"the second morning after Christmas" [BLUE]
Today traditionally marks the date on which "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle" took place. The seventh in the series of stories that make up The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, "The Blue Carbucnle" is the sole Christmas story in the Sherlock Holmes canon.
Watson sets the stage for us by opening the tale with this paragraph:
"I had called upon my friend Sherlock Holmes upon the second morning after Christmas, with the intention of wishing him the compliments of the season. He was lounging upon the sofa in a purple dressing-gown, a pipe-rack within his reach upon the right, and a pile of crumpled morning papers, evidently newly studied, near at hand. Beside the couch was a wooden chair, and on the angle of the back hung a very seedy and disreputable hard felt hat, much the worse for wear, and cracked in several places. A lens and a forceps lying upon the seat of the chair suggested that the hat had been suspended in this manner for the purpose of examination."It has become an annual tradition at I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere to acknowledge December 27th with a favorite reading. Just as the Wall Street Journal annually reproduces a 1949 editorial written by Vermont Royster called "In Hoc Anno Domini," we saw no reason to avoid replication here.
If this is new to you, please feel free to share and use this at your own Sherlockian society holiday meetings. The only thing we ask is that you attribute the poem to its rightful author. If you'd like to listen to it, we also produced a special episode of I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere in December 2007 in which we read the verse:
Looking back over both of our Sherlockian podcasts (I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere and Trifles), we pulled together four more holiday-themed episodes for a full playlist: a discussion of "The Blue Carbuncle" and Christopher Morley's lovely essay "A Christmas Story Without Slush"; an interview with Peter Blau concerning his Sherlockian Christmas tree, bedecked with Sherlockian ornaments; a discussion of peace in the Sherlock Holmes stories (when we can find it); and an investigation of what went wrong in the botched jewel heist.
The playlist is available on SoundCloud and is embedded below for your convenience:
Enjoy. And this holiday season, may all of your carbuncles be blue.
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