"an appointment with the Foreign Agent" [BRUC]
One of the passions of a few select Sherlockians is collecting foreign editions of the stories. In fact, there's one Sherlockian out there - Don Hobbs by name - who refers to himself as "The Maniac Collector." You can actually read Don's weekly column, The Maniac Collector's Inbox on Brad Keefauver's SherlockPeoria site.
[Note: you can listen to Don's interview with us on Episode 64]
Before we were a global economy, some of the grand Sherlockians took great pride in their foreign editions. The late John Bennett Shaw, BSI was one of them. It was he who spurred the interest in foreign editions by Dorothy (wife of Tom, the fourth head of the BSI (from 1987-1997)) Stix. FYI, it was Tom who first extended an invitation to the BSI dinner to us.
So, as an enthusiastic (albeit slightly nervous) 25 year-old arrived in New York for his first BSI dinner, we was immediately put at ease by Dorothy. While Tom could be an imposing figure for the uninitiated, Dorothy was the Welcome Wagon, the fairy godmother and the diplomat of the pair. We're happy to say that from her retirement home in Florida, Dorothy is occasionally in touch with us via email and is a regular reader of this site. So when she wrote and informed us that she's selling off her collection of foreign editions, we immediately offered to help.
By clicking on the icon at the right you can download a copy of Dorothy's master list of the
foreign editions up for sale. Warning: it's a 37-page file (233 KB) with nearly 500 titles. From Arabic to Ukranian, there's a little something for everyone. "Black Peter" in Pig Latin? Eckchay! John Bennett Shaw's 1956 edition of Petite Histoire Du Roman Policier? Oui. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in Hebrew? It's there, thank G-d.Take a browse through this remarkable catalog and see just how globally relevant Sherlock Holmes is. We think you'll be pleasantly surprised.
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