Episode 114: Escape with Sherlock Holmes

by Scott Monty February 15, 2017

"Has anything escaped me?"  [HOUN]  

There's a reason Vincent Starrett wrote "Here, though the world explode, these two survive,/ And it is always eighteen ninety-five." Whether it was in the 1940s or today, the world offers a up a variety of stressors and developments that cause one to wish to simply forget about it all for a while.

Hence, the concept of escapism. The pastime of Sherlock Holmes is a form of escapism, and we explore what it means, the origin of the phrase, and how it differs from procrastination. And there were a number of individuals in the Canon who were escaping from something or who wished to bury themselves in some sort of distraction or hobby. From Irene Adler to Selden, Hugh Boone to Brunton, J. Neil Gibson to Elsie Cubitt, there were reasons to withdraw and escape; and Stapleton, Baron Gruner, and Sherlock Holmes himself had hobbies that kept them otherwise occupied from time to time.

Plus, we wrap up with an escapist Gas-Lamp: Bill Schweikert's "A Long Evening with Holmes."

 

And please consider joining our Patreon community. Your support helps us to ensure we can keep doing what we do, covering file hosting costs, production, and this year, transcription services.

Sponsors

This episode includes our two longtime sponsors. Please support our sponsors by visiting their sites:

• Wessex Press, with The Watson Chronicles by Ann Margaret Lewis.
• The Baker Street Journal, where you'll find many reasons to escape in every issue. 

Would you care to become a sponsor? You can find more information here.

Download [Save As] | File size 32.2 MB, 1:08:40

Notes

1:33 Hello there and a brainstorm
6:25 Wessex Press
7:39 Our other show

10:26 Escapism and the Sherlock Holmes stories
18:48 Hobbies as escapes
22:35 Polyphonic motets of Lassus
23:41 The great hiatus — escapism at its most extreme
29:10 The likelihood of Watson cramming for a Chinese pottery exam
33:45 Conan Doyle's interests and hobbies
35:26 Peter Carey was ahead of his time
39:54 The Baker Street Journal
41:22 The Sherlock Holmes News
57:50 Editor's Gas-Lamp
1:00:33 Listener comment
1:03:49 The game's afoot!

1:04:39 The Procrastination Song

Links

• Trifles, our new show
• Palimpsest, via Wikipedia
• Maria Konnikova on Episode 54 and Episode 91
• Bonnie MacBird on Episode 83
• The Man Cave Has a New Neighbor —  the She Shed (WSJ)
• Detecting the Origins of Sherlock Holmes (Washington Post)
• Arthur and Sherlock by Michael Sims (Amazon)
• Graham Moore on Episode 30
• Debate: has Victorian Sherlock Holmes been done to death?
• At Mysterious Bookshop in TriBeCa, a Hunt for Clues and Diversions (NY Times)
• Otto Penzler on Episode 17 and Episode 87
• Sherlock North features a Finnish Sherlock Holmes (Variety)
• An interview with an extra from The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (Unbound)
• Holmes & Watson release date set for Summer 2018

Many more links, articles and images are available in our Flipboard magazine at  ihose.co/flipsherlock, as well as on the The Sherlock Holmes Community on Google+ (with over 4,100 members), as well as through our accounts on  Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

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Your thoughts on the show? Leave a comment below, send us an email (comment AT ihearofsherlock DOT com), call us at (774) 221-READ (7323).

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