Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press 2012 - Red Circle of ...

Jan 12 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press 

Sherlockians (and Holmesians) gathered in New York to celebrate the Great 

Detective's 158th birthday during the long weekend from Jan. 11 to Jan. 15. 

The festivities began with the traditional ASH Wednesday dinner sponsored 

by The Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes at O'Casey's and continued with the 

Christopher Morley Walk led by Jim Cox and Dore Nash on Thursday morning, 

followed by the usual lunch at McSorley's). 

The Baker Street Irregulars' Distinguished Speaker at the Midtown Executive 

Club on Thursday evening was Dr. Lisa Sanders, author of a "Diagnosis" col- 

umn for the N.Y. Times and the technical advisor for the television series 

"House, M.D."; the title of her talk was "Is Holmes Crazy As a Fox, or Just 

Plain Crazy?", and you will be able to read her paper in the next issue of 

The Baker Street Journal. 

The William Gillette Luncheon at Moran's was well attended, as always, and 

featured Donny Zaldin and Hartley Nathan in a Sherlockian "Carnac the Mag- 

nificent" skit and the Friends of Bogie's at Baker Street (Paul Singleton, 

Sarah Montague, and Andrew Joffe) in a Sherlockian tribute to the centenary 

of the sinking of the Titanic. The luncheon also was the occasion for Al 

Gregory's presentation of the annual Jan Whimsey award (named in memory of 

his wife Jan Stauber) for the most whimsical piece in The Serpentine Muse 

last year; the winner (Karen Murdock, author of "Do You Write Like Arthur 

Conan Doyle?") received a certificate and a check for the Canonical sum of 

$221.17. And Otto Penzler's traditional open house at the Mysterious Book- 

shop offered the usual opportunities to browse and buy. 

The Irregulars and their guests gathered for the BSI's annual dinner at the 

Yale Club, with Les Klinger offering the preprandial first toast to Connie 

Kean as The Woman. The dinner's theme was "His Last Bow" (in celebration 

of the centenary of the beginning of Holmes' involvement in the case), and 

it featured the usual toasts and traditions, as well as papers and tributes 

and a hilarious "dramatic homage" by Paul Singleton and Scott Monty to the 

BSI's 2000 Year Old Man. 

Mike Whelan (the BSI's "Wiggins") presented the BSI Trust's first Benefac- 

tor's Medal to Glen Miranker, an editor's medal to Mary Ann Bradley for her 

work on the 2011 Baker Street Journal Christmas Annual (a tribute to Lenore 

Glen Offord), and a Two-Shilling Award to Henry Boote (for maintaining the 

BSI musical tradition launched by Harvey Officer in the 1940s and continued 

by Jim and Bruce Montgomery). And this year's Birthday Honours (Irregular 

Shillings and Investitures were presented to Mark Samuel Schwartz ("Thucyd- 

ides"), Phil Bergem ("Birdy Edwards"), Helen Dorey ("Helen Stoner"), Peter 

Accardo ("Thorneycroft Huxtable"), Akane Higashiyama ("Baritsu"), Don Hobbs 

("Inspector Lestrade"), Donny Zaldin ("John Hector McFarlane"), and Mary 

Ann Bradley ("Mary Morstan"). 

"Jewels in the Canon" was the theme of the Gaslight Gala at the Manhattan 

Club, where the entertainment included toasts, old songs with new Sherlock- 

ian lyrics, skits, door prizes, a raffle, an auction, and a "Questionable 

Crossword" quiz that required punned answers in a "yell it out if you know 

it" format.

Jan 12 #2 Some of the more fervent (or possibly hard core) Sherlockians 

have been known to gather after the dinners at O'Lunney's Irish 

Pub to honor long-standing traditions such as staying until at least 2:21; 

another tradition calls for newly-Investitured Irregulars to buy a round of 

tequila shots, and it has been reported that this year was no exception. 

On Saturday morning Covent Garden West (the dealers room at the Roosevelt 

Hotel) welcomed sellers and buyers, and authors and editors delighted to 

inscribe or sign their books. And The Beacon Society presented its annual 

Beacon Award (recognizing someone who introduces young people to the Sher- 

lock Holmes stories) to William S. Dorn; the society has an excellent web- 

site where you can read excerpts from Bill's "Study 

Guide to Sherlock Holmes". 

The BSI's Saturday-afternoon reception at the Association of the Bar of the 

City of New York offered entertainment, conversation, wining, and dining; 

the entertainment included a Sherlockian "Gallagher & Shean" duet performed 

by James Saunders and Henry Boote. Sonia Fetherston was announced as the 

winner of the Morley-Montgomery Award (an attractive certificate accompan- 

ied by a check) for the best contribution to The Baker Street Journal last 

year (her article on "I Met Harry Murcher"). And the Watson Fund benefited 

from energetic sales of raffle tickets for Maggie Schpak's handsome replica 

Lady Frances Carfax's antique Spanish jewellery, and an auction of literary 

and artistic donations to the Fund. 

The principal Saturday-evening event was the "Lost in New York with a Bunch 

of Sherlockians" dinner arranged by The Curious Collectors of Baker Street 

at Kennedy's Irish Pub, and then on Sunday morning a goodly crowd gathered 

at the Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes' brunch at the Oldcastle Pub & Res- 

taurant. 

A final note for those who want to plan ahead: The Baker Street Irregulars' 

next annual dinner will be held on Jan. 11, 2013. And the Sherlock Holmes 

Society of London's annual dinner likely will be on Jan. 19, 2013. 

I've not reported on everything, I hasten to add; there will be much more 

detailed reports in the spring issue of The Baker Street Journal. The BSJ 

appears quarterly, and subscriptions (four issues plus the Christmas Annu- 

al) cost $38.50 (to the U.S.) or $49.00 (elsewhere); checks can be sent to 

the BSJ (Box 583, Zionsville, IN 46077), and credit-card payments are wel- 

come from foreign subscribers. 

You can also subscribe at the BSJ web-site at , 

which also has interesting features such as some of the papers written by 

winners of the Morley-Montgomery Awards, articles from recent issues of the 

BSJ, and information on the BSI's other publications and activities. And in 

the meantime, you can read Scott Monty's reports on the birthday festivi- 

ties at his blog at . 

Al Gregory offers (by e-mail only) his 2012 

edition of "The ABC of the BSI" (an alphabetical listing of Investitures, 

with recipients, from "Abbey Grange" to "Young Stamford") and "The Florin 

Society" (couples in which both spouses have received Irregular Shillings).

Jan 12 #3 Plan ahead: The Baker Street Irregulars' running of The Silver 

Blaze will return to Saratoga Springs Race Track in upstate New 

York on Aug. 4; it will be a weekend gathering, and details will be avail- 

able soon from Lou and Candace Lewis (2 Lookerman Avenue, Poughkeepsie, NY 

12603) (845-471-0296) . 

Plan farther ahead: registration is now open for the BSI's weekend confer- 

ence in Los Angeles on Aug. 30-Sept. 3. "Sherlock Holmes: Behind the Can- 

onical Screen" will be held at UCLA and will feature actors, producers, and 

directors, as well as presentations on screenwriting, casting, costuming, 

lighting, and sound. And screening of several rare and recently-restored 

films. Details at . 

Alice Wright posted to the "Letters of Mary" mailing list noting an inter- 

esting post to the Earth Observing System blog at 

by Eos Chater about what it was like teaching Benedict Cumberbatch how to 

portray Holmes as a violin player. She performs in the Bond String Quartet 

. 

If you'd like to add Esperanto to your collection of Sherlock Holmes stor- 

ies in translation, Don Hobbs has found LA PLANOJ DE BRUCE PARTINGTON (36 

pp., €5.00 from Books on Demand Gmbh at . 

Don also has some nice news for those who want a translation in Piemontese 

(a language of the Piedmont region in northwest Italy): SHERLOCK HOLMES: EL 

MASTIN DIJ BASKERVILLE is available from for 

€15.00; search for [9788889768389]. The number of languages for Canonical 

translations is now 90. 

Willis Frick continues to add material to Sherlocktron, which can be found 

at , the latest being Phil 

Bergem's checklists of "Sherlock Holmes (and Holmes Related) Film and Tele- 

vision Programs" and "Non-Sherlockian Conan Doyle Films and Television Pro- 

grams". 

"Felted Soap Sherlock Holmes" is handcrafted by Zoe Djukic at 

Sofino ; it's a 4-ounce bar of sage 

and lemongrass soap encased in soft Merino wool (and you can 

reuse the pouch when the soap's gone); $18.00 plus shipping. 

The folks at Criminal Element suggest that "perhaps this fun, 

woolly Sherlock will wash away your iniquities." 

The Beacon Society has announced a Mar. 1 deadline for teach- 

ers, librarians, Sherlockian literary societies, and others 

apply for a Jan Stauber Grant, which funds (up to $250) de- 

velopment of a project that will introduce young people to the Canon. The 

application form, guidelines, and additional details are available at the 

society's web-site at . 

"The Hound of the Baskervilles" is a delightful parody that was written by 

Steven Canny and John Nicholson in 2007, and it will be produced by the New 

Jersey Repertory Company from Apr. 19 to May 20; 179 Broadway, Long Branch, 

NJ 07740 (732-229-3166) .

Jan 12 #4 Don Christian spotted a story on National Public Radio's "All 

Things Considered" (Jan. 2) that might be of interest to those 

who recall that Sherlock Holmes owned a Stradivarius: 17 blindfolded expert 

violinists were asked to identify whether an excerpt from Tchaikovsky's Vi- 

olin Concerto in D Major was played on a Strad or on a modern violin. Only 

three of the experts got it right. You can listen to the story, and take 

the test yourself, at . 

Ronald Searle died on Dec. 30. He was a well-known cartoonist, caricatur- 

ist, and cover artist for newspapers and magazines in Britain, France, and 

the United States. Most famous, perhaps, for creating "The Belles of St. 

Trinian's" and "Molesworth", Searle also drew the sitting room at 221B Bak- 

er Street for the catalog of the Abbey House exhibition in 1951, reprinted 

in Punch (June 20, 1951); other Sherlockian work included an illustration 

in Punch (July 6, 1953) and a cartoon in The New Yorker (Dec. 16, 1991). 

The publicity still from "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" (1939) signed 

by Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce that was offered at eBay with an opening 

bid of $6,000 (Dec 11 #5) went unsold when no one entered a bid. 

Nice news for friends of Matilda (described by the N.Y. Times as the "Al- 

gonquin's Roaming Diva Cat"): after the Department of Health expressed con- 

cern about a live animal that isn't a service dog being present in a food- 

service establishment (Nov 11 #7), the Algonquin has installed an electric 

fence that will ensure that Matilda stays in a safe section of the lobby. 

You can read all about it at .

Jan 12 #5 Big Finish continues to issue excellent Sherlockian audio, the 

latest being THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES, dramatized by Rich- 

ard Dinnick and starring Nicholas Briggs as Holmes and Richard Earl as Wat- 

son, on two CDs ($23.91) and as a download ($12.99); PO Box 3787, Maiden- 

head, Berks. SL6 3TF, England) . It's a full-cast re- 

cording, with featurette interviews with cast and crew. 

Briggs and Earl also star in Big Finish recordings of THE FINAL PROBLEM AND 

THE EMPTY HOUSE, in George Mann's interesting pastiche THE REIFICATION OF 

HANS GERBER, and Brian Clemens 1988 play HOLMES AND THE RIPPER, each on two 

CDs and as downloads (same prices). Other similar sets available from Big 

Finish include their earlier recordings (Feb 10 #6) of Roger Llewellyn in 

David Stuart Davies' plays SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE LAST ACT (1999) and SHER- 

LOCK HOLMES: THE DEATH AND LIFE (2008). They're all well done, and there 

are more to come (check their web-site). 

Laurie R. King has reported on her Facebook page that the next Mary Russell 

novel (GAME OF SHADOWS) will be published in September. It's all about Fez 

(in Morocco), and she has noted that she had its title, which is central to 

the theme of the novel, long before she heard of the new Robert Downey Jr. 

movie, and she sees no reason to change her title. 

Harvey Mackie's dramatization of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" is sched- 

uled at the Jewel Box Theatre, Mar. 1-25. 3700 North Walker Avenue, Okla- 

homa City, OK 73188 (405-521-1786) . 

Friends of the late Bill Rabe will recall the "List of Words Banished from 

the Queen's English for Misuse, Overuse, and General Uselessness" that he 

launched in 1976. Lake Superior State University in Michigan continues the 

tradition, and there was a fine story about this year's list, with mention 

of Bill, on "All Things Considered" on National Public Radio on Jan. 1. You 

can listen to (and read) the story at . Thanks to 

Jon Lellenberg for noting the report. 

Jonathan Cecil died on Sept. 22, 2011. He began his acting career in caba- 

ret at Oxford with Dudley Moore and Alan Bennett, made his television debut 

in 1964, and went on to a long career, also acting on stage and screen and 

specializing in comic roles. He also was the Honeymoon Groom in "The Pri- 

vate Life of Sherlock Holmes" (1970), but in the "naked honeymooner" seg- 

ment that was cut from the film before it was released. 

Ben Stephenson, controller of drama for the BBC refused earlier this month 

to confirm that there would be more than two seasons of the BBC's mini-ser- 

ies "Sherlock", and co-creator Steven Moffat told BBC News that there was 

""no guarantee we'll be bringing him back." But as soon as the "Reichen- 

bach" episode aired Moffat told fans "Yes, of course there's going to be a 

third series--it was commissioned at the same time as the second. Gotcha!" 

Judith Freeman's useful index to The Serpentine Muse (published by The Ad- 

venturesses of Sherlock Holmes since 1975); the index is available from her 

by e-mail as an Excel spreadsheet , and the ASH 

web-site has information on subscribing to the Muse (back 

issues are unfortunately not available).

Jan 12 #6 "What Scott Learned" was the headline on a story in the Wash- 

ington Post on Jan. 3 , about Robert 

Falcon Scott's ill-fated attempt to be the first to reach the South Pole. 

One of the photographs with the story shows Scott writing in his journal in 

a wooden hut at Cape Evans, with shelves of books behind him, and two books 

on his bed. One of the books he took with him to the Antarctic was Conan 

Doyle's THE GREEN FLAG AND OTHER STORIES OF WAR AND SPORT, and it's still 

there, preserved as the southernmost copy of a book written by Sir Arthur. 

Anglofile, offering detailed coverage of British entertainment and formerly 

available by mail, now is a blog by Leslie King, and you can read her lat- 

est news at ; she offers early re- 

ports on programs to come on PBS-TV and on BBC America. 

Sarah Montague reports from time to time on Sherlockian affairs for WNYC-FM 

(New York), and this year she has honored Sherlock Holmes' birthday with a 

story about A STUDY IN SHERLOCK, the anthology edited by Laurie R. King and 

Leslie S. Klinger; she interviewed the editors and some of the contributors 

(including Neil Gaiman and S. J. Rozann), and you can hear her broadcast at 

. 

News from Don Izban: the Colonel Sebastian Moran Secret Gun Club will hold 

its quadrennial "Hunt for the Mongoose Named Moriarty" in Chicago on Feb. 

29 (the event takes place only during Leap Years); contact Don (1812 Rene 

Court, Park Ridge, IL 06068) (847-292-1270) for more information. 

Compliments to eagle-eyed Nick Utechin, whose letter to The Times (Jan. 19) 

had the headline "If One Is Paying Careful Attention, Inside One Sherlock 

Holmes One May Well Find...Another Sherlock Holmes"; Nick was grateful to 

Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss for their choice of the actor who played the 

perturbed gentleman in the Diogenes Club in "The Reichenbach Fall" (that's 

the third episode of the new "Sherlock" mini-series). The actor was Doug- 

las Wilmer, who has played Holmes many times, and has just celebrated his 

92nd birthday. 

The Woodland Opera House Theatre Company is performing Steven Dietz's play 

"Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure" through Feb. 12. 340 Second Street, 

Woodland, CA 95695 (530-666-9617) 

The Vigilante Theatre Company is performing Bruce Hurlbut's new play "House 

Arrest: The Curious Events Surrounding the Retirement of Sherlock Holmes" 

on tour in Montana, with a stop at Quinns Hot Springs Resort in Paradise on 

Feb. 11-12; their web-site's at . 

The Daily Telegraph reported (Jan. 13) that the one-bedroom flat just above 

Speedy's on North Gower Street in London is available for rent for £300 per 

week. The building is used for exterior shots for the BBC mini-series that 

stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman (interiors scenes are filmed 

elsewhere). The story noted that the estate agent's listing does not men- 

tion whether living in the flat will "give you preternatural observational 

powers, a doting landlady, or a network of homeless friends." The agent's 

listing at may still be 

viewed (if the flat has not already been taken).

Jan 12 #7 The Mystery Writers of America have announced the nominees for 

this year's Edgar awards, which include Michael Dirda's ON CON- 

AN DOYLE; OR, THE WHOLE ART OF STORYTELLING (best critical/biographical), 

Neil Gaiman's "The Case of Death and Honey" (best short story), and Jeffrey 

Hatcher's "Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Suicide Club" and Ken 

Ludwig's "The Game's Afoot" (competing head-to-head for best play); Neil's 

story appeared in the anthology A STUDY IN SHERLOCK. The winners will be 

announced at the MWA Gala Banquet in New York on Apr. 26. 

Distinctive Dummies, founded in 2010, creates attractive 

12" custom action figures for fans of science fiction, 

horror, and Hammer Films, and the last of those categor- 

ies has brought them to Peter Cushing as Sherlock Holmes 

in the 1959 film "The Hound of the Baskervilles"). The 

figure costs $99.99 postpaid worldwide, and if you want 

to see it in full color you can visit their web-site at 

. 

If they're successful with Cushing, they hope to follow 

up with Basil Rathbone and Jeremy Brett. 

Mill Creek Entertainment is planning to release a three- 

DVD set with all 26 episodes of the animated children's 

series "Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century" on Feb. 21 

($12.98), along with a single "best-of" DVD with 10 epi- 

sodes ($9.98). And for completists: there will be diff- 

erent artwork on the boxes. 

Sarah Greenwood, the production designer for both of Guy Ritchie's "Sher- 

lock Holmes" films, will recreate her production studio for an exhibition 

at the Arts Gallery at the University of the Arts London, through Mar. 9; 

she has mocked up her studio, including research material, scripts, note- 

books, drawings, schedules, and models. More information about the exhi- 

bition can be found at . 

CBS announced plans for a modern-day "Sherlock Holmes" drama last year (Sep 

11 #5), and the entertainment trade press has now reported (Jan. 17) that 

CBS has green-lighted the project, which is now called "Elementary" and is 

a step closer to actual production. The new pilot will have Holmes living 

in New York City. 

Welcome to our new postage rates, which are now 45¢ per ounce (domestic), 

85¢ (Canada), and $1.05 (international). The old rates were 44¢/80¢/98¢. 

The cost of printed envelopes also has increased, and the new subscription 

rates for the ink-on-paper version of Scuttlebutt are $11.70 (domestic) and 

$16.50 (Canada) and $18.90 (international). Electronically enabled readers 

can of course read the newsletter on-line without charge: searchable text 

of all issues since Mar. 1985 is available at Willis Frick's "Sherlocktron" 

, and Scott Monty's archive of 

scanned images of issues since Jan. 2011 can be found at Scribd's web-site 

. 

The Spermaceti Press: Peter E. Blau, 7103 Endicott Court, Bethesda, MD 

20817-4401 (301-229-5669)

Feb 12 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press 

The Internet certainly makes things interesting (or frustrating) for people 

want to be surprised when they see films or television: web-sites have been 

flooded with discussion of the BBC's second series, and it's not going to 

be easy for American viewers who won't see the series until it is broadcast 

here in May to avoid spoilers. And then there are the DVDs, which are now 

available to anyone who can play region 2 DVDs on a computer or on a multi- 

region DVR. But it will be reasonably safe to read this newsletter, where 

you won't find anything about the shocking revelations in Laura Lyons' dia- 

ries in "The Hounds of Baskerville". 

MovieViral.com is web-site that offers news and analysis of viral and ARG 

[alternate reality game] campaigns for films and other forms of entertain- 

ment, and they ran a story by Anne Kirn on Feb. 4 

about the fan-based "Believe in Sherlock" movement launched after the fin- 

ale of the BBC's second "Sherlock" television series. 

And sales of Sherlock Holmes books have increased in Britain: a representa- 

tive of Waterstone's (the nation's largest chain of book stores) has said, 

"The BBC's stunning adaptation has succeeded in making Holmes relevant to a 

new generation of readers. Whilst the original books may lack references 

to blogging and cyberspace, the stories remain utterly compelling." 

THE GRAND GAME: A CELEBRATION OF SHERLOCKIAN SCHOLARSHIP: VOLUME TWO: 1960- 

2010, edited by Laurie R. King and Leslie S. Klinger, is a splendid compan- 

ion to the first volume (Jan 11 #3), demonstrating how enjoyable it can be 

watching experts play the Sherlockian game; Klinger's introduction "Why We 

Write" explains the rules and notes correctly that "the Grand Game is alive 

and well!" 390 pp., $39.95 to the U.S./$49.95 elsewhere, plus shipping). 

The publisher's web-site is at . 

Nicol Williamson died on Dec. 16 He began his acting career in repertory 

theater and joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1962, quickly becoming 

a highly-regarded star on stage, screen, and television, and was compared 

to Charles Laughton, Laurence Olivier, and Marlon Brando. His film roles 

included an appearance as Sherlock Holmes in "The Seven-Per-Cent Solution" 

(1976). 

The "news" has been reported all over the Internet, but it originated with 

the [London] Sun, which is widely regarded as the least reliable newspaper 

published in the U.K.: "Guy Ritchie is making a third Sherlock Holmes movie 

--but this time it will be based in Hollywood." Needless to say, the story 

is credited to "a source." 

"The Radio Adventures of Dr. Floyd" is an audio and video series created by 

Grant Baciocco and Doug Price for Dementia Radio in 2004 and now distribut- 

ed via podcast; there were three 10-minute Sherlockian episodes, podcast on 

Oct. 13, 21, and 27, 2008, that are notable for the actor who played Sher- 

lock Holmes: Stan Freberg; the first episode (#708) ends with a set-up and 

the story continues in episodes #709 and #710. You can listen to and down- 

load the programs at . Bill Anselm gets 

credit for discovering and reporting the series.

Feb 12 #2 Mike Kean reports that the Diogenes Club of Carmel-by-the-Sea 

will hold a special meeting in San Francisco on Nov. 10 aboard 

the SS Jeremiah O'Brien, the only surviving operational World War II Liber- 

ty ship. The gathering will include other Sherlockian societies in north- 

ern California, and all Sherlockians are welcome to attend; there will be a 

private tour of the vessel, cocktails, a catered dinner, and a program on 

"The Nautical Sherlock Holmes". Additional information about the event is 

available from Capt. Walter W. Jaffee . And the ship 

has its own web-site at . 

Michael Dirda's ON CONAN DOYLE; OR, THE WHOLE ART OF STORYTELLING has been 

nominated for an Agatha (best nonfiction) from Malice Domestic; the winners 

of the Agathas will be announced at the Malice Awards Banquet in Bethesda, 

Md., on Apr. 30. There's still time to register for the convention; their 

web-site's at . 

The 2011 issue of Beaten's Christmas Annual has been published by The Sound 

of the Baskervilles of Seattle, with 64 pages of scholarship, quizzes, and 

pastiches; the scholarship ranges from Stephen Adkins' "Is Sherlock Holmes 

a Drug Addict?" to Bill Mason's "Diagnosing 'The Resident Patient': Ques- 

tions About a Sherlockian Tale". The annual costs $13.00 postpaid ($18.00 

outside the U.S.), checks (in U.S. dollars, please) payable to The Sound of 

the Baskervilles should be sent to Terri Haugen, 3606 Harborcrest Court NW, 

Gig Harbor, WA 98332. There's also news of a handsome Sherlockian giclee 

print by Gayle Holmes shown in full color at ; 

if you mention The Sound of the Baskervilles when you place your order, she 

will donate 10% of the proceeds to the society's treasury. 

A limited-edition linocut print (38/75), signed in pen- 

cil, of Edward Bawden's frontispiece for the Folio Soci- 

ety edition of THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES (1987) was 

sold at Sworders Fine Art Auctioneers on Jan. 10, with 

an estimate of £400-£500; it sold, with a hammer price 

of £400. 

Chris Martin, front man for the rock band Coldplay, and 

husband of Gwyneth Paltrow, has long enjoyed the Sher- 

lock Holmes stories (Jun 05 #4), and (according to dir- 

ector Guy Ritchie) suggested Stephen Fry for the role of 

Mycroft in "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows". 

Sherlockiana continues to appear in Japan, thanks to translations by Masa- 

michi Higurashi; Mitch's latest are Carole Nelson Douglas' GOOD NIGHT, MR. 

HOLMES (Tokyo Sogensha, 2 vols., ¥940 each), and Daniel Stashower's "The 

Second Treaty" for MYSTERIES! (v. 48, ¥1,200), which also has Mitch's essay 

on Sherlockian pastiches in 2000-2001. 

Josef Skvorecky died on Jan. 3. He was a famous Czech writer and an ener- 

getic promoter and publisher of Czech literature. His SINS FOR FATHER KNOX 

(1989) was a delightful tribute to Ronald A. Knox; it's a collection of ten 

stories, each of which violates one of the "decalogue" rules Knox invented 

for writing detective fiction (Skvorecky challenged his readers not only to 

identify the murderer but also to decide which rule had been broken).

Feb 12 #3 IN THE SHADOW OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, edited by Leslie S. Klinger 

(San Diego: IDW, 2011; 350 pp., $16.99), is a fine anthology of 

early stories about other detectives by authors who range from Thomas Bail- 

ey Aldrich (1862) to Arthur Conan Doyle (1898) to William MacHarg and Edwin 

Balmer (1910), with atmospheric artwork by Michael Manomivibul, and an in- 

troduction and (needless to say) annotations by the editor. 

The Racine Theatre Guild will produce Steven Dietz's "Sherlock Holmes: The 

Final Adventure" on Apr. 13-22. 2519 Northwestern Avenue, Racine, WI 53404 

(262-633-4218) . 

STARRETT SPEAKS: THE LOST RECORDINGS is a delightful new CD from the Wessex 

Press, with recently discovered recordings; there are 40 minutes of audio, 

including Robert Cromie's interview with Starrett and Orlando Park on WTTW- 

TV in 1964), and Starrett's readings of his own Sherlockiana. $12.95 from 

the publisher (Box 68308, Indianapolis, IN 46256) . 

Also from the Wessex Press (as the Gasogene Press): THE ILLUSTRATED SPECK- 

LED BAND: THE ORIGINAL 1910 STAGE PRODUCTION IN SCRIPT AND PHOTOGRAPHS, ed- 

ited by Leslie S. Klinger (104 pp., $19.95), offering the script of Conan 

Doyle's play (from Samuel French in 1912), photographs and discussion (from 

Playgoer and Society Illustrated, 1910), and a reprint of R. Dixon Smith's 

article on "The Story, the Play, and the Snake"; it's as close as you will 

ever get to the original production of the play, and great fun. 

Judith Freeman's index to The Serpentine Muse (Jan 12 #5) is now available 

Sherlocktron , along with 

the other material Willis Frick kindly makes available. 

THE REALLY RAGGED SHAW: BEING THE EXPANDED RAGGED SHAW was published by Da- 

vid L. Hammer from his Gasogene Press in 1994 as a birthday tribute to John 

Bennett Shaw, offering splendid examples of the imagination and inspiration 

and humor to be found in the quizzes devised by the Sage of Santa Fe. It's 

now back in print with an additional new preface by Saul Cohen, from George 

Vanderburgh (176 pp., $20.00); Box 50, R.R. #4, Eugenia, ON N0C 1E0, Canada 

. 

Les and Carol Moskowitz, who discovered Sherlock Holmes pubs in France and 

Norway (Jun 11 #5), have continued their search and have added Australia to 

their life list, with the Sherlock Holmes Inn at 415 Collins Street in Mel- 

bourne (415 Collins Street . 

Reported by Christoper Roden: CONAN DOYLE CONTRE SHERLOCK HOLMES, a new bi- 

ography (in French) by Emmanuel Le Bret (Paris: Editions du Moment, 2011; 

204 pp., €18.50). 

BBC Books has published new tie-in editions of A STUDY IN SCARLET, with an 

introduction by Steven Moffat, and THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, with 

an introduction by Mark Gatiss (£6.99 each), each with cover art from the 

"Sherlock" mini-series. The series will continue on Mar. 29 with THE MEM- 

OIRS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (introduction by Steve Thompson), THE HOUND OF THE 

BASKERVILLES (introduction by Benedict Cumberbatch), and THE SIGN OF FOUR 

(introduction by Martin Freeman).

Feb 12 #4 Jim French's Imagination Theatre has been airing "The Further 

Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" for many years (Jun 98 #4), on 

many radio stations, on Sirius XM Book Radio , 

and on the Internet at , where you can down- 

load single programs ($1.99), purchase CDs ($12.95), and listen to a weekly 

web-stream. And if you would like to see what radio drama is like before 

it's broadcast, 11 scripts from the series are available in M. J. Elliott's 

SHERLOCK HOLMES ON THE AIR (London: MX Publishing, 2012; 340 pp., £14.99/ 

€16.99/$22.95), with an interesting introduction and notes by the author. 


One sees Sherlock everywhere: Roland C. (of the Baskerville Hall Club) has 

noted a link to the three-minute official music video for Nabiha's single 

"Deep Sleep", which you can see at . 

Ian Abercombie died on Jan. 26. He began his stage career as a dancer in 

England in 1934, came to the U.S. in 1951, and acted on stage, screen, and 

television; best known as Elaine's demanding boss Mr. Pitt on "Seinfeld", 

he also played a train conductor in Stewart Granger's television version of 

"The Hound of the Baskervilles" (1972) and Inspector Lestrade in the "Save 

Sherlock Holmes" episode of "Fantasy Island" (1982). 

Clive Francis' play "The Hound of the Baskervilles" will be produced at the 

Lawrence Batley Theatre, Mar. 12-17; Queen's Square, Queen Street, Hudders- 

field, West Yorks. HD1 2SP (01484-430528) . 

There's more news about the CBS "Elementary" project (Jan 12 #7), about a 

modern-day Sherlock Holmes living in New York City: according to the Holly- 

wood Reporter (Feb. 14), Jonny Lee Miller (who played Jordan Chase in the 

Showtime series "Dexter") has been signed to play the title role. Benedict 

Cumberbatch was Miller's co-star on stage in London in "Frankenstein" last 

year, alternating the roles of Frankenstein and the monster, and now they 

both will be playing Sherlock Holmes. You can see them (briefly) in a one- 

minute promotion for "Frankenstein" . 

So: what other films and television shows have had Holmes living in (rather 

than traveling to) cities other than London? Larry Hagman's "The Return of 

the World's Greatest Detective" (1976) is one. Any others? 

"Sherlock Holmes Averts World War Using Mathematics" was the headline on a 

article by Jessica Hamzelou in the CultureLab blog of the New Scientist on 

Jan. 9: the producers of the film asked Oxford mathematicians Alain Goriely 

and Derek Moulton to write the equations seen on Moriarty's blackboard, and 

they also created the code in Moriarty's red pocket notebook, and wrote the 

lecture that Holmes attended in disguise. You can read all about it in the 

blog at . 

Radio Litopia is an interesting British web-site, and their series "Litopia 

After Dark" had a Sherlockian evening on Feb. 5 with a 54-minute interview 

with Bert Coules, who has dramatized a long series of Sherlockian (Canoni- 

cal and extra-Canonical) broadcasts for BBC Radio. You can read all about 

it (and see a photograph of Bert) and listen to or download the program at 

.

Feb 12 #5 NINE LIVES OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, by Graham Holderness (Lon- 

don: Continuum, 2011; 215 pp., £18.99/$27.95) is an interesting 

literary biography in which Holderness uses a combination of critical ess- 

ays and fictional narratives to explore nine aspects of Shakespeare's life 

and career. "The Adventure of Shakespeare's Ring" is a pastiche that has 

Holmes, Watson, Lord Alfred Douglas, and Oscar Wilde examining the possi- 

bility that Shakespeare was a homosexual. 

Bruce Holmes died on Dec. 21. An early member of the Bimetallic Question 

of Montreal, he was an energetic philatelist and greatly enjoyed publishing 

Sherlockian pamphlets illustrated with carefully-selected and appropriate 

postage stamps and cancellations. 

BMW has launched the Baker Street Mini 

(a special limited edition, which will 

go on sale on Mar. 1; the car will be 

priced from £16,365 in Great Britain 

and available world-wide. It's named 

for the area of London where Sherlock 

Holmes lived (one press report noted 

that Baker Street also is the name of 

a hit song by Gerry Rafferty, and sug- 

gested that the car might be come with 

a saxophone rather than a horn). 

The next annual STUD-Watsonian Weekend will be held in and near Chicago on 

Mar. 30-Apr. 1, with a dinner at the Sheraton Four Points in Schiller Park, 

the annual running of The Silver Blaze at Hawthorne Race Course, and a For- 

tescue Honours brunch, and the registration form is available from Susan Z. 

Diamond (16W603 3rd Avenue, Bensenville, IL 60106) . 

"Studying Sherlock Holmes" is the theme of this year's "Gathering of South- 

ern Sherlockians" in Chattanooga, Tenn., on Apr. 20-21; their program will 

feature a tribute to "A Study in Scarlet" and "The Sign of the Four", and 

their mailing list is maintained by Kent Ross (721 Hartford Road, Spring- 

field, OH 45503) (678-464-8321) . 

The latest issue of Carolyn and Joel Senter's The Sherlockian E-Times will 

be found at , offering Sherlock- 

iana, old and new, books and much more, including news and views of society 

meetings here and there, and a nice photograph of the Senters. 

The Sherlockian "Mr. Gallagher & Mr. Shean" duet performed by Jim Saunders 

and Henry Boote during the birthday festivities last month is now available 

to a wider audience, at . 

The December issue of the quarterly newsletter of The Friends of the Sher- 

lock Holmes Collections at the University of Minnesota offers a "100 Years 

Ago" discussion by Dick Sveum of early Danish translations of the Canon and 

a "50 Years Ago" tribute by Julie McKuras to H. W. Starr and Ron Haydock, 

plus other new from and about the collections; copies of the newsletter are 

available from Richard J. Sveum (111 Elmer L. Andersen Library, University 

of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455) .

Feb 12 #6 SHERLOCK HOLMES ON SCREEN, by Alan Barnes (London: Titan Books, 

2011; 320 pp., £16.99/$19.95) carries the accurate subtitle THE 

COMPLETE FILM AND TV HISTORY, and is a well-illustrated treasure trove of 

information; it's up to date through "Tom and Jerry Meet Sherlock Holmes" 

and the first "Sherlock" series from the BBC. The first version of Barnes' 

book was published in 2001, and the new edition has an enthusiastic fore- 

ward by Steven Moffat. It is a valuable reference book, and recommended. 


Titan continues to extend its series "The Continuing Adventures of Sherlock 

Holmes" with pastiches new and old. THE WEB WEAVER, by Sam Siciliano (394 

pp., £7.99/$9.95) is new; the story's told by Holmes' cousin Dr. Henry Ver- 

nier and his wife Michelle, and offers an interesting mystery, tragedy, and 

romance. 

The older pastiches are interesting as well: Richard L. Boyer's THE GIANT 

RAT OF SUMATRA (1976) has one of the more interesting (and perhaps improb- 

able) identifications of the ferocious beast, and Sam Siciliano's THE ANGEL 

OF THE OPERA (1994) is an earlier tale told by Vernier, about Holmes' trip 

to Paris to confront the Phantom of the Opera (both 309 pp., £7.99/$9.95). 

Titan's new and expanded edition of Kim Newman's ANNO DRACULA: THE BLOODY 

RED BARON (587 pp., £7.99/$14.95) is a sequel to his ANNO DRACULA (Dec 11 

#12); the Diogenes Club (and Mycroft Holmes) have helped the British over- 

throw the Prince Consort Count Dracula, who is now providing assistance to 

the German armies in World War I. There's a very brief appearance by Sher- 

lock Holmes, as well as an aftermath story set in 1923, annotations, and a 

screenplay Newman wrote for Roger Corman. Newman has a fine way with vam- 

pires and an imaginative skill with colorful language. 

Titan also has reprinted two of the Harry Houdini mysteries written by Dan- 

iel Stashower: THE DIME MUSEUM MURDERS (2000) and THE FLOATING LADY MURDER 

(2000); the novels are set in the late 1890s, when Houdini was still trying 

to launch his career as an escapologist (and liked to quote from the Sher- 

lock Holmes stories). Finally, "Imagine a person, tall, lean, and feline, 

high-shouldered, with a brow like Shakespeare and a face like Satan." That 

would be Dr. Fu-Manchu, the insidious villain created by Sax Rohmer; Titan 

has reprinted THE MYSTERY OF DR. FU-MANCHU (1913) and THE RETURN OF DR. FU- 

MANCHU (1916) and plans to continue with twelve more novels. 

Carole Nelson Douglas' "Irene Adler" novella THE PRIVATE WIFE OF SHERLOCK 

HOLMES, previously anthologized in SEX, LIES, AND PRIVATE EYES (Jul 09 #6) 

is now available as an Amazon Kindle e-book ($2.99) from Wishlist Publish- 

ing; it's an amusing story, involving Holmes and Irene meeting the Prince 

of Wales in a house of ill repute. 

The winter issue of The Magic Door (the newsletter published by The Friends 

of the Arthur Conan Doyle Collection at the Toronto Reference Library) has 

Dayna Nuhn's interesting (and timely) survey of Valentine's Day cards, re- 

ports on last year's "A Study in Scandal" conference, and other news from 

and about the collection; copies of the newsletter are available on request 

from Clifford S. Goldfarb, 22 Markdale Avenue, Toronto, ON M6C, 1T1, Canada 

.

Feb 12 #7 Daniel McGachey's SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE IMPOSSIBLE CASES (Colu- 

sa: Dark Regions Press, 2010; 273 pp., $18.95) is a collection 

of five pastiches, echoing the unrecorded cases and with considerable em- 

phasis on the supernatural. Dark Regions also has published William Meik- 

le's SHERLOCK HOLMES: REVENANT (2011; 135 pp., $14.95); Holmes and Watson, 

on the run from the official police, travel to Scotland and back to London 

in pursuit of an evil genius with supernatural powers. The publisher has 

a web-site at . 

John Baesch spotted a profile of Umberto Eco in the Sunday Times (Oct. 30) 

that reports that Eco was astounded by the success of his novel THE NAME OF 

THE ROSE, and that he regarded the film as a travesty. 

"Remember kicking back in the 1890s? There was nothing better than relax- 

ing with the latest Sherlock Holmes adventure in The Strand Magazine and a 

Gilbert and Sullivan cylinder on the phonograph." According to CNET story 

(Feb. 6), spotted by Bill Barnes. Michael Greensmith has made a Steampunk 

iPhonograph that will play music from your iPad. You can read all about it 

at . 

Joan Proubasta, who presides over Círculo Holmes, the Sherlockian society 

in Barcelona, has donated his Sherlockian collection to La Biblioteca Arús, 

and there's a 4-minute video showing the library's exhibition (and Joan) at 

. 

The latest Sherlockian audio from Big Finish is THE TANGLED SKEIN, adapted 

by Richard Dinnick from David Stuart Davies' book (1992) and starring Nich- 

olas Briggs as Holmes, Richard Earl as Watson, and Giles Watling as Count 

Dracula; on two CDs ($23.91) and as a download ($12.99); PO Box 3787, Maid- 

enhead, Berks. SL6 3TF, England) . It's a full-cast re- 

cording, with featurette interviews with cast and crew, and nicely done. 

Noted by Greg Darak: MR. MAGOO: THE COMPLETE TELEVISION COLLECTION, 1960- 

1977, a new set of 11 DVDs from Shout! Factory ($79.97); the contents in- 

clude the 30-minute NBC animated television series "The Famous Adventures 

of Mr. Magoo", in which "Mr. Magoo's Sherlock Holmes" (1965) featured Jim 

Backus (Mr. Magoo/Dr. Watson) and Paul Freas (Sherlock Holmes). Mr. Magoo 

also appears briefly in Sherlockian costume at the end of "Mr. Magoo's Dick 

Tracy and the Mob" (1965). If you're willing to settle for lower fidelity, 

both episodes are available on the Internet at YouTube . 

Greg also reports that LOOK I MADE A HAT, the second volume of Steven Sond- 

heim's collected lyrics, includes "I Never Do Anything Twice" (the song he 

wrote for the film "The Seven-Per-Cent Solution"), and that an article in 

the spring issue of The Sondheim Review that lists Steven Sondheim's favor- 

ite films, one of which is "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" (1939); the 

magazine's web-site is at . 

"People sometimes wonder why I belong to The Baker Street Irregulars," Mi- 

chael Dirda wrote in his blog at the N.Y. Review of Books, adding that "the 

answer, of course, is elementary: friendship, collegiality, fellowship." A 

sentiment that applies equally to the wider world of Sherlockians; the blog 

can be read at .

Feb 12 #8 Joe McDonald reports that there will be a "Conan Doyle Weekend" 

in Haslemere (Surrey) on June 15-17, with events that include 

a performance of David Stuart Davies' play "Sherlock Holmes-The Last Act", 

a screening of Peter Cushing's "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (1959), pre- 

sentations by Andrew Lane, Andrew Lycett, Catherine Cooke, and Roger John- 

son, and a murder-mystery dinner. You can go to 

and click on "Events" for more information. 

The Machickanee Players will perform Tim Kelly's play "The Adventure of the 

Speckled Band" at the Park Avenue Playhouse from May 4 to May 13. 408 Park 

Avenue, Oconto, WI 54153 (920-834-4353) . 

Alfred A. Levin ("Abe Slaney") died on Feb. 17. Fred was an organic chem- 

ist and an enthusiastic Sherlockian; with a special interest in the Reich- 

enbach Falls (which he visited many times); he was an active member of many 

of the Sherlockian societies in the Chicago area, and received his Investi- 

ture from The Baker Street Irregulars in 1993. 

Randall Stock continues to enhance the contents of his excellent "Best of 

Sherlock" web-site, which now offers an entry on another new book by Conan 

Doyle . DANGEROUS 

WORK will feature the journal he kept in 1880 during his voyage to the Arc- 

tic aboard the SS Hope in pursuit of seals and whales, and it will be pub- 

lished this fall by the British Library in the U.K. and by the University 

of Chicago Press in the U.S. 

Taz Rai's THE ART OF DEDUCTION: THE WAY OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (2011; 102 pp., 

$17.97) is an eBook that offers a detailed academic discussion of Holmes' 

use of rationality, logic, and observation, with examples from the Canon, 

by way of helping readers learn how to use Holmes' methods themselves. The 

author's web-site's at . 

The Sherlockian Calendar, maintained Ron Fish and Ben and Sue Vizoskie at 

, is an excellent list of upcoming 

Sherlockian events, for anyone who would like to know what's happening when 

(and where); you can contact Ron at if you would like to 

have a meeting or conference listed. 

Karen Ellery reports that the Ash-Tree Press is now offering three e-books: 

Barbara Roden's THE THAMES HORROR AND OTHER ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES 

(Dec 11 #2), David Stuart Davies' BENDING THE WILLOW: JEREMY BRETT AS SHER- 

LOCK HOLMES (Mar 97 #2) ($9.99), and Stephen Clarkson's THE CANONICAL COM- 

PENDIUM (Jan 01 #5) ($7.99); . 

Further to the report on Laurie R. King's next "Mary Russell" novel GAME 

OF SHADOWS, due in September (Jan 12 #5), Laurie reports on her blog that 

she will go to Japan in April to do research on what the country was like 

in 1924, when Russell and Holmes were there (between the earlier novels THE 

GAME and LOCKED ROOMS); the next installment of the Russell saga, not yet 

named, is due in 2014. Laurie's web-site is at . 


20817-4401 (301-229-5669)

Mar 12 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press 

Baker St, a New York-based pop-rock band made up of former and current Co- 

lumbia University students, has just released their third CD: Irregulars. 

You can download the album at , and there will 

be an EP available there soon; you can find their music videos at YouTube, 

and their web-site is at . Michelle Hutt, the band's 

songwriter, explains that they decided on the name because she has been a 

huge fan of the Sherlock Holmes stories since high school; they also feel 

that in some ways their musical style is a bit more like that of rock music 

in the UK right now. 

Booktrack reports that its "enhanced" edition of "The Speckled Band" (with 

sound effects and a soundtrack) for reading on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod 

Touch (Sep 11 #4) has been downloaded more than 100,000 times, and is one 

of the most downloaded global eBooks of 2011. It helped, of course, that 

it was available without charge. Booktrack's books can now also be played 

on Androids, PCs, and Macs . 

Lenny Picker has reported that Benedict Cumberbatch has played a young Rum- 

pole of the Bailey on BBC Radio 4: "Rumpole and the Penge Bungalow Murders" 

(2009) and "Rumpole and the Family Pride" and "Rumpole and the Eternal Tri- 

angle" (2010) featured Timothy West as the older Rumpole, and they played 

the same parts in "Rumpole and the Man of God" and "Rumpole and the Explos- 

ive Evidence" in March. 

SN2apps has released four "Sherlock Holmes Interactive Radio Apps" for the 

iPads (other devices to follow): the stories are "The Speckled Band", "The 

Speckled Band", "The Five Orange Pips", and "The Man with the Twisted Lip", 

and the apps ($2.99 each) come with radio scripts and dramatizations that 

star Edward Petherbridge and David Peart (from the fine Independent Radio 

Drama Productions series broadcast by National Public Radio in the 1990s), 

a map of London, colorful artwork, and a treasure hunt. There's more about 

the series at , and the apps are available at Apple's apps 

store. 

There's a Puffin Classics edition of THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES (London: 

Puffin Penguin, 2011; 243 pp., £6.99/$4.99) with a new introduction by Jud- 

ith Kerr and cover art by Bill Sanderson. 

"In the beginning there was Sherlock Holmes,' according to someone who uses 

the on-line pseudonym daasgrrl, "And from Holmes was brought forth House, 

played by Hugh Laurie. Who in Fortysomething as Peter Slippery was father 

to Rory Slippery, played by Benedict Cumberbatch. Who grew up to play Sher- 

lock. And then my head exploded." Cindy Coppock spotted daasgrrl's mash-up 

of all this at . 

Bill Crider's monthly "Blog Bytes" column in Ellery Queen's Mystery Maga- 

zine recommends interesting sites such as "Stop, You're Killing Me" (main- 

tained by Lucinda Surber and Stan Ulrich); it won an Anthony (best blog) at 

Bouchercon last year, and it lists more than 3,800 authors, with chronolo- 

gical lists of their books (more than 43,000 titles) and much more informa- 

tion, including lists for characters .

Mar 12 #2 "The Black Swan is an inn of repute in the High Street," Wat- 

son wrote (in "The Copper Beeches"), and the Black Swan is one 

of the very few real hotels found in the Canon. According to an article in 

the Hampshire Chronicle (Feb. 10), Winchester's headless statue of a black 

swan is being repaired. A statue originally marked the Black Swan Hotel, 

which was demolished for road-widening in 1935, and then on the Black Swan 

Buildings office block that was built on the site of the hotel; the statue 

was damaged about ten years ago, and a new head and neck will be provided. 

But it's not the original statue, which fell to pieces in 1945, when mem- 

bers of the public raised £35 to pay a local craftsman to carve a new swan. 

People like a good ghost story (well, perhaps people ought to like a good 

ghost story) and MX Publishing offers "IN THE NIGHT--IN THE DARK": TALES OF 

GHOSTS AND LESS WELCOME VISITORS (2011; 366 pp., £13.99); it's subtitled as 

"a complete ghostly crew and a full complement of ghastly passengers," and 

there's humor as well as horror and terror, although nothing Sherlockian, 

except that the author is Roger Johnson and the cover photograph is by Jean 

Upton. The book is full of grand stories and poems. 

Marino C. Alvarez's A PROFESSOR REFLECTS ON SHERLOCK HOLMES also is avail- 

able from MX Publishing (2012; 162 pp., £9.99); the author is a professor 

emeritus at Tennessee State University's College of Education and a member 

of The Nashville Scholars of the Three Pipe Problem, and the book is a col- 

lection of papers old and new, including an analysis of Eric L. Conklin's 

first Sherlock Holmes Mystery Painting (which you can see in full color at 

and a report on a trip to Trini- 

ty College Oxford to inspect the Ronald A. Knox papers and the Gryphon Club 

Book of Minutes. 

MX Publishing has many pastiches: Wilfred Huettel's MARK OF THE BASKERVILLE 

HOUND (2011; 211 pp., £10.99) begins in 1982 with a retired New York police 

officer recounting his visit to Dartmoor and an encounter with a terrifying 

modern version of the hound. Kieren E. McMullen's SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE 

IRISH REBELS (2011; £10.99) has Holmes and Watson in Dublin in 1916, deeply 

involved in espionage and the Irish Rebellion. Fred Thursfield's SHERLOCK 

HOLMES AND THE DISCARDED CIGARETTE (2012; 100 pp., £6.99) brings Holmes and 

Watson to a meeting with H. G. Wells, whose Time Machine has been used by a 

crafty art forger. Margaret Park Bridges' MY DEAR WATSON (2011; 217 pp., 

£9.99) was written in English and published in Japanese some years ago (Jan 

99 #3) and is now available in English; Holmes is a woman (unknown to Wat- 

son and everyone else) and engaged in a desperate struggle with Constance 

Moriarty, daughter of the evil professor. 

David Ruffle's SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE LYME REGIS HORROR, first published 

in 2009 (May 11 #4), has been reissued by MX Publishing in a second expand- 

ed edition (2012; 173 pp., £9.99); the title story has Holmes and Watson in 

Lyme Regis, pursuing the vampire Count Olana in 1896 (Bram Stoker's DRACULA 

was published in 1897), and there are additional short stories, poems, and 

fragments. Ruffle's SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE LYME REGIS LEGACY (2012, 174 

pp., £9.99) offers more Sherlockian tales (with some non-Sherlockian ghost 

stories), and he's the editor of TALES FROM THE STRANGER'S ROOM (2012, 241 

pp., £10.99), an anthology of pastiches, vignettes, and poetry written by 

members of the on-line forum .

Mar 12 #3 Michael Saler's AS IF: MODERN ENCHANTMENT AND THE LITERARY PRE- 

HISTORY OF VIRTUAL REALITY (New York: Oxford University Press, 

2012; 283 pp., $27.95) is an interesting examination of the fantasy worlds 

created by authors ranging from Verne to Tolkien, with a delightful chap- 

ter ("Clap if You Believe in Sherlock Holmes: Arthur Conan Doyle and Ani- 

mistic Reason") that discusses naive believers, ironic believers, and the 

strange behavior that's found in the world of Sherlockians. 

The Hollywood Reporter confirmed (Feb. 27) that the CBS-TV pilot "Element- 

ary" will feature Lucy Liu as Watson; she is currently starring as Officer 

Jessica Tang in the TNT television series "Southland"; Deadline Hollywood 

(Feb. 27) had details on the premise: Jonny Lee Miller stars as eccentric 

Brit Sherlock Holmes, a former consultant to Scotland Yard whose addiction 

problems led him to a rehab center in New York City; just out of rehab, he 

now lives in Brooklyn with "sober companion" Joan Watson, a former surgeon 

who lost her license after a patient died, while consulting for the NYPD. 

Some reports have suggested that Lucy Liu will be the first female Watson. 

Well, not quite: there have been at least three (in films and on televis- 

ion). Care to identify them? 

A later report has Aidan Quinn joining the cast of "Elementary" as Gregson, 

a captain in the NYPD who worked with Holmes previously at Scotland Yard. 

Quinn recently starred in the NBC-TV series "Prime Suspect". 

E. W. Barton-Wright's THE SHERLOCK HOLMES SCHOOL OF SELF-DEFENCE: THE MANLY 

ART OF BARTITSU AS USED AGAINST PROFESSOR MORIARTY (Lewes: Ivy Press, 2011; 

127 pp., £6.99) is an amusing compilation of his articles in Pearson's Mag- 

azine, with enhancements that include Marcus Tindal's "Self-Protection on a 

Cycle"; Bartitsu is mentioned in the Canon (misspelled as baritsu), and it 

probably is just as well that Violet Smith had not read Tindal's article. 

THE MORIARTY PAPERS, compiled by Colonel Sebastian Moran (London: New Holl- 

and, 2011; 160 pp., £7.99), is collection of Moriarty's surviving papers in 

the form of a full color scrapbook, with entertaining marginal comments by 

Moran; it would appear that Moriarty was involved in most of Holmes' cases. 

Don Hobbs reports that the total number of languages known to have at least 

one Canonical translation has reached 92, the latest being Breton, in which 

there's a translation KI AR VASKERVILLED (272 pp., €9.00 from Coop Breizh at 

. Breton is a Celtic language spoken in Brittany, and 

Vaskervilled is Baskerville in English. 

"The book is a rather silly story about a governess and two haunted chil- 

dren. I am afraid that in it Mr. James exposes the extent of his ignorance. 

He knows little about children and nothing at all about governesses." Gov- 

erness Hester Barrow, in Diane Setterfield's THE THIRTEEN TALE (2006). 

There was a discussion of the phrase "jumping the shark" on the Letters of 

Mary e-mailing list (for fans of the Mary Russell books), and Kathy Elliott 

recommended ; it's a wiki "catalog of the tricks of the 

trade for writing fiction," and of course a search for [sherlock] brings up 

a long list of interesting commentary.

Mar 12 #4 Greg Darak has noted a Russian CD "Vladimir Dashkevich: Sher- 

lock Holmes and Doctor Watson" issued by Bomba Music in Moscow 

in 2002 with tracks from the Russian television series (Dashkevich was the 

composer of the scores); copies of the CD turn up at eBay, and some of his 

music is available on the Internet for listening or download. 

Jan Berenstain died on Feb. 24. With her husband Stan she created the Ber- 

enstein Bears in 1962, launching a series of children's books that became 

one of the most successful in children's literature; the series, with more 

than 300 books, has sold more than 260 million copies, and the Berenstain 

Bears have been seen in stage musicals, television series, videocassettes 

and DVDs, and as toys. THE BEAR DETECTIVES: THE CASE OF THE MISSING PUMP- 

KIN was published in 1975, with Detective Brother and Detective Sister ap- 

pearing in Sherlockian costume; they've been seen in many later books, and 

in a set of figurines issued in 1985. 

Gayle Harris recommends the web-site Old Maps Online as an excellent portal 

for inspecting digital historical maps in libraries around the world. The 

URL is , and one can explore Baker Street as well as 

a world of other locations. 

According to a story in the Sussex Courier (Feb. 17), Crowborough historian 

Michael Tuffley has begun a campaign to erect a statue of Sherlock Holmes 

in the town, and hopes to raise £50,000 to cover the costs. But town coun- 

cillor George Moss, noting that Crowborough already has a statue of Conan 

Doyle, felt there was no need for another statue, and that the money might 

be best spent elsewhere. 

Philip K. Jones has compiled (and continues to compile) an excellent data 

base for Sherlockian pastiches, parodies, and related fiction; he had en- 

tries for 5,520 different items some years ago (Apr 06 #6), and his count 

now stands at more than 9,000. The data base is interesting and informa- 

tive, and available on-line . 

And who are the women who have played Watson? Joanne Woodward (Dr. Mildred 

Watson) in "They Might Be Giants" (1971), Jenny O'Hara (Doctor Watson) in 

"The Return of the World's Greatest Detective" (1976), and Margaret Colin 

(Jane Watson) in "The Return of Sherlock Holmes" (1987). There's a fourth, 

(though likely seen by fewer people): Gina Ryder (Dr. Emma Watson) in the 

pornographic film "The Secret of Harlot Hill" (2001). 

The earlier question (Feb 12 #4) was about films and television shows (oth- 

er than CBS-TV's "Elementary") that have had Holmes living in (rather than 

traveling to) cities other than London? Larry Hagman's "The Return of the 

World's Greatest Detective" (1976) is one, and Judith Freeman adds Anthony 

Higgins' "1994 Baker Street: Sherlock Holmes Returns" (1993) to the list. 

Something else for fans of the Benedict Cumberbatch series: a four-minute 

montage of a scene from the first program, dubbed into four different lan- 

guages

Mar 12 #5 "At the main pilgrimage temple he paid his respects to the head 

Lama, who gave him 'a bag of tiny pills which would preserve me 

from every possible mischance.'" Spotted by John Baesch in the Daily Tele- 

graph obituary (Jan. 31) for Augusto Gansser, a Swiss geologist who died at 

the age of 101. He visited Tibet in 1936, disguised as a Buddhist pilgrim, 

and he met the head Lama at Mt. Kailash. And his geological expertise was 

not limited to the Himalayas: another technical paper "The Roraima Problem, 

South America" was published in 1974. 

"Sherlock & Shylock: The Sleuths of Venice" will be the theme of the No Fog 

Countries Meeting II, scheduled by Uno Studio in Holmes in Venice on Oct. 

12-14; details at , and 

you can expect wining, dining, lectures, tours, and a concert. 

Mona Morstein's THE CHILDHOOD OF SHERLOCK HOLMES was first published by the 

Galde Press (Feb 00 #6), and it has been reissued by UCS Press in two vol- 

umes as THE HOLMES BOYS: SHERLOCK AND MYCROFT ($14.95 per volume); it's an 

imaginative and well-written history of the Holmes family, both parents and 

children, told by the butler who served them. 

Tim Kelly died on Dec. 7, 1998. According to an obituary in Playbill, he 

was thought to be the most-published playwright in America, under his own 

name and at least four pseudonyms, writing more than 300 comedies, dramas, 

one-acts, mysteries, melodramas, children's shows, and musicals. His work 

continues to be popular in the amateur market: in 1998, the Pioneer Drama 

Service (one of his publishers) licensed more than 3,000 productions of his 

plays worldwide. His Sherlockian credits include more than a dozen plays, 

among them an adaptation of William Gillette's "Sherlock Holmes" and drama- 

tizations of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" and "The Speckled Band". 

Titan's recent reprint of Sax Rohmer's THE MYSTERY OF DR. FU-MANCHU (Feb 12 

#6) has at the end an interesting essay by Les Klinger on "Appreciating Dr. 

Fu-Manchu". A separate section "About the Author" notes the truly ironic 

fact that Rohmer died in 1959, "a victim of an outbreak of the type A in- 

fluenza known as the Asian flu." 

One assumes that many Sherlockians have ordered the British region 2 DVDs 

of the second series of the BBC's "Sherlock" (at least those Sherlockians 

who can play the DVDs on multi-region DVRs or computers). The box for the 

British DVDs carries a "12" rating ("Suitable only for persons of 12 years 

and over"), which is similar to the Motion Picture Association of America's 

"PG-13" rating ("Parents Strongly Cautioned: Some material may be inappro- 

priate for children under 13"). But that's not because Lara Pulver is seen 

wearing nothing but a pair of Louboutins: the box for the British DVDs with 

the first series carries the same "12" warning. 

Christopher Roden has reported that the Arthur Conan Doyle Society has re- 

ceived a message from the Parish Church of St. Oswald's Thornton in Lons- 

dale, Yorkshire, where Arthur Conan Doyle married Louisa Hawkins in 1885: 

St. Oswald's proposes to commission a special "Arthur Conan Doyle Plaque" 

to be affixed to the lych gate entrance to the church and graveyard, and 

hopes to raise £20,000 for the project, which will also enhance the church 

facilities with a new kitchen area and disabled toilet.

Mar 12 #6 "It Seems There's Gnome Place Like Holmes," according to a sto- 

ry in Radio Times (Mar. 9): Disney will start production this 

fall on "Gnomeo & Juliet: Sherlock Gnomes", a 3D animation that's a sequel 

to their "Gnomeo & Juliet" (2011); the new film is reported to have Gnomeo 

and Juliet enlisting the help of Sherlock Gnomes, the world's greatest or- 

namental detective, when gnomes start disappearing from the suburban gar- 

dens of England. Elton John will write songs for the film. 

Thad Holt discovered an article in the Daily Telegraph about an exhibition 

at the Wandsworth Museum of photographs of historic London (including some 

striking scenes from the Victorian era . 

This year is the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, and Will- 

iam Seil's THE TITANIC TRAGEDY (London: Titan Books, 2012; 261 pp., £7.99/ 

$9.95) is the latest addition to the publisher's series of reprints in its 

"The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" series; the pastiche was first 

published in 1996 and has Holmes and Watson aboard the ship, on secret as- 

signment by the government and facing an assortment of villains. The pub- 

lisher's web-site is at . 

Further to the item about the "Conan Doyle Weekend" in Haslemere (Surrey) 

on June 15-17, there's a web-site at giving 

more information about events and lodging. 

Peter Bergman died on Mar. 9. He was one of the four founders of the Fire- 

sign Theatre in 1966 (the Washington Post once described the Firesign ex- 

perience as "an impolite talk show where the host has lost control"). The 

Sherlockian world welcomed their 1974 record "The Tale of the Giant Rat of 

Sumatra" (also known as "A Thrilling Mis-Adventure from 'The Cheque Book of 

Hemlock Stones"). 

, noted by Samantha Wolov, is a "photo blog collec- 

tion of all the best bookshelf photos from around the world." Pay special 

attention to . 

Those who wonder about Victorian slang may wish to read the story (spotted 

by Karen Rhodes) in the Daily Telegraph (Feb. 24) about the on-line avail- 

ability of the 2nd edition of Francis Grose's A CLASSICAL DICTIONARY OF THE 

VULGAR TONGUE (1811) at Project Gutenberg . And 

Darlene Cypser has noted a more recent resource: J. Redding Ware's PASSING 

ENGLISH OF THE VICTORIAN ERA: A DICTIONARY OF HETERODOX ENGLISH, SLANG, AND 

PHRASE (1909) . 

Hellokids.com is an imaginative web-site reported by Karen Murdock: among 

the many features are print-out coloring pages with an assortment of Brit- 

ish authors, including Conan Doyle . 

Ken Lanza reports that Holmes & Watson, a British-style pub in Troy, N.Y., 

will close on Apr. 13. The British-style pub opened in 1978 and has been 

sold to new owners and will reopen in June as Finnbar's Irish Pub. Holmes 

& Watson offered for some years a "world tour" prize to customers who tried 

all of the pub's approximately 100 draft and bottled beers within a year. 

Ken also reports that he was one of the pub's first customers.

Mar 12 #7 The BBC has reported that filming on the third "Sherlock" sea- 

son will begin early next year. One reason for the hiatus, of 

course, is that the stars have other work: Benedict Cumberbatch is filming 

the next "Star Trek" movie and Martin Freeman is working on "The Hobbit". 

In the meantime, "Masterpiece" is running a count-down clock for the sec- 

ond season (which starts on May 6), with a variety of video and other links 

that include a "reader discretion advised" interview with Cumberbatch and a 

feature on Andrew Scott (who definitely is one of the more imaginative Mor- 

iartys). The series will be released in the U.S. on Blu-ray and DVD on May 

22 with the three new episodes, audio commentary for the first two, and a 

behind-the-scenes featurette ("Sherlock Uncovered"). 

The Browser bills itself as a "21st-century library of Writing Worth Read- 

ing", and one of its offerings is an interview with Michael Dirda about the 

world of Sherlockians and about his favorite Sherlockian and Doylean books 

. 

"Sherlock Holmes Complains about Fake Sherlock Holmeses" is an amusing two- 

minute video spotted by Lloyd Rose at YouTube . 



iana, old and new, books and much more, including news and views of society 

meetings, and a CD recording of the late Art Schroeder's audio drama "The 

Forgotten Victim" (the story of "The Speckled Band" as told by the snake). 

"Steampunk Holmes: Legacy of the Nautilus" is a work-in-progress discovered 

by Karen Murdock at ; there's a two-minute trailer 

for a planned interactive book. 

Martin Breese died on Feb. 23. He was an important figure in the world of 

magicians, as a historian and a publisher of books, CDs, and DVDs, and in 

1995 began publishing a series of Sherlockian pastiches written by fellow 

magician Val Andrews and others; in 2005 he sold his mystery series to An- 

tony J. Richards, but maintained his enthusiastic interest in magic. 

The Société Sherlock Holmes de France now holds a record for the most fre- 

quent Sherlockian society publication: their attractive Ironmongers Daily 

News appears daily (in French) via the Internet, and you can subscribe at 

their web-site without charge. 

There are 166 scripts available for download from The Generic Radio Work- 

shop's Vintage Radio Script Library , five from the 

long-running "Sherlock Holmes" series (1939-1947). 

There seems to be no end to interesting uses of the Internet: companies are 

making full-length films and uploading them to YouTube for viewing or down- 

loading without charge; you can even skip most of the commercials. One of 

the films is "Sherlock Holmes" (2011), length 77 minutes, produced by Anton 

Pictures, inspired by Universal's "The Woman in Green" (1945), directed by 

George Anton, with Kevin Glaser (Sherlock Holmes) and Charles Simon (Wat- 

son). You can find it at . Thanks 

to Thierry Saint-Joanis for his report on the film.

Mar 12 #8 Timothy M. Brenner's LUMINARIES (Charleston: CreateSpace, 2011; 

252 pp., $9.99) involves Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Harry Houdini, 

and Orson Welles (all with psychic powers) in an alternate-history pursuit 

of a vicious serial killer; Welles is gifted with the power of mental tele- 

pathy, Houdini with telekinesis, and Conan Doyle can sense the history of 

objects by touching them, and they need all of those powers to defeat their 

adversary. 

Neil Gaiman's pastiche "The Case of Death and Honey" was selected by editor 

Jonathan Strahan as one of the stories in THE BEST SCIENCE FICTION AND FAN- 

TASY OF THE YEAR, VOLUME SIX (Night Shade Books, 2011; 600 pp., $19.99); it 

is reprinted from the anthology A STUDY IN SHERLOCK (Aug 11 #2). 

The Royal Mail's postage rates are going up on Apr. 30: first class (next 

working day) service will cost 60p (96¢) for 100g (3.5oz) and second class 

(third working day) will cost 50p (80¢). For our British readers, Ameri- 

cans pay 45¢ for the first ounce, 65¢ for 2 oz, 85¢ for 3 oz, and $1.50 for 

4 oz. 

Laurie R. King's PIRATE KING (Aug 11 #1) will be issued as a trade paper- 

back by Bantam in April with some bonus material: a print version of BEE- 

KEEPING FOR BEGINNERS (Jun 11 #3) and an excerpt from the next Mary Russell 

novel GARMENT OF SHADOWS; previously available only as an e-novella, BEE- 

KEEPING FOR BEGINNERS is an imaginative look, from Holmes' point of view, 

at his first meeting with Russell. 


Sherlock" web-site, where he has updated his census of copies of Beeton's 

Christmas Annual ; he 

has added a newly-reported copy at Tulane University, as well as new photo- 

graphs and other information. 

The limited-edition slip-cased set of THE GRAND GAME (with both volumes and 

FROM PIFF-POUFF TO BACKNECKE: THE FULL STORY) is now available for purchase 

from The Baker Street Irregulars; more information on the set and on prices 

will be found at . 

"Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows" has now grossed $534.8 million world- 

wide ($186.8 million domestic and $348.0 million foreign), more than "Sher- 

lock Holmes" (the first film in the franchise), which grossed $524.0 mill- 

ion world-wide ($209.0 domestic and $315.0 million foreign); the films rank 

#83 and #87 in all-time world-wide box-office grosses. 

Lyndsay Faye's first novel was the well-received pastiche DUST AND SHADOW 

(Feb 09 #2), and her second is THE GODS OF GOTHAM, just out from Amy Ein- 

horn Books/Putman; it's set in New York City in 1845 and thus isn't Sher- 

lockian. You can read an excerpt at , and there 

is a review by Claire Toohey at . Lyndsay also is 

an energetic blogger: you can read her sprightly report on the BSI annual 

dinner at . 


20817-4401 (301-229-5669)

Apr 12 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press 

The Exhibits Development Group has released an exhibition announcement for 

"Sherlock Holmes: The Science of Deduction", an interactive exhibition that 

will tour science museums from 2013 to 2016; the project, which is licensed 

by the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Estate Ltd., is impressive, and you can view 

the announcement at . Click on the two links at 

the bottom of the blue field to see the concept document and the brochure. 

The tour will begin at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry in Port- 

land in 2013. If you would like to receive the company's e-mail announce- 

ments, send a request to Angela Noble . 

Brad Keefauver's weird and wonderful "Sherlock Peoria" web-site celebrates 

its tenth anniversary on June 12, when Brad plans to shut it down. There's 

still time to visit the web-site and see how imag- 

inative it is; his announcement of the impending post-Sherlock Peoria world 

was made in his blog on Mar. 4. The April issue of The Gaslight Gazette, 

published by The Survivors of the Gloria Scott, opens with an appropriately 

imaginative protest; ask editor David J. Milner at 

for an electronic copy of the issue. 

Later: Brad reports that he has decided to keep his web-site up on the In- 

ternet for the foreseeable future, but will abandon the weekly updates, go- 

ing for a more irregular format. Tune in to his web-site for news of what 

will happen. 

Brad recommends the Baker Street Babes as the new face of Sherlockiana, and 

they're at ; they have a podcast, and a sprightly 

theme song: "They call us the Irregulars, but baby, we're always on time. 

Baker Street Babes always leave the rest of them behind. So when Scotland 

Yard, they send you home, you feel like you're losing your mind. If this 

quotidian world has got you cryin', won't you 221 be mine?" 

Sorry about that: is the correct URL for the web-site of The 

Société Sherlock Holmes de France, publisher of the Ironmongers Daily News 

(Mar 12 #7). 

"Masterpiece" is working hard at promoting the second season of "Sherlock": 

there's a web-site , and a Facebook 

page at , and there will be a live Twitter 

discussion during each of the three broadcasts, with the Baker Street Blog, 

the Baker Street Babes, Lyndsay Faye, and Les Klinger, @masterpiecepbs. 

A BOOK, by Mordecai Gerstein (New York: Roaring Brook Press, 2009; 48 pp., 

$16.99), is a charming book to read to children; grown-ups will enjoy it as 

much as their kids, and (of course) there is Sherlockian artwork. Compli- 

ments to Jennie Paton for spotting the book. 

"A Parliament of Lines" is the title of an exhibition at the City Art Cen- 

tre in Edinburgh (May 15 through July 8), showing the work of 15 contempor- 

ary Scottish artists, one of them Marie Harnett, who creates miniature pen- 

cil portraits. Three of them show Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, and Rachel 

McAdams, and you can see her portrait of Law at .

Apr 12 #2 The Fireman's Fund is one of the more unusual insurance compan- 

ies: they're the go-to insurer for the American entertainment 

industry, and they once insured the Loch Ness monster. They paid the stu- 

dio when the monster sank during filming of "The Private Life of Sherlock 

Holmes" (1970); the monster still lurks at the bottom of the loch, awaiting 

discovery by some intrepid diver who doesn't know about the history of the 

film. The N.Y. Times had an interesting article (Mar. 24) about the com- 

pany, but without any mention of the monster . 

Don Hobbs has discovered a new language for Canonical translations: Friulan 

(spoken in the Friuli region of northeastern Italy): LIS AVENTURIS DI SHER- 

LOCK HOLMES was published in 2009 by the Società Filologica Friulana, which 

has a web-site at ; search for [doyle]. 

Pamela Bruxner ("The British Government") died on Mar. 28. She was a medi- 

cal secretary and was involved with several musical and literary societies; 

for many years she was meetings secretary of The Sherlock Holmes Society of 

London, and she edited or co-edited nine of the Society's expedition hand- 

books. Pam was an Honorary Member of the Society, and received her Inves- 

titure from The Baker Street Irregulars in 1998. 

"The Hound of the Baskervilles" is a delightful parody that was written by 

Steven Canny and John Nicholson in 2007; it will be performed by the Pen- 

guin Rep Theatre, May 18 through June 10. 7 Crickettown Road, Stony Point, 

NY 10980 (845-786-2873) . 

Add Uruguay to the list of countries that have Sherlock societies: Ana Fer- 

nández is the contact for The Blue Scarves' Society, and you can find them 

at . The name of the society is a 

tribute to the blue scarf that's worn by Benedict Cumberbatch in the BBC's 

"Sherlock" mini-series. 

Murder Squad is a collective of five excellent British writers, and Martin 

Edwards has edited their BEST EATEN COLD AND OTHER STORIES (Stroud: Mystery 

Press, 2011; 190 pp., £6.99/$12.95); one of the 13 stories is Edwards' own 

Sherlockian pastiche "The Case of the Musical Butler". 

Ted M. Cowell reports an article in the Daily Mail (Mar. 31) about "Sweeps, 

nomads, quacks, and crawlers: The exotic down and outs of Victorian London 

captured on camera in the 1870s" with some strik- 

ing photographs of what Holmes might have seen when he arrived in London as 

a young man. 

Carolyn and Joel Senter offer an imaginative "Vamberry the wine merchant" 

corkscrew (with a hand-engraved 

handle) for $42.50. And other interesting Sherlockiana. 

Hans Sodertalje has reported to The Baskerville Hall Club that Andrew Tay- 

lor's BÖCKER SOM FÖRÄNDRADE VÄRLDEN: 50 VIKTIGASTE BÖCKERNA GENOM TIDERNA 

(published in Sweden in 2009) includes an essay on EN STUDIE I ROTT. For 

those who don't read Swedish, that's BOOKS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD: 50 MOST 

IMPORTANT BOOKS OF ALL TIME and (of course) A STUDY IN SCARLET. Scandinav- 

ian books can be ordered on-line at .

Apr 12 #3 The Bristol Riverside Theatre will present the world premiere 

of Allan Knee's play "Faery Tales", which the theater describes 

as "the true story" of the Cottingley Fairies (Conan Doyle sent the photo- 

graphs to his good friend Harry Houdini, "pitting the two men, each famous 

for their own brand of bringing the fantastic to life, against each other 

in a war over reality and magic"), Jan. 29-Feb. 17. 120 Radcliffe Street, 

Bristol, PA 19007 (215-785-0100) . Conan Doyle and Hou- 

dini were involved with the Cottingley Fairies in the film "Fairy Tale: A 

True Story" (1997), but that wasn't true, either (there's no record of Hou- 

dini having been involved in the investigation). Knee's earlier play "The 

Man Who Was Peter Pan" (1998) was adapted for the film "Finding Neverland" 

(2004), in which Ian Hart was seen briefly as Arthur Conan Doyle. 

The Eastbourne Herald has reported (Mar. 19) on how the locals are honoring 

Sherlock Holmes and his retirement at East Dean: there's a plaque, and a 6 

km walk, and an informative web-site at ; search for 

[sherlock holmes]. 

The film "Titanic" (1997) has been reissued as "Titanic 3D" as part of the 

commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the ship's sinking. It's not a 

compelling reason to see the film again, but: near the beginning, when the 

salvagers discuss whether 100-year-old Rose Calvert could be a survivor of 

the disaster, one of them says the other, "There's your first clue, Sher- 

lock." 

A marginal item for record collectors: "Back into the Future" is a double- 

LP album issued by the Welsh psychedelic/progressive rock band Man in 1973 

with a cover photograph that shows Sherlock Holmes standing on the platform 

of an Edwardian railroad station; you can see the cover at the album's en- 

try at Wikipedia . The album 

has been reissued as a CD with the same cover photograph. 

Those who fondly remember the grand gourmet Sherlockian dinners at the CIA 

(that's the Culinary Institute of America) may wish to attend the celebra- 

tion of the 40th anniversary of The Hudson Valley Sciontists in Poughkeep- 

sie, N.Y., on May 27; the theme of the gathering will be "Sherlock Holmes 

on the Hudson River", and the dinner will be supervised by CIA award-winn- 

ing chef Fritz Sonnenschmidt. Details are available from Lou and Candace 

Lewis (2 Lookerman Avenue, Poughkeepsie, NY 12601) . 

Christopher Boone, narrator of Mark Haddon's award-winning best-seller THE 

CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME (2003) is an autistic teen- 

ager who enjoys the Sherlock Holmes stories, and turns detective himself; 

the National Theatre in London has commissioned a dramatization of the nov- 

el, for performance starting in July. 

"Cloud Lovers, Unite!" is the motto of the Cloud Appreciation Society, re- 

ported by Karen Ellery, and one of the attractive photographs at the soci- 

ety web-site shows "Sherlock Holmes' smoking pipe over Teglio, Italy." The 

URL is . Accord- 

ing to a society press release there will be a Sherlockian cloud in CLOUDS 

THAT LOOK LIKE THINGS, by Gavin Pretor-Pinney (London: Sceptre, 2012; 112 

pp., £12.99), due in April.

Apr 12 #4 "This house, built in 1881, and was once occupied by Sir Arthur 

Conan Doyle," reads a plaque at 2151 Sacramento Street in San 

Francisco. The house was offered for sale in 1985 for $1.3 million (Oct 85 

#2) and was sold in 1986 for just under $1 million (Jan 87 #2), and you can 

now buy one of the building's four apartments (with 3 bed bedrooms, 4 bath- 

rooms, 2,528 square feet) for $2.5 million. But: Conan Doyle never lived 

in the house. He was a visitor, in June 1923, to meet Dr. Albert Abrams, 

who did live there. Abrams had invented a "radio heterodyne" that he used 

to detect cancer, syphilis, and other diseases, and Conan Doyle was greatly 

impressed; he discusses his visit to San Francisco, and Abrams, in OUR SEC- 

OND AMERICAN ADVENTURE (1924). He stayed at the Clift Hotel, which is much 

fancier now than it was then; the current rate for a standard room is $255 

a night. 

Tina Rhea spotted some interesting T-shirts at ; search 

for [sherlock holmes]. 

I've noted in past issues that members of The Baker Street Irregulars have 

acted in films, and I suppose that children should not be ignored. Jenny 

Ashman (daughter of Peter Ashman) has played Madeline in "The Karaoke King" 

(2007), and has other credits at the Internet Movie Database. 

"I love Sherlock Holmes. My life is so untidy and he's so neat." Dorothy 

Parker, interviewed by Marion Capron on "The Art of Fiction" in the Paris 

Review, summer 1956. 

"Hercule et Sherlock" (1996) is a French film, available on DVD (in French, 

although there is a version subtitled in Spanish); "when a counterfeiter is 

captured, two of his thugs have to work with two counterfeit money-sniffing 

dogs named Hercule and Sherlock to find the lost cash." Credit Irene Mihk- 

lin for spotting the film. 

The spring issue of For the Sake of the Trust (the The Baker Street Irregu- 

lars Trust newsletter) has Andy Solberg's report on the Trust's Oral His- 

tory Project, Vinnie Brosnan's "A Collector Recollects", and other news of 

and about the Trust; all issues of the newsletter are available on-line at 

the Trust web-site , and copies of the current issue are 

available from Marshall S. Berdan (2015 Main Street, Glastonbury, CT 06033) 

. 

Peter Calamai recommends the Book Depository for buying in-print books from 

Britain; they're in Guernsey, and at , and there's 

no charge for world-wide shipping to more than 100 countries. 

The Hounds of the Baskerville (sic) describe themselves as Chicago's origi- 

nal, senior, and most singular Sherlockian society, and one of their annual 

dinners featured a presentation by fight director and coordinator Tony Wolf 

(a co-founder of the Bartitsu Society), who performed a demonstration and 

previewed his upcoming documentary "Bartitsu: The Lost Martial Art of Sher- 

lock Holmes" (there's been no word on whether any Hounds were harmed during 

the demonstration). The DVD was released last year by Broken Art ($29.95), 

and it is nicely done indeed; the Bartitsu enthusiasts interviewed include 

authors Neal Stephenson and Will Thomas.

Apr 12 #5 Debbie Clark has reported Peter Tonkin's THE HOUND OF THE BOR- 

DERS (2003), which has Elizabethan sleuth Tom Musgrave on the 

Scottish borders in pursuit of the Barquest (a mythical hound of terrifying 

proportions); it's the third of four books in the his "Master of Defense" 

series, which has been described as "James Bond meets Sherlock Holmes meets 

William Shakespeare." 

Plan well ahead: the Segal Centre for Performing Arts in Montreal will pre- 

sent a new Sherlockian play written by Greg Kramer and starring Jay Baru- 

chel as as Holmes, May 5-26, 2013 . 

The Société Sherlock Holmes de France has reported on "L'extravagant mys- 

tère Holmes", a play written by Christian Chevalier and Christophe Guillon 

that premiered in 2010 and is still being performed by the Compagnie Kela- 

notre; their web-site at has artwork, photographs, and 

a three-minute video. 

Universal Pictures was founded on Apr. 30, 1912, and is now the oldest op- 

erating film producer and distributor in the United States. The UCLA Film 

& Television Archive is celebrating Universal's centenary with a seven-week 

film festival, showing films that range from "Traffic in Souls" (1913) to 

"Inglourious Basterds" (2009); details at . Alas: 

none of Basil Rathbone's "Sherlock Holmes" films made the list. 

A new Russian television series "Sherlock Holmes" has been in the works for 

some time, from Central Partnership, which was described as Russia's larg- 

est independent film producer and distributor (Jun 08 #6); there were many 

delays, but Alexander Orlov has reported that the production of the series 

is now underway, starring Igor Patrenko (Sherlock Holmes) and Andrey Panin 

(Dr. Watson) in eight two-part stories. Additional information is avail- 

able at (the Russian version of Wikipedia); Goo- 

gle Translate is a useful (and free) program that helps you read all sorts 

of languages on-line. 

The Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research surely is one of the 

more unusual places to find "The Valley of Fear" cited. Karen Murdock dis- 

covered "Sherlock Holmes and the Strange Case of the Missing Attribution" 

(by Jamie Reilly and Jamie Fisher) in the Feb. 2012 issue: the authors note 

echoes of the story in "The Grandfather Passage", which is used by aphasio- 

logists and others to elicit speech and reading errors. Copies are avail- 

able from Prof. Reilly . 

"You've Got Mail" is a weekly feature on the Houghton Library blog, and you 

can read Peter Accardo's report on an interesting letter from Christopher 

Morley to Edgar W. Smith at . The letter is part 

of the Baker Street Irregulars Archive at the Houghton. 

The next "Sherlock Holmes Weekend" in Cape May, N.J., will be on Nov. 2-4, 

with participants at work solving the mystery "Sherlock Holmes and the Tri- 

al of Moriarty's Challenge"; there also will be a performance of "Sherlock 

Holmes and the Adventure of the Norwood Builder" by the East Lynne Theater 

Company. Visit for 

more information on the weekend, or write to Box 340, Cape May, N.J. 08204.

Apr 12 #6 The Arthur Conan Doyle Weekend in Haslemere on June 15-17 (Feb 

12 #8) now has its own web-site ; 

Conan Doyle and first wife Touie rented Grayswood Beeches in Haslemere, and 

stayed at the Moorlands Hotel in Hindhead, before they moved into their new 

home, Undershaw, in the fall of 1897. 

The Puzzle Society has "games for your brain" as its motto, and a web-site 

at , and a long series of pocket-size themed Pocket 

Posh puzzle books, the latest of which is POCKET POSH: SHERLOCK HOLMES: 100 

PUZZLES & QUIZZES (Kansas City: Andrews McMeel, 2012; 135 pp., $7.99), and 

the book offers interesting mental exercise for fans. 

Steve Hockensmith's first story about Old Red and Big Red Amlingmeyer was 

published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine (Feb. 2003), and he went on to 

write more stories and five novels about the two cowboys: Old Red is a de- 

voted admirer of the Sherlock Holmes stories, and Big Red is his literate 

brother who reads the stories to Old Red as they appear in magazines in the 

1890s. DEAR MR. HOLMES: SEVEN HOLMES ON THE RANGE MYSTERIES (Charleston: 

CreateSpace, 2012; 202 pp., $11.99) collects seven stories reprinted from 

EQMM and the anthology GHOST TOWNS (2010); there's lots of detection, old- 

west flavor, and humor, and even the title-page verso copyright information 

is funny. The author has a web-site at . 

The March issue of the quarterly newsletter of The Friends of the Sherlock 

Holmes Collections at the University of Minnesota offers warm tributes to 

Norman Schatell by Julie McKuras and Don Pollock, "50 Years Ago" memories 

of John C. Hogan, and other new from and about the collections; copies of 

the newsletter are available from Richard J. Sveum (111 Elmer L. Andersen 

Library, Univ. of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455) . 

PInow (the "trusted network of private investigators") pitted 16 fictional 

private investigators against each other in a "March Madness" contest, and 

(as might be expected) Sherlock Holmes was the winner, matched in the fin- 

als against Magnum (who won a separate prize for "best private investigator 

mustache"). Details at . 

Tyke and Teddie Niver continue to present their "Sherlock Holmes: An Even- 

ing with the Gillettes" at Gillette Castle and at other venues in Connecti- 

cut; more information is available at . 

Acorn Media is continuing its evolution from distribution into content own- 

ership and television production, recently acquiring a 64% interest in the 

Agatha Christie estate. They continue to offer a wide range of television 

series on DVDs at , and free episodes of many of their 

series at , and if you purchase premium status 

($24.99 a year) you can watch complete series on-line, and they're planning 

to make their service available to Roku and NOOK devices. 

Daniel Corey's MORIARTY comic-book mini-series from Image (Nov 11 #7) will 

be turned into a stage musical, according to a Comic Book Resources story 

(Feb. 27) that said "it will be a very gritty and dark piece with a sense 

of high adventure" with music based in hard rock. Corey's media company is 

DangerKatt, and you can see his work at .

Apr 12 #7 Further to the report (Mar 12 #7) on "Steampunk Holmes: Legacy 

of the Nautilus" (the first in a "multi-channel" series that's 

going to be available both in print and electronically), the publishers are 

asking for financial support for the project; pledges start at $1.00, with 

premiums offered at various levels (the campaign ends on May 3). There's 

an interesting web-site at with more information, 

artwork, and a five-minute video. 

LUKOLI CHIKCHIKA APISA (a Choctaw translation of "The Speckled Band") was 

commissioned by Don Hobbs, who offers it as a 40-page pamphlet for $20.00 

postpaid (to the U.S.); his address is 2100 Elm Creek Lane, Flower Mound, 

TX 75028 . 

There's a nice assortment of new pastiches from MX Publishing, all of them 

(and more) available at their web-site : Tim Symonds' 

SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE DEAD BOER AT SCOTNEY CASTLE (2012; 277 pp., £11.99) 

pits Holmes and Watson against the Kipling League, a sinister society that 

manages to outwit Holmes (who understandably did not want this account pub- 

lished). Dean P. Turnbloom's SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE WHITECHAPEL VAMPIRE 

(2012; 246 pp., £10.99) has Holmes and Watson in pursuit of the Ripper, who 

is a sophisticated vampire who has fallen in love with the niece of Metro- 

politan Police Commissioner Sir Charles Warren. Amy Thomas' THE DETECTIVE 

AND THE WOMAN (2012; 204 pp., £9.99) sends Holmes and a widowed Irene Adler 

to Florida during the Great Hiatus, meeting Thomas Edison and foiling com- 

plicated villainy. 

Also from MX Publishing is Dan Andriacco's HOLMES SWEET HOLMES (2012; 260 

pp., £10.99), a murder mystery in which the victim is writer-actor-director 

Peter Gerard, whose latest film "221B Bourbon Street" had Holmes and Watson 

in New Orleans in the 1920s and triggered a storm of protest from Sherlock- 

ian purists, one of whom may or may not be the murderer. 

The winners of Edgars awarded by the Mystery Writers of America this year 

included Michael Dirda's ON CONAN DOYLE; OR, THE WHOLE ART OF STORYTELLING 

(for best critical/biographical) and Ken Ludwig's "The Game's Afoot" (for 

best play). 

"I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere" is an interview podcast by Scott Monty and 

Burt Wolder, and the latest episode (#41) runs 62 minutes and includes an 

interview with Lara Pulver, who plays Irene Adler in "A Scandal in Belgrav- 

ia" (the first episode of the second series of "Sherlock", airing on PBS-TV 

on May 6). Listen to or download the podcast at ; 

earlier episodes also are available, and there are no spoilers in Pulver's 

interview. It has been rumored that she was fully clothed during her in- 

terview, but Monty and Wolder weren't. 

The Missing Three-Quarter has been to Japan. The manuscript, that is. The 

British Library sent "two major treasures" (the manuscript, and a copy of 

Shakespeare's First Folio) to Tokyo as highlights in an exhibition at the 

British Embassy, Apr. 23-25, promoting British culture and education. 


20817-4401 (301-229-5669)

May 12 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press 

July 15 is the deadline for registration for "Sherlock Holmes: Behind the 

Canonical Screen" (the Baker Street Irregulars' conference in Los Angeles 

on Aug. 30-Sept. 3), which will feature actors, producers, and directors, 

and presentations covering screen-writing, casting, costuming, sound, and 

lighting. And screening of several rare and recently-restored films. De- 

tails at . 

The Ironmongers Daily News (published almost daily by the Société Sherlock 

Holmes de France) reports "Sherlock Yack" (2011), a French animated tele- 

vision series with 52 13-minute episodes. You can see artwork and watch a 

few episodes at . 

The Practical, But Limited, Geologists (also known as The Friends of Sher- 

lock Holmes) met to honor the world's first forensic geologist with drinks 

and dinner at Gladstone's in Long Beach on Apr. 25, when visitors attending 

the annual meeting of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists were 

welcomed by members of the local Sherlockian societies. An article on for- 

ensic geology and Sherlock Holmes and Sherlockians appeared in the AAPG Ex- 

plorer's April issue . 

Our next dinners will be in Charlotte on Nov. 7, and in Pittsburgh on May 

22, 2013. 

Michael Procter died on May 3. He trained at the Royal Academy of Music in 

London and went on to specialize in Renaissance music; he was a performer, 

conductor, teacher, and editor and publisher, and his web-site's still ac- 

tive at . Based in Germany, he was an energetic 

Sherlockian, this year founding the Sherlock Holmes Club of Carlsruhe; he 

also combined his two interests in an impressive monograph MELANCHOLIA IN 

MUSIC: THE POSTHUMOUS MOTETS OF ORLANDUS LASSUS, BY SHERLOCK HOLMES, pub- 

lished this year and available from Amazon in most countries. 

Philip K. Jones' data base for Sherlockian pastiches, parodies, and related 

fiction now has more than 9,000 entries; previously hosted at Michael Proc- 

ter's web-site, the data base is now available at Christopher and Barbara 

Roden's web-site . 

Sherlockians who have attended the birthday festivities will recall, fondly 

or perhaps otherwise, West 44th Street institutions such as the Algonquin, 

the Iroquois, the Royalton, the Red Flame, and the N.Y. City Bar Associa- 

tion, will enjoy Alex Shoumatoff's long and interesting article "Positively 

44th Street" in the June issue of Vanity Fair (alas, only a teaser's avail- 

able at the magazine's web-site). There's history galore, and gossip and 

scandal, in the block between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, and Shoumatoff gives 

the reader a fine tour of the area. 

Jon Lellenberg reports Arcadia Falcone's recent contribution to the Harry 

Ransom Center's "Cultural Compass" blog on "The Adventure of the Immortal 

Detective: Discovering Sherlock Holmes in the Archives" with a set of in- 

teresting images; they have a copy of Beeton's Christmas Annual, Paget or- 

iginals, manuscripts, and other nice material. You can read all about it 

at .

May 12 #2 The Daily Telegraph reported (May 3) that Buckingham Palace in- 

siders have said that Queen Elizabeth has taken part in a film 

that will be broadcast during the opening ceremony of the summer Olympics, 

bestowing a knighthood on James Bond (as portrayed by Daniel Craig). Jake 

Kerridge, the paper's crime critic, noted that two of Britain's most famous 

literary characters turned down knighthoods: one of them was James Bond, at 

the end of THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN, and the other was Sherlock Holmes, 

in "The Three Garridebs" (Kerridge also said that he didn't object to Brit- 

ain "broadcasting to the world a film in which the monarch gives one of the 

country's highest honors to a bigoted manipulative satyromaniac"). You can 

watch the film when it airs on July 27. 


be found at , with news and off- 

ers of Sherlockiana from Classic Specialties, plus reports from other soci- 

eties. 

CBS-TV has scheduled its one-hour series "Elementary" (Mar 12 #3) at 10:00 

pm on Thursdays in its fall line-up; you can watch a four-minute trailer at 

. There's also a more recent five-min- 

ute trailer at . A helpful hint for 

people in countries where CBS-TV isn't available on television (if you have 

access to the Internet): American networks tend to make their series avail- 

able on-line; see for a sample of what's available now. 

"The next I heard of Frank," Hatty Doran told Sherlock 

Holmes and Dr. Watson (in "The Noble Bachelor"), "he was 

in Montana, and then he was prospecting in Arizona, and 

then I heard from him from New Mexico." Our new stamps 

honor the 100th anniversary of statehood for Arizona and 

New Mexico; Montana's centennial was celebrated earlier 

(Jan 89 #5). 

"Bloody Scotland", Scotland's first international crime- 

writing festival, Sept. 14-16 in Stirling, will have Ian 

Rankin as keynote speaker and many other writers on hand 

for the weekend event, which will include panels, work- 

shops, a short-story contest, master-classes, and a Sherlock Holmes Dinner 

(on Sept. 15) with David Stuart Davies as the toastmaster. There's a web- 

site at , and if you're asked for a password, it's 

[welcome]. 

George Anton's YouTube video "Sherlock Holmes" (Mar 12 #7), with Kevin Gla- 

ser as Holmes and Charles Simon as Watson, also is available commercially 

as a DVD ($19.99) and from Amazon Instant Video ($1.99). 

Laurie R. King will be guest of honor at Malice Domestic 25 (May 3-5, 2013, 

at the Hyatt Regency in Bethesda, Md.); it's a long-running conference for 

mystery writers and readers, and it offers a fine opportunity to meet your 

favorite authors (and get them to sign their books for you). Details will 

be found (eventually) at , but you can register now 

(and that's advised if you want full registration including the Agatha ban- 

quet, at which attendance will be limited).

May 12 #3 "Masterpiece" promoted the second season of "Sherlock" with an 

excerpt screening, Q&A, and autograph reception in New York on 

May 2, with Benedict Cumberbatch, co-creator Stephen Moffat, and producer 

Sue Vertue, and there were 10,000 on-line applications for the 400 seats at 

the preview. You can watch a 48-minute video of the Q&A session at YouTube 

. Rebecca Eaton said that filming for 

the third season will begin in early 2013, and the series will air in the 

U.S. in 2013. 

Karen Murdock spotted the "Locations" section of Sherlockology, where you 

can find out where scenes were shot for all six episodes of "Sherlock" (you 

can click on "Series 1" or "Series 2" and then on scenes to find out what's 

where). And the British Academy of Film & Television announced its BAFTA 

Television Craft Awards on May 13, with "Sherlock" winning in three cate- 

gories for "A Scandal in Belgravia": best editing/fiction, best sound: fic- 

tion, and best writer (Steven Moffat). 

And "Sherlock" co-creator Mark Gatiss, who also plays Mycroft, has revealed 

that his Mycroft has a real-life inspiration: "I'd just auditioned to play 

Peter Mandelson in a TV film and we'd already discussed how reptilian and 

Mandelsonian we wanted Mycroft to be." Mandelson is a Labour Party politi- 

cian who has had a colorful and checkered career; a trusted advisor to Tony 

Blair, Mandelson was twice a member of Blair's cabinet and twice resigned 

amid accusations of corruption, and there's much more about him in an entry 

at Wikipedia. 

Plan well ahead: Jeffrey Hatcher's play "Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure 

of the Suicide Club" will be performed at the Alley Theatre from May 24 to 

June 23, 2013. The theater is at 615 Texas Avenue, Houston, TX 77002 

(713-220-5700) . 

The Sell a Door Theatre Company will perform Tim Kelly's play "The Hound of 

the Baskervilles" at the Greenwich Theatre, July 2-8. Croom's Hill, London 

SE10 8ES, England (020-8858-7755) . 

"Sherlock Holmes awarded title for most portrayed literary human character 

in film & TV," Guinness World Records announced this month. According to 

Guinness, Holmes has been depicted on screen 254 times, by more than 75 ac- 

tors, and Guinness adjudicator Claire Burgess commented that the title re- 

flects Holmes' "enduring appeal and demonstrates that his detective talents 

are as compelling today as they were 125 years ago." The runner-up for the 

record was Hamlet, with only 206 appearances. But Holmes isn't the overall 

most portrayed literary character, according to Guinness: that title's held 

by the non-human Dracula who has been portrayed 272 times. 

A novel that includes a papal exorcist in its list of characters promises 

to be interesting, and Gyles Brandreth's OSCAR WILDE AND THE VATICAN MUR- 

DERS (New York: Touchstone, 2012; 337 pp., $14.00) certainly fulfills that 

promise; it's the fifth in his series featuring Oscar Wilde and Arthur Co- 

nan Doyle as the detectives (Wilde, as always, is the better detective) in 

an imaginative mystery, narrated this time by Conan Doyle, that brings them 

to the Vatican in 1892. The next book in Brandreth's series will be OSCAR 

WILDE AND THE MURDERS AT READING GAOL.

May 12 #4 The television series "House, M.D." completed its long run on 

21 with a one-hour retrospective special ("Swan Song") that in- 

cluded a brief segment with a Sherlockian discussion by Hugh Laurie (Greg- 

ory House) and series creator David Shore, and the final episode ("Every- 

body Dies") ended with an interesting echo of the Canon. Shore has often 

acknowledged that Holmes was part of the inspiration for House; the series 

has included occasional allusions over the years, among them the number of 

House's apartment: 221B. 

"An Indian Sherlock" is the title of a possible Indian film project, based 

on British author Tarquin Hall's series of novels about Vish Puri, a modern 

Punjabi detective described as "India's Most Private Investigator". Anand 

Tucker has been signed to direct the film, which may star Anil Kapoor, and 

there seems to be nothing Sherlockian about the film other than the title. 

A one-hour version of Jeremy Paul's play "The Secret of Sherlock Holmes" 

(commissioned by Jeremy Brett in 1988) will be performed at Theatre Asylum 

on June 9-24, during the Hollywood Fringe Festival. 6320 Santa Monica Bou- 

levard, Los An-geles, CA 90038 (323-962-1632) . 

THE SECRET ARCHIVES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (London: Allison & Busby, 2012; 285 

pp., £19.99) is June Thomson's latest collection of pastiches, with seven 

new stories; she started her series of collections with THE SECRET FILES OF 

SHERLOCK HOLMES (Dec 90 #5), and continues to entertain her readers. There 

will be an American edition in September. 

The Société Sherlock Holmes de France has noted a new film project: "Sher- 

lock Holmes vs. Frankenstein" from Marteau Films Production, with filming 

scheduled to start this winter: "Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson travel to 

Germany to investigate a strange case in the village of Darmstadt. Who is 

the mysterious scientist who digs up corpses and steals their limbs? Could 

these events be related to the nearby presence of Castle Frankenstein? Ev- 

eryone is a suspect." Gautier Cazenave wrote the script and will direct, 

with Holmes and Watson played by Nicholas Rowe and Alan Cox, who played the 

same characters in the film "Young Sherlock Holmes" (1985). You can see a 

colorful poster at . 

Filming has been completed on the new Russian television series "Sherlock 

Holmes" (Apr 12 #5); the eight two-part programs are scheduled for broad- 

cast next year. 

Enid Schantz died on Aug. 12. She and her husband Tom launched the Aspen 

Bookhouse in 1970 and went on to publish a series of reprints of early pas- 

tiches from their Aspen Press, many of which were imaginatively illustrated 

by Enid. They continued to sell and publish books from The Rue Morgue in 

Boulder, Colo., and were delighted to meet old and new friends and custo- 

mers at Bouchercon, Malice Domestic, and Left Coast Crime. 

Jennie Paton discovered that an Australian company (Madman Entertainment) 

has released Roger Moore's "Sherlock Holmes in New York" (1976) on a region 

4 (PAL) DVD (AU$19.95); it's available for the first time on DVD, and there 

is a special-feature audio-commentary interview with Moore recorded in Oct. 

2011. Details at .

May 12 #5 The BBC reported (Apr. 23) on the opening of the Kent History 

and Library Centre in Maidstone, where researchers can consult 

documents that date back to 699 AD; one of the items on display is a ledger 

that shows that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was fined £10/9s for driving his car 

more than 20 mph in the Folkestowne area. 

Charles Higham died on Apr. 21. He was a poet, journalist, critic, and an 

energetic celebrity biographer who specialized in Hollywood figures such as 

Errol Flynn, Charles Laughton, and Cary Grant. Higham described Flynn as a 

bi-sexual Nazi spy, and Grant as a wife-beating closeted homosexual; some 

of his obituaries noted that one critic suggested that Higham's biography 

of Howard Hughes was so salacious that Higham "had reached the point where 

most of his subjects have slept with one another." His THE ADVENTURES OF 

CONAN DOYLE: THE LIFE OF THE CREATOR OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (1976) was an ex- 

ception: the book was not well researched and, without sex and scandal, it 

seemed to have bored its author. 

"You Know My Methods: A Collector's Approach to the Sherlockian Canon" is 

the title of an exhibition at the Book Club of California in San Francisco 

from June 4 through Sept. 10; the exhibition celebrates the 110th anniver- 

sary of the publication of THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES, and features rare 

items from the collection of Glen Miranker . 

I'm not aware of any Sherlockian connection 

for the prediction that the world will end 

on Dec. 21, but it's worth noting that Bel- 

gium has issued a souvenir sheet with five 

stamps that show a detail from the prophetic 

panel of the Mayan calendar. Why Belgium? 

Because the complete panel is in Brussels, 

on display at the Royal Museums for Art and 

History. 

What's the most valuable modern Sherlockian 

periodical? A likely candidate is the first 

issue of Playboy, which included an excerpt 

from "The Sign of the Four"; it sold for 50› 

in Dec. 1953 and had a press run of 53,991 

copies, and a copy sold at Heritage Auctions 

month for $8,365 (including the buyer's pre- 

ium). That's up nicely from the $3,032 that 

a copy brought at an auction a few years ago 

years ago (Sep 10 #6). 

Christopher Boone, the narrator of Mark Had- 

don's award-winning best-seller THE CURIOUS 

INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME (2003) 

is an autistic teen-ager who loves the Sher- 

lock Holmes stories and turns detective him- 

self; he will be played by Luke Treadaway in a dramatization by Simon Ste- 

phens at the National Theatre in London, July 24 through Sept. 12. There's 

more information at . Una Stubbs (Mrs. Hudson 

in the BBC's "Sherlock" mini-series, will play Mrs. Alexander.

May 12 #6 Scott Monty has reported that the Post-Meridian Radio Players' 

"Summer Radio Mystery Theatre" July 27-28 will offer new ver- 

sions of three classic programs, including "The Hound of the Baskervilles" 

(adapted from the CBS Radio Mystery Theatre) in Somerville, Mass., on July 

27-28. Details at . 

A high court judge heard arguments on May 23 in the Undershaw Preservation 

Trust's campaign to block conversion of Conan Doyle's home into flats (May 

11 #3); the judge is expected to rule soon on whether the Waverly Borough 

Council properly considered a third-party offer to purchase the house. 

There's a new version of the delightful parody of "The Hound of the Basker- 

villes" that was written by Steven Canny and John Nicholson in 2007: it's a 

radio-theater adaptation that will be performed at the Bath Fringe Festival 

on June 4 . It was inspired by a performance with a 

live audience that was recorded for BBC Radio 4 in March; the program will 

air as the Saturday Drama on July 7. Nick Hern Books publish the original 

script and license it for amateur productions ; 

the company also offers David Edgar's dramatization of Julian Barnes' novel 

ARTHUR AND GEORGE. 

There was a flurry of publicity last month about the discovery in the John 

Murray Archives at the National Library of Scotland of Conan Doyle stories 

that were considered to be "not very good and not used as the quality was 

too poor." The stories, none of them unpublished, were found in a set of 

typescripts that likely were prepared for possible reprinting in THE CONAN 

DOYLE STORIES (1929); they've been republished since, in the volume of UN- 

COLLECTED STORIES (1982) edited by Richard Lancelyn Green. 

"Forensic Firsts" begins on the Smithsonian channel on June 17 and the ser- 

ies offers an interesting look at how forensic sciences are used by detect- 

ives today . They 

may even mention Sherlock Holmes. 

Les Klinger reports that Ronald Unz has digitized The Bookman [London] and 

The Bookman [New York] the files are searchable, and of course contain much 

about Sherlock Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle. 

and . Unz has digitized many other magazines that 

contain Sherlockiana and Doyleana. 

"Good Bad Books" is the title of an essay by George Orwell in Tribune (Nov. 

2, 1945) and reprinted SHOOTING AN ELEPHANT AND OTHER ESSAYS (1950); he ac- 

knowledges G. K. Chesterton for coining the phrase, which Orwell applies to 

"the kind of book that has no literary pretensions but which remains read- 

able when more serious productions have perished." And his list of "obvi- 

ously outstanding books in this line" includes "Raffles", "Dracula", "Uncle 

Tom's Cabin", and the Sherlock Holmes stories. Orwell had earlier written 

a Sherlockian parody "The Adventure of the Lost Meat-Card" for Eton Coll- 

ege's Election Times (June 3, 1918), unmentioned in his essay, which can be 

read on-line at . 


20817-4401 (301-229-5669)

Jun 12 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press 

The Undershaw Preservation Trust won its suit to prevent conversion of Co- 

nan Doyle's home into flats (May 11 #3) when a high court judge ruled that 

the Waverley Borough Council had not adequately met statutory requirements 

to pay special regard to the preservation of heritage assets and planning 

policy when it approved the developer's plans. The judge awarded £20,000 

in legal costs to Trust founder John Gibson, and gave the Council time to 

consider whether to appeal; the Council later announced that it would not 

contest the decision, but Fossway, the developer, has decided to appeal. 

Guy Ritchie is keeping busy while waiting to proceed with a third "Sherlock 

Holmes" film for Warner Bros. Trade journals report that he is working on 

a film version of "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." and on a proposed new version 

of "Treasure Island" (both for Warner Bros.). 

The Book Club of California has more information about its celebration of 

the 110th anniversary of the publication of THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES 

at the club's web-site . The exhibition runs 

through Sept 10, and Glen Miranker reports that the material on display in- 

cludes manuscript pages, original artwork by Sidney Paget and Frederic Dorr 

Steele, and Conan Doyle's Norwood notebook (1885-1896). 

Philip K. Jones' data base for Sherlockian pastiches, parodies, and related 

fiction now has more than 9,200 entries; the data base is now available at 

Christopher and Barbara Roden's web-site 

and (with Philip's article "The Untold Tales--Analyzed") at Miguel Herrera 

Baena's web-site at . 

Further to the item about Alex Shoumatoff's excellent article "Positively 

44th Street" in the June issue of Vanity Fair (May 12 #1), Scott Monty has 

kindly provided a link to the article . 



iana, old and new, books and much more, including a tribute to Bob Burr ac- 

companied by photographic proof that Bob does occasionally leave Peoria. 

Qiu Xiaolong is the author of the political detective novel DON'T CRY, TAI 

LAKE (Minotaur, 2012), which was praised by Patrick Anderson in his review 

in the Washington Post (May 21); it's not Sherlockian, but Xiaolong reports 

that he was a teenager in China during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) 

when almost all literature was banned. He succeeded in borrowing a copy of 

the Sherlock Holmes stories from a friend, and to avoid getting into troub- 

le read them concealed inside the red plastic cover of QUOTATIONS OF CHAIR- 

MAN MAO. He has lived in the United States since 1988, and has a web-site 

at . 

Clothes on Film is an interesting web-site devoted 

to "examining costume and identity in movies; in May 2010 there was a two- 

part discussion by Chris Laverty of Robert Downey Jr.'s "Sherlock Holmes" 

(2009), and this month a two-part discussion of "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of 

Shadows" (2011), with input from the film's costume designer Jenny Beavan.

Jun 12 #2 The 8th Annual Convention of The Reichenbachian Cliff-Divers is 

to be held in Peoria on Aug. 15-17, according to an announce- 

ment in the June issue of the Gaslight Gazette (published by The Survivors 

of the Gloria Scott); details of one of the more unusual Sherlockian gath- 

erings are available by e-mail from Dave Milner . 

It's possible that this is a rescheduling of the convention announced for 

May 11-13 in Succasunna, N.J., in a message to the Sherlock Holmes Social 

Network . 

Danish artist Nis Jessen has applied Sherlockian quotations to some of the 

illustrations in his spectacular edition of A STUDY IN SCARLET (Jul 05 #6), 

and you can see the results at his Facebook page . 

His own web-site is at , and copies of his book are 

available: contact his wife Flerida at . 

It's not Sherlockian, but it's a fine book for collectors: Miles Harvey's 

THE ISLAND OF LOST MAPS: A TRUE STORY OF CARTOGRAPHIC CRIME (2000) explores 

the story of Gilbert Bland Jr., whose cartomania doesn't seem all that far 

removed from bibliomania. The author's web-site is . 

"Writing Britain: Wastelands to Wonderlands" is a major exhibition at the 

British Library through Sept. 25, examining "how the landscapes of Britain 

permeate great literary works"; the section on "Wild Places: Terror of the 

Wild" includes THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES. There's an interesting web- 

site at . 

The U.S. Postal Service has issued a set of stamps honoring four Great Film 

Directors: Frank Capra, John Huston, John Ford, and Billy Wilder, three of 

whom have Sherlockian connections. Billy Wilder directed "The Private Life 

of Sherlock Holmes" (1970), John Huston played Moriarty in "Sherlock Holmes 

in New York" (1976), and John Ford (billed as Jack Francis) played Watson 

in "A Study in Scarlet" (1914), directed by his older brother Francis Ford, 

who also played Holmes. 

"Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows" ended its run in theaters in the U.S. on 

Apr. 12 after 112 days on screens in 3,703 theaters, according to the Box 

Office Mojo web-site; the film's world-wide gross is now stands at $543.8 

million. "Sherlock Holmes" (the first Robert Downey Jr. film) ran for 126 

days in 3,626 theaters in the U.S. and grossed $524.0 million world-wide. 

The Serpentine Muse continues to offer news from, about, and by The Adven- 

turesses of Sherlock Holmes; the summer issue has Susan Rice's discussion 

of "Lighthouses of the Past and Future" (about how young women have joined 

the Sherlockian world from the 1960s through the 2010s), and much more of 

interest; it's published quarterly and costs $15.00 a year from Evelyn A. 

Herzog (301 Warren Avenue #203, Baltimore, MD 21230).

Jun 12 #3 An article in the Aberdeen Press & Journal (June 16) noted that 

Arthur Conan Doyle was born at 11 Picardy Place in Edinburgh, 

and that a plaque on another building on the street notes that on a certain 

date, on this very spot, nothing much happened. But the real focus of the 

article is on the building at 12 Picardy Place, where today one will find 

the Mark Greenaway Restaurant; Mark Greenaway earlier this year became the 

only Scottish chef to be awarded three rosettes from the Automobile Asso- 

ciation for outstanding cuisine. 

Anglofile is a blog by Leslie King, offering detailed coverage of British 

entertainment; she offers early reports on programs to come on PBS-TV and 

on BBC America at ; the blog's also on Face- 

book at 

For those who don't already have the book (and there shouldn't be many of 

you), copies of ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE: A LIFE IN LETTERS, edited by Jon Lell- 

enberg, Daniel Stashower, and Charles Foley (May 07 #5) are available dis- 

counted to $4.98 at . Thanks to Tina Rhea for the 

report. 

Janet Rudolph has announced that Anthony Horowitz's pastiche THE HOUSE OF 

SILK (Dec 11 #5) has been nominated for a Macavity Award (best mystery nov- 

el) from Mystery Readers International/Mystery Readers Journal. Winners of 

the awards (named for T. S. Eliot's creation in OLD POSSUM'S BOOK OF PRAC- 

TICAL CATS) will be announced at Bouchercon in October. 

Tumblr is an imaginative and useful web-site that at which people can post 

text, photos, links, music, and videos; it was founded in 2007 and now has 

more than 63 million posts a day in twelve languages, and of course some of 

the posts are from people who are "addicted to Sherlock." You can see what 

it's all about at . 

"Enjoy the 100 Greatest Books of All Times and Never Have to Read a Word!" 

is the offer from the Library of Classics; for only $99.00 you receive the 

books in audio format and an MP3 player, and one of the books is THE ADVEN- 

TURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES. Go to to see the titles 

of all of the books. 

Patricia Gore-Booth died on Feb. 2. She was born in Japan and educated in 

Australia, and returning to Japan when war broke out in Europe she went to 

work in the British Embassy assigned to work in Paul Gore-Booth's depart- 

ment. They were married in September 1940, interned by the Japanese, sent 

back to Britain, and then posted to the British Embassy in Washington, and 

she was with her husband during all his long diplomatic career, and during 

all his Sherlockian career. Their photograph, costumed as Sherlock Holmes 

and Irene Adler during the Sherlock Holmes Society of London's first Swiss 

Pilgrimage, appeared in The Times on May 1, 1968. 

Catherine Cooke reports that Abbey House still stands at the site of 221B 

Baker Street, with the central facade and clocktower preserved. According 

to the developer, the overall site has 92 luxury residential units and 40 

affordable units, with underground car parking, and there's a nice photo- 

graph at .

Jun 12 #4 "The Adventure of the Immortal Detective: Discovering Sherlock 

Holmes in the Archives" is the title of an interesting post by 

Arcadia Falcone to the Cultural Compass blog at the Harry Ransom Center at 

the University of Texas. The collection has some wonderful Sherlockian and 

Doylean material (including two pairs of his socks); you can read her post 

at , 

and the slide show is fascinating (there's a button to turn on captions). 

ARMCHAIR MYSTERIES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES is a new collection of pastiches by 

Alan Downing, available (without charge) via the Internet as PDF and Kindle 

files at . 

There will be some intriguing Conan Doyle material at auction on July 10 at 

Sworders . Mary Jakeman 

was working as a servant in Surbiton in 1909, when she applied for a posi- 

tion as lady's maid in the Conan Doyle household, and Conan Doyle's letter 

offering her the job ("The wages start at £26. The servants find their own 

beer or wine.") is included in the collection, along with other correspond- 

ence from the family (she left their employ in 1932) and photographs, and 

signed and inscribed books; she is mentioned in THE WANDERINGS OF A SPIRI- 

TUALIST (1921) and MEMORIES AND ADVENTURES (1924). 

Richard Carpenter died on Feb. 26. He was acted on stage and television, 

and in the 1970s turned to writing for ITV and the BBC, becoming a popular 

and prolific screenwriter for children's television, including two of the 

four programs in the series "The Baker Street Boys" (1983). 

Twickenham Film Studios has closed, one year short of celebrating 100 years 

of British film-making. Founded as St. Margaret's Studios in 1913, it was 

renamed in 1929 by the company's owners producer Jules Hagen and director 

Leslie Hiscott. Films made at Twickenham included the Beatles' "Help!" and 

"A Hard Day's Night", Michael Caine's "Alfie", Angela Lansbury's "The Mirr- 

or Crack'd", Meryl Streep's "The Iron Lady", and most of Arthur Wontner's 

Sherlockian films in the 1930s. 

Further to the report (Dec 01 #4) on the "Hound of the Baskervilles effect" 

(the conclusion that fatal heart attacks and stress are linked in fact as 

well as fiction), Don Pollock has noted references to a "Hound of the Bas- 

kervilles pattern" . It's a financial phenomenon, 

"when a pattern or anticipated behaviour in prices does not occur in spite 

of compelling recent evidence," and it seems to have been named by someone 

who thought that the dog that did nothing in the night-time was the Basker- 

ville hound. 

The latest Sherlockian audio from Big Finish is SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE ADVEN- 

TURE OF THE PERFIDIOUS MARINER, on a CD ($14.07) and as a download ($7.99); 

PO Box 3787, Maidstone, Berks. SL6 3TF, England . Nich- 

olas Briggs stars as Holmes, and Richard Earl as Watson, with Michael Malo- 

ney as J. Bruce Ismay (the most hated man in England, blamed for the Titan- 

ic disaster); it's an intriguing mystery, and as always well-acted and re- 

corded. There's a 30-minute podcast at the web-site, and downloadable cop- 

ies of the company's monthly magazine Vortex, as well as information about 

their Sherlockian and non-Sherlockian recordings.

Jun 12 #5 The "casting thread" is pervasive on the Internet, where people 

often imagine various actors playing various characters, and in 

2009 Regan Payne, a Canadian free-lance writer and director, was inspired 

by the first Robert Downey Jr. film to propose imaginative combinations of 

actors and directors for never-made Sherlock Holmes movies for each decade 

from 1929 to 1999 (for 1939, for example, he had Michael Curtiz directing 

William Powell as Holmes and Buster Keaton as Watson). The entire blog can 

be read at . 

Alyson Kuhn has an interesting (and well illustrated) report on "The Case 

of the Sherlockian Miranker" at the Felt and Wire web-site on the exhibi- 

tion "You Know My Methods: A Collector's Approach to the Sherlockian Canon" 

at the Book Club of California in San Francisco (May 12 #5); you can read 

all about it at . 

Benedict Cumberbatch, interviewed by TVLine (June 14), said that "I'll al- 

ways do 'Sherlock'--it's something I'm not going to give up on," and that 

"there's no reason for us to stop if it's still being adored and we still 

enjoy doing it." Cumberbatch also said that he'd like to see Holmes gett- 

ing older: "We're starting quite young. It's rare to see Holmes and Watson 

at the beginning of their relationship; we usually join them in their mid- 

to-late 40s or 50s. I've got a way to go. I mean, I'm only 35." 

And "Getting Sherlock Holmes Right Onscreen" is the title of a perceptive 

essay by Michael Sragow at the New Yorker's "culture desk" blog, where he 

has nice things to say about the Cumberbatch/Freeman series, and about the 

Rathbone/Bruce films . 

Last month President Obama awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to 11- 

time Grammy winner Bob Dylan, noting that "there is not a bigger giant in 

the history of American music" (the medal is awarded "for having made espe- 

cially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of 

the United States, to world peace, or to culture or other significant pub- 

lic or private endeavours." In 1963 Dylan refused appear on "The Ed Sulli- 

van Show" when CBS refused to allow him to sing "The Talking John Birch So- 

ciety Blues" (the song's lyrics include a mention of Sherlock Holmes). 

Caroline John died on June 5. She began her acting career on screen at the 

age of 15, performed on stage, and was best known for her role as Liz Shaw 

in the "Doctor Who" television series. She also had a supporting role in 

"Madame Sara" in "The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes" (1971), and played Laura 

Lyons in Tom Baker's "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (1982). 

Karen Murdock reports the Craig Calvert has constructed 1:6 scale diorama 

of the sitting room at 221B, and there are lots of photographs at his web- 

site at . 

Phil Bergem continues his research into matters Doylean, and has written an 

excellent article on "Residences of Arthur Conan Doyle"; there are detailed 

descriptions, contemporary maps, coordinates, and latitudes and longitudes 

(so you can use Google Earth to see what locations look like now). It is 

available as a PDF file at the "Conan Doyle" group at Yahoo (the file name 

is "ACD-residences") and by e-mail from Phil .

Jun 12 #6 Daniel Stashower's THE HOUDINI SPECTER (2000) has been reissued 

by Titan Books ($12.95), completing his trio of "The Harry Hou- 

dini Mysteries"; as in THE DIME MUSEUM MURDERS and THE FLOATING LADY MURDER 

(Feb 12 #6), Houdini, beginning his career as an escapologist, succeeds in 

solving a well-written mystery. The books have passing mentions of Sher- 

lock Holmes, and it's a pity there are only three in the series. The pub- 

lisher's web-site is at . 

Christopher Challis died on May 31. He was a newsreel camera assistant as 

a teenager, and began his film career as a cinematographer in 1947 and went 

on to have a long association with Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 

and became best known for his spectacular color work. He was director of 

photography for "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes". 

An interesting photograph of Conan Doyle will be available 

at International Autograph Auctions on July 14-15; it's lot 

529, estimated at £250-£350 . 

It shows a younger Conan Doyle, and is signed, and is par- 

ticularly interesting because it was taken by Elliott & Fry 

of Baker Street (the photograph studio was at 56 & 56 Baker 

until 1919, when it moved to another location), and it is 

interesting because it shows that Conan Doyle was forgetful 

when he once told an interviewer that he did not recall ev- 

call ever having been in Baker Street in his life. 

Anthony Horowitz is keeping busy: he's writing new episodes 

for "Foyle's War" and working on a sequel to his pastiche 

THE HOUSE OF SILK that will not feature Sherlock Holmes. "The recent Rob- 

ert Downey films are great," Horowitz said to the Yorkshire Post (June 12), 

but they're what I call Indiana Holmes and, what I really want to do is ex- 

plore the world in which he lives. So it's set in 1890 and the main char- 

acter is Watson. By that time he and Holmes were already working together, 

but I want to look at Watson's partnership with another younger detective." 

Thanks to Randall Stock for the report. 

The Société Sherlock Holmes de France's Ironmongers Daily News has reported 

an amusing Russian parody of the Robert Downey Jr. and Benedict Cumberbatch 

versions of Sherlock Holmes at , and 

with English subtitles at . 

Michael Kurland's VICTORIAN VILLAINY (Rockville: Wildside Press, 2011) is a 

collection of reprints of four short stories about Professor Moriarty, and 

they are written with style, imagination, and humor; $4.19 as a eBook, or 

$15.99 with Kurland's THE TRIALS OF QUINTILIAN in a trade-paperback reprise 

of the old Ace Double format (Quintilian was an early crime-solver, in the 

time of the Emperor Vespasian). Wildside specializes in mystery, fantasy, 

and adventure, and their web-site's at . Kurland's 

own web-site's at ; THE INFERNAL DEVICE, his first 

Moriarty novel, has been dramatized by James Geisel as a one-act play, and 

had its world premiere this month in South Bend, Ind. 


20817-4401 (301-229-5669)

Jul 12 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press 

Julian Barnes' ARTHUR & GEORGE (Sep 05 #5) was a novelized joint biography 

of Arthur Conan Doyle and George Edalji, well written and imaginative, and 

it was dramatized by David Edgar (Feb 10 #5); Edgar's script (London: Nick 

Hern Books, 2010; 131 pp., £8.99) offers a welcome opportunity to see how 

interesting and intelligent a good dramatization can be. The publisher al- 

so offers a script for the parody version of THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES 

dramatized by Steven Canny and John Nicholson for Peepolykus (Apr 07 #3); 

the script (2012; 100 pp., £9.99) is delightful, and offers some pleasant 

surprises for those who have seen more recent productions of the play. The 

scripts are available from Nick Hern Books, 14 Larden Road, London W3 7ST, 

England . 

Willis Frick reports happily that he now has a new URL for Sherlocktron, at 

; this should take care of problems people have been 

having when their ISPs blocked access to Sherlocktron at his previous host. 

The summer issue of The Magic Door (the newsletter published by The Friends 

of the Arthur Conan Doyle Collection at the Toronto Reference Library) has 

Al Dawson's account of research into a Conan Doyle letter (now owned by the 

Collection) along a trail that involved Oscar Wilde and his wife Constance, 

Peter Calamai's tribute to Conan Doyle's story "The Three Correspondents", 

and news from and about the collection; copies of the newsletter are avail- 

able on request from Clifford S. Goldfarb, 22 Markdale Avenue, Toronto, ON 

M6C, 1T1, Canada . And the Friends will celebrate 

the centennial of "The Lost World" on Sept. 15, when Roy Pilot will deliver 

the 2012 Cameron Hollyer Lecture at the Library. 

Charles Marowitz's "Sherlock's Last Case" will be produced at the Lakewood 

Playhouse, Sept. 14 through Oct. 14. 5729 Lakewood Towne Center Boulevard, 

Lakewood, WA 87488 (253-588-0042) . 

Laurie R. King's GARMENT OF SHADOWS (New York: Random House, 2012; 264 pp., 

$26.00) is subtitled "A novel of suspense featuring Mary Russell and Sher- 

lock Holmes," and it lives up to its billing. The new novel is set immed- 

iately after PIRATE KING (Aug 11 #1), and opens with Russell in dire peril 

in Fez. She (and Holmes) wind up deeply involved in Moroccan colonial pol- 

itics and tribal warfare, and encounter some old friends from earlier days. 

The next Mary Russell novel will be set in Japan (before LOCKED ROOMS), and 

you can read about her research, and other things, in her "Mutterings" blog 

at . 

Fans of Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes may want to attend a "twitter gar- 

den party" at the Russell-Holmes cottage on the South Downs on Aug. 19; de- 

tails at , where you will find much more by and 

about Mary Russell, including a short story and some correspondence. 

"Sherlock Holmes Through Time and Place" will be the theme of the next con- 

ference in Minneapolis, on Aug. 9-11, 2013, sponsored by the Norwegian Ex- 

plorers, the Friends of the Sherlock Holmes Collections, and the University 

of Minnesota Libraries; if you'd like to be on their mailing list, contact 

Gary Thaden .

Jul 12 #2 "Campaigning for Statue of Sherlock" was the headline on a sto- 

ry in the Sussex Courier (July 6): Mike Tuffley wants to raise 

£50,000 for a statue of Sherlock Holmes to be erected in Crowborough; Tuff- 

ley believes that the statue will attract visitors from all over the world, 

and has created the Sherlock Holmes Trust Fund and is asking for donations 

(which can be made at any branch of Lloyds Bank). 

Karen Murdock discovered an amusing custom vinyl 

decal for Macbooks, laptops, car windows, or other 

flat non-porous surfaces; created by Benjamin Dan- 

iels for Perfectly Aligned Decals, it measures 8.0 

by 2.2 in. and costs $5.00; two more Sherlockian 

designs available, and many others for non-Sher- 

lockians . 

Andy Griffith died on July 3. He was a musician, 

a monologuist, and then an actor. He starred on Broadway in "No Time for 

Sergeants" in 1955, and acted in films and on television, starring as Andy 

Taylor of Mayberry on "The Andy Griffith Show" and as Ben Matlock on "Mat- 

lock"; in one episode of the Matlock series he said "I've always felt that 

the wrong Holmes is taught in law school; it ought to be Sherlock and not 

Oliver Wendell," and in another episode he delivered a two-minute courtroom 

summation of the plot of "The Red-Headed League". 

The parody of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" written by Steven Canny and 

John Nicholson in 2007 will be performed at the American Heartland Theatre, 

Jan. 11 through Feb. 13; 2450 Grand Boulevard, Kansas City, MO 64108 (816- 

842-9999) . 

Vinnie Brosnan is in search of information 

on two busts, of Holmes and Watson; they are 

4 in. high, marked on the bases as made in 

London, and numbered. Who was the artist, 

and when were they sold, and by whom, and at 

what price? He's at 

and would be happy to hear from anyone who 

can help. 

Eric Sykes died on July 4. He began his entertainment career writing radio 

scripts, and went on to act and write on stage, screen, radio, and televis- 

ion, achieving renown both as a comic and character actor. He played Hor- 

ace Harker in Granada's "The Six Napoleons" (1986). 

"Solves that violin-case-need mystery that's been confounding you" is the 

slogan that Elderly Instruments uses for their elegant Baker Street Violin 

Case, spotted by Peter Ashman . 

The June issue of the quarterly newsletter of The Friends of the Sherlock 

Holmes Collections at the University of Minnesota offers an appreciative 

tribute to Fred Levin by Tim Johnson, a "50 Years Ago" look at Elliot Kim- 

ball by Julie McKuras, and other news from and about the collections; cop- 

ies of the newsletter are available from Dick Sveum (111 Elmer L. Andersen 

Library, Univ. of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455) .

Jul 12 #3 Dale Fututani's new THE CURIOUS ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES 

IN JAPAN (Charleston: CreateSpace, 2011; 228 pp., $12.99) is an 

interesting collection of stories set in 1892-1893, when Holmes is living 

in disguise as the guest of a Japanese doctor, and solves a series of mys- 

teries; the stories have fine local flavor, and it's intriguing to see how 

Holmes reacts to a thoroughly different culture and environment. The auth- 

or's web-site is at . 

Conan Doyle's 'DANGEROUS WORK': DIARY OF AN ARCTIC ADVENTURE offers a wel- 

come look at some of his earliest writing: the illustrated journal that he 

kept on the whaler Hope; he celebrated his 21st birthday during the voyage, 

and the journal is full of detail on what that sort of adventure was like. 

There's also much humor, directed at himself as well as at others, and the 

journal is reproduced in facsimile, with a transcript, letters he wrote to 

his mother during the voyage, and later articles and stories that reflect 

his experiences on the ship. Edited and annotated by Jon Lellenberg and 

Daniel Stashower, the 368-page book will be published soon by the British 

Library (£25.00) and the University of Chicago Press ($35.00), and Randall 

Stock offers a fine discussion of the book, and the history of the journal 

(which was preserved in the family papers and is now owned by the British 

Library) at . 

Jon and Dan will discuss and sign the book at the Centuries & Sleuths book- 

tore in Forest Park, Ill., on Sept. 29, from 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm; 7419 West 

Madison Street (708-771-7243). 

Guy Adams had Holmes and Watson involved in the world of the supernatural 

in SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE BREATH OF GOD (2011), and he has turned to fantasy 

in SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE ARMY OF DR. MOREAU (London: Titan Books, 2012; 284 

pp., $12.95), with an interesting celebration of both H. G. Wells and Conan 

Doyle. The author's web-site's at , and the pub- 

lisher's at 

Titan continues to reprint Sax Rohmer's stories about Fu-Manchu (who "makes 

Professor Moriarty seem an under-achiever," according to Max Collins); THE 

HAND OF FU-MANCHU (266 pp., $9.95) is the third in the series, setting Sir 

Dennis Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie against the Si-Fan. 

"The movies you want at your local theater" is the motto of Tugg, a company 

that will help you set up a screening of John Barrymore's "Sherlock Holmes" 

(1922) and many other (non-Sherlockian) films. There's more information at 

their web-site . 

Sorry about that: ARMCHAIR MYSTERIES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, the new collection 

of pastiches by Alan Downing (Jun 12 #4), is available (without charge) via 

the Internet at . 

Ernest Borgnine died on July 8. He acted on stage and television and then 

on film, winning an Oscar for his role in "Marty" (1955), and liked to say 

that "You don't have to be tall, dark, and handsome to be a movie star, but 

I was the first one to prove it." Alas, there's no photograph known, but 

he played Watson (with Dennis Allen as Holmes) on television in a skit in 

the "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In" series in 1973.

Jul 12 #4 Pam Verrey spotted YOUNG MISS HOLMES, CASEBOOK 1-2 (New York: 

Seven Seas, 2012; 384 pp., $16.99), the English translation of 

Kaoru Shintani's manga CHRISTIE: HIGH TENSION (2007-2008); Christie is the 

niece of Sherlock Holmes, and the book offers her versions of some of her 

uncle's recorded cases. There's a web-site with cover and interior artwork 

at ; CASEBOOK 

3-4 is due later this year. 

Plan well ahead: Jeffrey Hatcher's play "Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure 

of the Suicide Club" will be performed at the Park Square Theater from June 

7 through July 14, 2013; 20 West 7th Place, Minneapolis, MN 55102 (651-291- 

7005) . 

Evan Lewis' "Skyler Hobbs and the Rabbit Man" (a comic mystery about a mod- 

ern would-be Sherlock Holmes) was published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Maga- 

zine (Feb. 2010), and won the Mystery Writers of America's Robert L. Fish 

Memorial Award (for best first short story by an American author); his Sky- 

ler Hobbs and the Garden Gnome Bandit" is in the Sept.-Oct. issue of EQMM. 

Jean M. White died on July 14. She started her career in journalist as a 

city desk reporter at the Washington Post in 1953, and worked for the paper 

for almost 30 years as a writer, editor, and reviewer, reporting often on 

Sherlockian books and on Sherlockians. 

Total-E-Bound Publishing, obviously aware of the success of 50 SHADE OF 

GREY, has launched a series of Clandestine Classics, presenting "classics 

as they have never been seen before," and taking readers "behind the closed 

bedroom doors of our favorite, most beloved British characters. One of the 

classics, needless to say, will be A STUDY IN SCARLET, by A. C. Doyle and 

Sarah Masters, due later this year . 

Sherlock at the Olympics? Not quite, but almost, if you were watching the 

BBC on July 27, when they aired a nice 4-minute video about London narrated 

by Benedict Cumberbatch . Thanks to 

Debbie Clark for the report. 

The Conan Doyle material owned by Mary Jakeman, who worked for the family 

from 1909 to 1932, brought nice prices at Sworders on July 10 (Jun 12 #4). 

The star of the sale was a signed copy of the first American edition of THE 

HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES, estimated at £400-800, which was sold for £3,900 

at the auction. 

Smithsonian magazine's interesting "Design Decoded" blog had two Sherlock- 

ian entries in July, by Jimmy Stamp on "The Mystery of 221B Baker Street" 

(with splendid photographs of various recreations of the sitting-room), and 

by Sarah C. Rich on "The Deerstalker: Where Sherlock Holmes' Popular Image 

Came From" (with many images of items in Glen Miranker's collection); the 

blog is at . 


Sherlock" web-site, where he has updated his census of original artwork by 

Sidney Paget: Sherlockian and non-Sherlockian illustrations, oil paintings, 

and watercolors .

Jul 12 #5 Christopher Boone, the narrator of Mark Haddon's award-winning 

best-seller THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME 

(2003) is an autistic teen-ager who enjoys the Sherlock Holmes stories, and 

turns detective himself; the National Theatre in London has commissioned a 

dramatization of the novel, and the production has been recorded and will 

be broadcast to selected theaters around the world in September. Informa- 

tion on the play, and on dates and venues for the broadcast, can be found 

at . 

Sherlock at the Olympics? Actually, yes. If you 

count Wenlock, one of the two official mascots; the 

name honors the town in Shropshire that helped in- 

spire the modern games. There are fiberglass stat- 

ues of Wencock in various costumes here and there 

in London, and Sherlock Wenlock can be found in Re- 

gent's Park. No word yet on whether there will be 

smaller figurines available as Olympic souvenirs. 

Kelly Blau has reported Sherlockian artwork on the 

cover of the children's book SECRET AGENT SPLAT!, 

by Rob Scotton (New York: HarperCollins, 2012; 40 

pp., $16.99); it's the latest title in his "Splat 

the Cat" series. 

Donald J. Sobol died on July 11. He was a journalist and then an author, 

best known for his "Encyclopedia Brown" series of mysteries, for which he 

won a special Edgar from the Mystery Writers of American in 1976; Sobol de- 

scribed Encyclopedia Brown as "America's Sherlock Holmes in sneakers." 

The Arthur Conan Doyle/Sherlock Holmes Symposium at the Newberry Library in 

Chicago on Sept. 29, starting at 9:00 am, is open to the public with no ad- 

mission charge, and will feature Jon Lellenberg and Dan Stashower (on "Dan- 

gerous Work: Conan Doyle's Diary of Arctic Adventure"), Carter Lupton (on 

"Literary Icons of 1912: Prof. G. E. Challenger"), and Todd Rosenthal (on 

"Recreating Sherlock Holmes' Baker Street"). There's more information at 

. 

Simon Ward died on July 20. He began his acting career on stage, and went 

on to star in films and on television; best known for his role as Winston 

Churchill in the film "Young Churchill" (1972), he also played Stephen Bar- 

row in an adaptation of "The Leather Funnel" (1973) in a British series of 

"Great Mysteries" hosted by Orson Welles on ITV. 

YouTube's PBS Idea Channel has an amusing 6-minute video by Mike Rugnetta 

at that offers his ans- 

wer to the question "How Did Sherlock Holmes Pave the Way for 50 Shades of 

Grey?" 

Berkswell Grange, the childhood home of Jeremy Brett, is for sale, offered 

for £1.68 million; the 17th-century house, a few miles outside of Coventry, 

has six bedrooms, 15.7 acres of grounds, and a brick in the wall bearing a 

child's handprint, authenticated by Brett as his own. The estate agent is 

Knight Frank .

Jul 12 #6 Doc Watson died on May 29. Arthel Watson, blind almost from 

birth, became an outstanding acoustic guitarist, known for his 

baritone voice and vast repertoire of bluegrass, folk, country, and blues. 

He once explained that he acquired his nickname during a live radio broad- 

cast in 1941 when the announcer asked for an easy nickname, and someone in 

the audience shouted "Call him Doc." His album "Elementary Doctor Watson!" 

was issued by Poppy Records in 1972 and has some fine tracks (but no Sher- 

lockian significance other than the title). 

The new series "Elementary" (with Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu as Holmes 

and Watson) debuts on CBS-TV on Sept. 27 at 10:00 pm (on the east coast). 

And there's now an official web-site at . 

My birthday party on the Mall on July Fourth featured the usual spectacular 

fireworks, although not as spectacular as in San Diego, where a faulty com- 

puter fired off twenty minutes of fireworks in twenty seconds; fortunately 

there were on barges, and no one was hurt. It was also nice to receive a 

few birthday cards, and an especially nice telegram (delivered, of course, 

via the postal service, as telegrams are now). 


20817-4401 (301-229-5669)

Aug 12 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press 

The BBC/PBS "A Scandal in Belgravia" has received 13 nominations for prime- 

time Emmy Awards from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, including 

outstanding mini-series or movie, lead actor (Benedict Cumberbatch), sup- 

porting actor (Martin Freeman), and writing (Steven Moffat); the awards are 

to be announced on Sept. 23. It's possible that the producers decided to 

submit "Sherlock" as a mini-series rather than as a drama series to avoid 

competition with the extremely-popular "Downton Abbey". 

"Why didn't you tell me about this reading thing? This reading business, 

Dad, I really recommend it. Maybe you should give it a try." A quote from 

the younger generation in Australia, in an opinion piece by the Dad in the 

Sydney Morning Herald, July 28 , written after his 

son saw the "Sherlock" mini-series and discovered that it was possible to 

read stories about Sherlock Holmes. 

There's also a blog by Lynnette Porter reporting 

on an Internet survey that generated some interesting numbers from fans of 

the mini-series: more than 68 percent have read Conan Doyle's stories about 

Sherlock Holmes. And more than 70 percent read or write fanfiction, which 

suggests that at least a few people who prefer fanfiction to the originals, 

and possibly base their fanfiction on television or films, rather than the 

printed page. 

Ely Liebow reported The Brigadier Gerard many years ago (Aug 95 #2); it is 

a pub in York, named not in honor of the hero of Conan Doyle's stories, but 

rather for the famous race horse (which was named for Conan Doyle's swash- 

buckling hero). It's not unique: there's another Brigadier Gerard in East- 

leigh in Hampshire, and of course both can be found with a Google search. 

Martin H. Greenberg died on June 25, 2011. He was the dean of the school 

of international studies at Florida International University, and the first 

director of graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, and 

was a well-known editor in the fields of mystery, horror, and science fic- 

tion, winning an Ellery Queen Award from the Mystery Writers of America in 

1995. Anthologies he helped edit included SHERLOCK HOLMES THROUGH TIME AND 

SPACE (1986), THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (1987), SHERLOCK HOLMES 

IN ORBIT (1995), HOLMES FOR THE HOLIDAYS (1996), MORE HOLMES FOR THE HOLI- 

DAYS (1999), MURDER IN BAKER STREET (2001), MURDER, MY DEAR WATSON (2002), 

GHOSTS IN BAKER STREET (2004), and SHERLOCK HOLMES IN AMERICA (2009). 

The Wildclaw Theatre Company will present (one performance only) a dramati- 

zation of Neil Gaiman's pastiche "A Study in Emerald" during its "Masque of 

the Red Death Gala Benefit" at the Strawdog Theatre on Sept. 15. The thea- 

ter's at 3829 North Broadway, Chicago, IL 60613 . 

THE LOST CASEBOOKS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, by Donald Thomas (New York: Pegasus 

Books, 2012; 873 pp., $35.00), is a one-volume reprint of his earlier THE 

SECRET CASES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (1997), SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE VOICE FROM 

THE CRYPT (2002), and THE EXECUTION OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (2008); he is one of 

the better authors of pastiches, and this collection offers 18 of his stor- 

ies, some based on true crimes and others new inventions.

Aug 12 #2 Those who have access to the Internet likely have seen images 

inspired by the "Believe in Sherlock" movement launched after 

the finale of the BBC's second "Sherlock" mini-series (Feb 12 #1); the per- 

son who launched the movement was Mika Hallor, and you can read more about 

her at and in an article in the summer issue of 

The Baker Street Journal by three members of the Baker Street Babes (Taylor 

Blumenberg, Jenn Eaker, and Amy Thomas), along with an imaginative report 

(by Leslie S. Klinger) on his discovery of a press account of the memorial 

service for Sherlock Holmes in 1891. 

The BSJ appears quarterly, and subscriptions (four issues plus the Christ- 

mas Annual) cost $38.50 (to the U.S.) or $49.00 (elsewhere); checks can be 

sent to the BSJ (Box 583, Zionsville, IN 46077), and credit-card payments 

are welcome from foreign subscribers. You can also subscribe at the BSJ 

web-site at , which also has interesting fea- 

tures such as some of the papers written by winners of the Morley-Montgom- 

ery Awards, articles from recent issues of the BSJ, and information on the 

BSI's other publications and activities. 

Great Britain has honored the 200th anniversary of the birth 

of Charles Dickens by issuing a set of attractive stamps that 

show some of his characters, drawn by Joseph Clayton Clarke. 

One of the stamps shows Mr. Pickwick, who is mentioned in the 

Canon: "There was something of Mr. Pickwick's benevolence in 

his appearance, marred only by the insincerity of the fixed 

smile and by the hard glitter of those restless and penetrat- 

ing eyes." That's from Watson description of the worst man 

in London (Charles Augustus Milverton). 

Bob Katz has noted an interesting "Literary Detectives Deathmatch" at the 

Huffington Post (Nov. 29, 2011) . The challenge 

was posed by books editor Andrew Losowsky, and the responses are all his, 

including the imaginative finale between Miss Marple and Sherlock Holmes. 

You can click through the brackets to follow the battle. 

NBC Today ran a four-minute segment titled "It's Elementary: On the Trail 

of Sherlock Holmes" from London on Aug. 2, with Keith Miller interviewing 

Roger Johnson and two of the Baker Street Babes (Kristina Manente and Kath- 

erine Ryan); you may still be able to see it at . 

The Epilogues of Sherlock Holmes and the Turf Builders of Baker Street have 

organized another "no frills" version of The Silver Blaze on Oct. 6 at Mon- 

mouth Park in Long Branch, N.J. The organizers promise free handicapping, 

along with a warning: caveat bettor. Additional information is available 

from Peter McIntyre (732-765-1240) and Kate Karlson 

. 

The Ironmongers Daily News (published almost daily by the Société Sherlock 

Holmes de France) reports a Spanish film "Holmes y Watson: Madrid Days" due 

for release by Atla Films on Sept. 7, with Gary Piquer as Holmes and José 

Luis Garci as Watson (in pursuit of Jack the Ripper). There's a two-minute 

trailer at . The film's listed at the 

Internet Movie Data Base and Wikipedia as "Holmes: Madrid suite 1890".

Aug 12 #3 "Join Sherlock Holmes at the Edgar Allan Poe Mystery Writers of 

America Awards Dinner" is the title of the 56-page dinner pro- 

gram published for the dinner on Apr. 26, and the contents include tributes 

by Dana Stabenow, Peter Abrahams, Donna Andrews, Jan Burke, Kristine Kath- 

ryn Rusch, Carole Nelson Douglas, Lyndsay Faye, Steve Hockensmith, Leslie 

S. Klinger, Laurie R. King, Toni L. P. Keiner, David Wright, Barbara Pet- 

ers, SJ Rozan, and David Wright. The bad news is that it appears that the 

only way to acquire a copy is to beg, borrow, or steal one from a member of 

the MWA. 

Smithsonian magazine's interesting "Design Decoded" blog (Jul 12 #4) con- 

tinued its Sherlockian entries with Jimmy Stamp's "Sherlock Holmes and the 

Tools of Detection" and "A Modern Sherlock Holmes and the Technology of De- 

tection" and Sarah C. Rich's "The Architecture of Memory"; you can find the 

entire series at . 

Maria Konnikova, who is working on a Ph.D. in psychology at Columbia Uni- 

versity, has written Sherlockian essays for to the Scientific American blog 

(Sep 11 #6) and elsewhere, and you can read them all (and other non-Sher- 

lockian pieces) at her interesting web-site . 

Philip José Farmer's imaginative science fiction included the world of the 

Wold Newton Family, which included Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan, and many other 

fictional characters, and THE OTHER LOG OF PHILEAS FOGG (1973) demonstrated 

just how complicated the affairs of the Family could be; dedicated to H. W. 

Starr, it included a reprint of Starr's article "A Submersible Subterfuge, 

or Proof Impositive" (first published by The Sons of the Copper Beeches). 

The book has been reissued (London: Titan Books, 2012; 306 pp., $9.95) with 

a helpful afterword and chronology by Win Scott Eckert, and the new edition 

is also dedicated to the members of The Hansoms of John Clayton of Peoria 

(where Farmer lived for many years). Titan plans to publish more titles in 

the Wold Newton series, and their web-site is at . 

Jeffrey Hatcher's "Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Suicide Club", 

previously scheduled at the Round House Theatre in Bethesda, Md., May 29- 

June 23, 2013, has been cancelled; the theater's new artistic director de- 

cided that Gina Gionfriddo's comedy "Becky Shaw' was more to his taste. 

Carole Nelson Douglas (author of the Irene Adler series) will be inducted 

into the Texas Literary Hall of Fame on Oct. 19. Founded by the Friends of 

the Fort Worth Library in 2004, the Hall of Fame "honors authors whose body 

of work enhances Texas' literary heritage, is original and first published 

in this country, and has already been recognized for its literary signifi- 

cance." 

Edinburgh's was recognized as the first "world city of literature" (Aug 04 

#5) by UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Or- 

ganization), and there are others now, including Iowa City, whose City of 

Literature web-site at displays city 

resident Al Dawson's article in the latest issue of The Magic Door (Jul 12 

#1). Iowa City also claims Nicholas Meyer, who graduated from the Univer- 

sity of Iowa's Department of Theatre Arts and went on to write THE SEVEN- 

PER-CENT SOLUTION and other pastiches.

Aug 12 #4 Darlene Cypser's THE CONSULTING DETECTIVE TRILOGY: PART I: UNI- 

VERSITY (Morrison: Foolscap & Quill, 2012; 323 pp., $14.99) is 

a sequel to her THE CRACK IN THE LENS (Mar 11 #6); Holmes is now at univer- 

sity (Cambridge) and beginning the studies that led him to his career as a 

detective, and "The Gloria Scott" is only one of the mysteries he solves. 

Again, there's nice local flavor, interesting psychology, and good writing. 

Two more volumes are to come, covering the years until Holmes meets Watson. 

ANOMALOUS, by Samuel Williams, Jr. (London: MX Publishing, 2012; 220 pp., 

£9.99), is a pastiche by a black author who involves Holmes and Watson with 

Steve Dixie and Lucy Hebron, and with Jack Johnson, Big Jim Colosimo, John- 

ny Torrio, Frankie Yale, Al Capone, in Chicago and in London. 

William Windom died on Aug. 16. He had a long career as a character actor 

in films and on television, including playing Dr. Seth Hazlitt in more than 

episodes of the series "Murder, She Wrote". He also was Watson in a Cali- 

fornia Artists Radio Theatre production in the 1990s of William Gillette's 

"Sherlock Holmes" with David Warner as Holmes and Samantha Eggar as Alice 

Faulkner. 

The CART broadcast of "Sherlock Holmes" is available on CD ($20.00) and as 

an MP3 download ($10.00) at their web-site , along with 

their broadcast of Conan Doyle's "Selecting a Ghost" ($15.00/$7.50) (Jul 05 

#1). 

More Olympics: "26 Miles" is a new radio play written by Anthony Sergeant 

for the Wireless Theatre Company ; it's 

fact and then fantasy about the Marathon in 1908, and Conan Doyle is men- 

tioned twice. You can listen or download (there's no charge) at their web- 

site, where you'll also find their amusing "Sherlock Holmes Strikes Back!" 

(Sep 11 #3). 



iana, old and new, books and much more, including a set of photographs from 

the Gathering of Southern Sherlockians in Chattanooga in April. 

"There were one hundred and forty-three diamonds of the first water," Jona- 

than Small explained (in "The Sign of the Four"), "including one which has 

been called, I believe, 'the Great Mogul.'" The Great Mogul also was the 

title of any of the Muslim emperors of India from 1526 to 1857, during what 

is called the Mughal Empire. "Mughal India: Art, Culture, and Empire" will 

be on display at the British Library from Nov. 9 through Apr. 2. There's 

an illustrated announcement at , and if you 

would like to see some of the Mughal treasures in the British Museum, there 

is an interesting web-site at . 

Mary Loving has noted an announcement in the Marshfield News Herald (Aug. 

13) that the University of Wisconsin/Marshfield/Wood County will present a 

"Sherlock Holmes learning cluster" in the fall semester, with three inter- 

connected courses, a lecture series open to the general public, and a film 

series, plus a community read of "The Hound of the Baskervilles". There's 

more information at .

Aug 12 #5 Robert E. Robinson ("The Hansom Cab") died on Aug. 11. He was 

an organic chemist and co-founder and president of Lindau Chem- 

icals, and enthusiastic about classical music, opera, and Sherlock Holmes; 

he was program chairman for The Hansom Wheels of Columbia and wrote and he 

produced many plays for the society. He received his Investiture from The 

Baker Street Irregulars in 1986. 

The A. D. Players plan to produce Steven Dietz's play "Sherlock Holmes: The 

Final Adventure" at the Grace Theatre, Sept. 5-Oct. 7. 2710 West Alabama 

Street, Houston, TX 77098) (713-526-2721) . 

If you have enjoyed seeing jellyfish in aquariums and think you'd like to 

have some of your own, they're available from Jellyfish Art, with tanks and 

food; they're not inexpensive, and the varieties offered do not include the 

lion's mane, but the company's web-site is at . 

The Pittsburgh Irish & Classical Theatre will present Paul Giovanni's "The 

Crucifer of Blood" at the Charity Randall Theatre on Dec. 4-21, 2013. 4301 

Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15260 (412-561-6000) . 

Michael Hecht will appear in "What I Learned from Sherlock Holmes" at the 

Stoughton Opera House on Oct 3. 381 East Main Street, Stoughton, WI 53589 

(608-877-4400) ; according to the publicity, "Lo- 

cal visual and literary artist Michael Hecht explores the times and artis- 

tic influences that gave birth to the great detective," and Hecht's person- 

al view is expressed through the writings of Poe, Darwin, Wilde, and great 

events including Krakatoa to the Oxford dictionary; visual pieces and music 

will also be utilized to tell this story." Thanks to Tom Drucker for spot- 

ting this unusual event, which is open to the public, with a free-will do- 

nation requested. 

"Sherlock Holmes--A Study in Fear" is a new play, written by John Goodrum 

(based on "The Final Problem"), with Nicholas Briggs starring as Sherlock 

Holmes, to be performed on tour in Britain by the Rumpus Theatre Company 

from Sept. 11 to Oct. 27 . 

More Sherlock Holmes at the Olympics: Kelly Blau noted a report in the N.Y. 

Times (Aug. 7) that the Kazakhstan women's synchronized swimming team (Anna 

Kulkina and Aigerem Zhexembinova) performed to music from "Sherlock Holmes" 

(the Robert Downey Jr. film); Zhexembinova explained that "we pretended to 

make pistols with our hands." Alas, they didn't qualify for the finals. 

Finally, I've not heard from anyone who observed a Sherlockian quote amid 

all the newsprint that was used in the set designs during the closing cere- 

monies; of course we couldn't see it all watching NBC-TV, and what we did 

see wasn't all that legible. 

Grubwithus (a social-networking web-site) will host Sherlock-themed dinners 

tied to the upcoming CBS-TV series "Elementary" on Sept. 13 in ten cities 

(New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Washington, Philadelphia, 

Boston, Seattle, Dallas, and Atlanta) ; the meal 

(with an appropriate menu) costs $25.00 and includes a "free DVD screener" 

of the show.

Aug 12 #6 The Exhibits Development Group has announced additional venues 

for "Sherlock Holmes: The Science of Deduction", an interactive 

exhibition that will tour science museums starting in 2013 (Apr 12 #1); the 

tour begins at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry in Portland, Oct. 

10, 2013-Jan. 5, 2014, continuing at the Center for Science & Industry in 

Columbus, Feb. 6-Sept. 8, 2014, and then at the Dallas Museum of Nature and 

Science, Oct. 9, 2014, to Jan. 4, 2015, with an additional stop at the Dis- 

covery Science Center in Santa Ana, Calif., June 11-Sept. 6, 2015. Visit 

for additional informa- 

tion about the exhibition. 

Colin Mochrie, who appeared in the improv show "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" 

and is now on "Trust Us with Your Life" on ABC-TV, has written a book "Not 

Quite the Classics" due this fall from Penguin. "I take the first and last 

line of 12 famous novels and make up a different middle," he told USA Week- 

end (Aug. 3-5). "One is based on 'The Hound of the Baskervilles'; my story 

is how Sherlock Holmes decided he wants to be a stand-up comedian." 

Darlene Cypser has reported the web-site goodreads, where there is a page 

allowing people to rank their favorite Sherlock- 

ian pastiches. Not many people seem to be voting, although of course that 

may change as more Sherlockians start visiting the web-site; at the moment 

the winner (with 21 votes) is Luke Benjamin Kuhns' THE UNTOLD ADVENTURES OF 

SHERLOCK HOLMES, with Nicholas Meyer's THE SEVEN-PER-CENT SOLUTION second 

(with 19 votes). Another list (Beyond Conan Doyle--Best of the Continuing 

Cases of Sherlock Holmes) has different results. 

He's back! The statue of Sherlock Holmes is once again on view in Picardy 

Place in Edinburgh. Removed in 2009 because it blocked construction of a 

new tram line (Jul 09 #4), the bronze statue was commissioned by the Feder- 

ation of Master Builders to mark its 50th anniversary in 1991, and has been 

reinstalled near the site of the house where Conan Doyle was born. 

An intriguing item is coming up for auction at the Rock Island Auction Com- 

pany on Sept. 9: the Waterloo Bravery Medal Awarded to Corporal Brewster, 

estimated at $3,500-6,500. It's a silver medal presented to Corporal Brew- 

ster from the officers of the Coldstream Guards, in fine condition, and the 

author of the catalog description was not able to confirm the link between 

the medal and Conan Doyle's character in "A Straggler of '15" (further re- 

search, the catalog notes, "could provide some interesting results"); there 

is more information at . 

The web-site Badass Digest has reported (Aug. 14) that Paramount has asked 

Chris Columbus to "steer" a remake of their "Young Sherlock Holmes" (1985); 

the original film, directed by Columbus, starred Nicholas Rowe and Alan Cox 

and had a total domestic gross of $19.7 million. "Sherlock Holmes: A Game 

of Shadows" had a domestic gross of $39.6 million its first weekend. Para- 

mount's plans likely fall into the "wouldn't it be a good idea" category of 

copycat films such as Columbia Pictures' announcement (Jul 08 #3) of a film 

starring Sacha Baron Cohen as Holmes and Will Ferrell as Watson. 


20817-4401 (301-229-5669)

Sep 12 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press 

The London Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games is now auctioning mem- 

orabilia in hopes of recovering some of the £9.3 billion cost of the Games; 

the imaginatively decorated statue of Sherlock Wenlock (Jul 12 #5) has al- 

ready been sold, for £6,520. The folks at Sherlockology have kindly posted 

photographs and an explanation of the 13 references to the Canon displayed 

on the statue . 

And there is one last note on the Olympics: viewers of the closing ceremo- 

nies will recall seeing sheets newsprint with quotations from the works of 

literary and cultural figures. One of them was Conan Doyle (represented by 

a quote from "The Hound of the Baskervilles"); this was not visible during 

the broadcast on NBC-TV in the U.S., and no one has reported seeing it in 

the U.K., and (alas) there seems to be no archive of official photographs 

of the more than 100 quotations. 

Stuart M. Kaminsky's play "The Final Toast" (2008) will be performed by the 

St. Jude's Players Nov. 14-24. St. Jude's Hall (444 Brighton Road, Bright- 

on, SA 5048, Australia (08-8296-2628) . 

The official launch party for Laurie R. King's GARMENT OF SHADOWS (Jul 12 

#1) was held this month at the Poisoned Pen Bookstore in Phoenix, and there 

is a 90-minute video at of Laurie in- 

terviewed by Poisoned Pen proprietor Barbara Peters. 

The Hedgerow Theatre will present Paul Giovanni's "The Crucifer of Blood" 

(1978) from Oct. 4 to Nov. 5. 64 Rose Valley Road, Rose Valley, PA 19063 

(610-565-4211) . 

"Sherlock Holmes: Behind the Canonical Screen" (the conference presented by 

the UCLA School of Television, Film & Theater and The Baker Street Irregu- 

lars over the Labor Day weekend) was thoroughly delightful. The speakers 

included John Landis and director-screenwriter Nicholas Meyer ("From Paper 

to Celluloid: Adapting Holmes for the Screen"), directors John Musker and 

Ron Clements ("The Great Mouse Detective"), author Lyndsay Faye ("The Wom- 

en: Sex and Success in the Canon, the BBC, and Warner Brothers"), film his- 

torian Russell Merritt ("How Holmes Crashed the Silents Without His Boswell 

and Fell to Moriarty"), lawyers Betsy Rosenblatt and Jonathan Kirsch ("In- 

tellectual Property and Copyright"), and many others, and had a chance to 

see a true film rarity (Eille Norwood's "The Sign of Four" accompanied by 

expert Philip Carli on piano) and the pilot episode of "Elementary" (with 

producer Rob Doherty on hand to tell stories and answer questions. 

Those who want to know more about the conference can read tweets by Lyndsay 

Faye and others; just go to and search for #UCLASherlock 

or @lyndsayfaye. 

Mary Burke reports that Condé Nast Traveler offers a "Literary World Tour" 

of "7 Famous Authors' Homes You Can Visit" . The 

list includes The Sherlock Holmes Museum ("Okay, so Sherlock Holmes is nei- 

ther a writer nor a real person. But the character, created by Sir Arthur 

Conan Doyle, remains one of the literary world's most famous").

Sep 12 #2 The animated movie "Gnomeo & Juliet: Sherlock Gnomes" (Mar 12 

#6) now has a director: John Stevenson, who directed "Kung Fu 

Panda". Elton John's Rocket Pictures is producing the film, and there are 

reports the production will start early next year, for a release in 2014. 

Gnomeo and Juliet enlist the help of Sherlock Gnomes, the world's greatest 

ornamental detective, to investigate why gnomes are disappearing from Eng- 

land's suburban gardens. 

Steven Dietz's play "Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure" can be seen at 

the Nashville Children's Theatre through Oct. 7 (25 Middleton Street, Nash- 

ville, TN 37210) (615-252-4675) ; and at 

the Repertory East Playhouse through Oct. 20 (24266 Main Street, Newhall, 

CA 91321) (611-288-0000) . 

"The Virgin and the Book Dealer" is the theme for this year's NYC Vintage 

Paperback & Pulp Fiction Expo at the Holiday Inn (440 West 57th Street in 

New York) on Oct. 14; it's organized by Gary Lovisi (Sherlockian author and 

editor), and the guest authors will include Sherlockian pastichists Carolyn 

Bugge and Marvin Kaye . 

Jerry Nelson died on Aug. 23. He worked as a puppeteer with Bil Baird and 

then went to work for Jim Henson, creating Sherlock Hemlock and many other 

memorable muppet characters on "Sesame Street" and "The Muppet Show". 

Betty G. Birney's MYSTERIES ACCORDING TO HUMPHREY (New York: G. P. Putnam's 

Son, 2012; 146 pp., $14.99) is a pleasant book for young readers; Humphrey 

is a hamster (in deerstalker on the dust jacket) who resides in room 26 of 

Longfellow School, and listens as the class learns about "an unsqueakably 

smart detective named Sherlock Holmes" and does some detecting on his own. 

"The Murder of the World's Most Famous Detective" was an interesting pas- 

tiche published in 1908 (as "L'Assassinat de plus Célèbre Détective"), the 

first in a series of "fascicules" written by Antonin Reschal about the ex- 

ploits of "Miss Boston: La seule detéctive-femme du monde entier"; the most 

famous detective was indeed Sherlock Holmes, and Miss Boston, with the help 

of Dr. Watson, captures the murderer. THE ADVENTURES OF MISS BOSTON: THE 

FIRST FEMALE DETECTIVE (Encino: Black Coat Press, 2012; 306 pp., $22.95) is 

a collection of eleven stories, translated by Nina Cooper, who also wrote 

an informative introduction. Miss Boston was of course not the only female 

detective in the entire world at the time, and Reschal knew (or cared) very 

little about American geography; Miss Boston's adventures take place in a 

New York that few of his readers had ever visited. 

The publisher also offers a nice list of books by 

Maurice Leblanc (and pastiches by others) about Arsène Lupin, including re- 

prints of Sherlockian stories in Leblanc's THE PHANTOM BLONDE and THE HOLL- 

OW NEEDLE in a new collection THE MANY FACES OF ARSENE LUPIN. 

The Los Angeles Times web-site has an interesting set of photographs titled 

"Sherlock Holmes: Revealing the Detective's Place in Pop Culture", and it's 

well worth taking a look , because they have come 

up with some unusual items, including a reference to the Canon in the lyr- 

ics of the song "Waiting for Sex" by the English synth-pop duo Erasure.

Sep 12 #3 "The Art of Jonathan Barry" was exhibited this month at the No 

Grants Gallery in Dublin; Barry specializes in painting scenes 

from literary classics and has just turned his attention to the Canon. You 

can see his portrait of Sherlock Holmes (in full color) in an article noted 

by Karen Murdock in the Irish Times (Sept. 1) . 

Karen Murdock spotted a report that Benedict Cumberbatch will make a guest 

appearance on the next season of "The Simpsons" in an episode titled "Love 

Is a Many-Splintered Thing", playing both the British Prime Minister and a 

snake-like character; he was in Los Angeles for four months shooting "Star 

Trek 2" and asked the series producers if he could have a cameo role. And 

there was a report in the Daily Express (Sept. 8) that the next season of 

"Sherlock" will be the last, because Cumberbatch and Freeman are enjoying 

flourishing film careers. "It's a question of schedules," an unidentified 

source told the paper, "they will no doubt be signing off in style." 

"Sherlock Holmes and a Most Irregular Tea Party" is an "interactive drama" 

being presented by the Milwaukee Entertainment Group at the Brumder Mansion 

through Oct. 14; 3046 West Wisconsin Avenue, Milwaukee, WI 53208 (414-388- 

9104) . 

Stephanie Watson's ROBERT DOWNEY JR.: BLOCKBUSTER MOVIE STAR (Minneapolis: 

ABDO, 2012; 112 pp., $23.95) is part of ABDO's "Contemporary Lives" series 

(which also includes Justin Bieber, Eminem, Lady Gaga, Jay-Z, Kim Kardash- 

ian, Taylor Swift, and Justin Timberlake); it's written for younger read-, 

with many illustrations, and with two pages on Downey's "Sherlock Holmes". 

The publisher's web-site's at . 

Lloyd Rose spotted an amusing Sherlockian birthday cake, which you can see 

in full color at "Police Boxes and Death Frisbies...and Aeroplanes Too" on 

Tumblr . 

Irene's Cabinet is the annual anthology edited by Beth Austin for Watson's 

Tin Box, and this year's issue (62 pp.) celebrates the founding of the so- 

ciety with a series of reminiscences about the early days, and about found- 

ers that included Steve Clarkson and Paul Churchill (the third founder, Rod 

McCaslin has contributed his own essay), and Matt Rutkowski's winning essay 

for this year's Clarkson Prize, named in honor of the late Steve Clarkson 

and sponsored by the society for seventh-graders in Howard County, Md. The 

cost is $15.00 postpaid, from Beth Austin (9455 Chadburn Place, Gaithers- 

burg, MD 20886). 

Sorry about that: if you are planning to see Jeffrey Hatcher's play "Sher- 

lock Holmes and the Adventure of the Suicide Club" at the Park Square Thea- 

ter next year (Jul 12 #4), the theater is in St. Paul, not Minneapolis. 

The panels have been announced for Bouchercon in Cleveland on Oct. 4-7, and 

one of them is "Elementary My Dear Cleveland" (How Sherlock Holmes Is Still 

Influencing Fiction Today) with Les Klinger, Michael Robinson, Dan Andriac- 

co, Laurie King, Sara Paretsky, and Dan Stashower). Laurie will also be on 

a panel on "Our Inspirations" (What Books/Plays/ Films/TV Shows/Music Made 

Us the Writers We Are Today?). Go to for the com- 

plete schedule.

Sep 12 #4 The delightful parody "The Hound of the Baskervilles" written 

by Steven Canny and John Nicholson in 2007 is being performed 

by the Virginia Repertory Theatre at the Hanover Tavern until Nov. 4. The 

tavern is at 13181 Hanover Court Courthouse Road, Hanover, VA 23069 (804- 

282-2620), and the company's web-site is at . 

Karen Murdock noted a report that the Royal Western India Turf Club's "Live 

Legend Plate" was run at Pune on Sept. 9. Snow Mountain won the race, with 

Persian finishing second and Theology third, with Sherlock Holmes fourth. 

Sherlock Holmes is a three-year-old gelding, and you can see the race re- 

sults at ; there also is 

video at . 

The Serpentine Muse continues to offer news from, about, and by The Adven- 

turesses of Sherlock Holmes; the fall issue offers Bill Vande Water's re- 

port on his discovery of the ASH Constitution and Buy-Laws (now published 

some years after his report at one of their dinners), and Judith Freeman's 

refutation of the spurious document, accompanied by a reprinting (for the 

first time since 1975) of the actual ASH Bylaws (there seems never to have 

been an ASH Constitution). The Muse is published quarterly; $15.00 a year 

from Evelyn A. Herzog (301 Warren Avenue #203, Baltimore, MD 21230). 

"Sherlock Holmes in Brentwood" is a new play-reading series scheduled next 

year; it's a Sunday-afternoon series of readings by professional actors in 

a concert-hall venue in Brentwood, Calif., curated by Les Klinger. Plays 

read in the first season will include Jeremy Paul's "The Secret of Sherlock 

Holmes" and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's dramatization of "The Speckled Band". 

The web-site's at . 

The Postal Service has celebrated the 150th anniversary 

of the birth of William S. Porter, who adopted the pseu- 

donym "O. Henry" while an inmate at the Ohio State Peni- 

tentiary and went on to become a successful author. His 

Sherlockian parodies include "The Adventures of Shamrock 

Jolnes" (1911) and "The Detective Detector" (1917). And 

if you've ever wondered what that initial abbreviated, there's an answer, 

from O. Henry himself, in the N.Y. Times (Apr. 4, 1909): A newspaper once 

wrote and asked what the O stands for, and he replied, 'O stands for Oliv- 

ier, the French for Oliver." 

"Cosplay" is an aspect of modern culture that has its own entry at Wikiped- 

ia; it's a shortening of "costume play" and is described as a type of per- 

formance art in which participants don costumes and accessories to repre- 

sent a specific character or idea. Cosplayers often interact to create a 

subculture centered on role play. A broader use of the term applies to any 

costumed role play in venues apart from the stage, regardless of the cul- 

tural content. 

If that sounds familiar, it certainly should: Sherlockians have been doing 

that for decades, especially The Sherlock Holmes Society of London, which 

has just returned from its latest pilgrimage to Switzerland. There was a 

report at the N.Y. Times on Sept. 17 , and there 

is video from the BBC at .

Sep 12 #5 Don Libey's THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (San Francis- 

co: Campbell & Lewis, 2012; 132 pp., $15.00) is an interesting 

approach to the Canon: the book was written by Holmes in 1929, after Wat- 

son's death, and it turns out that there were many things that Watson in- 

vented, including their address in London and the name of their landlady; 

the voice of Holmes is authentic, and his account of his life and career is 

intriguing. 

Watson's Tin Box will host the sixth "Scintillation of Scions" at the Hil- 

ton Garden Inn in Hanover, Md., June 7-9, 2013; it's an entertaining gath- 

ering, and details are available from Jacquelynn Morris (3042 Old Channel 

Road, Laurel, MD 20724) . They have moved to a new 

venue because they outgrew the old one, and registration is limited to 100. 

John Addy's SHERLOCKIAN PICTURE PUZZLES: A MONOGRAPH ON ELIOT KEEN'S 1905 

ILLUSTRATIONS (2012; 28 pp.) offers a fascinating look at puzzles published 

in the N.Y. Herald and other American newspapers; they're a type of rebus 

picture puzzle, and they appeared at a time when puzzles were quite differ- 

ent than they are today (the first "word-cross" puzzle appeared in the N.Y. 

World in 1913). Created for children, they will challenge today's adults. 

The book is available from The Musgraves (Anne Jordan, Hallas Lodge, Green- 

side Lane, Cullingworth, Bradford BD13 5AP, England)and costs £7.50 (UK)/ 

£10.00 (Europe)/$25.00 (US+Canada)/$30.00 (rest of world), all postpaid. 

"The Life and Times of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Creator (Literary Agent) of 

Mr. Sherlock Holmes" will be the theme for the next "Saturday with Sherlock 

Holmes" at the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore from 10:00 to 1:00 on 

Nov. 3; the event is sponsored by the local Sherlockian societies, the li- 

brary is at 400 Cathedral Street, and there is no charge to attend. 

The Postal Service has honored Edgar Rice Burroughs and Tarzan; 

"Tarzan of the Apes" was first published in 1912. Philip José 

Farmer explained in TARZAN ALIVE (1972) that Tarzan was related 

to Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes, as well as many other members 

of the Wold Newton family, which originated when a radioactive 

meteor landed in Wold Newton, England, in the year 1795. The 

family's web-site has a 

fine introduction by Win Scott Eckert, and an image of Farmer's 

amusing calling card. 

"It is said that one measure of the popularity of a public personality is 

the number of rumours and urban legends that have grown up around him" is 

how Cliff Goldfarb begins his article on "Arthur Conan Doyle and the Doran- 

do Affair" in the 2012 issue of the Journal of Olympic History. He offers 

a definitive history (and refutation) of the oft-repeated story that Conan 

Doyle assisted Dorando across the marathon finish line at the Olympics in 

London in 1908, tracking the story back to 1948. Copies of the journal are 

available from Anthony Bijkerk . 

Cliff also has an interesting article on "Winston Churchill and Arthur Co- 

nan Doyle" in Finest Hour: The Journal of Winston Churchill (summer 2012), 

explaining the relationship between the two "Great Britons". The magazine 

costs $5.95; Box 740, Moultonborough, NH 03254 .

Sep 12 #6 The three-page manuscript of Conan Doyle's "Mr. Sherlock Holmes 

to his Friends" went to auction at Freeman's in Philadelphia on 

Sept. 20, estimated at $5,000-8,000. The essay was published in The Strand 

Magazine (Mar. 27) as "Mr. Sherlock Holmes to His Readers" and revised and 

reprinted as the preface to THE CASE BOOK OF SHERLOCK HOLMES; Randall Stock 

has provided details on the manuscript, and on other items in the auction, 

at . The man- 

uscript sold for $65,000 (plus buyer's premium, for a total of $80,500). 

"Sherlock" co-creator Steven Moffat offered a hint about the second season 

of the series: "The critical words, I'd say, would be--Adler, Hound, Reich- 

enbach." (Oct 10 #7). The teaser words for the third season are Rat, Wedd- 

ing, and Bow (reported by the Guardian from the Sherlock Holmes Masterclass 

in Edinburgh on Aug. 24). Shooting for the new season is expected to begin 

in January, for broadcast in August (producer Sue Vertue is "determined" to 

close the gap between broadcast dates in Britain and the U.S.). Specula- 

tion on the teaser words is rife, of course; Benedict Cumberbatch marrying 

Lara Pulver is low on the list of explanations for Wedding. 

And Pulver, who was seen (to put it mildly) as Irene Adler in "A Scandal in 

Belgravia" but wasn't at the Masterclass, has denied rumors on the blogo- 

sphere that she will be the first woman to play Doctor Who. 

Don Hobbs, always in pursuit of new Sherlockian translations, has found a 

quote in Gallifreyan. The quote is "When you have eliminated the impossi- 

ble, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth," and you can 

see the translation at . Old High Gallifreyan was 

the language of the Time Lords; by the time of the Doctor, it had evolved 

into Modern Gallifreyan and Circular Gallifreyan. The Doctor, of course, 

is Doctor Who. And the artist is Vyctoria Hart (aka Phantoms Siren); you 

can see more of her work (and let her know if you would like to commission 

a different quote) at . And you can wear her art- 

work as a tattoo . 

Peggy Perdue has reported that the Arthur Conan Doyle Collection at the To- 

ronto Public Library now owns the autograph book in which Conan Doyle first 

saw the stick-figure alphabet that inspired the dancing men cipher (Jul 06 

#4); the autograph book was discovered at an antiques fair in Norwich (Nov 

08 #8) and was recently purchase by the Collection. There's an interesting 

and well-illustrated blog about the book at . 

Just in time for Halloween: Steve Rothman notes "The Valley of Fear" (which 

is billed as "America's Most Horrifying Woods") also offers the "Original 

Haunted Hayride" through Nov. 3 at the Phoenix Sport Club (301 West Bristol 

Road, Feasterville, PA 19053 (216-942-9787) ; appar- 

ently not Sherlockian except for the name. And there are Sherlockian cos- 

tumes at available at , including an quite adult detec- 

tive costume for women that costs more and covers less than their Sherlock 

Holmes costume for men. Finally, Jennie Paton spotted a "Sherlock Holmes 

Halloween Pumpkin Carving Stencil" at . 


20817-4401 (301-229-5669)

Oct 12 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press 

Carol McCleary's THE FORMULA FOR MURDER (New York: Forge/Tom Doherty, 2012; 

336 pp., $24.99) is the third in her series of mysteries featuring Nellie 

Bly, the adventurous American journalist; investigating the apparent sui- 

cide of a friend, Nellie travels to London, and Bath and Dartmoor, in 1890, 

and becomes involved with H. G. Wells, Oscar Wilde, and Arthur Conan Doyle 

(who is conducting research on the legends of ghostly hounds). The author 

has a web-site at . 

John Linsenmeyer noted a report in the N.Y. Times (Sept. 17) that the Reg- 

ency Hotel will close on Jan. 1 for a wholesale renovation that could last 

an entire year. The Baker Street Irregulars' annual dinner was held at the 

Regency from 1972 through 1986. 

"Sherlock Holmes Baffled" (1900) is credited as the first Sherlockian film 

(although it was made for a Mutoscope rather than a projector); how old is 

the first film known to have been shot in color? 

It isn't new, but rather newly reported: there is an on-line "Great Mouse 

Detective" fan club at ; it 

is an active web-site with 141 fans (at the moment) of the movie starring 

Basil of Baker Street. 

Electronic cigarettes are a modern invention that give users a nicotine hit 

but are unaffected by bans on smoking, and Liberro (a British company) also 

offers electronic pipes; both can use the Holmes blend e-liquid, which has 

a "robust woody tobacco flavor" and is named in honor of Sherlock Holmes. 

Details at . Credit eagle-eyed John Baesch for spotting 

a mention of the blend in an advertising supplement in The Times (June 14). 

Patricia Guy, author of BACCHUS AT BAKER STREET: SHERLOCK HOLMES AND VIC- 

TORIAN DRINKING LORE (Jan 08 #8), has an article on "Sherlock Holmes and 

Alcohol: Partners in Solving Crime" on-line at Wine-Searcher Magazine; go 

to . 

Robin Rigby reports that there will be a memorial service in London on Nov. 

2 for Michael Procter, who died earlier this year (May 12 #1); details at 

his web-site at . 

Tracy Mack and Michael Citrin's SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE BAKER STREET IRREG- 

ULARS series for readers ages 9-12, ended in 2010 with the fourth book THE 

FINAL MEETING (Orchard Books/Scholastic Press, 248 pp., $7.99); the series 

is interesting, with the Irregulars receiving as much attention as Holmes 

and Watson. 

The Société Sherlock Holmes de France has reported on Chris Schweitzer, an 

imaginative artist who has created a spectacular set of Sherlock Holmes pa- 

per figures based on the BBC's "Sherlock" series available on five pages in 

full color at . 

And for those who are not dedicated fans of "Sherlock" there's a more tra- 

ditional but nevertheless just as artistic set of eight figures for $10.00 

postpaid .

Oct 12 #2 "The Real Sherlock Holmes" is a one-hour documentary that was 

broadcast by the History Channel in Canada on Sept. 28, but it 

did not air in the U.S., because the History Channel hasn't purchased the 

program. The program is aimed at a general audience and has commentary by 

Steve Doyle, Nick Utechin, E.J. Wagner, Mark Gatiss, and others. The pro- 

duction company is Storyline Entertainment, which will be happy to sell the 

documentary to a U.S. television channel. In the meantime, their web-site 

offers a look what viewers outside Canada missed. 

The first film shot in color was made in London in 1901 or 1902, and it has 

been preserved, and digitized, at the National Media Museum in Britain; you 

can read all about it at . The first Sherlockian 

film shot in color was "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (1959). 



iana, old and new, books and much more. 

The OScholars is "an electronic journal for the exchange of information on 

current research, publications, and productions concerning Oscar Wilde and 

his worlds," and there has been a call for papers (3000 to 4000 words) for 

a special issue devoted to Conan Doyle, edited by Sarah E. Maier; the dead- 

line for abstracts (250 words) is Dec. 1, and more information is available 

at . 

The Postal Service has issued a set of stamps honoring 

"The Solitary Cyclist" (well, not really, but it does 

seem that way). Which leads to the question: who was 

the solitary cyclist? Violet Smith or Bob Carruthers? 

There is an answer to the question, and those who don't 

know the answer are invited to read the story and de- 

cide for yourselves (but if you read the story in THE 

NEW ANNOTATED SHERLOCK HOLMES, don't read the annota- 

tions, because Les Klinger gives the answer, which will 

also be revealed in this issue of my newsletter). 

Don Petkus has noted that Skeletons in the Closet (the 

store operated by the Los Angeles County Coroner's De- 

partment) still offers Sherlockian merchandise, including T-shirts with a 

skeleton in Sherlockian costume (in black or white); they also sell a mug 

with a Sherlockian design. 1104 North Mission Road, Los Angeles, CA 90033 

. 

Doug Wrigglesworth reports that Terry Fallis' UP AND DOWN (Toronto: Douglas 

Gibson, 2012; 432 pp., $22.99) is a humorous novel whose Canadian protagon- 

ist is a serious Sherlockian and bibliophile. 

The Sherlock Holmes Society of London's pilgrimage to Switzerland (Sep 12 

#4), and as usual with the Society's excursions, there was a handsome hand- 

handbook published: RETURN TO THE REICHENBACH: A SHERLOCK HOLMES SWISS AC- 

COUNT BOOK (2012, 114 pp.) is an excellent gathering of scholarship, art- 

work, and humor, and the postpaid cost is £17.50 (to the U.K.)/E20.00 (to 

Europe)/£25.00 (elsewhere) from the Society .

Oct 12 #3 The September issue of the quarterly newsletter of The Friends 

of the Sherlock Holmes Collections at the University of Minne- 

sota has the "Sherlockian Memories" of Donald Yates, a "50 Years Ago" trib- 

ute to Henry T. Folsom and his Canonical chronologies by Julie McKuras, and 

other news from and about the collections. You can request a copy of the 

newsletter from Dick Sveum (111 Elmer L. Andersen Library, Univ. of Minne- 

sota, Minneapolis, MN 55455 . 

Randall Stock reports the discovery of one more page from the manuscript of 

"The Hound of the Baskervilles" to be offered at auction at Christie's in 

New York on Dec. 7. Randall has a detailed description of the page at his 

web-site at . 

Jim Weiss continues to offer his excellent recordings younger audiences as 

CDs ($13.95) and MP3 downloads ($10.95): SHERLOCK HOLMES FOR CHILDREN ("The 

Mazarin Stone"/"The Speckled Band"/"The Musgrave Ritual"/"The Blue Carbunc- 

le") and MYSTERY! MYSTERY! ("The Red-Headed League" and tales by Chesterton 

and Poe); Greathall Productions, Box 5061, Charlottesville, VA 22905 (800- 

477-6234) . And there's Sherlockian artwork at the home 

page of his web-site. 

John Longenbaugh's play "Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Christmas Car- 

ol" will be performed at the Taproot Theatre from Nov. 16 through Dec. 29; 

the theater is at 204 North 85th Street, Seattle, WA 98103 (206-781-9707) 

. 

Titan continues to reprint Sax Rohmer's stories about Fu-Manchu (who "makes 

Professor Moriarty seem an under-achiever," Max Collins has noted); DAUGH- 

TER OF FU-MANCHU (236 pp., $9.95) is the fourth in the series, setting Sir 

Dennis Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie against the evil Fah Lo Suee in 1913. 

And Titan has other non-Sherlockian series, including Kevin J. Anderson's 

alternative histories: THE MARTIAN WAR: A THRILLING EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT OF 

THE RECENT ALIEN INVASION involves H. G. Wells with Dr. Moreaux, Dr. Cavor, 

T. H. Huxley, and Percival Lowell, on Earth, the Moon, and Mars (342 pp., 

$12.95). The publisher's web-site is at . 

Mark Alberstat's 2012 Sherlock Holmes Calendar is illustrated with artwork 

from The Strand Magazine, and displays important Sherlockian birthdays and 

William S. Baring-Gould's dates for the cases. US$15.00 postpaid, and his 

address is: 46 Kingston Crescent, Dartmouth, NS B3A 2M2, Canada. 

Who was the solitary cyclist? Bob Carruthers. The manuscript of the story 

is titled "The Adventure of the Solitary Man", a discovery made by Andrew 

Jay Peck, whose article "The Solitary Man-Uscript" was published in The Ba- 

ker Street Journal (June 1972) and won Andy the Morley-Montgomery Award for 

the best paper published in the BSJ that year. His article was reprinted 

by The Baker Street Irregulars in "A REMARKABLE MIXTURE" (Jan 08 #3), still 

available at ($35.00 plus shipping). 

David Haugen (of The Sound of the Baskervilles) reports that Mimi Noyes is 

organizing a Seattle Sherlock Convention to be held Nov. 3-4. The conven- 

tion focus will be on the BBC series, but there will also be panels on the 

Canon, and on "After ACD" pastiches; details at .

Oct 12 #4 MX Publishing continues to publish in- 

teresting Sherlockiana: SHERLOCK'S HOME: THE EMPTY HOUSE, ed- 

ited by Steve Emecz (2012; 224 pp., $16.95) is an anthology of pastiches, 

poems, and vignettes from participants of , issued 

in support of the Undershaw Preservation Trust, with additional contribu- 

tions from supporters of the Trust who include Mark Gatiss, Douglas Wilmer, 

Stephen Fry, and many others well known to Sherlockians. Completists may 

want to have the Russian translation, to be published soon by Amphora; you 

can watch a 3-minute television news report at . 

Also from MX Publishing is P. C. Martin's STEAMPUNK HOLMES: LEGACY OF THE 

NAUTILUS (2012; 142 pp., $14.95); it's a steampunk retelling of "The Bruce- 

Partington Plans" featuring Sherlock Holmes, a bionic Dr. Watson, and Sher- 

lock's sister Mycroft (steampunk's a modern Victorian science-fiction genre 

generally set in alternative universes). There's much more about steampunk 

projects at . 

And: Fiona-Jane Brown's SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE ADVENTURE OF THE JACOBITE 

ROSE (2012; 87 pp., $10.95) is the script for a two-act play that involves 

Holmes and Watson with Mycroft and forgers and thieves. Charlotte Smith's 

SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE MURDER AT LODORE FALLS AND OTHER MINOR TALES (2012; 

154 pp., $12.95) has Holmes and Watson battling a villainous gang with evil 

plans afoot (the minor tales are Christmas vignettes rather than cases). 

And: a reprint of Steven Seitz's SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE PLAGUE OF DRACULA 

(2012; 178 pp., $18.95), first published in 2006; Holmes is appropriately 

skeptical about the supernatural, but quite mistaken. 

Henry Zecher and Gay Zurich offer ideas for Christmas: Henry's biography of 

William Gillette, and Gay's artwork on personalized cartoons and magnets; 

go to and "Product Search" for [sherlock]. 

Ken Rozek reports a new set of eight stamps from Liech- 

tenstein that honors famous figures from classical liter- 

ature, all drawn by Swiss artist Oskar Weiss, and one of 

them being Sherlock Holmes; the cost of the set is 8.00 

CHF (that's Swiss francs, for a total of about $8.55) and 

their web-site's at . 

Randall Stock's gift-buyer's guide to the "Best 2012 Sherlock Holmes Books 

and Movies" will be posted at 

his web-site on Nov. 3. 

Jacques Barzun died on Oct. 25, aged 104. He was a highly-regarded scholar 

with wide-ranging interests, and he was awarded the Presidential Medal of 

Freedom in 2003. One of he special interests was detective fiction, and he 

was co-author of A CATALOGUE OF CRIME (1971), a classic survey of the genre 

that won a special Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America; he also 

contributed often to The Baker Street Journal, wrote Sherlockian clerihews, 

and in SIMPLE AND DIRECT: A RHETORIC FOR WRITERS (1975) revealed that "to 

keep a bull pup" was, in the 1880s, British army slang for "to have a bad 

temper" (a revelation for which many Sherlockians have vainly sought sup- 

porting evidence).

Oct 12 #5 Sherlock Holmes' 158th birthday will be celebrated on Friday, 

Jan. 11, with the traditional festivities in New York, but the 

first formal event will be The Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes' ASH Wed- 

nesday dinner starting at 6:30 pm at O'Casey's (22 East 41st Street); at- 

tendees pay their own checks, but you should let Susan Rice (125 Washington 

Place #2-E, New York, NY 10014) or Evy Herzog (301 

Warren Avenue #203, Baltimore, MD 21230) know if you 

are coming to the event. 

The Baker Street Irregulars' Distinguished Speaker Lecture begins at 6:15 

pm on Thursday on the 2nd floor of the Midtown Executive Club (40 West 45th 

Street); Kim Newman, author of ANNO DRACULA (1992), THE MAN FROM THE DIO- 

GENES CLUB (2005), and PROFESSOR MORIARTY: THE HOUND OF THE D'URBERVILLES 

(2011) will be the speaker. $11.00; seating is limited, and you should re- 

serve early (details below); tickets will not be sold at the door. 

The Baker Street Babes will present a new birthday-festivities event: their 

"Daintiest Thing Under a Bonnet Charity Ball" at 8:00 pm at the Salmagundi 

Club at 47 Fifth Avenue (between 11th and 12th Streets), offering a buffet 

dinner, cash bar, and entertainment; formal attire and Sherlockian costume 

are strongly encouraged. The cost is $45.00, and proceeds will benefit the 

Wounded Warriors Project; more information at or 

from Lyndsay Faye . 

Otto Penzler will hold his traditional open house on Friday from 11:00 to 

5:00 at the Mysterious Bookshop, at 58 Warren Street (between West Broadway 

and Church Street) in Tribeca; the 1, 2, and 3 trains stop at the Chambers 

Street station (one block from the shop). If you get lost, the bookshop's 

telephone number is 212-587-1011. 

The William Gillette Memorial Luncheon starts at noon, at Moran's Chelsea 

Seafood Restaurant at 146 Tenth Avenue at 19th Street; the cost is $47.00 

for chicken or salmon ($52.00 for prime rib). Checks can be sent to Susan 

Rice (125 Washington Place #2-E, New York, NY 10014) . 

The Baker Street Irregulars will gather at 6:00 pm at the Yale Club at 50 

Vanderbilt Avenue (across the street and just north of Grand Central Sta- 

tion); attendance is by invitation only. The Gaslight Gala (which is open 

to all Sherlockians and their friends) will provide dinner and entertain- 

ment at 6:30 pm at the Manhattan Club (800 Seventh Avenue at 52nd Street); 

checks for $78.00 (payable to Will Walsh) should be sent to Becky Robare at 

111 North 9th Street #300, Philadelphia, PA 19107 (917-817-1608). The Gala 

web-site has more information at . 

Space is limited at the William Gillette Luncheon and at the Gaslight Gala, 

and early reservations are advised if you wish to attend these events. 

If you want to send seasonal souvenirs or other mementos to be included in 

the various dinner packets you should send 170 copies (for the BSI) to Al 

Gregory (118 South Prospect Street, Verona, NJ 07044), 100 copies (for the 

Gaslight Gala) to Carol Fish (Box 4, Circleville, NY 10919), and 18 copies 

(for The Women) to Mary Ann Bradley (7938 Mill Stream Circle, Indianapolis, 

IN 46278); your material must be mailed to arrive by Dec. 15.

Oct 12 #6 On Saturday a wide range of Sherlockiana will be available from 

vendors in the Merchants Room (Covent Garden West) in the Van- 

derbilt Suite (on the second floor of the Roosevelt Hotel at 45 East 45th 

Street) from 9:00 am to noon; you can contact Ralph Hall (2906 Wallingford 

Court, Louisville, KY 40218) (502-491-3148) for infor- 

mation about dealers' tables. 

The Beacon Society will hold their annual meeting from 10:00 to 11:30 am in 

the Roosevelt Hotel, where they will present their annual Beacon Award rec- 

ognizing the efforts of individuals to introduce Sherlock Holmes to young 

people. Details at their web-site . 

The Baker Street Irregulars' annual reception, open to all Sherlockians and 

their friends, will be held from 1:30 to 4:30 at a Delmonco family midtown 

restaurant (to be named later); there will be hors d'oeuvres (adequate but 

not replacing lunch or dinner) and an open bar (wine, beer, juice, and soft 

drinks). And, of course, the usual (or perhaps unusual) entertainment; the 

cost is $69.00 (details below) or $79.00 after Nov. 26 or at the door. 

For those who wish to continue partying, there are as yet no plans (firm or 

infirm) for sporting events at Kennedy's or other venues on Saturday even- 

ing; stay tuned (as they say) for a further report. 

The Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes will hold an informal buffet brunch on 

Sunday, from 11:30 am to 2:00 pm at the Irish Rogue (356 West 44th Street, 

between Eighth and Ninth Avenues); $20.00 payable by cash or check at the 

door. As always, the brunch is open to all, but space is limited; details 

about a fine way to end a long weekend are available from Lyndsay Faye (450 

West 162nd Street #25-E, New York, NY 10032) . 

Arrangements have been made for a block of rooms at the Roosevelt Hotel (45 

East 45th Street) at a special tax-free rate of $199.00 per night (single 

or double room); the special rate is available only for reservations made 

through the Baker Street Irregulars by Nov. 19. In addition, there may be 

some rooms available at the Yale Club (50 Vanderbilt Avenue) at a special 

tax-free rate of $200.00 per night (details on both below); guest cards for 

the Club's second-floor lounge are available to all Sherlockians. 

And here are the details: if you've not already received Mike Whelan's an- 

nouncement and reservation form (including prices) for the Roosevelt Hotel 

and the Yale Club, the Thursday lecture, and the Saturday reception, visit 

the Baker Street Journal web-site and click on 

BSI Weekend, or contact Mary Ann Bradley . 

Mary Ellen Rich kindly continues to advise about hotels that offer reason- 

able (as defined by New York landlords) rates, but it's a mark of the 21st 

century that the best offers are to be found on the Internet, at web-sites 

such as , , , 

, , and ; special rates 

also are available at . You will 

be wise then to check the hotel's web-site and ask for the best rate (and 

you should not forget about non-optional extras such as almost 20% in state 

and city taxes).

Oct 12 #7 The Dr. John H. Watson Fund offers financial assistance to all 

Sherlockians (membership in the BSI is not required) who might 

otherwise not be able to participate in the weekend's festivities. A care- 

fully pseudonymous John H. Watson presides over the fund and welcomes con- 

tributions, which can be made by check payable to John H. Watson and sent 

(without return address on the envelope) to Dr. Watson, care of The Baker 

Street Irregulars, at 7938 Mill Stream Circle, Indianapolis, IN 46278; your 

letters are forwarded unopened, and Dr. Watson will acknowledge your gener- 

osity. Requests for assistance should also be mailed (quickly) to Dr. Wat- 

son at the same address. 

And if you can't remember where you put your copy of all of this, detailed 

information about the birthday festivities is available on the Internet at 

and . News of additional 

events will be found in this newsletter, and at the web-sites. 

"Sherlock & Shylock: The Sleuths of Venice" (the second conference arranged 

by the No Fog Countries) (Spain, Italy, and France) was an splendid gather- 

ing, thanks to hard work by members of Uno Studio in Holmes, who welcomed 

visitors as far-flung as Australia, Canada, Japan, and the U.S. The major 

event at the conference was the launch of SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE: VIAGGIO 

IN ITALIA-ITALIAN JOURNEY, edited by Gianluca Salvatori, Enrico Solito, and 

Roberto Vianello; the book is a carefully-researched exploration of two al- 

bums of postcards and photographs devoted to Conan Doyle's visits to Italy, 

purchased at the auction at Christie's in 2004 by Richard J. Sveum. Every- 

thing in the book (Rome: Bobi Bazlen; 146 pp., E30.00) is presented in both 

Italian and English. You can purchase the book directly from the publisher 

(using PayPal) . Recommended. 

One of the nice things about eBooks is that they're a fine way to keep au- 

thors' books in print. The late Stuart Kaminsky wrote 24 novels about Toby 

Peters (described by Kaminsky as "the anti-Philip Marlowe"), and they are 

all available from Otto Penzler's Mysterious Press; two of them are of par- 

ticular interest: THE HOWARD HUGHES AFFAIR (1979), in which Basil Rathbone 

does some detecting, and HE DONE HER WRONG (1983), which involves a Sher- 

lockian society called The Engineer's Thumbs. $7.99 each on-line, and you 

can see all of the titles at . 

Electronic publishing also helps readers find short fiction, such as Roger 

Johnson's pastiche "The Adventure of the Grace Chalice" (first published in 

1997 in THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF NEW SHERLOCK HOLMES ADVENTURES), now available 

in a Kindle edition for $1.20. 

Richard H. Miller ("The Grice Patersons in the Island of Uffa") died Oct. 

21. He served the U.S. Army (nuclear artillery) and in the U.S. Naval Re- 

serve (intellegence, although he sometimes claimed to be in charge of dis- 

posing of all enemy mines discovered in New Mexico), and he worked for many 

years as lawyer at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Dick was one of the 

founders of The Brothers Three of Moriarty, and he received his Investiture 

from The Baker Street Irregulars in 1982. 


20817-4401 (301-229-5669)

Nov 12 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press 

There's more information about the birthday festivities in New York in Jan- 

uary: the Beacon Society will meet in the Park Suite at the Roosevelt Hotel 

from 10:00 to 11:15 am on Saturday, Jan. 12. Details at their web-site at 

. 

Chrys Kegley of The Curious Collectors of Baker Street will once again host 

The Very Irregular Lost in New York with a Bunch of Sherlockians Dinner on 

Saturday at 6:00 pm at Pete's Tavern (129 East 18th Street, between Irving 

Place and Third Avenue); $45.00 (including tax and tip) for two drinks and 

dinner, and the details are available from Chrys (18014 Sherman Way #275, 

Reseda, CA 91235) (818-675-5399) . 

And a reminder: seasonal souvenirs or other mementos intended for various 

dinner packets should be mailed to arrive by Dec. 15: 170 copies (for the 

BSI) to Al Gregory (118 South Prospect Street, Verona, NJ 07044), 100 cop- 

ies (for the Gaslight Gala) to Carol Fish (Box 4, Circleville, NY 10919), 

and 18 copies (for The Women) to Mary Ann Bradley (7938 Mill Stream Circle, 

Indianapolis, IN 46278). 

Amanda L. Goode's SHERLOCK CLYDE AND THE CHICKEN CAPER (Randy Goode, 2008; 

64 pp., $11.96) is an amusing mystery for young readers: Clyde is a retired 

draft horse who lives on a south Texas ranch and investigate why chickens 

are going missing at an alarming rate. Available at . 

Scotland Yard is for sale. Not Great Scotland Yard, the original home of 

the Metropolitan Police, but rather New Scotland Yard, which has served as 

police headquarters since 1967; it also houses the Home Office Large Major 

Enquiry System (HOLMES). The police hope to save more than £500 million a 

year from an annual budget of £3.6 billion, and expect to receive as much 

as £150 million for the building after they move to a smaller building near 

Whitehall. 

Katie Forgette's play "Sherlock Holmes & the Case of the Jersey Lily" will 

be presented by the Greenville Little Theatre from Feb. 2 to Mar. 9, 2013. 

The theater is at 444 College Street, Greenville, SC 29601 (864-233-6238) 

. 

Nicholas Utechin's AMAZING & EXTRAORDINARY FACTS: SHERLOCK HOLMES (Newton 

Abbott: David & Charles, 2012; 140 pp., £9.99) is an informed and informa- 

tive exploration of the Canon and its major characters, of its author and 

of what other authors and actors have brought to the Sherlockian world, all 

explained for general readers with style and occasional humor; it's a fine 

gift for people who have read the Sherlock Holmes stories and want to know 

more about them. 

Bouchercon 2012 in Cleveland was quite successful, by all reports, with an 

agenda that included a Sherlockian panel ("Elementary, My Dear Cleveland"). 

Bouchercon 2013 ("A New York State of Crime") will be held in Albany Sept. 

19-20, Bouchercon 2014 ("Murder at the Beach" in Long Beach on Nov. 13-16, 

and Bouchercon 2015 (no slogan as yet) in Raleigh on Oct. 8-11. Their web- 

sites are at (substitute a numeral for the x).

Nov 12 #2 Nielsen's "live plus same day" data credited the "Elementary" 

pilot episode with 13.4 viewers, winning its network time slot, 

and the series has continued to do well, with most newspaper and Internet 

reviews quite favorable. According to CBS, the series is up 17% over the 

same time period last year for adults aged 18-49 (the prime target for such 

shows), and the network has ordered the "back nine" for the series, for a 

total of 22 episodes. CBS also has announced that a special episode of the 

series will receive the coveted post-Super Bowl time slot on Feb. 3. The 

previous Super Bowl had an estimated 111.3 viewers, and about 38 million of 

them stayed tuned in to watch the next program. 

KY TEYLU BASKERVILLE is the latest language for Canonical translations re- 

ported by Don Hobbs; the language is Cornish, and the book is available at 

(232 pp., $16.95). Don notes that there now are 98 lan- 

guages with at least one translation. 

The Practical, But Limited, Geologists (also known as The Friends of Sher- 

lock Holmes) met to honor the world's first forensic geologist with drinks 

and dinner at the King's Kitchen in Charlotte on Nov. 7, welcomed by Fred 

Mende (founder of The Saxe-Coburg Squares of Mecklenburg County). The city 

is named in honor of Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, and there's a Sher- 

lockian connection: she was Queen Consort of the United Kingdom, married to 

George III, the monarch whose folly Holmes mentioned (in "The Noble Bache- 

lor"). 



iana, old and new, books and much more. 

Kelly Blau has kindly forwarded Diane Birnberg's colorful article on "Life 

at 221B Baker Street" in the Sept.-Oct. issue of Dollhouse Miniatures; she 

and her husband have a complete house, based on books, films, and televi- 

sion. $6.95 ($5.95 digital) (886-606-6587) . 

It has been many years since the "Mazarin" stone was identified (BSJ, Sept. 

1974, p. 141-145) as a 78.96-carat yellow diamond that was then among the 

crown jewels of Iran, and it's nice to learn that it is still in Teheran, 

one of the "Iranian Yellows" described in a catalog published by the Iran 

Chamber Society and available on-line at . 

There will be some yellow diamonds available at auction at Sotheby's in New 

York on Dec. 5, including a 47.14-carat diamond formerly in the collection 

of the Duchess of Windsor, part of a diamond pendant necklace estimated at 

$1,500,000-2,000,000, and (if you want something a bit bigger) a 52.73 dia- 

mond ring estimated at $3,000,000-4,000.000. 

Nicole Marie Charlotte Pierette Jeanne Schneider Milinaire-Russell, Dowager 

Duchess of Bedford, died on Sept. 6. Nicole Milinaire was associate pro- 

ducer for Sheldon Reynolds' 1954 television series "The New Adventures of 

Sherlock Holmes". After her marriage to the Duke in 1964 she helped make 

Abbey the most popular stately home in Britain, and her NICOLE NOBODY: THE 

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THE DUCHESS OF BEDFORD (1974) has a short chapter dealing 

with her work with Reynolds.

Nov 12 #3 The November issue of Ineffable Twaddle (the monthly newsletter 

of The Sound of the Baskervilles has news of Richard Milner's 

acquisition of the contents of a safe deposit box that had belonged to Sir 

Arthur Conan. There were two pistols, one of them originally purchased by 

Conan Doyle's brother Innes in 1893, and both weapons were left with Conan 

Doyle's solicitors in 1921 when the Firearms Act first became law. You can 

read more about the discovery at . 

The newsletter also has a report of some interesting cufflinks that feature 

pages from a copy of a Sherlock Holmes adventure ($34.50) available at Etsy 

. 

"Will Arsène Lupin Meet Sherlock Holmes in Hollywood Return?" was the head- 

line on a blog by Graham Fuller on Nov. 16 . "Lu- 

pin is known as being to the French what Sherlock Holmes is to the English- 

speaking world," according to Liza Forman ; Lupin 

encountered Holmes in stories written by Maurice Leblanc, and the new film 

(tentatively titled "Arsene Lupin AKA Once a Thief") is "set up at Warner 

Bros." (and is not yet even listed at the Internet Movie Data Base, which 

means that it hasn't reached the "in development" stage). 

Nice news for Canonical chronologists: Jody Baker has reported a new "com- 

plete chronology" for Sherlock Holmes; it was prepared by Chris J. Miller 

and is available on-line at . He includes a link 

to an interesting essay by David Richardson on "Some Chronological Cranki- 

ness" via the Wayback Machine, something that people may recall from "The 

Rocky and Bullwinkle Show". Today's Wayback Machine is a digital time cap- 

sule created by the Internet Archive in San Francisco, with more than 150 

billion web pages from 1996 onward; it's a splendid way to recapture mater- 

ial from defunct web-sites. 

Jody also has posted to The Hounds of the Internet a warm tribute to Chris- 

topher Morley, explaining that "Morley (and that little band of intellec- 

tual ruffians with whom he associated) set a tone that still exists today. 

They were a literate, talented, free-spirited, fun loving bunch of devotees 

who held nothing Canonical to be sacred. Everything was subject to their 

humor and became the objects of their spoof. They had their fun. It was 

clean fun, with refinement and civility. It is among the highest forms of 

entertainment." 

Edward R. Hamilton, who specializes in remaindered books, offers interest- 

ing Sherlockian and Doylean books, DVDs, and CDs at nicely discounted pri- 

ces; you can request a catalog (Box 15, Falls Village, CT 06031) or visit 

his web-site . 

Fossway, the developer that owns Undershaw, where Arthur Conan Doyle lived 

from 1897 to 1907, has been denied permission to appeal a high court ruling 

that the house may not be converted into flats (Jun 12 #1). The Don't Go 

Into the Cellar theater company will offer a free performance of their one- 

man show "Ho Ho Holmes" (which they describe as "Holmes in time for Christ- 

mas with some seasonal Sherlockian capers") at the Devil's Punchbowl Hotel 

in Hindhead on Dec. 23, in support of the Undershaw Preservation Trust; ad- 

ditional information available at .

Nov 12 #4 Harry Stephen Keeler, according to Google Books, is to some an 

overlooked genius, and to others the Ed Wood of detective fic- 

tion. And his novel THE RIDDLE OF THE TRAVELING SKULL (1934) features Milo 

Payne, who appears with a "long-beaked Sherlockholmsian cap" (noted by Paul 

Williams in Ineffable Twaddle, the monthly newsletter of The Sound of the 

Baskervilles). Keller apparently invented the word (with that spelling). 

Paul Kurtz died on Oct. 20. He was a noted secular humanist and for dec- 

ades debunked paranormal phenomena and pseudoscience; he founded the Center 

for Inquiry and the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of 

the Paranormal, and in 1969 created Prometheus Books, which published books 

by Martin Gardner, Isaac Asimov, and many others. 

Jim Webb spotted Beth Carswell's essay "Great Gumshoes: A Guide to Fiction- 

al Detectives at the AbeBooks.com , with a report 

(courtesy of The Guardian) on an essay written by Agatha Christie in 1945 

at the behest of the Ministry of Information in which she praised the ex- 

cellence of British crime fiction, with lavish praise of Conan Doyle, and 

harsh comments about her won Hercule Poirot (with whom she had become bored 

to tears). You can read the Guardian article at , 

but to read Christie's essay you'll need to buy a copy of the new reprint 

of the collaborative novel ASK A POLICEMAN, recently published by Harper- 

Collins with the first-ever publication of her essay in the U.K. (according 

to The Guardian, it was first published in a Russian magazine in 1947). 

David Marcum's THE PAPERS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES has been published by George 

Vanderburgh (2011; 311 pp., $25.00); the collection of nine pastiches has 

Holmes and Watson visiting Tennessee (where the author lives) and solving 

cases in England, with one of them explaining a family connection between 

Holmes and Solar Pons. The publisher's address is Box 50, R.R.4, Eugenia, 

ON N0C 1E0, Canada . 

And for a newer generation who may not be familiar with Solar Pons, you can 

consult Bob Byrne's web-site at and Charles Prepolec's 

discussion at . 

Sabrina Herrera reports that "Doctor Who: The Great Detective" is the title 

of a "prequel" to the next Christmas Special "The Snowmen" (which will air 

in Britain on the BBC and in the U.S. on BBC America on Dec. 25); you can 

read all about it (and watch the 4-minute prequel and a trailer at the BBC 

web-site . The current "Doctor Who" is created by 

Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat, so it's understandable that there seem to be 

at least a few echoes of Sherlock Holmes in the upcoming Christmas Special. 

When in London: the Geological Society of London will mark the centenary of 

the reading of Charles Dawson's "Piltdown Man" paper to the Society with a 

one-day conference on Dec. 18. There will be tours of the Natural History 

Museum's "Piltdown Centenary Exhibit" in the morning, and the papers in the 

afternoon will include David Martill's "Arthur Conan Doyle and the Piltdown 

Forgery"; details at . In 1994 Martill and Eber- 

hard Frey described and named "Arthurdactylus conan-doylei" from a fossil 

found in northeastern Brazil (Aug 95 #6 and Sep 95 #2); it's a pterodactyl 

with a wing-span of 4.6 meters.

Nov 12 #5 Joe Fay (the manager of rare books at Heritage Auctions) "will 

attempt to solve the mystery of why one man from Flower Mound 

owns 3,000 books he can't read," in Dallas on Dec. 11 at 6:00 pm. The man 

in question is Don Hobbs, the "maniac collector" who specializes in Canoni- 

cal foreign translations and will speak at the event; additional informa- 

tion is available from Heritage Auctions (800-872-2467) . 

Further to the report on "Sherlock & Shylock: The Sleuths of Venice" (Oct 

12 #7), those who attended the conference were fortunate to have escaped a 

more recent extreme weather event: . 

Titan Books continues to reissue Philip José Farmer's 

science fiction and fantasy: A FEAST UNKNOWN (303 pp., $12.95) is an intro- 

duction to the non-Sherlock world of Lord Grandrith and Doc Caliban (Farm- 

er's versions of Tarzan and Doc Savage), with much sex and violence, and a 

Postscript by Theodore Sturgeon, and a new Afterword by Arthur C. Sippo. 

The Strand Magazine offers a full-color Sherlockian calendar for 2013, with 

more than a hundred illustrations, including original artwork ($19.95). Go 

to for more information. 

Roger Johnson and Jean Upton's THE SHERLOCK HOLMES MISCELLANY (Port Stroud: 

History Press, 2012; 223 pp., £9.99) has an appreciative foreword by Gyles 

Brandeth and entertaining descriptions of how interesting Sherlockians and 

Sherlockiana can be; it's an excellent introduction for beginners, and old 

hands will also find it a valuable guide to what admirers of Holmes and the 

Canon have done and are doing. 

"The Arthur Conan Doyle Appreciation Society" is a new play written by Ste- 

ven Canny and John Nicholson (who wrote "The Hound of the Baskervilles" for 

Peepolykus in 2007) and performed by Nicholson, Javier Marzan, and Gabriel 

Quigley at the Traverse Theatre, Dec. 4-22; according to the theater, "this 

riotous show fuses lecture, storytelling, slapstick comedy, and lightning- 

fast costume changes to explore some pretty big ideas" about Arthur Conan 

Doyle and his life and work. 10 Cambridge Street, Edinburgh EH1 2ED, Scot- 

land (0131-228-1404) . 

Another Christmas show coming up is "Sherlock Holmes: The Panto-Crime" at 

St. Ambrose Church Hall in Leyland, Dec. 4-8. The St. Ambrose Players are 

presenting "a highly traditional Christmas pantomime" in which Rudolph the 

Red-Nosed Reindeer is kidnapped by Toyland's evil Mrs. Moriarty, and Santa 

calls in Holmes and Watson to solve the crime. Moss Lane, Leyland, Lancs. 

PR25 4XA, England (0743-243-286) . 

Keep an eye out for "The Starving Games", a new film now in production by 

the Safran Company; according to Variety (Oct. 22), it's a parody of "The 

Hunger Games", "The Avengers", "Sherlock Holmes", and "Harry Potter". 

The Société Sherlock Holmes de France has found Heroes and Villains Minia- 

tures, who offer a pair of attractive miniature busts of Holmes and Watson 

(€39.95), sculpted in resin at 1/12 scale by Raúl García Latorre; the com- 

pany is in Spain, and their web-site at has de- 

tailed instructions for assembling and painting the busts.

Nov 12 #6 Richard Lancelyn Green's copy of Beeton's Christmas Annual is 

now on display at the City Museum of Portsmouth, by way of cel- 

lebrating the 125th anniversary of the publication of "A Study in Scarlet"; 

the City Council's press release at has a photo- 

graph of museums volunteer Aneta Martiskova wearing appropriate fingernail 

polish and lipstick. The copy of Beeton's will be exhibited until Jan. 31; 

Randall Stock has more about this copy at . 

The Wrap (a web-site covering Hollywood) has reported on plans for a remake 

of "Young Sherlock Holmes" (1985); Chris Columbus wrote the screenplay for 

the original film and will produce the remake for Paramount. The studio is 

"in talks with" Evan Spiliotopoulos to write a new script. 

Tina Rhea spotted "Skull Panda Loves Everything" (a web-site that features 

Sam Logan's imaginative cartoons) and an amusing approach to the Canon pub- 

lished on Oct. 26 . 

"The Sussex Vampire" wasn't a vampire, but there have been quite a few vam- 

pires in Sherlockian pastiches, starting in 1973, according to Bill Mason's 

list at . 

"Jack the Ripper: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery Musical" had a two-performance 

run in Australia this month; the show is described as "the gothic, grizzly 

Jack the Ripper story, set in the backdrop of the seedy 'Arse End of Lon- 

don' Music Hall, investigated by a humorous Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson" 

and is scheduled at the Adelaide Fringe on Feb. 23 and Mar. 2 and 9. There 

is Facebook page [fans of jack the ripper a sherlock holmes mystery] with 

lots of photographs. 

Alan Rettig spotted an imaginative two-minute animation ("The Case of the 

Broken Lamp") created by Alberto Beguierie, a student at the Ringling Coll- 

ege of Art & Design in Sarasota, who offers a combination of film noir and 

youthful fun . 

John R. Lavas has published a lavish "collector's centenary edition" of THE 

LOST WORLD in a limited edition of 300 copies (US$115.00 plus shipping from 

New Zealand) with color illustrations and additional essays by other auth- 

ors on topics such as "The Geology of the Lost World" and "The Lost World 

in Popular Culture"; more information is available from the publisher (Box 

14-421, Panmure, Auckland 1741, New Zealand) . 

The Société Sherlock Holmes de France has reported a Benedict Cumberbatch 

Mask that "will transform you into an English film, television, and theater 

actor" (£3.49), at . 

Larry Hagman died on Nov. 23. He began his long career as an actor on the 

stage and went on to star in television, best known for his roles as Capt. 

Tony Nelson on "I Dream of Jeannie" (1965-1970) and as J. R. Ewing on "Dy- 

nasty" (1981-1989), he also played Sherlock Holmes in the television film 

"The Return of the World's Greatest Detective" (1976). 


20817-4401 (301-229-5669)

Dec 12 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press 

There's more information about the birthday festivities in New York in Jan- 

uary: the Clients of Adrian Mulliner will hold a Junior Bloodstain in the 

Park Suite at the Roosevelt Hotel at 11:15 am on Saturday, Jan. 12. There 

will be a performance of "The Riddle of the Starving Swine", a play written 

by Gayle Lange Puhl, adapted by William Hyder, and with puppets created by 

Ken Vogel. 

And those heading to New York may find some useful hints in Scott Monty's 

handy-dandy guide for newbies and veterans . 

The Baker Street Irregulars will issue a new version of the electronic Ba- 

ker Street Journal in January: the eBSJ v2 will be on sale on Saturday dur- 

ing the birthday festivities in Covent Garden West (that's the dealers room 

in the Roosevelt Hotel's Vanderbilt Suite) for $149.95 (or $49.95 to owners 

of the old BSJ CD-ROM who bring and surrender disk 4); the new DVD has all 

issues through 2011 on one disk, and will be more easily searchable. Go to 

for more information 

on the eBSJ v2. After the birthday festivities the new DVD will be avail- 

able by mail at (the trade-in 

expires on May 1). 

"Confessions of a Bookplate Junkie" (reported by Don Hobbs) is a blog that 

offers Lew Jaffe's "random thoughts from a passionate bookplate collector" 

, and on Nov. 25 he displayed images of 

five bookplates showing fingerprints. One of the bookplates (with Frederic 

Dorr Steele artwork) is from S. Davis Levin's "A. Conan Doyle Collection" 

and is dated as early 20th century. A Google search has turned up a letter 

dated 1937 in which he said that he had been collecting bookplates for more 

than thirty years; does anyone know of him as a Conan Doyle collector? 

SCARLET IN GASLIGHT was a comic-book series, written by Martin Powell and 

illustrated by Seppo Makinen and published by Eternity Comics in 1987 and 

1988, with Sherlock Holmes engaged in a battle against Count Dracula. Now 

there's a 25th-anniversary reprint as a graphic novel (Los Angeles: Pulp 

2.0 Press, 2011), with remastered artwork and an introduction by Win Scott 

Eckert, an interview with Powell. 

James O'Brien's THE SCIENTIFIC SHERLOCK HOLMES: CRACKING THE CASE WITH SCI- 

ENCE AND FORENSICS (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012; 172 

pp., $29.95) offers an informed review of forensics both in the Canon and 

at the time the stories were written; O'Brien is a chemist, and pays par- 

ticular attention to that area of forensics, offering a rebuttal to Isaac 

Asimov's claim that Holmes was a "blundering chemist" (in Science Digest in 

1980). 

O'Brien ends his book with a brief but entertaining discussion of Charles 

L. Scamahorn, whose "Probaway--Life Hacks" blog includes detailed explana- 

tions of how Conan Doyle was a prolific hoaxster, responsible for Piltdown 

Man, Sir Francis Drake's Plate. and the Kensington Rune Stone, and in addi- 

tion was Jack the Ripper; go to and search for 

[conan doyle].

Dec 12 #2 John Bennett Shaw once gained fame, or perhaps notoriety, when 

he explained at an annual dinner of The Baker Street Irregulars 

why he had decided that the Canon was unsuitable for younger readers, and 

his paper ("To Shelve or to Censor") was published in Shades of Sherlock in 

Aug. 1971; Tina Rhea spotted a more recent list of "the top 10 suggestive 

lines from the Sherlock Holmes canon" can be found at the "I Hear of Sher- 

lock Everywhere" blog at . 

There will be a sequel to A STUDY IN SHERLOCK, an anthology of "stories in- 

spired by the Holmes Canon" edited by Laurie R. and Leslie S. Klinger (Aug 

11 #2); the new volume will be IN THE COMPANY OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, due from 

Bantam in the fall of 2013. Laurie listed the authors whose stories will 

be in the new book at her web-site on Nov. 18 . 

Spain Rodriguez died on Nov. 23. He was an influential radical cartoonist, 

a founder (with Robert Crumb) of ZAP Comix, and an important contributor to 

underground comics. He also illustrated five Canonical stories in SHERLOCK 

HOLMES' STRANGEST CASES (Nov 01 #2). 

Jean Marie Whaley has reported "Epic Rap Battles of History" is a series of 

short videos you can view at YouTube; the latest being "Batmam vs. Sherlock 

Holmes" . Parental warning: there are 

crude lyrics involved. 

The fall issue of For the Sake of the Trust (the The Baker Street Irregu- 

lars Trust newsletter) has Greg Darak's report on 1940s correspondence be- 

tween Edgar W. Smith and Basil Rathbone, plus other news of and about the 

Trust; past issues of the newsletter can be read on-line at the Trust web- 

site , and the current issue is available from Mike Ber- 

dan (2015 Main Street, Glastonbury, CT 06033) . 

"Descent Into Madness: The Truth About Mary Russell" is the title of David 

Marcum's quite different view of the relationship between Holmes and Russ- 

ell, presented as a pastiche that you can read on-line at Carolyn and Joel 

Senter's "Classic Specialties" web-site . 

The page from the manuscript of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" at auction 

at Christie's in New York on Dec. 7 (Oct 12 #3) sold for $158,500 (includ- 

ing the buyers premium), twice as much as the last page from the manuscript 

that sold at auction for $78,000 (Nov 04 #4). Randall has a detailed de- 

scription of the page at his web-site at . 

The electronic journal Ripperologist continues to cast a wide net: the De- 

cember issue (#129) has an interesting article ("Taken as Magnificent: The 

Lydia Manton Affair") by Robert Linford, David O'Flaherty, and John Savage, 

that discusses in some detail a royal scandal involving Prince Albert Vic- 

tor, Duke of Clarence. The Duke of Clarence, the eldest son of the Prince 

of Wales, is one of the many people suspected of being Jack the Ripper, and 

there's a Sherlockian connection: the solicitor George Lewis, who had royal 

connections, was present at the inquest into the death of Miss Manton and 

is mentioned in "The Illustrious Client" (a case that some Sherlockians be- 

lieve involved the Prince of Wales). For information about subscriptions, 

you can contact editor Eduardo Zinna at .

Dec 12 #3 Last year's Cameron Hollyer Memorial Lecture was presented at 

the Toronto Public Library by Tom Ue (on "Sherlock Holmes and 

Shakespeare"), and his remarks were published for members of The Friends of 

the Arthur Conan Doyle Collection; a limited number of copies are available 

if you join the Friends now. The web-site (with PayPal and credit-card ca- 

pability) is at or you can contact Cliff Goldfarb, 22 

Markdale Avenue, Toronto, ON M6C 1T1, Canada ; the 

minimum donation (which includes three issues of their newsletter "Through 

the Magic Door) is $25.00. This year the lecturer was Roy Pilot (on "The 

Lost World") and his talk will be sent to members of the Friends next year. 

"Sherlock Holmes, Past and Present" is the title of a conference planned by 

Jonathan Cranfield and Tom Ue at Senate House in London on June 21-22; they 

have issued a call for papers (with a deadline of Jan. 15), and more infor- 

mation is available at . 



iana, old and new, books and much more, including a report on a recent con- 

ference in Seattle (there are plans for a second one next year), and news 

that there might be a 25th-anniversary Canonical Convocation and Caper in 

Door County next September. 

Ken Ludwig's play "Postmortem" (involving a mystery at William Gillette's 

home in Hadlyme, Conn.) will be performed by the Minstrel Players at Hough- 

ton Hall (on Long Island), Nov. 13-21 (120 Main Street, Northport Village, 

N.Y. 11768) (631-732-2926) . 

Penguin has relaunched its Penguin English Library ("100 of the best novels 

in the English language") in attractive new covers, all of the books priced 

at £5.99. And one of those novels is THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES. But 

they also are not taking the limitation seriously: another of their titles 

is THE FIVE ORANGE PIPS AND OTHER CASES. 

COMPLETE WORKS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, with an introduction by Robert Ryan, 

has been published by Simon & Schuster. It's available without charge at 

Amazon, and can be read by anyone who has a Kindle, or Kindle software in- 

stalled on your computer . 

As noted earlier (Apr 12 #6) Steve Hockensmith's story "Water Indian" (fea- 

turing Old Red and Big Red Amlingmeyer) was first published in the antholo- 

gy GHOST TOWN, edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Russell Davis (New York: 

Pinnacle Books, 2010; 336 pp., $6.99); there are 15 original stories (the 

others non-Sherlockian) by authors who include Loren D. Estleman and Louis 

L'Amour. 

Peter Calamai reports that Stella Bella Wines (Margaret River, Australia) 

is selling a range of Skuttlebutt wines that have reached Canada, and per- 

haps soon will be available in the U.S.; their Shiraz/Cabernet 2008 is re- 

viewed at WineCompanion.com as a "hedonistic style offering year-in, year- 

out enjoyment." Skuttlebutt seems to be a variant spelling of Scuttlebutt, 

but (not for the faint-hearted) there's a seriously different definition at 

.

Dec 12 #4 "The Magical Illustration of Arthur Rackham" a nice tribute to 

the artist at Abebooks.com , but they 

don't mention Rackham's illustrations for a book that's of marginal Sher- 

lockian interest: Christopher Morley's WHERE THE BLUE BEGINS (1922), which 

was written by the founder of The Baker Street Irregulars and is available 

from dealers at prices ranging up to $3575 . 

Benedict Cumberbatch has been nominated by the Hollywood Foreign Press As- 

sociation for a Golden Globe Award for best actor in a miniseries or motion 

picture made for television. The awards ceremony will be broadcast by NBC- 

TV on Jan. 13. 

Roger Johnson and Jean Upton report an impressive "Ronald Searle Tribute" 

blog by Matt Jones at ; Jones' entry on Apr. 

27, 2009, about Searle's involvement with the Festival of Britain, includes 

two versions of his wonderful depiction of the recreation of the sitting- 

room at 221b Baker Street. 

The autumn issue of The Magic Door celebrates the 100th anniversary of "The 

Lost World" and includes fine articles by Dayna Nuhn, Doug Wrigglesworth, 

Peggy Perdue, and others, all devoted to Professor Challenger. Copies of 

the newsletter are available on request from Cliff (as above). The Friends 

will celebrate the science of Arthur Conan Doyle on May 4, when the Hollyer 

Lecturer will be Bernard Lightman. 

Craig Wichman's STANDING IN THE SPIRIT AT YOUR ELBOW: A HISTORY OF DICKENS' 

CHRISTMAS CAROL AS RADIO/AUDIO has been published by Bear Manor Media (238 

pp., $19.95)

Dec 12 #5 The Feb. 2012 issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, which 

will be found on newsstands during the birthday celebrations, 

has Sherlockian artwork on the cover, pastiches by Howard Engel, Terence 

Faherty, and Amy Myers, a birthday tribute by editor Janet Hutchings, and 

reviews by Steve Steinbock of new Sherlockian books. 

F. Andrew Leslie's dramatization of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" will be 

produced at the Cloverdale Performing Arts Center from Feb. 22 through Mar. 

3. The theater is at 209 North Cloverdale Boulevard, Cloverdale, CA 95425 

(707-894-2214) . 

"Department of Celebrities Wearing Deerstalkers" ... who's the celebrity? 

"Sharing Sherlock: The Story of a Pompey Lad" is a project that has won a 

£90,000 grant from Britain's Heritage Lottery Fund. The Conan Doyle Coll- 

ection in Portsmouth will create a new on-line exhibition and run 30 out- 

reach and education workshops for schools and local residents, and produce 

10 touring exhibitions for local communities. 

AudioGO (a new name for BBC Audiobooks) now offers the entire Canon, read 

unabridged (and very well) by Derek Jacobi, on CDs and as downloads; their 

web-site is at . THE LOST WORLD also is available, both 

read unabridged by Matthew Rhys and as a radio dramatization broadcast by 

the BBC in 1975, plus many Sherlockian pastiches by other authors. There 

also is a great deal of Sherlockian and Doylean audio offered as downloads 

at Amazon's . 

Booger is back! Curtis Armstrong (BSI 2006, as "An Actor and a Rare One") 

starred as Booger in "Revenge of the Nerds" (1984), and he will return in 

"King of the Nerds" (an unscripted eight-episode series on TBS cable), and 

he and Robert Carradine will host a competition for nerdy hopefuls compet- 

ing for a $100,000 prize. The series starts on TBS on Jan. 17.

Dec 12 #6 "Mr. Culverton Smith is in," Watson was told (in "The Dying De- 

tective"). Donald A. Redmond, in his SHERLOCK HOLMES: A STUDY 

IN SOURCES (1982), was unable to determine a source for the name Culverton 

Smith, and it's unusual indeed. A Google search reveals a song "Culverton 

Smith is the Boogie Man" at YouTube (but it's Sherlockian), and there was a 

Culverton Smith who graduated from Holmes Elementary School in Spring Lake, 

Mich., in the class of 1904, according to the web-site 

(but one must be skeptical). Now Bob Katz has reported Culverton Smith as 

a character (played by Muriel Hutchinson) in the movie "Another Thin Man" 

(1939). 

So who's the celebrity wearing a deerstalker? "Elton John dining al fresco 

with his cat at Caribou Ranch, Colorado, 1974," in a photograph spotted and 

kindly forwarded by Samantha Wolov. 

Gail H. Curry's THE MINIATURE SHERLOCK HOLMES: A SOURCE BOOK FOR SHERLOCK 

HOLMES BOOKS PUBLISHED IN MINIATURE FORMAT (2011; revised and reprinted in 

2012; 36 pp., $25.00 postpaid) is exactly what the subtitle promises, cov- 

ering both the Canon and Sherlockiana, with many full-color illustrations, 

from 1915 (Little Leather Library) to 2010 (Peter and Donna Thomas). Com- 

pletists may be unhappy to discover that there are three variants of John 

Bennett Shaw's THE WHOLE ART OF DETECTION, but that's an indication of how 

widely the author has spread her net. Gail Curry-Books, 12016 Ballantine, 

Overland Park, KS 66213. 

Get out your running shoes: Kate Karlson reports that there will be a Lon- 

don Bridge Half Marathon and 5K on Apr. 13 (that's the old London Bridge at 

Lake Havasu, Ariz., rather than the new London Bridge in London). Details 

are available at . You get to see the bridge as 

one of the locations filmed for "The Return of the World's Greatest Detec- 

tive" (1976), which starred Larry Hagman as Sherman Holmes. And if you run 

in the 5K you may see Kate as well. 

This newsletter has come a long way from the ancient days when it was pro- 

duced on a typewriter and distributed as photocopies: for one thing, it now 

costs more to print and mail (and the subscription price will increase next 

year to reflect a slight increase in printing costs). And making the news- 

letter available on the Internet has reduced the number of subscribers (the 

print run of more than 300 in 1985 is now fewer than 150). The electronic 

edition started as text posted free to two electronic mailings lists, and 

now, thanks to the wizardry of Randall Stock, it is also published scanned, 

with illustrations in full color and with live links, at two web-sites: one 

of them Willis Frick's Sherlocktron , 

and the other The Red Circle of Washington . As 

for the future, god only knows (there are no plans for a podcast, nor for a 

live-action video edition at YouTube). 

And Kate Karlson, who presides over The Turf Builders of Baker Street, off- 

ers an enthusiastic tip on Bridgetta at Aqueduct on Jan. 13, for the punt- 

ers who have any money left at the end of the birthday festivies. 


20817-4401 (301-229-5669)

Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press 2012 - Red Circle of ...

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?