Canine Capers, Canonical and Otherwise

Saturday will find me in Dayton, autographing books and giving a talk at the 26th annual Sherlock Holmes/ Arthur Conan Doyle Dayton Symposium.

I attended the symposium a few times more than 20 years ago. It was the model for the colloquium in No Police Like Holmes. But this will be my first time to speak there. In line with the symposium's animal theme this year, I will be talking about "Sherlock Holmes Gone to the Dogs: Canine Capers, Canonical and Otherwise."

Talking about dogs and Sherlock Holmes is one of the easiest tasks I have ever undertaken. There are so many canine references in the Canon that one might say that Holmes is fairly hounded by them! Both metaphorical and fur and bone dogs appear in the Sacred Writings themselves.

Beyond the Canon and into the world of popular culture, Sherlock Holmes is often portrayed as an anthropomorphized dogs -- and sometimes the entire Baker Street menagerie along with him.

So my talk will attempt to cover all of these angles fairly comprehensively: canine metaphors in the Canon, real dogs in the Canon, and portrayals of Holmes & Co. as dogs in comics, cartoons, Christmas ornaments, greeting cards, etc. It will certainly be a light-hearted talk, and I hope fun as well.