I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere: opinion

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Why One Sherlockian Does Not Support the New Short Story Collection

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"Some deep sorrow gnaws ever at her heart." [HOUN]</h4>
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[<i><b>Editor's note:</b> the following does not represent the opinion of this site; this is one Sherlockian's opinion about a very complex matter. We'll leave it to you to decide for yourself.</i>]<br />
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No doubt you have recently seen testimony on I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere by the numerous authors involved with MX Publishing’s Kickstarter campaign and ambitious undertaking to present the largest collection of Sherlockian writings <i><a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1229605719/the-worlds-largest-new-sherlock-holmes-story-colle" target="_blank">(The World's Largest New Sherlock Holmes Story Collection</a></i>). Many of the authors are very dear friends of mine for whom I have much respect; in addition they are all extremely talented, so I have no doubt the collection will be a stellar one. But I will not be supporting the Kickstarter, nor will I be purchasing the books. <br />
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The project is being promoted as one to benefit Undershaw, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s former home, which he designed himself, and where he brought Sherlock Holmes back to life in order to get the funds to cover the building costs of Undershaw. While this three-volume set by MX appears on the surface to be a worthy cause—and I believe that MX Publishing has every good intention—to some of us who have been intimately involved with the <a href="http://www.saveundershaw.com/" target="_blank">Undershaw Preservation Trust</a> (UPT) and know the struggles to save this magnificent icon of historic and literary value, the long-term benefit of the fundraising is questionable. <br />
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I have been an active and outspoken member of UPT since 2009; I have been the U.S. representative for nearly that long, and have worked closely with the founder and co-founders of UPT. (<b>Note</b>: In this piece I am speaking only for <u>myself</u>; I do not speak for UPT nor any of its officials, though I write this with their permission.) In 2011 I visited Undershaw and saw for myself the deterioration it suffered at the hands of its former owners, whom UPT continued to challenge through legal means to force them to comply with the local requirements of maintaining an unoccupied property. <br />
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"the whole history of the settlement" [STUD]</h4>
In addition, the former owners had plans to convert the home to several townhomes, and to build other townhomes on the property. Those of us who supported UPT and Undershaw worked long and hard to raise awareness around the world that this home, and all it represented for Sherlockians, would be destroyed forever should this be allowed to happen. It was not only the home itself that we wished to preserve, but the land upon which the home was built. As Conan Doyle had sought out a suitable location to build a home to aid his wife in her struggles with tuberculosis, he wrote to his mother in 1895 about the parcel of land in Hindhead, Surrey, “It is because its height, its dryness, its sandy soil, its fir trees, and its shelter from all bitter winds present the conditions which all agree to be best in the treatment of phthisis [tuberculosis]. If we could have ordered Nature to construct a spot for us we could not have hit upon anything more perfect.” <br />
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Fast forward--past successful rulings on behalf of Undershaw, victories for its preservation, attempts to find a buyer or buyers to purchase the home and perhaps to create an historic center of all things Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes--to the present, and the purchase of Undershaw by DFN Foundation / Stepping Stones School. [<i>An additional but truncated timeline can be found on <a href="http://artintheblood.net/understanding-the-undershaw-debatedebacle/" target="_blank">Art in the Blood</a>. - Ed.</i>]<br />
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<a href="http://www.steppingstones.org.uk/News/Undershaw-Saved/" target="_blank">Stepping Stones Schoo</a>l is an educational opportunity for children with various challenges. In itself, it is a most worthy cause; that Undershaw was bought to house a branch of the school could have been the best combination of historic preservation paired with a cause that no doubt Conan Doyle would be proud of. But at that point the worthiness of the cause gets in its own way, and as a result, Undershaw—for which many of us have worked so long to save—will be sacrificed to a skewed understanding of what “preservation” and “restoration” really mean. <br />
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Undershaw has always been more than just a piece of property and a derelict brick home. Undershaw represents Conan Doyle—and Sherlock Holmes—at a pivotal time of their individual existences. The home was designed by Conan Doyle, and named, as he wrote, “Undershaw—a new word, I think, and yet one which described it exactly in good Anglo-Saxon, since it stood under a hanging grove of trees” (“shaw,” meaning a small copse or wood). As the area did not yet have electricity, an electric generating house with a steam driven plant made Undershaw the first house in Hindhead to have electricity. The home is where Conan Doyle lived when he wrote <i>The Hound of the Baskervilles</i>. “The Empty House,” and <i>The Return Of Sherlock Holmes</i> resurrected Holmes from the Reichenbach Falls in Conan Doyle’s study at Undershaw. Inside those walls <i>The Great Boer War</i> was written. The house was where Bram Stoker, J.M. Barrie, and Virginia Woolf stayed as guests; William Gillette traveled to Undershaw to discuss Conan Doyle’s “Sherlock Holmes” play. While living at Undershaw, Conan Doyle received the knighthood, defended George Edalji, and met the woman who would become his second wife, Jean Leckie. [For more information on the history of Undershaw, see <a href="http://www.ihearofsherlock.com/2011/03/effort-to-preserve-it-iden_7.html#.Vc1PVfRRK-y" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">“An Effort to Preserve It”</a>] <br />
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"marked down for destruction" [VALL]</h3>
The DFN Foundation, or Stepping Stones School, were at first perceived as the savior of Undershaw when the purchase was made. Supporters celebrated listened to promises as UPT founder John Gibson and the Foundation entered discussions, reached agreements and ultimately signed a deal seemingly in support of his mission to keep Undershaw exactly as Doyle knew it.<br />
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What happened next is a “he-said-she-said” situation, as the lines of communication were confused, and the destruction of portions of the Undershaw estate began. (It should be noted that UPT continues to fight for Undershaw through the British legal system, with the encouragement of English Heritage and The Victorian Society.) In recent months the electric-generating house has been demolished, the stable (which had been left for 100 years with its iron stalls just as Conan Doyle had made them) has developed to become a small residential facility; the well which served the property has been filled with concrete (again, that had previously been left as it was when the Conan Doyle family was in residence); a tree planted by Conan Doyle himself has been bulldozed, as has most of the “endless sea of greenery” as described by Bram Stoker upon a visit there. The very nature and spirit of Undershaw, along with its name, is being destroyed. <br />
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In addition, a structure nearly three times the size of Undershaw will be built adjacent to it, in a modern style which will eclipse the modest Victorian home. Conan Doyle’s home will become a mere shadow of its former self, with nothing remaining of its proud literary heritage, nor of its significance to Sherlockians around the world. <br />
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On the Kickstarter page for <i>The World’s Largest New Sherlock Holmes Story Collection </i>the description of the fundraiser says, “The [contributing] authors are donating the royalties to the restoration of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's former home, Undershaw.” Knowing of the destruction—not restoration—of Undershaw which has occurred to date, I have little confidence in just how much restoration we can really count on. The only part of Undershaw which has been slated for restoration as far as I know has been the stained glass windows which Doyle had designed and installed. <br />
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There is no blame to be placed on the writers who believed they were contributing to the restoration of Undershaw through their work, nor on the hundreds of backers of the Kickstarter campaign. Nor should Steve Emecz and MX Publishing be perceived as having any ill intentions. This is, perhaps, a disagreement in what one considers restoration and preservation. To me, that entails much, much more than a set of stained glass windows. It involves preserving the integrity of an historic home. <br />
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I am in full support of the fine work that Stepping Stones School does on behalf of disabled children, and the educational opportunities offered those children in a safe and comfortable environment. However, any piece of property could have provided the school with its new home; sacrificing Undershaw did not have to be a part of it. <br />
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Once the building plans have been completed, there will only remain a shell of what Undershaw once was, and what it could have been. And so, on behalf of the home which I and others have worked for over a decade to save, the home where I touched the actual wall of the study where Conan Doyle wrote about the characters which have meant so much to me, I cannot support the Kickstarter campaign, nor the books which will result from it.<br />
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Those of you who are interested in the Undershaw Preservation Trust are invited to view the Undershaw Preservation Trust website at <a href="http://www.saveundershaw.com/" target="_blank">www.saveundershaw.com</a> for <a href="http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/sir-arthur-conan-doyles-undershaw-9841022" target="_blank">updates on the legal battles</a> to save Undershaw. We will continue to fight for true preservation and restoration of Conan Doyle's home until all legal means are exhausted. <br />
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<i>"We never understand how little we need in this world until we know the loss of it."</i> - J.M. Barrie, friend to Conan Doyle<br />
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Why One Sherlockian Does Not Support the New Short Story Collection

"Some deep sorrow gnaws ever at her heart." [HOUN] [ Editor's note: the following does not represent the opinion of this...

+ Read more »

by Jacquelynn Morris, ASH, BSI

The Final Word on the Lost Sherlock Holmes Story

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"Circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing" [BOSC] </h4>
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[<b>Editor's note:</b> we've covered the lost Sherlock Holmes story previously, in articles written by <a href="http://ihose.co/ACD_not" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Mattias Boström</a> and <a href="http://ihose.co/ACDstyle" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Vincent W. Wright</a> and in an interview with <a href="http://ihose.co/1Gps7j1" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Lyndsay Faye</a>. Mr. Boström returns for another analysis.]<br />
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You can stop reading now if you are already 100% sure that <a href="http://ihose.co/LostStory" target="_blank">the Sherlock Holmes story found in Selkirk</a> is not by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It will save you a lot of time, since this blog post is long. Very long.<br />
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On the other hand, you will miss some interesting facts about Doyle’s views on Holmes pastiches.<br />
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So keep on reading.<br />
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The Find</h3>
Recently an old, anonymous Sherlock Holmes pastiche was found in Scotland. Its title was “Sherlock Holmes.”: Discovering the Border Burghs, and, by Deduction, the Brig Bazaar, and this 3-page story was originally published in a booklet called <i>The Book o’ the Brig</i>, sold in December 1903 during a bazaar in Selkirk to raise money for the restoration of a local bridge. The bazaar went on for three days (Thursday to Saturday) and for each day a new bazaar book was published, and a week later they were all collected and published in a single volume.<br />
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Walter Elliot, the 80-year old man who found the Saturday bazaar book in his attic, said to <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/11424549/Lost-Sherlock-Holmes-story-discovered-in-mans-attic.html" target="_blank"><i>The Telegraph</i></a>: "The Saturday was opened by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. He had written a wee story about Sherlock Holmes and Watson and this was in the book.”<br />
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Walter Elliot had no proof for his claim. He said to <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/feb/20/a-new-sherlock-holmes-mystery-is-1300-word-yarn-a-lost-conan-doyle" target="_blank"><i>The Guardian</i></a>: “It’s unsigned, and I’m not a specialist, but the vocabulary seems pretty close to the way Conan Doyle wrote. I’m fairly sure it was written by him.”<br />
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Since Elliot, according to himself, is not a specialist and <a href="http://www.ihearofsherlock.com/2015/02/a-stylistic-analysis-of-lost-sherlock.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">the vocabulary of the story</a> – according to all Conan Doyle experts in the world – is not even close to Conan Doyle’s way of writing, the news about a lost Conan Doyle story was just a big mistake. Elliot had made the mistake because Conan Doyle’s name actually could be found in the same booklet – not in connection with the story, but on the last page under the headline ”To-Day’s Programme”, where it was stated that ”the famous litterateur” Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would open the bazaar.<br />
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A Fairy Tale</h3>
It was an easy mistake to make, and we should not blame Walter Elliot. He was just very enthusiastic about his find. We could blame the journalists who reported about the find, but we won’t do that either. They just relied on the information that Walter Elliot gave them, without checking with any Conan Doyle experts, and if they had any doubt they hid it well in their articles.<br />
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It is such a good fairy tale – about the retired woodcutter who finds a treasure in his attic and with a happy smile tells the world about it. That fairy tale will probably live on forever, because such is the nature of good fairy tales. It has already spread all over the world and been mentioned thousands of times in numerous languages. And this is not necessarily bad – even false news about Sherlock Holmes put the master detective in focus, over and over again.<br />
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We will never be able to totally stop the false news. And we will probably never find a comment from Conan Doyle on the story, and the name of the real author will most likely also remain unknown. So what is there to be done? Well, only one thing, and that is to definitely certify that the story is not by Conan Doyle, and by doing so the Sherlockian world can treat it as an anonymous pastiche which is only interesting to discuss and publish in connection with other early pastiches and parodies.<br />
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<h3>
The Early Parodies and Pastiches</h3>
If Conan Doyle’s name hadn’t been in the bazaar book and if he hadn’t opened the bazaar that day, no one would have come up with the idea that this was a genuine Sherlock Holmes story by him. We would not think so nowadays, and the readers did obviously not think so back then. I will explain why.<br />
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Parodies and pastiches of Sherlock Holmes were quite common in those days. Some of them were anonymously published, while others were published with a clever signature or the real name of the author. They could be found in popular magazines, newspapers, books, and even as texts in advertisements. Sometimes Sherlock Holmes was called Sherlock Holmes, and sometimes he had a slightly changed name, often with a humorous touch. More than eighty Sherlock Holmes parodies or pastiches had been published before the Selkirk bazaar, from 1891 until late autumn 1903. The readers and the real author of the pastiche were all used to seeing Sherlock Holmes spoofs in <i>Tit-Bits</i>, <i>Punch </i>or other periodicals. The difference between parody and pastiche wasn’t always very clear, especially since most of the stories were really short, which easily gave them a feeling of parody anyway.<br />
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When Conan Doyle Liked the Parodies and Pastiches</h3>
We don’t know that much about Conan Doyle’s views on these early parodies and pastiches, but we have some examples when he actually commented upon them.<br />
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When James M. Barrie anonymously had written the first Sherlock Holmes parody in November 1891, Conan Doyle a month later, after having met Barrie on a dinner, wrote to his mother: “It was Barrie who wrote the skit on Holmes in the Speaker.” No opinion about the story, but he clearly knew about it before the dinner. And Barrie soon became one of his best friends.<br />
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In 1893 Barrie also sent a personal, hand-written parody to Conan Doyle, which the latter thought was good enough to publish in full in his autobiography <i>Memories and Adventures</i> (1924). Conan Doyle wrote that it was “the best of all the numerous parodies.” Which might indicate that Conan Doyle had read at least some of them.<br />
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Before that, in December 1892, the local Lancashire newspaper Burnley Express published a short story called “The Man Who ‘Bested’ Sherlock Holmes”, written by Joseph Baron, a local author and journalist. The newspaper, or Baron himself, had sent the story to Conan Doyle before publication, and in Conan Doyle’s reply he described the story as “emphatically good.”<br />
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When the American author John Kendrick Bangs wrote his novel <i>The Pursuit of the House-Boat</i> in 1897, he made Sherlock Holmes – now dead after Reichenbach and travelling on the river Styx – one of the main characters. The book was dedicated “To A. Conan Doyle, Esq. With the author’s sincerest regards and thanks for the untimely demise of his great detective which made these things possible.” And Conan Doyle wrote back to Bangs, who he had met on his American tour in 1894: “How very good of you to inscribe your most amusing and original book to me! I begin to have hopes of immortality now that I have got onto your fly-leaf.”<br />
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When Conan Doyle Got Upset</h3>
It wasn’t until later that Conan Doyle changed his opinion of other authors writing about Sherlock Holmes. In 1909 he protested against a German publisher who during the years 1907–1911 published 230 booklets with quite terrible Sherlock Holmes pastiches, in which Holmes was changed into an action hero. Many of these booklets were also translated and published in a number of other European countries.<br />
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When someone sent a Danish one to Conan Doyle he wrote to his literary agent A. P. Watt: “It is entirely a fake, just as a Spanish one was. I should dearly like to prosecute these infernal villains.” He also wrote: "These things cover Europe and entirely elbow out the real S.H. stories.” He didn’t prosecute, but he published a letter in Danish newspapers:<br />
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"Sir! Would you have the great kindness to state that I have no connection with the cheap illustrated stories about Sherlock Holmes which are published in Denmark and other countries. I leave it to your readers how far it is just to steal the name of a character in such a fashion. Yours faithfully, Arthur Conan Doyle.”</blockquote>
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Parodies and pastiches had never been a problem before, but now it actually threatened his own sales abroad. And he didn’t want others to make money on his creation – Conan Doyle did not give Maurice Leblanc permission to use the name Sherlock Holmes in the Arsène Lupin stories (so Leblanc changed it to Herlock Sholmes).<br />
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There was also another reason why he changed his opinion. When Conan Doyle was writing the very last Sherlock Holmes story "The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place" in 1927, he wrote to Herbert Greenhough Smith at <i>The Strand Magazine</i>:<br />
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“… I cannot hide from myself that the public has lost the sense of novelty with Holmes and his methods. This has been helped by the repeated Parodies. Therefore even if I could keep him on the same level I can’t expect, do what I will, to produce the same effect.”</blockquote>
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The First Evidence That Conan Doyle Actually Wrote the Story</h3>
The conclusion of all of this is that Conan Doyle rarely mentioned the parodies and pastiches, and he had for a long time not much against them, as long as they didn’t threaten the reputation and sales of his own creation. When he arrived in Selkirk on December 12, 1903, and noticed that there was a short text about Sherlock Holmes in the bazaar book he could hardly have been surprised, maybe he just felt honoured by this welcoming gesture.<br />
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There is a reason why I have written at such length about the Sherlock Holmes parodies and pastiches, and about Conan Doyle’s views. Because this could have been the first evidence that Conan Doyle actually wrote the story. Without our knowledge about the early parodies and pastiches, and Conan Doyle’s views upon them, it would seem strange to publish another author’s text about Sherlock Holmes in a booklet that Conan Doyle would see. But with our knowledge this is not strange at all. Sherlock Holmes parodies and pastiches were common and Conan Doyle didn’t protest against them, at least not as early as 1903.<br />
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The Second Evidence That Conan Doyle Actually Wrote the Story</h3>
After the news of Walter Elliot’s discovery, the media reported on <a href="http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/mystery-over-second-sherlock-novel-found-in-borders-town.119541089" target="_blank">another copy of the Saturday bazaar book</a>. Another Selkirk citizen owns this copy, and it is signed by Conan Doyle himself! This absolutely looks like evidence that Conan Doyle actually wrote the Sherlock Holmes story in the booklet. Why would he sign a story that isn’t his own?<br />
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First of all, he didn’t sign the story – he signed the booklet. It was most likely signed directly after his opening speech on the Saturday. The local newspaper The Southern Reporter reported on December 17, 1903 about the opening speech: “Sir Arthur afterwards appended his signature to a number of copies of the bazaar book, and these sold readily at an increased price."<br />
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Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was one of the most famous authors in Great Britain, and he was the celebrity who opened the bazaar that day. Nothing is strange about him signing copies of the bazaar book, in which his name also was printed in the programme on the last page.<br />
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It is by no means evidence that he had written the text about Sherlock Holmes. If Holmes pastiches and parodies had been rare, and if Conan Doyle had been totally opposed to them, it could have been evidence that he wrote the Selkirk story. But now it isn’t. The signed copy of the booklet is just a signed copy of the booklet.<br />
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<h3>
There Is No More Evidence</h3>
These two things – that Conan Doyle visited Selkirk the same day the booklet was published, and that he signed copies of it – are the only main pieces of evidence in favor of Conan Doyle being the real author. I have explained why we can’t rely upon these things as evidence. And this means that we are left with no evidence at all pointing to Conan Doyle as the author of the story.<br />
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However, there will still be people wishing it to be true that Conan Doyle wrote it. So to really make sure that there is no doubt that Conan Doyle <i>didn’t</i> write the story, please imagine what it would have been like if he actually <i>did</i> write it. If you recognize the following text, it is because you have read a similar one among my own comments to my previous blog post. I felt however that it would fit nicely also here. And if you want the full background to the facts below, please read <a href="http://www.ihearofsherlock.com/2015/02/conan-doyle-didnt-write-lost-sherlock.html#.VPZPvlp13rY" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">my previous blog post</a> first.<br />
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<h3>
Another Fairy Tale: How It All Happened When Conan Doyle Wrote the Selkirk Story</h3>
[<i>If you for some reason start reading this blog post here, please understand that in the following text I have made use of the Faculty of Imagination.</i>]<br />
The editor of the Bazaar Book asked Conan Doyle to write a story for them, probably in mid November when Conan Doyle had been invited to be the Unionist candidate for the Border Burghs. It was maybe around then that he wrote to his mother that "I intend to go up to Hawick for a fortnight early in December and have a bit of a campaign". <br />
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Conan Doyle accepted to contribute something to the Bazaar Book. He then wrote three "Notable Interviews" in which he was using the perspective of being a person in the staff working with the Bazaar Book, pretending to interview – through imagination – Sir Walter Scott, Mungo Park, and Sherlock Holmes. <br />
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Or if you prefer that Conan Doyle only wrote the Sherlock Holmes story: the editor gave Conan Doyle exact instructions about the two previous Notable Interviews, so Conan Doyle could mention them at the beginning of the story, and also the fact that this was to be published in the Saturday part of the Bazaar Book. <br />
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Or if you prefer that Conan Doyle didn't write the beginning of the story: the editor, or someone else, felt that it wasn't enough to get a story by Conan Doyle, so they needed to edit it and add text to make it fit with the format of two other texts that someone else had written.<br />
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In the Sherlock Holmes part of the story, which Conan Doyle then absolutely must have written, he places the detective at Sloan Street instead of Baker Street for no obvious reason at all, and he also doesn't write from the perspective of Watson. Conan Doyle had been occupied with writing at least nine of the short stories for <i>The Return of Sherlock Holmes</i> during the last months, so his head was full of Sherlock Holmes and the special literary style that he used in these stories. But instead of using that style that he knew so well he chose to write something completely different here – not because he was lazy or was in a rush, but because it would be a bigger challenge and take him more time to completely reinvent his style instead of just writing a little, simple scene with his normal language.<br />
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The idea of changing Baker Street to Sloan Street was one of those things that were more complicated to come up with than just sticking to Baker Street. He also constructed Sherlock Holmes’ deductions so that they were mainly based on very local Borders knowledge, things that Conan Doyle would have needed to research – probably through correspondence – to find out about, since he had no actual local knowledge himself, which he later indicated in his opening speech.<br />
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Then the editor put the story into the Bazaar Book. He had asked Conan Doyle to write the story, but he didn't want the readers to know that Conan Doyle had written it, so he omitted the name of the author. The editor didn't think that the Bazaar Book would sell more if Conan Doyle's name was mentioned as the author – and this was at the same time as The Strand Magazine had just started to publish new Sherlock Holmes stories, and the detective was more popular than ever.<br />
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Or if you prefer: Conan Doyle had asked the editor not to mention his name as author of the story, maybe because he felt that it wasn't a good story. In that way the readers would believe – thanks to the special format of the story – that it was one of the local literary talents that had written it. Anonymously published stories (mostly parodies) about Sherlock Holmes were, as we know, quite common around the turn of the century.<br />
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Then the Bazaar Book was published. The editor had managed to keep it a secret that Conan Doyle – one of the most famous authors in Great Britain – had written the "Notable Interview" about Sherlock Holmes (or maybe all of the three Notable Interviews). Even the local newspaper thought it was written by one of the local literary men. And when the publisher made an advertisement for the Bazaar Book they had no interest in showing that Conan Doyle – one of the most famous authors in Great Britain – had written one (or even three) of the texts.<br />
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The money they raised by selling the book would help the town Selkirk building a new bridge. Conan Doyle had previously been generous enough to donate to the fund all what he earned during the recital a few days earlier, and he was there as a politician who later would ask the citizens to vote for him in the next election. But he definitely didn't want them to know that he had made them the honour of writing the story for the Bazaar Book – which otherwise would have made it sell even more and in that way generate more money to the fund – although he had several chances of mentioning it.<br />
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Or if he mentioned it – during the recital or during his opening speech (both of them reported in detail in the newspaper) – the newspaper journalist thought that it was a totally unnecessary information that it was actually Conan Doyle who had written the Sherlock Holmes story in their local book. And this at a time in history when even the tiniest detail was reported in the newspaper.<br />
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After this Conan Doyle never ever mentioned officially that he had written the story.<br />
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<h3>
Conan Doyle Didn’t Write the Lost Sherlock Holmes Story</h3>
This is the scenario that must have happened, if Conan Doyle wrote the Selkirk story. It is an absurd story, and not just improbable, but in view of all the presented facts: impossible. I am sure that it is possible to criticize single facts and single conclusions mentioned above, but if you look at the whole picture – the combination of all the evidence – we can’t be but 100% sure that Conan Doyle did not write the Selkirk story.<br />
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<h3>
The Final Word on the Lost Sherlock Holmes Story</h3>
It is my sincere hope that this may be the final word on the lost Sherlock Holmes story. We don’t need more evidence that it is not by Conan Doyle, and we can treat the Selkirk story just as another example of early parodies and pastiches. It deserves no bigger attention than that.<br />
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At least this will be <i>my</i> final word on the matter.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Image credit: <a href="https://flic.kr/p/br6jSZ" target="_blank">Scottish Indexes (Flickr)</a></i></span><br />
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--<br />
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The Final Word on the Lost Sherlock Holmes Story

"Circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing" [BOSC] [ Editor's note: we've covered the lost Sherlock Holm...

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by Mattias Boström

Canonical Abbreviations: No Short Sherlock?

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'What a queer, scrambling way of expressing his meaning!' [VALL]</h4>
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So what's your favourite Sherlock Holmes story? If it's "Silver Blaze", you might not get tired of saying or writing the name over and over again. But if it's "The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax", that could get cumbersome. And if you were trying to draw up a table of the stories (charting how many murders take place in each one, say), the sixty titles could take up a lot of space, even if you omitted the subtitles that several stories carry.<br />
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That was the problem that faced <a href="http://www.sshf.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Jay_Finley_Christ" target="_blank">Jay Finley Christ, BSI</a> ("The Final Problem") when he was compiling an index to the names, crimes, laughs, lenses, masks, notebooks, weapons and windows mentioned in all the stories. To save space in his beautifully typeset index, which was published in 1947 as <i>An Irregular Guide to Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street</i>, he prepared what he called a "<a href="http://ihose.co/ABREV" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Key to Story Names</a>." The Sherlockian world has known them ever since as the canonical abbreviations. [Editor's note: you can find <a href="http://ihose.co/ABREV" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">the abbreviation key here on our site</a> and embedded below.]<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmL5J78KLxA2pkmbyIZyxrbRT8mc2SeaLTY-wsSuHz9LVtbY1-mZQ1BB7RrMIZor8J9FAFnzssWTOCKucmhp-7zc6pOAYeoibqGkhYzopKPiuGXwFWNEjsDSPf5mLvlJ42hE6ULTdk5kQx/s1600/Jay+Finley+Christ.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Jay Finley Christ, BSI, originator of the abbreviations for the Sherlock Holmes story titles" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmL5J78KLxA2pkmbyIZyxrbRT8mc2SeaLTY-wsSuHz9LVtbY1-mZQ1BB7RrMIZor8J9FAFnzssWTOCKucmhp-7zc6pOAYeoibqGkhYzopKPiuGXwFWNEjsDSPf5mLvlJ42hE6ULTdk5kQx/s1600/Jay+Finley+Christ.jpg" title="Jay Finley Christ, BSI" width="212" /></a></div>
Christ's basic principle was simple: the abbreviation is the first four letters of the story's title, leaving aside phrases like "The Adventure of". He listed them alphabetically, from Abbe for "The Abbey Grange" to Yell for "The Yellow Face". Christ, perhaps influenced by the British custom of capitalizing only the first letter of an abbreviation or acronym, typed them that way — besides, it takes less space. (When the story name starts with a three-letter word, he capitalized the beginning of the next word too: RedH, RedC, SixN.) Most subsequent users of his system have capitalized all four letters: ABBE, YELL.<br />
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A few problems arise with the four-letter rule, most obviously the fact that three stories begin with the word "Three". Christ solved that one easily: 3Gab for the Gables, 3Gar for the Garridebs, 3Stu for the Students. (He didn't do the same thing for "The Five Orange Pips" or "The Six Napoleons" because there's only one five and one six. And "The Sign of the Four" is Sign, with no numeral needed.)<br />
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And lest you think that these choices were capricious or confusing, recall that Christ was a professor at the University of Chicago, home of the famed <i>Chicago Manual of Style</i>. The manual indicates that "whole cardinal numbers from one through one hundred, as well as ordinals, are spelled out in nontechnical contexts." Indeed, Christ was <a href="https://mcmurdoscamp.wordpress.com/trifling-monographs/tao-abbr-christs-abbreviations-explained/" target="_blank">working from academic and legal precedents</a> for his abbreviations. <br />
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Wouldn't you know, Christ made a few exceptions, for stories with difficult names. He went with Chas for "Charles Augustus Milverton", probably because that was a recognized abbreviation for Charles, and Engr for "The Engineer's Thumb". And in three instances he apparently decided that introductory words were as insignificant as "The Adventure of", and could be ignored, so he decreed Iden for "A Case of Identity", Last for "His Last Bow", and Twis for "The Man with the Twisted Lip". <br />
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It gets a bit complicated — though only a little, since most Sherlockians surely know the names of all sixty cases and can figure out what FINA and GREE and SHOS mean. Scores of writers have used the abbreviations over the decades since Christ created them. Even when elegance demands that the full titles be used in a printed article, the abbreviations sneak into footnotes and tables, and of course tweets, where space is at a premium.<br />
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<h4>
<b>No Short Sherlock</b></h4>
The abbreviations have their detractors, of course. Among them is the editor of the <i><a href="http://www.bakerstreetjournal.com/" target="_blank">Baker Street Journal</a></i>, who actually devoted an editorial in 2002 to explaining why the BSJ will not ordinarily use them: they are not "welcoming" to "the newly engaged Sherlockian".<br />
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
<a href="https://twitter.com/IHearofSherlock">@IHearofSherlock</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/darkgreendesk">@darkgreendesk</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/CanadianHolmes">@CanadianHolmes</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/curtisisbooger">@curtisisbooger</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/NEofMN">@NEofMN</a> I HATE the Four-letter abbreviations; use them only for Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Ugh?src=hash">#Ugh</a><br />
— Baker Street Journal (@BakerStJournal) <a href="https://twitter.com/BakerStJournal/status/568853158442733569">February 20, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script><center>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
<a href="https://twitter.com/darkgreendesk">@darkgreendesk</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/IHearofSherlock">@IHearofSherlock</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/CanadianHolmes">@CanadianHolmes</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/curtisisbooger">@curtisisbooger</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/NEofMN">@NEofMN</a> Not difficult but not intuitive. Should be understood by all.<br />
— Baker Street Journal (@BakerStJournal) <a href="https://twitter.com/BakerStJournal/status/568855994169741313">February 20, 2015</a></blockquote>
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Indeed, even the Sherlockian whose engagement has dragged on longer than that of Mary Sutherland may occasionally be thrown: was that BLAN or BLAC? RETI or RESI? CROO or CREE? REDC or REDH? And a sentence like that one demonstrates the merits of another argument, that four-letter abbreviations sound too much like excerpts from a computer manual. Definitely, they should not be used in continuous prose.<br />
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<center>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
<a href="https://twitter.com/BakerStJournal">@BakerStJournal</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/timgreer7">@timgreer7</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/darkgreendesk">@darkgreendesk</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/CanadianHolmes">@CanadianHolmes</a> It's *A* touchstone of Sherlockian knowledge; not *THE* touchstone.<br />
— I Hear of Sherlock (@IHearofSherlock) <a href="https://twitter.com/IHearofSherlock/status/568874452253073409">February 20, 2015</a></blockquote>
<br />

Canonical Abbreviations: No Short Sherlock?

'What a queer, scrambling way of expressing his meaning!' [VALL] So what's your favourite Sherlock Holmes story? If it...

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by Scott Monty

New Sherlock Holmes Boom? What New Sherlock Holmes Boom?

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"He says that he could hardly recognize himself afterwards" [LION]</h4>
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I first discovered Sherlock Holmes when I was assigned to read <i>The Hound of the Baskervilles</i> in elementary school. I had never watched the Rathbone/Bruce movies on TV. My love and fascination with the characters of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson was purely literary. </div>
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Not long after I had finished reading the Canon for the first time was the start of the Great Boom of the ‘70s, led by Nicholas Meyer’s 1974 runaway best seller <a href="http://amzn.to/1rwgUTu" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><i>The Seven Per-Cent Solution</i></a>. Pastiches and Higher Criticism were being published or re-published. Many well-known Sherlockians followed the Meyers template and mixed Holmes with real persons (H. Paul Jeffers’ <a href="http://amzn.to/VlW0Mt" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><i>The Adventure of the Stalwart Companions</i></a> [1978]) or events (Michael Hardwick’s <a href="http://amzn.to/UHVdVy" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><i>Prisoner of the Devil</i></a> [1979]); or pure Doylesque adventures (Richard L. Boyer’s <a href="http://amzn.to/1iDsdJm" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><i>The Giant Rat of Sumatra</i> </a>[1976]). </div>
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Of course, along with the good or interesting, well-written pastiches (Michael Dibdin’s <a href="http://amzn.to/1nE8s0v" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><i>The Last Sherlock Holmes Story</i></a> [1978]) was a fair share of dreck (Randall Collins’ <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Case-Philosophers-Ring-Randall-Collins/dp/1906288224/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1403466757&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Case+of+the+Philosophers%E2%80%99+Ring"><i>The Case of the Philosophers’ Ring</i> </a>[1978] — in just one example of dreckosity, Watson shoots an unarmed fleeing suspect in the back. Fortunately for him, the man was actually a mental projection from the evil Aleister Crowley. And, yes, I know that one person’s “interesting, well-written pastiche” is another person’s dreck.)</div>
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More importantly, from my point of view, was the availability of classic and newly written Higher Criticism. My 1975 Pinnacle paperback edition of <a href="http://amzn.to/1pzACwa" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><i>The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes</i></a> proclaimed on the cover “FIRST PUBLICATION IN PAPERBACK! revised, enlarged, illustrated edition”. Michael Harrison’s <a href="http://amzn.to/1iDsL1U" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><i>In the Footsteps of Sherlock Holmes</i></a> saw its first paperback printing in the US in 1976, the same year his edited anthology<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Baker-Street-Sherlockian-anthology/dp/0672522071/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1403466975&sr=1-1&keywords=Beyond+Baker+Street"> <i>Beyond Baker Street</i></a> saw print in hardcover. Through the end of the ‘70s and into the ‘80s scion newsletters and magazines were founded. The wonderful <a href="http://www.batteredbox.com/octoganproject/e-BakerStreetMiscellanea.htm"><i>Baker Street Miscellanea</i></a> (1975-1994) enlivened Sherlockian discourse with 76 issues chock-full of deep and fun scholarship. Gaslight Books and Magico Magazine published new and old Sherlockian works.<br />
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The point is, the Great Boom of the ‘70s was a literary boom, with pastiche and scholarship leading directly back to the Canon. There were few television shows and movies in that time period cashing in on Holmes’ popularity. Gene Wilder had <a href="http://amzn.to/VlWO42" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><i>The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother</i></a> in 1975 and the film version of <a href="http://amzn.to/1lomjv2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><i>The Seven Per-Cent Solution</i></a> was out a year later. American TV had <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Return_of_the_World%27s_Greatest_Detective"><i>The Return of the World’s Greatest Detective</i></a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_Holmes_in_New_York"><i>Sherlock Holmes in New York</i></a> in 1976, British TV had Christopher Plummer’s <i>Silver Blaze</i> and John Cleese’s <i><a href="http://amzn.to/1qv65RG" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Strange Case of the End of Civilization As We Know It</a></i> in 1977; the next year saw Peter Cook and Dudley Moore’s comedy <a href="http://amzn.to/1nE9Ccs" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><i>The Hound of the Baskervilles</i></a>; 1979 had <a href="http://amzn.to/1pzB8dK" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><i>Murder by Decree</i></a> and the little-seen Geoffrey Whitehead syndicated TV show <i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0298697/" target="_blank">Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson</a></i> and the even less-seen in the West <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Livanov">Vasili Livanov</a> Russian <i>Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson</i>. It wasn’t until 1982 and 1983 that saw Tom Baker and Ian Richardson assay the Holmes role on the small screen and in ’85, <i><a href="http://amzn.to/1qv6ovC" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Young Sherlock Holmes</a></i> in the theaters. Of that list only <i>Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother</i>, <i>The Seven Per-Cent Solution</i> and <i>Murder by Decree</i> had any real impact with the general public and the boom was over by 1985. The big bucks (such as they were) and interest was in print, not on the screen.<br />
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<h4>
<b>"There is nothing new under the sun" [STUD]</b></h4>
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We are now in a New Sherlock Holmes Boom and the driving forces are different, in part due to new technology. While Holmes and Watson never go away completely, new interest in the character surged in 2009 with Guy Ritchie’s <a href="http://amzn.to/1l98Gvd" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><i>Sherlock Holmes</i></a>. Not a movie for purists, but then very few are; even the Granada series can cause a few gripes. Starring the un-Sherlock Holmes-like Robert Downey Jr. as the great detective and the very Holmes-looking Jude Law as John Watson, the action blockbuster earned half a billion dollars worldwide doing what cinema usually does, re-inventing literary characters for the current zeitgeist. 2010 saw <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b018ttws">BBC’s <i>Sherlock</i></a>, 2012 <a href="http://www.cbs.com/shows/elementary/video/?ftag=ACQe5ca076&vndid=-cbs-Elementary&kenshoo_click_id=6b913226-a2d8-7609-2bb8-0000586574f2">CBS’s <i>Elementary</i></a> and 2013 the new <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_Holmes_%282013_TV_series%29">Russian Sherlock Holmes</a> with Igor Petrenko and Andrei Panin. The world in general seems to be talking about Sherlock Holmes once again.<br />
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But "seems" is the operative word. While the Downey franchise may have jumpstarted the current interest in Holmes, and directly inspired the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzwBIvVwuOg">Petrenko/Panin series</a>, it has stalled. Work on a third motion picture script has started but <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2013/10/03/cloudy-2-batman-begins-and-5-more-hits-that-survived-disappointing-debuts/">interest at Warner Bros. has cooled</a> due to the fact that <i>Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows</i>, earning <i>in toto</i> slightly more than the first picture, opened making less and ended up making about $23 million less in the US, although increasing its take overseas. In the strange math of Hollywood, a billion dollar franchise is not necessarily a winning proposition.  <br />
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<i>Elementary </i>is a hit on US TV and in its overseas markets, albeit an average-sized hit, due to Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu and their undeniable chemistry. And yes, Virginia, there would be an <i>Elementary </i>without <i>Sherlock</i>. CBS has been trying to create a modern-day, America-based Sherlock Holmes since the ‘90s. Elementary has been renewed for a third season and CBS Studios has made <a href="http://www.deadline.com/2014/01/wgn-america-nabs-off-network-rights-to-cbs-drama-elementary/">a lucrative syndication deal with WGN.</a><br />
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It is BBC’s <i>Sherlock</i> that is the driving force behind the New Sherlock Holmes Boom. So much so, in fact, that calling it a "Sherlock Holmes" boom is a misnomer. It truly is a Cumberbatch/<i>Sherlock</i> Boom fueled by an inventive internet fan base that has dominated the discussion so much that “the great unobservant public, who could hardly tell a weaver by his tooth or a compositor by his left thumb” <a href="https://tv.yahoo.com/video/2-broke-girls-sherlock-holmes-011746779-cbs.html">does not know that there is a difference</a> between the Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss creation and the Arthur Conan Doyle original. Like Madonna or Beyoncé, the great detective is now a one name celeb recognizable for his dark wavy hair and prominent cheekbones. TV dialog, not Canon quotes are the <i>lingua franca</i> of disparate fans. <br />
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There are websites, <a href="http://www.johnwatsonblog.co.uk/">official</a> and <a href="http://www.sherlockology.com/">unofficial</a>, dedicated to the show and its actors. Fanfic and fan art featuring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman in their roles dominate the internet in a way other current and past actors do not. Not to give Freeman short shrift, but the accelerant for this conflagration is Cumberbatch - just as Brett, Rathbone and Gillette before him. <br />
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Imagine if you will a <i>Sherlock</i> identical in every way to the one we know except that Jonny Lee Miller plays Sherlock. (Don’t snicker. Let me just remind you of the Olivier and the London Evening Standard Award for Best Actor that Miller and Cumberbatch jointly won for Danny Boyle’s <i>Frankenstein</i> in which they switched roles) Yes, it would be a hit, and a worldwide hit, but not the phenomenon it is with Cumberbatch. No <a href="http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2013-12-09/introducing-curly-fu-and-peanut--better-known-as-sherlocks-benedict-cumberbatch-and-martin-freeman">“Curly Fu” and “Peanut”</a> inflaming China, for example. Cumberbatch and <i>Sherlock</i> is the perfect marriage of actor and role. There is something otherworldly, child-like, an asexual sexuality—an undefinable quality, the very definition of je ne sais quoi—that Cumberbatch brings to the Moffat/Gatiss version of Holmes that has ignited the imagination of fans across the globe. Even those things, places and characters that have no parallel in the Canon, Speedy's Sandwich Bar & Cafe, Molly Hooper, the wallpaper of the Baker Street set, have become icons instantly calling to the mind of <i>Sherlock</i> fans <i>their</i> 221B Baker Street and London.<br />
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If <i>Sherlock</i> didn’t exist, the Downey films and <i>Elementary</i> would not be leading a new boom, but, at best, an upswelling. Pastiches are perennial, so no doubt Anthony Horowitz’s <a href="http://amzn.to/1l9a6FX" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><i>House of Silk</i></a> (2011) and Lyndsay Faye’s <a href="http://amzn.to/1qv73xa" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><i>Dust and Shadow</i></a> (2009) would have seen print and excellent sales. Sales of the Canon would still have increased, though not as much as they currently have. Would we have seen Maria Konnikova’s <a href="http://www.ihearofsherlock.com/2013/07/episode-54-how-to-think-like-sherlock.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><i>Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes</i></a> (2013) or James O'Brien’s Edgar winning <a href="http://amzn.to/1pzCoNZ" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><i>The Scientific Sherlock Holmes</i></a> (2013) or, in fact, publishers slapping the detective’s name to any book that can be vaguely related to Holmes? Perhaps, perhaps not.<br />
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What is distressing to some Sherlockians (old school or not) is Cumberbatch becoming the public face of Sherlock Holmes in a way that Jeremy Brett, Basil Rathbone and William Gillette never could have been. In the 1900s, the 1940s and 1980s, the stage, cinema, radio and television were adjuncts to the written word. If one wanted to learn more about Sherlock Holmes, one turned to the Canon. Now, in <a href="http://pennreview.com/2009/09/a-post-literate-age/">our post-literate world</a>, reading an actual book is one choice among many to gain information on a subject. Where once Gillette's face graced the cover of <i>Collier's</i>, Cumberbatch's face is placed on the front of panties.</div>
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The dismay of Sherlockians is that fans of a favorite thespian’s role need only turn to Wikipedia to learn of the character’s distant origins or read blog posts for the Canonical Easter eggs their favorite show hides or create their own fan art and fanfic with the actor’s image and personality merging with <a href="http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/headcanon">headcanon</a> and sharing it in an electronic forum with like-minded souls.<br />
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<b>"Holmes was accessible upon the side of flattery" [REDC]</b></h4>
For as much as we play the Game that Doyle was the literary agent to John H. Watson, there is no higher accolade than to say an author created a character that <i>lives</i>. We read the words Doyle wrote with care for the clues they tell us about those living, breathing fictional characters and, like all good literature, tell us about us. There is nothing wrong with re-inventing Holmes for the times. Each generation has its own Hamlet, its own Macbeth, its own Romeo and Juliet, but Shakespeare is ever-present. There are no venerated Shakespeare pastiches, no continuing adventures of Othello. His characters have not become myth and that is the fear that some see in the face of Benedict Cumberbatch cum Sherlock; a Sherlock with multiple births, an archetype to be molded into any shape by any sculptor -- a Holmes without a Doyle.<br />
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It is the now the Cumberbatch/<i>Sherlock</i> Boom and the great detective who was published between 1887 and 1927 is along for the ride. He survived the Reichenbach, Gillette's on-stage betrothal and Rathbone's bizarre windswept hairdo. He is made of sterner stuff. Because Sherlock Holmes and John Watson live, and live only, in four novels and 56 short stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.<br />
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"Aye, there's the genius and the wonder of the thing!" And don’t forget it.</div>
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Image source: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihil_novi">Wikipedia (Nihil Novi)</a><br />
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