Sherlock Holmes A to Z

This year marks the 30^th anniversary of the publication of a book that probably isn’t on your bookshelves but should be.

Matthew E. Bunson’s Encylopedia Sherlockiana : An A to Z Guide to the World of the Great Detective tends to be overshadowed by Jack Tracy’s better known though similarly named The Encyclopaedia Sherlockiana. Even Bunson, in the introduction to his 1994 book, calls Tracy’s 1978 predecessor “brilliant.”

“Unlike that excellent tome, however,” he adds, “this encylcopedia is concerned not only with the Canon, but with the hundreds of related issues and topics that have been part of the evolution of Sherlockiana in the years following the cessation of Dr. Watson’s published accounts.”

One of the things I love about it is the charts. “The Disguises of Sherlock Holmes,” which I looked up recently when I was writing a talk, lists in chart form all said disguises and what stories they appeared it. (Tracy doesn’t have any entry on disguises.)

Other charts, just to cite a few examples, cover “Inspector Lestrade on Film and Television,” “Sherlock Holmes and Science Fiction,” “Major Plays Featuring Sherlock Holmes,” “Watson on Film and Television,” and the 8-page “Sherlock Homes in Film,” which spans the silent Sherlock Holmes Baffled to Without a Clue.

In his introduction, John Bennett Shaw called Encylopedia Sherlockiana “a well-planned and much needed book.” I quite agree. And at this point, 30 years on, an update would be a wonderful thing.