“Why do you not write them yourself?” [ABBE]
Have we ever questioned why Sherlock Holmes wrote monographs? After all, he was admittedly a specialist in his field, unique in all of police work:
“That is why I have chosen my own particular profession,— or rather created it, for I am the only one in the world.” [SIGN]
He may have had a compunction to lay claim to being the first to identify and discuss various aspects of work related to crime detection. Ego is a powerful motivator. Or he may simply have been fascinated enough by a subject that he wished to explore as much of it as he could and commit it to writing.
What resulted were monographs that we find littered throughout the Sherlock Holmes stories — topics as wide-ranging as The Book of Life, on the ashes of 140 different varieties of pipe, cigar, and cigarette tobacco, upon the tracing of footsteps, upon the influence of trade upon the form of a hand, upon the dating of documents, upon secret writings, two articles on the variability of human ears, and Practical Handbook of Bee Culture, with Some Observations on the Segregation of the Queen.
And that's not even a comprehensive list!
We discussed this subject in full in Episode 43 of Trifles. and you can listen here or wherever you get podcasts.
Without a doubt, Sherlockians can relate, as Christopher Morley once wrote, "Never before has so much been written by so many for so few."
Let's see what the few at Baker Street Elementary are avoiding writing this week...
Baker Street Elementary follows the original adventures of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, as they and their friends work through the issues of elementary school in Victorian London. An archive of all previous episodes can be viewed at the Baker Street Elementary website.
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