s806/Canonical%20Cornerstones.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="806" data-original-width="526" height="605" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ48tCJprRuHxssp3f8KdYgaJ4ermfo9Rxg7WzCNus5nq9BSXeyDAzZO3-UrpbjejaXn2F6fAQNdGKiuUT7A8kvf-8aaTp_2i_UV4Z1jLeIEMwrjjfQjjIne5ebife9zAbMmGZbsa0TC_aspL5EQUAkC5165SGzkpYxTGXlTXpWjRbNDlmggr4KisBgnfE/w395-h605/Canonical%20Cornerstones.jpg" width="395" /></a></div><br />Last August on this blog I wrote about what I thought were <a href="https://bakerstreetbeat.blogspot.com/2023/08/a-list-neither-exhaustive-nor-exhausting.html"><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>seven essential books </b></span></a>for every Sherlockian. Now Peter Eckrich and Rob Nunn have gone me ten better with <i>Canonical Cornerstones</i>, a book of essays about 17 books you should own -- like the 17 steps to 221B.<p></p><p>The authors of these essays include some of the greatest living Sherlockians (plus me). None argues that any one book is the <i>only </i>book, just that it's an important one. They give you enough information to know which books you want to buy and in what order. But I warn you, they may also drive you to your bookshelves to revisit a favored classic you already have. </p><p>From the beginning of this blog in May 2011, I have insisted that I have a library and not a collection. All of the canonical cornerstones are in my library, and most of them are books that I have mentioned here and that I consult frequently for research. </p><p>Here's the lineup of books and the authors of the essays about them:</p><p>Vincent Starrett's <i>The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes</i> -- Ray Betzner</p><p>Michael Harrison's <i>In the Footsteps of Sherlock Holmes</i> -- Catherine Cooke</p><p><i>The Baker Street Journal</i> -- Peggy McFarlane</p><p>Leslie S. Klinger's <i>The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes</i> -- Peter E. Blau</p><p>D. Martin Dakin's <i>A Sherlock Holmes Commentary</i> -- Mike McSwiggin</p><p>Nicholas Meyer's <i>The Seven-Per-Cent Solution</i> -- Anastasia Klimchynskaya</p><p>Daniel Stashower's <i>Teller of Tales</i> -- Mark Jones</p><p>Beyond the Canon: Apochrypha et Cetera -- Ross E. Davies</p><p>Jack Tracy's <i>Encyclopaedia Sherlockiana </i>-- Sonia Fetherston</p><p>Ellery Queen's <i>The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes</i> -- Timothy J. Johnson</p><p>S.C. Roberts's <i>Holmes and Watson: A Miscellany</i> -- Roger Johnson</p><p>Mattias <strong style="background-color: #fff9ee; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/mattiasbostrom" style="color: #ff1900;"><span style="color: windowtext; font-weight: normal; text-decoration-line: none;">Boström</span></a></strong>'s <i>From Holmes to Sherlock </i>-- Mark Alberstat</p><p>Steven Doyle's <i>Sherlock Holmes for Dummies</i> -- Regina Stinson</p><p>Ronald Burt De Waal's <i>The World Bibliography of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson</i> -- Ira Brad Matetsky</p><p>The Classic Doubleday Omnibus -- Russell Merritt</p><p>Edgar W. Smith's <i>Profile by Gaslight</i> -- Dan Andriacco</p><p>William S. Baring-Gould's <i>The Annotated Sherlock Holmes</i> - Julie McKuras</p><p><i>Canonical Cornerstones</i> is published by Gasogene Books. You can buy it in all the usual places, and if you happen to pick it up at a Sherlockian conference there's a good chance many of the authors will be standing around you at the time. </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4084607686570359807.post-50692608052845429392024-01-08T07:34:00.000-08:002024-01-08T07:34:12.381-08:00Nero Wolfe Turns 90, But Still Ageless<p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEityclz2PY0CiKuBzf5d9PjQDrAxQQUmuXP43x5gESHYcqUGCj6t6X8ZehvI7_CiDUzu77asJFgdJ_hCjUbrI-VLYFvag1nS-Y_Hy9krFbVxFSLNBgIskQUUnkKf15hRs14JvGFCxC2OxHkVXq0VbbPzhiWnbb733z-IYkGQv7Pp_5ycEIl9XmWVz89Qvjj/s2000/Fer-de-Lance.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2000" data-original-width="1596" height="556" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEityclz2PY0CiKuBzf5d9PjQDrAxQQUmuXP43x5gESHYcqUGCj6t6X8ZehvI7_CiDUzu77asJFgdJ_hCjUbrI-VLYFvag1nS-Y_Hy9krFbVxFSLNBgIskQUUnkKf15hRs14JvGFCxC2OxHkVXq0VbbPzhiWnbb733z-IYkGQv7Pp_5ycEIl9XmWVz89Qvjj/w443-h556/Fer-de-Lance.jpg" width="443" /></a></div>2024 is the 90<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the first Nero Wolfe
novel, <i>Fer-de-Lance</i>, as well as that of the Baker Street Irregulars. In
celebration, I re-read that inaugural adventure of the Corpus for the umpteenth
time since my teenage years. (I was 14 when I wrote Rex Stout a fan letter.)<o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">To an amazing degree, it’s as if the whole W. 35<sup>th</sup>
<i>mise en scène </i>sprang full-bodied from the head of Zeus (or Stout). Much
of what we remember so well from the other novels and novellas is there in the
beginning: Wolfe wiggling his finger, Wolfe pushing his lips in and out as he
solves a case, the daily routine in the plant rooms, the ban on business talk
at meals, Archie prodding Wolfe and Wolfe poking Archie, what Archie calls a “charade”
at the end as the killer is outed. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Many of the usual dramatis personae are also present from
the creation at least in name, including the one who turns out to be the killer
in the final outing, <i>A Family Affair,</i> 41 years later. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">At the same time, there are a few differences. Archie drives
a roadster, and there is no mention of the Herron sedan of the later tales; his friend at the <i>Gazette
</i>is Harry Foster rather than Lon Cohen. Nathaniel Parker, Doc Vollmer, and
Lilly Rowan have not yet made their appearance. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As every Wolfean knows, these stories always reflect the
outside world even though Wolfe and Archie don’t age. It is not “always 1934.” As<i>
Fer-de-Lance</i> begins, Wolfe is testing the newly legal 3.2 beer after the
end of Prohibition and finding that, “So far, none of this is sewage.” <i>A
Family Affair</i> is firmly set in the Watergate era. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p>Speaking of which, I’ll go read that now . . .<br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4084607686570359807.post-46079760539213920302023-12-26T08:38:00.000-08:002023-12-26T08:38:26.210-08:00A Sherlockian Tinge to a Magical Tale<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj24QrsKwM7V1KLcfNf8UClPVZfjf-CJu9YBxyJBQd4M6guj0iRzojQbEmPgTwn1UePOg0grfJTCLDNpGVwA_OXxGq5RLy5953wewS4XZOb_vv6uIKKLxc_fL27mpsOfD2j7T6o9Ok9HjL1t392NlbYt8dC7GuZla7zOSE1x0Z9LFQTajCQzII-VRBKcCFw/s1707/Too%20Many%20Magicians.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1707" data-original-width="1280" height="601" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj24QrsKwM7V1KLcfNf8UClPVZfjf-CJu9YBxyJBQd4M6guj0iRzojQbEmPgTwn1UePOg0grfJTCLDNpGVwA_OXxGq5RLy5953wewS4XZOb_vv6uIKKLxc_fL27mpsOfD2j7T6o9Ok9HjL1t392NlbYt8dC7GuZla7zOSE1x0Z9LFQTajCQzII-VRBKcCFw/w450-h601/Too%20Many%20Magicians.jpg" width="450" /></a></div><p>I'm re-reading my way through Randall Garrett's Lord Darcy books with great enjoyment. </p><p>If you know these three books at all, you know that they take place in an alternate universe in which the Plantagenet kings rule over a globe-spanning Anglo-French empire and the laws of magic have been discovered.</p><p>Lord Darcy is the chief investigator for the His Royal Highness, the Duke of Normandy, brother to King John IV. But in <i>Too Many Magicians</i> - a title reminiscent of three Nero Wolfe novels and one Wolfe novella - he assists his cousin the Marquis of London, who is nothing more or less than Wolfe under another name. Garrett evokes Wolfe wonderfully in speech and mannerism. And his primary associate Lord Bontriomphe is, of course Archie Goodwin.</p><p>All this I remembered from previous readings, along with the fact that Garrett manages to set up seemingly impossible crimes despite the ability of killers to use magic.</p><p>What I didn't remember was the callbacks to Sherlock Holmes.</p><p>In Chapter 10, Lord Darcy proclaims: "Once we have eliminated the impossible, we shall be able to concentrate on the merely improbable." </p><p>In Chapter 18 of <i>Too Many Magicians</i>, we get a play on the curious incident of the dog in the night-time :</p><p></p><blockquote><p>"I should like to call you attention to the peculiar condition of that knife."</p><p>Master Sean frowned. "But . . . there was nothing peculiar about the condition of that knife."</p><p>"Precisely. That was the peculiar condition."</p></blockquote><p></p><p>You don't have to be as Wolfean and/or a Sherlockian to enjoy the Lord Darcy stories, but it adds to the pleasure. </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4084607686570359807.post-89996244502576415072023-12-17T06:59:00.000-08:002023-12-17T06:59:44.299-08:00Passing on the Mystery Novel Obsession <p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkPJNUPYZJeMxd5ofOFs7KoJ9PjvPKmqjTU9_RaLUl8W3pLXqbIZXGU4A9wQEjdWlAfJ71Kp8r9HYd9d1is6yE81ep15OHleEEPxp6VF2s4hyphenhyphenrG1og_OhBRU5UyLcYGWx1r4yRRlVwy0v-6Ezk_ywigyx_04i23RQjFbUJnpQHWUjh011TXw641b1jgd46/s1500/Lucarelli.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="958" height="535" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkPJNUPYZJeMxd5ofOFs7KoJ9PjvPKmqjTU9_RaLUl8W3pLXqbIZXGU4A9wQEjdWlAfJ71Kp8r9HYd9d1is6yE81ep15OHleEEPxp6VF2s4hyphenhyphenrG1og_OhBRU5UyLcYGWx1r4yRRlVwy0v-6Ezk_ywigyx_04i23RQjFbUJnpQHWUjh011TXw641b1jgd46/w341-h535/Lucarelli.jpg" width="341" /></a></div><br />The amazing
Kerstin Staudacher, who is like a daughter to Ann Brauer Andriacco and me, wrote a masters thesis on
the Commissario De Luca crime novels of the Italian writer Carlo Lucarellis. These
half-dozen books are set in Bologna in 1944. Kerstin writes in her abstract that
the author “realizes a mixture of crime novel and historical novel in an outstandingly
sensitive and detailed way.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f8f9fa; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Since Kerstin’s latest degree was granted by Klagenfurt University in Austria—near the small down where she </span><span style="background-color: #f8f9fa; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: #f8f9fa; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">lives—the thesis is, of course, written in German. My German being rather limited (although I did understand the word “Thriller”), I will not be reading all of it. But I was touched by seeing my name at the front of the work. Kerstin wrote (according to Google Translator):</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f8f9fa; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"></span></p><blockquote>I <span style="color: #202124;">would also like to thank Dan Andriacco for our interesting and constructive conversation before the work. That and his crime novels from the <i>Sebastian McCabe - Jeff Cody Series</i> inspired me to do this work. </span></blockquote><span style="color: #202124;"></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f8f9fa; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #202124;">When we visited her this month in Austria, </span></span><span style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202124; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16px;">Kerstin presented me with a copy of the thesis</span><span style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202124; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16px;"> </span><span style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202124; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">along with one of the De Luca novels, <i>L'inverno piu nero</i> (<i>The Darker Winter</i>). Since I can read Italian a bit, I will be dipping into that.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202124; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">I've been reading mysteries almost as long as I've been reading. I'm very pleased that I've passed this obsession along to our "Austrian daughter." Can Sherlock Holmes be far behind?</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4084607686570359807.post-122248261814606862023-11-14T08:18:00.000-08:002023-11-14T08:18:32.969-08:00Crossover: Christie and Conan Doyle<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWwM_q2N-skap8YYUZRXBSndef6BF2IAmO6DnXMI4FFY6XbDO4Z1slIdu608rw7JIaCNmSa-c1FKIj9FFcTR8KmRMhLF9oEDo9wIStzs90F_cOHX1Ov7k7hQcCanLzp-OIub5tALUMCevgWgojZY-LcjOQO60aanK3KqNoDfbn9gS2_1GZ4TmxtLSjKevt/s275/Agatha%20cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="275" data-original-width="183" height="466" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWwM_q2N-skap8YYUZRXBSndef6BF2IAmO6DnXMI4FFY6XbDO4Z1slIdu608rw7JIaCNmSa-c1FKIj9FFcTR8KmRMhLF9oEDo9wIStzs90F_cOHX1Ov7k7hQcCanLzp-OIub5tALUMCevgWgojZY-LcjOQO60aanK3KqNoDfbn9gS2_1GZ4TmxtLSjKevt/w310-h466/Agatha%20cover.jpg" width="310" /></a></div><p style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><span style="font-size: large;">We may not think about it much, but the careers of Agatha
Christie and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle overlapped significantly. By the time the
Canon closed out in 1927, Christie had published eight books, including the
classic <i>Murder of Roger Ackroyd</i>.</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">Christie mentions Sherlock Holmes (“the one and only—I
should never be able to emulate <i>him</i>”) in her autobiography when
describing her creation of Hercule Poirot. And when Christie disappeared in
1926, ACD was one of those quoted in press accounts speculating on her fate.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">It was no big surprise, therefore, that in recently reading Dame
Agatha’s 1931 uninspiringly named novel <i>The Sittaford Mystery </i>it was
easy to spot echoes of <i>The Hound of the Baskervilles</i>. The story takes
place Dartmoor, with a Tor and moorland, and there is an escaped convict.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">There’s also a séance (like the Rathbone <i>Hound</i> later,
but that was a coincidence). And in Chapter 11, journalist Charles Enderly says
of the table-turning event: “I’m thinking of writing that up for the paper. Get
opinions from Sir Oliver Lodge and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and a few actresses
and people about it.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><o:p> </o:p>ACD died in 1930, the year before the book was published, so
probably the story took place slightly earlier. Or perhaps Enderly had in mind another
séance. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4084607686570359807.post-38678278324012217332023-11-08T12:58:00.000-08:002023-11-08T12:58:54.486-08:00And The Game Goes On <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv6U_xGE9IbdLpfdTgaAgY5FgdgHurdX133gPZmAGTeYZII6GIQCU9QCisXZSyrdN9Z3xyzY8mBgS05ZNiZl5cxNa4Wx_S3AFXn14rFiUwHWY_3soowBUSSJb77oJQk2Q3HeFtoMf3a81G_-zySWkNxemsIdSX_9Cox4gARAeJB3Ho9CEv5DIXwJI5uY9N/s225/Moriarty%20cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="150" height="361" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv6U_xGE9IbdLpfdTgaAgY5FgdgHurdX133gPZmAGTeYZII6GIQCU9QCisXZSyrdN9Z3xyzY8mBgS05ZNiZl5cxNa4Wx_S3AFXn14rFiUwHWY_3soowBUSSJb77oJQk2Q3HeFtoMf3a81G_-zySWkNxemsIdSX_9Cox4gARAeJB3Ho9CEv5DIXwJI5uY9N/w240-h361/Moriarty%20cover.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>“Sadly, the Great Game is over,” the late David L. Hammer
wrote in a 1995 essay. He thought the Sherlockian golden age and silver age were
past and that “too much has been written by too many for too few for too long.”<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Was ever a man so wrong?</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As editor of the <span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: small-caps; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal;">Baker
Street Journal</span>, it’s my joy to edit many wonderful contributions to the
body of Sherlockian scholarship still being produced, as well as side forays
into Arthur Conan Doyle and other related topics.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In the recently published Autumn issue, for example, you
will find:</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -0.25in;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><span dir="LTR" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"></span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">An exploration of how much
Sherlock Holmes really knew about the law in </span><i style="text-indent: -0.25in;">The Adventures</i><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">, written by
first-class lawyer and scholar.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -0.25in;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span dir="LTR" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"></span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">“The Great Moriarty
Deception,” for which the world is finally prepared.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -0.25in;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><span dir="LTR" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"></span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">A look at what happened to two
characters in “Black Peter” who seem to disappear from the story.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -0.25in;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><span dir="LTR" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"></span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Proof—maybe—that snakes do
drink milk, as in “The Speckled Band.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -0.25in;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><span dir="LTR" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"></span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">A look at science and Sherlock
Holmes, written by a scientist.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -0.25in;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><span dir="LTR" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"></span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">The </span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">many meanings of guns in “The </span><i style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Gloria Scott</i><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">.”
</span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span> <br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">(These examples of traditional scholarship are in addition
to an essay about a once-popular silent movie about Sherlock wannabe, a survey
of Holmes parodies and pastiches, and examination of when each canonical tale
of written.)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>No, the Great Game is far from over, almost three decades
after Mr. Hammer pronounced it so.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4084607686570359807.post-31978014183715705732023-10-17T11:23:00.004-07:002023-10-18T09:48:42.304-07:00The Worst Pastiche You Ever Read? <p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqEwc57HmCHan9lQveONksMdotlJfHGDxEHOWf86mMccQqhtpWUebSMI-NbhqzY87mjtnaxuXfYuxvrsl9PGG02JiteCnF3PmUBtEbvY08IGu7lF6Qm0DAUQHk3tq9h0hrQRk89YVYwelOCXi5HfoFqt7auYPLxuw-wRMrAN_SXfALJhdgp4ObhFgJkUsA/s466/Holmes%20in%20Dallas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="466" data-original-width="329" height="598" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqEwc57HmCHan9lQveONksMdotlJfHGDxEHOWf86mMccQqhtpWUebSMI-NbhqzY87mjtnaxuXfYuxvrsl9PGG02JiteCnF3PmUBtEbvY08IGu7lF6Qm0DAUQHk3tq9h0hrQRk89YVYwelOCXi5HfoFqt7auYPLxuw-wRMrAN_SXfALJhdgp4ObhFgJkUsA/w422-h598/Holmes%20in%20Dallas.jpg" width="422" /></a></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">One of my favorite Sherlockians (I have many) recently described
1980’s <i>Sherlock Holmes in Dallas</i>, later rebranded as <i>The Case of the
Murdered President</i>, as “the worst (Holmes) pastiche ever written.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">That’s a very bold statement, considering that there is so
much competition for the honor.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I reviewed that book for the late lamented <i>Cincinnati
Post </i>when it was published, back when I was a business news reporter for
the paper and writing a monthly mystery review column. I’ve not been able to find
that review, so I don’t remember what I thought about it.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">To be fair, <i>Sherlock Holmes in Dallas</i> isn’t really a
pastiche, or an attempt at one. By that I mean the author didn’t try to produce
an imitation of the original, a book that could have been a previously unpublished
canonical story taking place during the canonical period. Rather, he put Holmes
and Watson in what was then president-day America with no explanation. Holmes is
just really a device for the author presenting his theories about the Kennedy
assassination.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">But there are other stories, hundreds of them, where the
authors do attempt to mimic the original and fail at the most basic level—novels
that are too long, have uncanonical title formulas, or simply don’t get close
to the Watson voice. Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but it is
also damned near impossible.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Writing is work, and I don’t want to belittle anyone’s efforts
at it, so I won’t ask what you think was the worst pastiche you ever read. But it
might be an interesting question to ask yourself.</span></p><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4084607686570359807.post-80729216107425300692023-10-03T08:06:00.001-07:002023-10-03T08:08:28.597-07:00With Starrett in Chicago<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1hAmuFMD00WG_v84iO47KnluYU6sNQu2K62NOq8KDhPo8mhtEQk4X57RUw53N5RQxLUibcDDDPml3TWgfWVmcfeTUwv7oXm8ToZP4uKQKkb4Jdlc3OVuz5w2u4gKBaqgXmtsPO2TlqqKR7fCobAgvhLjPsrfkGIg1qI6bUkxwIkFFlaxYskhG7CGtm9Jb/s7389/Grave%20marker%20-%20Starrett.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4887" data-original-width="7389" height="309" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1hAmuFMD00WG_v84iO47KnluYU6sNQu2K62NOq8KDhPo8mhtEQk4X57RUw53N5RQxLUibcDDDPml3TWgfWVmcfeTUwv7oXm8ToZP4uKQKkb4Jdlc3OVuz5w2u4gKBaqgXmtsPO2TlqqKR7fCobAgvhLjPsrfkGIg1qI6bUkxwIkFFlaxYskhG7CGtm9Jb/w466-h309/Grave%20marker%20-%20Starrett.jpg" width="466" /></a></div><br /><p>Last week we went to Graceland—not the Elvis mansion, but
the cemetery in Chicago where Sherlockian giant Vincent Starrett is buried.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The monument marking his grave was erected in1986, paid for
out of love by his friends (many of whom never knew him in life.) Ray Betzner
tells the story on his <a href="http://www.vincentstarrett.com/blog/2017/11/1/going-to-graceland" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: large;"><i>Studies in Starrett</i> blog</span></b></a>.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We were in Chicago from Wednesday through Saturday attend
meetings of the Torists International and of the Hounds of the Baskerville
(sic). Starrett, a co-founder of the Hounds, always considered it the Chicago chapter
of the Baker Street Irregulars.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As editor of the <span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: small-caps; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal;">Baker
Street Journal</span>, I made a few comments at the 80<sup>th</sup> annual Hounds
dinner about the connections between Chicago and the <b>BSJ</b>. The <span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: small-caps; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal;">Journal </span>was born in New York in the mind
of Edgar W. Smith. But from the inaugural issue of the Old Series in January 1946,
it has always had strong connections to Chicago and to the Hounds. Starrett and
Hounds member Jay Finley Christ contributed to Volume 1, Number 1 of that “Irregular
Quarterly of Sherlockiana.” Its publisher was legendary Chicago and New York bookman
Ben Abramson, also a Hound. And a note on page 96 seemed apologetic that “Commentary
from The Hounds of the Baskerville of Chicago had not been received at the time
of going to press.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It was good for Ann and me to spend time in Chicago with our
Sherlockian friends—living and dead.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As Ray notes, one of the other famous people buried at
Graceland is the legendary detective Alan Pinkerton, who—although already in
that grave—kind of hangs over <i>The Valley of Fear</i>.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4084607686570359807.post-60141399613727131022023-09-20T10:57:00.002-07:002023-09-20T10:57:42.017-07:00Second Most Dangerous, But Not Famous<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio8Gzs94KZGawXf4-AhPlxsgeZN_0DK3BziYbTmU0O8G4uvymK-9vM5CfbmiDLwKZe-L0koz0wmliq-dv0as4R0AF2-yPytM7KvtDzVTkijEFe_ytKBHlz7KUlnwxb6Vuod0c8nLjAlRFqfcJ1Z8qQDGecMowPmLsKPhWpHDmVjQQyqQBtA8-4PE11qrAC/s310/Moran.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="310" data-original-width="300" height="459" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio8Gzs94KZGawXf4-AhPlxsgeZN_0DK3BziYbTmU0O8G4uvymK-9vM5CfbmiDLwKZe-L0koz0wmliq-dv0as4R0AF2-yPytM7KvtDzVTkijEFe_ytKBHlz7KUlnwxb6Vuod0c8nLjAlRFqfcJ1Z8qQDGecMowPmLsKPhWpHDmVjQQyqQBtA8-4PE11qrAC/w444-h459/Moran.jpg" width="444" /></a></div><br />Let’s talk about Col. Sebastian Moran.<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I don’t mean that rabbit hole of how he managed to escape
the gallows so that he was still alive in 1914. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">No, I’m wondering why he isn’t better known to the world at
large. After all, Professor Moriarty’s chief of staff was “the second most dangerous
man in London.” (He was also a member of the Tankerville Club, which is why the
#2 officer of the Tankerville Club of Cincinnati has the title “Second Most
Dangerous.”)</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Kristen Mertz gave a fine talk on the Colonel—one of many
evil Colonels in the Canon, by the way—at the “Holmes in the Heartland: Arch
Enemies” conference in July. She teased out a rather full portrait of the old
shikari from deductions and speculations.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But Moran is “as famous to Sherlockians as he is unknown to
the public,” as Watson might say with “a certain unexpected vein of pawky humour.”
It’s not that he hasn’t appeared in a lot of adaptations. The character appears
in Rathbone’s <i>Terror by Night</i>, three Arthur Wontner films, Brett’s <i>The
Empty House</i>, and Robert Downey Jr.’s <i>Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows</i>.
Alternate versions appear in anime’s <i>Moriarty the Patriot</i>, in <i>The
Empty Hearse</i> episode of “BBC Sherlock,” in “Elementary,” and on and on.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So why isn’t he better known to the world at large? That’s a
three-pipe problem!</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4084607686570359807.post-9184687229997740202023-09-11T08:11:00.002-07:002023-09-11T08:11:32.685-07:00An Interview with a Mystery Writer I Know <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZVpTA9kVi2uY-wDF5Fu3ZoQFyOtJ2J0Dr30Z-Z7m1FzCZaMYAvExtan0iKQ_SYq4cFmnnGCITQ626diUViPZ3fPLDVa2unqJ478rciiee486zsi-VlVFPWsT3KdDxUg9VsY5xOUuDMlyJnVNDmdboOckj5k44pGm_UZWOjT7pQti8HXS1BwJ9zcGjYEsA/s2048/Macmobile.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="387" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZVpTA9kVi2uY-wDF5Fu3ZoQFyOtJ2J0Dr30Z-Z7m1FzCZaMYAvExtan0iKQ_SYq4cFmnnGCITQ626diUViPZ3fPLDVa2unqJ478rciiee486zsi-VlVFPWsT3KdDxUg9VsY5xOUuDMlyJnVNDmdboOckj5k44pGm_UZWOjT7pQti8HXS1BwJ9zcGjYEsA/w516-h387/Macmobile.jpg" width="516" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I like to think this is Sebastian McCabe's car </td></tr></tbody></table><p>My new book, <i>The Woman in Red</i>—now available for
purchase but also the subject of a Kickstarter campaign—is the 12<sup>th</sup>
novel and the 14<sup>th</sup> book overall in the McCabe & Cody series, with
#15 now in the hands of my first reader. This seems to me a good time to interview
the author. Some of the questions are ones that I’ve been asked since <i>No
Police Like Holmes</i> appeared in 2011.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><i>Is Sebastian McCabe a pastiche of Nero Wolfe?</i></b><i>
</i>No. Can you imagine Wolfe smoking cigars, driving a red 1959 Chevy with
tail fins, or performing magic? They mainly share corpulence and a propensity
for multisyllabic vocabulary. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><i>Are you Jeff Cody?</i></b> No. No matter what my wife said. (“Yeah you
are; you’re just like that.”) Jeff has a habit of making sarcastic comments in
italics and I have no idea where they come from. (Although somebody did once
say I have a “wicked sense of humor.”) When I re-read the books, Jeff’s italic
comments<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>make me laugh out loud and
think “I have no idea where that came from.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><i>What are your biggest writing inspirations?</i> </b>Sherlock
Holmes, all the great Golden Age writers (especially Ellery Queen, Agatha
Christie, and John Dickson Carr), and the <i>Wall Street Journal</i>.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><i>The </i>Wall Street Journal<i>? Really???</i></b> Really.
I’m constantly finding characters and situations there that are ripe for redeploying
in mystery fiction.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><i>Where does Erin, Ohio, the location of most Mac and
Jeff’s adventures, come from?</i></b> I really feel that it exists in some
alternate universe, just as my characters do. Although it’s located about where
you will find Ripley, Ohio, it’s not based on Ripley or any one small town. The
map of downtown Erin that appears in <i>No Ghosts Need Apply</i> is based on a
small river town not in Ohio, with all the street names changed. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><i>What about the name? </i></b>Erin is named for our
daughter-in-law, Erin Dwyer Andriacco. The town had a different name when I
first wrote <i>No Police</i> about 20 years before it was published. So did St.
Benignus University.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><i>About St. Benignus, which employs Mac and Jeff—where did
that come from?</i></b> I have no idea. But I had to create it and people it
with all sorts of professors and administrators. I’ve never attended or worked
at a small Catholic college, so I’m thrilled when people tell me how true-to-life
it is.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><i>What about the name of the institution?</i></b><i> </i>Well,
that’s interesting because there’s a coincidence attached to it—if is it a coincidence.
SBU, then St. Benignus College, appears from the very first book. Sometime later,
I decided that Sebastian McCabe’s birthday is November 9 because that was the
publication date of <i>No Police Like Holmes</i> (and the birthday of a fellow
writer who shares my birth year). Only later did I learn, to my astonishment,
that November 9 is also the feast day of St. Benignus of Armagh, for whom SBU is
named!</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><i>Your newest mystery, </i>The Woman in Red,<i> is about
a comic convention. How did you get the idea for the book?</i></b><i> </i>I
started with the title, then I had to figure out who the woman in red was. The
murder motive in this book is unique, so far as I know, and I’ve had it in mind
for about a decade waiting for the right story to fit it into. I think I found
it. Reading the book during the editing process, I was very satisfied with it.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>Dear Readers: If you enjoy this blog and my writing, please
support my Kickstarter for <a href=" https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mccabeandcody/the-woman-in-red?fbclid=IwAR3D7JWP2AuilTZBdPEg1CkL7zSXR82bHXa0KbzqwsrHEqKEvntcMOnA294 " target="_blank"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: large;">The Woman in Red </span></a></i>by following this link. </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4084607686570359807.post-24560421658844198362023-08-28T09:14:00.000-07:002023-08-28T09:14:16.170-07:00A List, Neither Exhaustive Nor Exhausting <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDjCM7jgHUVUWpfH9BAc130kJpK0S8PLTn9yALay8yN_TYlMAlLysHQlkii8A0F4_L5iCqmapP3IGn2V6uG5Z0w0nvP4Ou7SalmGdudDeldUnWn6dH1pk_pys6ipdUSukpfqOXlp_tGN0sjn6wFb0kJEsbTIQIBSJQc9Dt-5VxenkdMRwOUmy90tFhxyDL/s795/Profile%20by%20Gaslight%202nd%20copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="795" data-original-width="720" height="477" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDjCM7jgHUVUWpfH9BAc130kJpK0S8PLTn9yALay8yN_TYlMAlLysHQlkii8A0F4_L5iCqmapP3IGn2V6uG5Z0w0nvP4Ou7SalmGdudDeldUnWn6dH1pk_pys6ipdUSukpfqOXlp_tGN0sjn6wFb0kJEsbTIQIBSJQc9Dt-5VxenkdMRwOUmy90tFhxyDL/w432-h477/Profile%20by%20Gaslight%202nd%20copy.jpg" width="432" /></a></div><br />The great collector and Sherlockian evangelist John Bennett
Shaw was known, among many other things, for creating his Basic Holmes Library—commonly
called the Shaw 100. But he really couldn’t keep it to just 100.<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Not long ago, a budding Sherlockian asked me for a key list
of a dozen or so books. How could I do that when Shaw’s “basic” list was more
than 100? The answer is that my purpose is not to cover the field. My roster of seven books is designed to plunge the neophyte very quickly
into the Sherlockian world, particularly the earliest players and their writings. I can almost guarantee that some of your favorites aren’t
on it.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Here we go: </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>From Holmes to Sherlock</i> by Mattias Boström—an amazing history of
the Sherlockian world from Conan Doyle to Cumberbatch</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes</i> by Vincent
Starrett—the first and best biography of Sherlock Holmes</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>Studies in 221B: Studies in Sherlock Holmes</i>, edited
by Vincent Starrett—the first BSI anthology of Writings About the Writings</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>Profile by Gaslight</i>, edited by Edgar W. Smith—the
best (I think), BSI anthology of Writings About the Writings</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="background: white; color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The Standard Doyle Company,</span></i><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"> edited by Steve Rothman—a
compendium of Christopher Morley’s writings about Sherlock Holmes</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>“A Remarkable Mixture,”</i> edited by Steven Rothman—an
anthology of award-winning essays in the BSJ from 1959 to 2007</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes</i>, by Leslie
Klinger—invaluable as a quick reference to major commentaries on issues raised
in each story </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4084607686570359807.post-41819135278936929122023-08-10T10:46:00.000-07:002023-08-10T10:46:25.166-07:00Back in Time with Professor Challenger<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHQ0mVi53mKMzz34RhSR0XzAYtBn4Lj7afp8f2JZrFDKOpcRtH7k62gukv6gmCf_Sp9L1wjEL7HM1v2vG5IGTRUSzyfUARNsFIIFGvro7dEeHXRGzpqZVdW5wHXW7EhrYNeRN4hT1zx1_uifQl1Hu10IwNocEV69_-XsPxIQ3m9BjORLVU8qU8kX5Q7uXa/s2537/Poisoned%20Belt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2537" data-original-width="1655" height="680" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHQ0mVi53mKMzz34RhSR0XzAYtBn4Lj7afp8f2JZrFDKOpcRtH7k62gukv6gmCf_Sp9L1wjEL7HM1v2vG5IGTRUSzyfUARNsFIIFGvro7dEeHXRGzpqZVdW5wHXW7EhrYNeRN4hT1zx1_uifQl1Hu10IwNocEV69_-XsPxIQ3m9BjORLVU8qU8kX5Q7uXa/w444-h680/Poisoned%20Belt.jpg" width="444" /></a></div><br />When last we met, dear readers, I wrote about <i>“Dear
Starrett—”/“Dear Briggs—”</i> as a sort of time machine that allowed us to look
at <i>The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes</i> in the making. There’s another
kind of book that can be a time machine.<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I’m thinking of those volumes that we encountered as youths
and reread as adults, not just in any edition but in the very edition that
introduced us to the works. I’ve acquired, for example, the editions of <i>The
Boys’ Sherlock Holmes</i>, <i>Profile by Gaslight</i>, and <i>The Private Life</i>
that I originally borrowed from the public library as a preteen. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And last month, at the excellent Holmes in the Heartland conference
in St. Louis, John Alexander of Books on the Square in Virden, Ill., kindly traded
me one of my Sebastian McCabe – Jeff Cody mysteries for the edition of <i>The
Poisoned Belt</i> that I first read in a library copy. (In fact, this one was
also an ex-lib). It’s the 1964 McMillan version, with an introduction by John
Dickson Carr.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Most of my casual reading is on my tablet but reading the
second Professor Challenger in this familiar form, so wonderfully illustrated by
William Péne
Dubois, was a delightful trip back in time. And, by the way, it's still a roaring good story! </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4084607686570359807.post-62817931180105830632023-08-02T12:11:00.000-07:002023-08-02T12:11:33.667-07:00Into a Sherlockian Time Machine<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCcUi5xymXBlF_UUIgJrUdBXt_4hvSpMn-im1pR-y2UOeULfkhWgaMSKJuMQ25PfaUp3CxrDDBLvyJcejM7Brd7AlOXK8TmzhB--urvODzpx9U-sfIugP03Oh6DLxPV9OoCeVLGUTx2MoTuzkdgMHMB8jV-TJolAVIz-be4XFbmhmy9iWyXSzM-A1MNkZd/s1280/Dear%20Starrett.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="734" height="560" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCcUi5xymXBlF_UUIgJrUdBXt_4hvSpMn-im1pR-y2UOeULfkhWgaMSKJuMQ25PfaUp3CxrDDBLvyJcejM7Brd7AlOXK8TmzhB--urvODzpx9U-sfIugP03Oh6DLxPV9OoCeVLGUTx2MoTuzkdgMHMB8jV-TJolAVIz-be4XFbmhmy9iWyXSzM-A1MNkZd/w322-h560/Dear%20Starrett.jpg" width="322" /></a></div><br />Sometimes watching the sausage made can be fascinating. <i>“Dear
Starrett—”/“Dear Briggs—,” </i>edited by John Nieminski and Jon L. Lellenberg,<i>
</i>affords that opportunity.<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This first volume in the BSI Archival History Series,
published in 1989, is a series of letters between Old Irregulars Vincent Starrett
of Chicago and Dr. Gray Chandler Briggs of St. Louis. The correspondence begins
with Briggs writing to Starrett on March 30, 1930 about Starrett’s “proposed
book on Sherlock Holmes, William Gillette, Conan Doyle, et al.” Soon they were
sending each other books and artwork.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">That “proposed book” was published in 1933 as <i>The Private
Life of Sherlock Holmes</i>, a Sherlockian classic dedicated to Briggs along
with the actor William Gillette and the artist Frederic Door Steele. But the
Briggs-Starrett correspondence shows that the concept of the book changed a lot
along the way. The profuse illustrations that Starrett envisioned didn’t make
it, but the map of Baker Street by Dr. Briggs (who identified 111 Baker Street
as the true address) did.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Reading these letters is like stepping into a time machine
as Starrett’s project unfolds. We know what will become of it —what it will be
and how important—but he doesn’t.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And then there’s this: On Nov. 20, 1933, Starrett wrote to
Briggs, “We must really organize an international Holmes society. We could meet
at irregular intervals and call ourselves the Baker Street Irregulars.” That
passage evoked this charming reflection from Jon Lellenberg:</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“There we have it! Vincent Starrett’s suggestion of founding
a Sherlockian society called the Baker Street Irregulars—made apparently with
no inkling at all of Morleyesque stirrings in New York, which were still contained
within the unreported gatherings of Morley’s Three Hours for Lunch Club and the
Grillparzer Sittenpolizei—though that was about to change, after the Duane
Hotel gathering which Morley called for Holmes’s birthday on January 6, 1934.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Lellenberg then lays out a charming “critical mass” theory about
the birth of the BSI: “that it had to happen somewhere about that point in
time, and that if Morley had not done it, then Starrett, Briggs, Bell and
others of their circle would have.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And 90 years later, the Sherlockian world is still a very
lively place to be.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4084607686570359807.post-68410701853720402582023-07-26T12:05:00.001-07:002023-07-26T12:05:32.247-07:00In the Footsteps of Sir Arthur in Cincinnati <p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkZ0XtxcuZlB0OeIsPmpBoc9KTynVRE_ium94lc7BqnJSx-g1SMolYFmdoHMOVqyaECzOaNSHp5AHuxP4KMsuZMwhegg_Ri2b8pN524ZQHst4ROmSiHiQ-0cUOSe4TsyIexmmtwuZV7kMxJzhmtg5jD7P2aKDSvjMtZBoKyI27dnMGCCeCe57uh6eu5nr_/s3316/ACD_tour_photo4.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3316" data-original-width="2183" height="559" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkZ0XtxcuZlB0OeIsPmpBoc9KTynVRE_ium94lc7BqnJSx-g1SMolYFmdoHMOVqyaECzOaNSHp5AHuxP4KMsuZMwhegg_Ri2b8pN524ZQHst4ROmSiHiQ-0cUOSe4TsyIexmmtwuZV7kMxJzhmtg5jD7P2aKDSvjMtZBoKyI27dnMGCCeCe57uh6eu5nr_/w369-h559/ACD_tour_photo4.png" width="369" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Cincinnati Art Museum -- not quite as ACD saw it!</td></tr></tbody></table><br />Sherlockian societies each have their own distinctive vibe,
but they also play well together. Last month, for example, 26 members of four
Midwest scions came together for an Arthur Conan Doyle Tour of Cincinnati.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Ann Brauer Andriacco, Sparking Plug of the Tankerville Club
of Cincinnati, led us to sites that were either visited by ACD on his 1894 lecture tour
of the United States (which also included Indianapolis) or had some other
connection to Conan Doyle.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Before lunch, the group visited by turns the Harriet Beecher
Stowe House for a guided tour of the home now under renovation (which ACD
“looked at with interest” when he was in the neighborhood) and a nearby school
where Maria Longworth Storer, the founder of Rookwood Pottery, kept an
apartment. (ACD wanted to visit the Rookwood factory but was unable.) Ann also
led a walking tour of one of the nicest
streets in the Walnut Hills neighborhood, which ACD probably saw.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">After a convivial lunch at Skyline Chili, where tables were arranged
for us by management to make conversation easy, we drove through Eden Park,
where many of us stopped at the overlook to enjoy the view that Conan Doyle
proclaimed to be “the finest he has seen in America.” (All quotes come from a
contemporary newspaper account of ACD's visit.)</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Then it was on to the Cincinnati Art Museum, “the subject of
much admiring comment on his (ACD’s) part.” Ann showed us, in person and via an
Art Museum map, where the entrance was in 1894, before the building was added
to. Her handouts and the map also called attention to some of the artwork that
was part of the Art Museum collection in 1894. We also found a few more by
exploring!</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">One of the highlights of the Art Museum for many of us was
the large Rookwood gallery, which also told much of the story of Maria
Longworth Storer. She was an entrepreneur who built a highly successful
business on female artists.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">There is also a Gallery 221 at the Art Museum—but it is just
a hallway!</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The field trip was organized by the Tankerville Club and
co-sponsored by the Illustrious Clients of Indianapolis and the Agra Treasurers
of Dayton, with participation by the Ribston Pippins of Michigan. (Ann and I are members of all four scions.) It was a
follow-up to a similar ACD excursion by the Clients in Indianapolis some years
ago.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4084607686570359807.post-90290619097210074192023-06-28T08:26:00.003-07:002023-06-28T08:27:35.671-07:00The Porlock Question Revisited <p><span style="letter-spacing: -0.23px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU9CEHBq-Phx5oBCno7bIGflx3PWz2m7Fosihspo6clxwmrVz0_33GZ0J9vqy5452BV11mtxHp4oJQRfNnFilR7inzUQFNfSs57oYcqiQJhd_-dKv4ewnY4eeUkmNPPpwRhihZ2mGBK4pvwIXQkPoDkDpeRxYaQzJj6dAi2HglW7Y3oruo3BFz9AjHQBU-/s3682/Porlock.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3682" data-original-width="2540" height="565" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU9CEHBq-Phx5oBCno7bIGflx3PWz2m7Fosihspo6clxwmrVz0_33GZ0J9vqy5452BV11mtxHp4oJQRfNnFilR7inzUQFNfSs57oYcqiQJhd_-dKv4ewnY4eeUkmNPPpwRhihZ2mGBK4pvwIXQkPoDkDpeRxYaQzJj6dAi2HglW7Y3oruo3BFz9AjHQBU-/w390-h565/Porlock.jpg" width="390" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="letter-spacing: -0.23px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><i>My Swiss friend Vincent Delay sent me a brilliant letter in response to my May 16 blog post <a href="https://bakerstreetbeat.blogspot.com/2023/05/who-then-is-porlock.html"><b><span style="color: #cc0000;">"Who, then, is Porlock?"</span></b></a> in which he attempted to answer the question posed in the title. It's worth posting here in full. </i></span></span></p><p><span style="letter-spacing: -0.23px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">Dear Dan,</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="letter-spacing: -0.23px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large; letter-spacing: -0.23px;">I just read your news about “Porlock” on</span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large; letter-spacing: -0.23px;"> </span><a href="http://bakerstreetbeat.blogspot.com/" rel="noopener" style="font-family: times; font-size: large; letter-spacing: -0.23px; word-break: break-word;" target="_blank">http://bakerstreetbeat.blogspot.com/</a><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large; letter-spacing: -0.23px;"> </span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large; letter-spacing: -0.23px;">. I also had the pleasure to get</span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large; letter-spacing: -0.23px;"> </span><i style="font-family: times; font-size: large; letter-spacing: -0.23px;">The Adventure of the Murder on the Calais Coach</i><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large; letter-spacing: -0.23px;"> </span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large; letter-spacing: -0.23px;">and I began to read it.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="letter-spacing: -0.23px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="letter-spacing: -0.23px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">Using the Master’s own methods in my Watsonian way, I reached the following conclusions regarding the identity of “Porlock”.</span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large; letter-spacing: -0.23px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="letter-spacing: -0.23px; margin: 0cm;"></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">The author’s Mother Language is not English nor French. He/she may be from the far south-east (e.g. Japan), as at least once an “r” is substituted for an “l”.</span> </li></ul><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="letter-spacing: -0.23px; margin: 0cm;"></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"> The way the book is made (fine binding, dust-jacket) and the way it is very nicely parcelled (many wraps, additional gift) tend to confirm a far south-eastern provenance, as it is a custom there to wrap things nicely and to add small gifts.</span> </li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">The author has an extensive knowledge of the Canon, but doesn’t peruse the “Writings about the “Writings”. From this and from the general feeling of it all (the overall generosity and spontaneousness), I gather we have here somebody who is quite young and has just discovered the Canon, without subscribing (yet) to one of the major Sherlockian publications nor collecting Sherlockian scholarship. The result is something very refreshing – I’m not averse to it.</span> </li></ul><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="letter-spacing: -0.23px; margin: 0cm;"></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">Though probably still quite young, for the aforementioned reasons, the author must be old enough to self-edit and send the books. Therefore he/she must be working already and get a salary to meet the expenses (the book is quite well made, by the way – more than some other more “mature” sherlockian publications…) – or, alternatively, he/she must be from an affluent background. I would say he/she is 18 to 25 years old – not over 30 anyway.</span> </li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">The author has no knowledge of railway history (see the typical “Far West” engine on the cover : nothing to do with the Orient Express).</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">The author has little knowledge of the English way of life at the end of the 19<sup>th</sup> century and the beginning of the 20<sup>th</sup> century (e.g. that Watson should have met Princess Dragomiroff at a party…).</span> </li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">- The author used a UK-based firm to (print and) send the copies : he/she may have contacts in the UK or even live there. In this case, it could be somebody used to speaking English, mostly with other foreigners, as a pure communication language, but not used to writing it : e.g. a student or somebody working for an international firm. But I doubt that he/she is in touch with English-speaking people, as there has clearly been no proof reading nor any editing of the text, which is purely spontaneous. The contacts mentioned in the foreword (e.g. the railway museum) can have been made through e-mail or Internet anyway.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"> I suspect a feminine touch in the whole process (the occasional sentimentality in the writing, the delicate way everything has been made), in other words : “Porlock is a woman” - but I may err on this point.</span></li></ul><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="letter-spacing: -0.23px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large; letter-spacing: -0.23px;">Of course, it will come out in the end that “Porlock” is a retired physician, male, aged 90 and living in the Surrey countryside among his bloodhounds…</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="letter-spacing: -0.23px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="letter-spacing: -0.23px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">Best regards,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="letter-spacing: -0.23px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="letter-spacing: -0.23px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">Vincent</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4084607686570359807.post-5326898643109246932023-06-22T05:24:00.003-07:002023-06-22T05:24:41.888-07:00The (Baker Street) Beat Goes On<p><i><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiWM584eV0Rrq0V1QGywFKDqYn1cCsOTfPqMsB9D0lZQgBK-Sg-_ybKkusw-SmI-kPhDMnYPMRHgnXPEYHeILNSNF9zAJ3Cs_cn8ftRS6HW9tX9TI3jLlJ_4ylBiMbbBm8YfqnbJXPR6cTunwxkBlWiWMHdJ4TuItGdXDMTI9Gy2QDGaixYd6ZjwpvqxWy/s553/library%202021.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="357" data-original-width="553" height="349" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiWM584eV0Rrq0V1QGywFKDqYn1cCsOTfPqMsB9D0lZQgBK-Sg-_ybKkusw-SmI-kPhDMnYPMRHgnXPEYHeILNSNF9zAJ3Cs_cn8ftRS6HW9tX9TI3jLlJ_4ylBiMbbBm8YfqnbJXPR6cTunwxkBlWiWMHdJ4TuItGdXDMTI9Gy2QDGaixYd6ZjwpvqxWy/w540-h349/library%202021.jpg" width="540" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Part of my library</td></tr></tbody></table><br />Baker Street Beat </i>began on May 28, 2011, named for my
first Sherlockian tome. That was 1037 blog posts ago. It started as three posts
a week—Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. After a few years it slacked off to two
posts a week, and then one.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But I’ve always considered it an irregular blog, and it will
be even more so in the future. My position as editor of the <span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: small-caps; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;">Baker Street Journal,</span> which began with
the Spring issue, is enjoying and rewarding but also very time-consuming. And I
expect to continue writing at least one McCabe & Cody mystery novel a year,
which I have done since 2012.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So for those of you who have kindly followed my jottings
since then, I thank you. We won’t be seeing each other as often, but I’ll still
be around as the spirit moves. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4084607686570359807.post-76825355860051255032023-05-16T08:10:00.000-07:002023-05-16T08:10:07.507-07:00"Who, then, is Porlock?"<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEtmeNnFMd0UDub7zn5roPyNwSVvCdPEdYxFeYwnuTYC9LFHtAB9zjx9tsDXg8PrTEpn7N1bvD42T3oJaRFmkGVdVitofhZielMFnoJ8pCoGv8BOZBmjZgsIHDL2IoLZzArZVdt_I-YvuPsLX0VwMo9dMHGzYVH-dLAIVcgCi1wCMvkG8QyqKjYd0nlA/s3682/Porlock.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3682" data-original-width="2540" height="615" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEtmeNnFMd0UDub7zn5roPyNwSVvCdPEdYxFeYwnuTYC9LFHtAB9zjx9tsDXg8PrTEpn7N1bvD42T3oJaRFmkGVdVitofhZielMFnoJ8pCoGv8BOZBmjZgsIHDL2IoLZzArZVdt_I-YvuPsLX0VwMo9dMHGzYVH-dLAIVcgCi1wCMvkG8QyqKjYd0nlA/w425-h615/Porlock.jpg" width="425" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">“Who, then, is Porlock?” Watson asks in the marvelous
opening scene of <i>The Valley of Fear</i>.</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Holmes responds: “Porlock, Watson, is a nom-de-plume, a mere
identification mark; but behind it lies a shifty and evasive personality.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Shifty, indeed! The name keeps coming back. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">According to the official list of <span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: small-caps; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;">Baker Street Journal </span>editors, Fred Porlock fulfilled that
role during 1984. In reality, someone who would know told me that several
individuals hid behind that name. I am the <b>BSJ</b>’s
tenth “editor of record.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Now a new Porlock has emerged, the author of a book called <i>The
Adventure of the Murder on the Calais Coach</i>. It’s a mashup of Sherlock
Holmes and Hercule Poirot (specifically the book best known as <i>Murder on the
Orient Express</i>), printed in a limited-edition of 1000 hardback copies by UK-based
Crystal Peake Publisher, and sent free to Sherlockians far and wide. The dedication
page gives few clues as to who is hiding behind the name. The author says:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I hope, but in no way guarantee, that you enjoy this work and
also that I have honoured and done justice to the two national treasures who
created the original works on which this pastiche is based; Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle and Dame Agatha Christie.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">My intention was only ever to build upon rather than contradict
the Canons.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Written in London during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown of
2020 and dedicated to the memory of the millions of souls lost. </span></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Intriguing!</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">And what of the original Porlock? My friend Robert Sharfman, in a so-far-unpublished
essay on “Moriarty – Saint or Sinner?”, writes:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: medium;">This name first appearing in <i>The Valley of Fear</i> has been examined
by no less than Ronald Knox, David Talbott Cox, Noah Andre Trudeau, Paul
Smedegaard, Thomas Andred, Christopher F. Baum, Paul Zens, Alan Olding, and
Donald Alan Webster without a solid bit of fact to support any conclusion that
this Porlock was Professor Moriarty, and having guesses ranging from the Professor
and his brother James to Colonel Moran (by
Smedegaard)—all summarized by Leslie Klinger in <i>The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes</i>.</span></blockquote><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Sharfman concludes that, <i>contra</i> Holmes, Porlock is in
fact Porlock, not a nom-de-plume. That seems dubious to me, but we can never
really know.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4084607686570359807.post-45287751638293164282023-04-27T13:50:00.004-07:002023-04-27T17:12:44.306-07:00An Almanac Not Just for the Shelves<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik0Q3YxeGGMcfeU4VpfEoc0CY8vSfzaEVahfEFPo2Ga8DcvWa34r32iJgJonnnreH6LrxWEJ4QdU1WtG7O71RajkAZrYzRUP7nmSiw6n0LQkcQ7P7wtacT0F5tnndkZh8iLDrANd2XKKG4UMRatGbWg5btT0qiLEwLLfrjCn0uuVM3s1Ci6UgxqO1UEA/s1200/almanac%20cover.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="831" data-original-width="1200" height="303" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik0Q3YxeGGMcfeU4VpfEoc0CY8vSfzaEVahfEFPo2Ga8DcvWa34r32iJgJonnnreH6LrxWEJ4QdU1WtG7O71RajkAZrYzRUP7nmSiw6n0LQkcQ7P7wtacT0F5tnndkZh8iLDrANd2XKKG4UMRatGbWg5btT0qiLEwLLfrjCn0uuVM3s1Ci6UgxqO1UEA/w437-h303/almanac%20cover.jpg" width="437" /></a></div><br /> When is an almanac not just an almanac? When it’s so much
more.<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>The 2023 <i>Baker Street Almanac: An Annual Capsule of a Timeless Past and Future </i>arrived at my house recently,
and it is spectacular. Edited by Ross E. Davies, Jayantika Ganguly, Ira Brad Matetsky,
and Monica Schmidt, it has what we have come to expect—a comprehensive account
of worldwide Sherlockian activities the year before.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But beyond that, the editors give us 2022 updates on Sherlock Holmes
in the comics, music and Sherlock Holmes, the Doings of Doyle, Sherlock Holmes
and the law, and the return of in-person conferences—plus an ongoing inventory
of Denny Dobry’s recreation of the sitting room at 221B, the Baker Street
Irregulars Trust newsletter, and fun Sherlockian food recipes.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>As in past editions of the<i> Almanac</i>, there is a canonical
story annotated by many (20!) hands—this time, “The Adventure of the
Stockbroker’s Clerk.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And then there is the “after-dinner mint” to that main course:
Ross Davies’s commentary and annotation of Arthur Conan Doyle’s 500-word “How
Watson Learned the Trick,” wonderfully illustrated by Madeline Quiñones in the book and in accompanying
post cards. My copy of the almanac also came with a toothbrush inscribed with
the name of the dentist Sherlock Holmes mentions in the mini-story.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Most almanacs sit on the shelves
until needed, as Holmes picked Whitaker’s Almanac off of his desk in <i>The Valley
of Fear</i>. This almanac is to be read and enjoyed. It's available from the publisher, The Green Bag, at www.greenbag.org. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmq3bTxtBiV_0zUNIWC603pUZXcT2eufeYcHol8QJ_9H-mVbEHwFaBEZaje4iabJU069lZM3xcU8fbgaHmIX59mdUa-3aaez0c-q55JMoar7fvXhXyjo_vTyIi_KbMsaXu52Ff5f2WJQWFinHsX7tkjAP5jSh9zKpRNu42AXee3j2m2DuVvX6bJqsAjQ/s1650/Almanac%20postcard.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1275" data-original-width="1650" height="379" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmq3bTxtBiV_0zUNIWC603pUZXcT2eufeYcHol8QJ_9H-mVbEHwFaBEZaje4iabJU069lZM3xcU8fbgaHmIX59mdUa-3aaez0c-q55JMoar7fvXhXyjo_vTyIi_KbMsaXu52Ff5f2WJQWFinHsX7tkjAP5jSh9zKpRNu42AXee3j2m2DuVvX6bJqsAjQ/w491-h379/Almanac%20postcard.jpg" width="491" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Breakfast on Baker Street -- by Madeline Quinones</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4084607686570359807.post-39055383341183530872023-04-12T06:06:00.000-07:002023-04-12T06:06:20.772-07:00A Fun Romp with Holmes and Adler<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIEiWX0hKMoTgKlWsGlo5bRVMoOMupWhPsUnxZ78v7mif3K_UcQ2h9Y1fmmNJXlXWfmvzK8LNzQJ281J8kUwUU7xAkj2ROuevTy4H_dFRjtRC7yk9Z0vKHYBcaRd5-JlRYcvmrl3eks2Q8AUVLwVuPySVxVfzlCk7viM_a3QZxYAckzfhTKkQMlFgdAA/s1200/Ghost%20Machine%20.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="313" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIEiWX0hKMoTgKlWsGlo5bRVMoOMupWhPsUnxZ78v7mif3K_UcQ2h9Y1fmmNJXlXWfmvzK8LNzQJ281J8kUwUU7xAkj2ROuevTy4H_dFRjtRC7yk9Z0vKHYBcaRd5-JlRYcvmrl3eks2Q8AUVLwVuPySVxVfzlCk7viM_a3QZxYAckzfhTKkQMlFgdAA/w470-h313/Ghost%20Machine%20.jpg" width="470" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Holmes, Watson, Tesla, and Adler - photo by Sean Carter Photography</td></tr></tbody></table><p>Don’t tell anybody, but I’m not a fan of Irene Adler –
Sherlock Holmes romances. I take Watson at his word that it was “not that he
felt any emotion akin to love” for her. But David MacGregor’s trio of Holmes-Adler
plays is an exception because they put us on the inside of an inside joke.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The setup of <i>Sherlock
Holmes and the Adventure of the Elusive Ear, Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure
of the Fallen Soufflé,</i> and
<i>Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Ghost Machine </i>is that 221B
Baker Street has become a sort of “Three’s Company” situation with Adler living
there under the name “Mrs. Hudson.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I recently caught up
with the script of the third play, <i>Ghost Machine</i>, which won MacGregor 2023
Doylean Honors in the “Visual and Performing Arts” category from the Arthur Conan
Doyle Society, presented at the Mysterious Bookshop in Manhattan during Baker
Street Irregulars Weekend.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Although reading a reading
a play is only half as good as seeing it—at best—this tale of Thomas Edison,
Nikola Tesla, and Moriarty’s daughter is a delightful romp even on the printed
page. Tesla has invented a death ray, Edison has invented a machine for
communicating with the dead, and both have been stolen. Only You Know Who can find
them.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Along the way with
get dialog with a wink, such as:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"><b>HOLMES: </b>Everyone
fakes their own death at some point.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>WATSON:</b> I’m not sure
that’s entirely true. </p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Each of the three
plays premiered at the Purple Rose Theater in Chelsea, MI, each features the
same four fictional characters and two historical characters, and each has also
been adapted into novels from MX Publishing. Reading the third play made me
want to read the first two. Even more, it made me want to see it performed.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4084607686570359807.post-8005176359013536812023-04-05T05:53:00.000-07:002023-04-05T05:53:08.138-07:00Down the Rabbit Holes with Sherlock Holmes<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXiiQrQ0qFLSy5YejwFwv1ZFwTzaZn6L2FNCz1yfiyteo6-x3KxnM3m4n_DUAGmTZ2izA6JwgWIR_TwATY_fohzietnavmVckoXm_YTsD5pCvDAfp7F6cUniJJtRhdgb-dy590xxYk6Yb7g239Xnj8MGykb_5IDiBmiEuONoKZaIR8_IhUKvPJErravg/s293/Hidden%20Threads.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="293" data-original-width="196" height="461" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXiiQrQ0qFLSy5YejwFwv1ZFwTzaZn6L2FNCz1yfiyteo6-x3KxnM3m4n_DUAGmTZ2izA6JwgWIR_TwATY_fohzietnavmVckoXm_YTsD5pCvDAfp7F6cUniJJtRhdgb-dy590xxYk6Yb7g239Xnj8MGykb_5IDiBmiEuONoKZaIR8_IhUKvPJErravg/w308-h461/Hidden%20Threads.webp" width="308" /></a></div><p>Going down rabbit holes can be fun, and Ted and Gail Stetson
are masters at it.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In <i>Hidden Threads in Sherlock Holmes, Volume 1</i>, they
explore what they contend are concealed references by Arthur Conan Doyle to
topics that seem far from the story at hand in the first 24 short stories of the
Canon.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Mentions of weather in “The Boscombe Valley Mystery,” where
the villain is named Turner, set them off on the paintings of J.W.W. Turner, for
example. “The <i>Gloria Scot</i>” leads to riffs on the transportation of
criminals, arsenic, sports, and the Chinese game GO. In “The Final Problem,”
the Stetsons find echoes of Dante’s <i>Inferno</i> as well as Descartes, Newton,
Pascal, Erasmus, and Bruno. “The Crooked Man” leads them to Edgar Allen Poe.</p><p class="MsoNormal">But my favorite parts of the book involve literary criticism.
Their analysis of the “The Speckled Band” as a melodrama is brilliant! The
exploration of the comic opera elements of “The Reigate Squire” is as convincing
as it is surprising.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Beneath an attractive but bland cover lies a fascinating book,
whether or not you buy the assertion that the hidden threads really exist.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4084607686570359807.post-90541274542391057242023-03-29T06:20:00.001-07:002023-03-29T06:23:01.747-07:00ACD in the Queen City <p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5SgJCeIH1GwheNAvqkSzU9-Wv0CFBcmWfTh3EVjNrXu3aqmBGVUoHgYX1OVidnuQ5RkyCwyRfSMwNVH8K5n5_CyzWndzzdmD7nnFIb5vCCj3LcITC09MbRqGz_r7-0AoMbKL5oDQF_cZZ51Dwx9n4JBLLQAXVf41Qf5BNKivW1C2l0e4YwpLUbjn_hA/s680/Art%20Museum.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="382" data-original-width="680" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5SgJCeIH1GwheNAvqkSzU9-Wv0CFBcmWfTh3EVjNrXu3aqmBGVUoHgYX1OVidnuQ5RkyCwyRfSMwNVH8K5n5_CyzWndzzdmD7nnFIb5vCCj3LcITC09MbRqGz_r7-0AoMbKL5oDQF_cZZ51Dwx9n4JBLLQAXVf41Qf5BNKivW1C2l0e4YwpLUbjn_hA/w516-h290/Art%20Museum.jpg" width="516" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Cincinnati Art Museum, visited by Arthur Conan Doyle in 1894 </td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>Arthur Conan Doyle first visited what he later called “the
great city of Cincinnati,” my hometown (and also called "the Queen City"), in October 1894 as part of a U.S. tour
during the Great Hiatus. Christopher Redman’s <i>Welcome to America, Mr.
Sherlock Holmes</i> has a lot about that. Now comes the opportunity to read
extensive contemporary accounts.<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>Sherlock Holmes and Conan Doyle in the Newspapers, Volume
6</i>, edited by Mattias Boström
and Marc Alberstat, is entirely devoted to that one month. (The first volume in
the series from Wessex Press, by contrast, covered five years.) The book includes
stories from <i>The Cincinnati Post</i> (where I worked for almost 24 years
until 1997), <i>The Cincinnati Enquirer, The Cincinnati Commercial Gazette</i>,
and <i>The Cincinnati Tribune</i>. Only the <i>Enquirer </i>still exists.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The news accounts of ACD’s lecture at the Odd Fellows Temple
(built in 1891 and demolished just 51 years later) and a joint interview with
the local press are quite similar. After all, they were all recording the same
event. But one newspaper, the <i>Tribune</i>, reported on what else “Dr. Doyle”
(as it consistently called him) did in Cincinnati. Taking a streetcar, he
visited:</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Eden Park, with a view of the Ohio River and the Kentucky
Hills which he “pronounced the finest he has seen in America, and was loath to
leave when it was time to take the car again.”</li><li>The Cincinnati Art Museum, “the subject of much admiring
comment on his part, and he stated that he had frequently read of the building
and was glad to see it.”</li><li>The Cincinnati Zoological & Botanical Garden, AKA
Cincinnati Zoo, “of which he had often heard” and “was much pleased.”</li><li>Harriet Beecher Stowe’s former home. (Stowe wrote <i>Uncle
Tom’s Cabin</i> and was the sister of Henry Ward Beecher, whose unframed
portrait was on top of Dr. Watson’s books.)</li><li>The Cincinnati neighborhoods of Walnut Hills, Avondale, and
Clifton, seeing which caused ACD to conclude “that the average American enjoys
more comfort in every way than can the average Englishman, that there was a
much greater contrast between the rich and poor there than here.”</li></ul><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">All of these places still exist, and the Tankerville Club of
Cincinnati plans to sponsor a field trip this summer—in cooperation with the
Illustrious Clients of Indianapolis and the Agra Treasurers of Dayton—that will
let us walk in the footsteps of Dr. Doyle.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0