Even a non-collector like me is likely to return from Baker
Street Weekend in New York with a few literary gems. And I did!
My most unusual acquisition, perhaps, was a 20-page pamphlet
called “Conferment by Needle,” Number 69 in a limited edition run of 230 copies
printed by Ronart Press Ltd., St. Louis, MO, in 1980. It contains an exchange
of letters, just one each, between Vincent Starrett and T.S. Eliot. Michael
Murphy wrote the introduction.
Starrett is best known, of course, as a great Sherlockian
and Eliot as a great poet (my favorite of the 20th century). I’ve
written about both many times on this blog, but not together.
On April 1, 1956, Easter Sunday, Starrett wrote to Eliot to
ask him to accept honorary membership in the Hounds of the Baskerville (sic), a Chicago-based scion society of the Baker Street Irregulars. Starrett
founded the Hounds in 1943 and gave himself the title of “Needle.”
Eliot wrote back on April 10, 1956: “I thank you for your
letter of Easter Sunday, & beg to express my appreciation of the honour of
being installed as an honorary Baskerville Hound. It is with great pleasure
that I accept.” He then noted that he was already an honorary member of two
other Holmes societies, “so I hope that amongst the various septs or divisions of
the Baker Street Irregulars there is no regulation preventing pluralism.”
The poetry of T.S. Eliot is replete with Sherlockian
influences, as I’ve noted before, but it’s a joy to hold in my hands the evidence that
he was not only a Sherlockian (or perhaps Holmesian) but a member of the Sherlock
Holmes community.
One of my other weekend acquisitions was a copy of The
Last Bookman, a handsome volume about Starrett edited by Peter Ruber. More about
that in a future blog. Both the pamphlet and the book came from The BSI Trust,
which has an enormous collection of Sherlockian tomes at great prices. To present
your want list or see what’s available, email Denny Dobry at dendobry@ptd.net.
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