I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere

Episode 77: The Speckled Band of Boston

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"It is a nice household." [SPEC]</h4>
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It's been exactly one month since our last episode, as is our tradition on the 15th of every month, we bring you another episode of our show. In this episode, come with us to Boston as we investigate the Speckled Band of Boston - the oldest scion society of the Baker Street Irregulars, which was founded in 1940.<br />
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In addition to a recap of some of the main Sherlock Holmes news of the last month, we bring you a number of special audio features. Burt and Scott both attended the 75th annual dinner of the Speckled Band of Boston and captured some audio of the evening, to give you a sense of what goes on at this august institution.<br />
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We ran into James O'Leary, a contributor of this site, and he presented us with copies of his entry in the <a href="http://johnhwatsonsociety.com/monographs" target="_blank">John H. Watson Monograph Series</a>, <i>Some Observations Upon the Early Writings of John H. Watson, MD, 1887-1894</i>. <b>We have an extra copy to give away</b> - please listen in to the show around the 12-minute mark to hear how you might win it.<br />
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Another treasure is Dan Posnansky, BSI ("Colonel Hayter"), the current Keeper of the Speckled Band. We've known Dan for years and have heard his talks about his very impressive holdings, but we never had the chance to get him on the show. We rectified that this time, and we have a 45-minute interview with him as part of this Speckled Band spectacular.<br />
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One of the names Dan mentioned is Dirk Struik, whose signature you can see on this program from the 1945 Speckled Band dinner:<br />
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<a href="https://www.scribd.com/doc/265468333/The-Speckled-Band-5th-Anniversary-Dinner-Program" style="text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank" title="View The Speckled Band 5th Anniversary Dinner Program on Scribd">The Speckled Band 5th Anniversary Dinner Program</a></div>
<iframe class="scribd_iframe_embed" data-aspect-ratio="undefined" data-auto-height="false" frameborder="0" height="600" id="doc_97794" scrolling="no" src="https://www.scribd.com/embeds/265468333/content?start_page=1&view_mode=scroll&show_recommendations=true" width="100%"></iframe><br />
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Mental Exaltation</h3>
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We're pleased to bring you another entry in our "Mental Exaltation" quiz program, inspired by NPR's <i>Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me!</i> and written by IHOSE quizmaster Nick Martorelli. <a href="http://www.ihearofsherlock.com/2015/04/qualify-for-next-ihose-quiz.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Find our how you can qualify to win</a>.</div>
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"My mind," he said, "rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram, or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation.</blockquote>
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We're pleased to welcome Madelyn Covey of Emeryville, CA to the show as our contestant. Madelyn, who has written "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJaYiAz2fp0" target="_blank">Conductor of Light</a>," a song dedicated to John Watson, joined us for a band-themed quiz. Listen to see how she did.<br />
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We wrap up with our regular Gas-Lamp reading, this time taken from two unlikely sources: poems "The Fog Hangs Deep in Baker Street" from <i>The Tavern Club at 75</i> and "Report of the Poet Laureate at the Speckled Band Dinner May 15, 1959" from <i>The Third Cab</i>.</div>
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<a href="http://traffic.libsyn.com/ihearofsherlock/ihearofsherlock077.mp3" target="_blank">Download</a> [Save As] | File size 54.1 MB, 1:55:24</h4>
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Links:</h3>
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<li>Stan Freberg passes away. Hear him on <a href="http://www.doctorfloyd.com/media/season7" target="_blank">The Radio Adventures of Dr. Floyd</a>.</li>
<li>The <a href="http://silentfilm.org/" target="_blank">San Francisco Silent Film Festival</a> is screening the <a href="http://www.ihearofsherlock.com/2014/10/breaking-long-lost-william-gillette.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">lost Sherlock Holmes film</a> on May 31.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.ihearofsherlock.com/2015/04/new-mr-holmes-trailer.html#.VUmPoPlVikr" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">More Mr. Holmes trailers</a> have been released, including one with Nicholas Rowe</li>
<li>The <i>Sherlock</i> Christmas special <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/32380304/benedict-cumberbatchs-sherlock-goes-back-to-1895" target="_blank">will be set in 1895</a>.</li>
<li>The <a href="http://bsitrust.org/" target="_blank">new BSI Trust website</a> is up.</li>
<li>Information about Sherlockian societies in Episodes <a href="http://ihose.co/ihose04" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">04</a> and <a href="http://ihose.co/ihose05" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">05</a>.</li>
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Many more links, articles and images are available in our Flipboard and Scoop.it sites at <a href="http://ihose.co/flipsherlock" target="_blank">ihose.co/flipsherlock</a> and <a href="http://www.scoop.it/t/sherlock-holmes" target="_blank">ihose.co/scoopsherlock</a>, as well as on our accounts on <a href="http://facebook.com/ihearofsherlock">Facebook</a>, <a href="http://twitter.com/ihearofsherlock">Twitter</a> and <a href="http://instagram.co/ihearofsherlock" target="_blank">Instagram</a>.<br />
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Your thoughts on the show? Leave a comment below, send us an email (ihearofsherlock AT gmail DOT com), call us at (774) 221-READ (7323).<br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>
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Sponsors</h3>
This episode includes two sponsors that deserve your attention:<br />
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<a href="http://www.wessexpress.com/" target="_blank">Wessex Press</a> (check out the new <a href="http://wessexpress.com/html/newspaper.html" target="_blank">Sherlock Holmes and Conan Doyle in the Newspapers Volume 1</a>)<br />
<a href="http://www.bakerstreetjournal.com/" target="_blank"><i>The Baker Street Journal</i></a>, where you should get <a href="http://www.bakerstreetjournal.com/itemsforsale/subscriptions.html" target="_blank">your annual subscription</a> in now to secure all four issues and a very special Christmas Annual about <i>The Seven Per-Cent Solution</i>.</div>
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And special thanks to Elizabeth Ong, James O'Leary and Mary Miller for your generous donations. If you would like to <a href="https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_flow&SESSION=hK1xNvhQD0hKUPaO-TnV5azaGpfRrj_75PdqgxehR-vhAaZ3WgAkiSXu6LC&dispatch=5885d80a13c0db1f8e263663d3faee8d96f000117187ac9edec8a65b311f447e" target="_blank">help support I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere</a>, you can <a href="https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_flow&SESSION=hK1xNvhQD0hKUPaO-TnV5azaGpfRrj_75PdqgxehR-vhAaZ3WgAkiSXu6LC&dispatch=5885d80a13c0db1f8e263663d3faee8d96f000117187ac9edec8a65b311f447e" target="_blank">click here</a> or on the "Donate" button in the upper portion of the site.<br />
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<b>Bonus photos:</b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTqZgwS5PzA4sX2qpYb6lXnI9SjF5YHKcLbViFz-8HWDMuSFu6b6ixBT3ilfNz3w1T6KYqi3U-1prDX0WG-zVKm7EpYi5Llm-AaE3hxafR0JU8AGOFmEcUJ2p-b1Af4a55Kn0acjLIEqSI/s1600/Band+flag.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="The Speckled Band flag" border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTqZgwS5PzA4sX2qpYb6lXnI9SjF5YHKcLbViFz-8HWDMuSFu6b6ixBT3ilfNz3w1T6KYqi3U-1prDX0WG-zVKm7EpYi5Llm-AaE3hxafR0JU8AGOFmEcUJ2p-b1Af4a55Kn0acjLIEqSI/s200/Band+flag.JPG" title="The flag of the Speckled Band" width="150" /></a>  <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFFw7DpL2uPCPU6CBpOzWhhl5LM35ugjaw2QXAmaGUrjJTwMVCfQczQbyPrZ7usuxyiRuX7wN-t3dR7qnKr_yjkaGhDR8YCBf7vPsxdZws_bPGxGV5jBN0isR1RNYtqqi9em9w_6MY2m5K/s1600/Tavern+Club.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="The Tavern Club, Boylston Place, Boston" border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFFw7DpL2uPCPU6CBpOzWhhl5LM35ugjaw2QXAmaGUrjJTwMVCfQczQbyPrZ7usuxyiRuX7wN-t3dR7qnKr_yjkaGhDR8YCBf7vPsxdZws_bPGxGV5jBN0isR1RNYtqqi9em9w_6MY2m5K/s200/Tavern+Club.JPG" title="The Tavern Club of Boston" width="149" /></a>  <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2SdC5fHU42kzny1_ewnX87aFNcSrqDnY2EpxANCNGO1k-f9l6E03Nd_DFoAEKgocxRBdRvwHazMsQt8LFRSbNab1emVOrUd2aSMwbp3r0q-XD16Xw_39A01Z3YhshkakcT8WyDaRSUI3V/s1600/The+Band+dinner.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Speckled Band 75th annual dinner" border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2SdC5fHU42kzny1_ewnX87aFNcSrqDnY2EpxANCNGO1k-f9l6E03Nd_DFoAEKgocxRBdRvwHazMsQt8LFRSbNab1emVOrUd2aSMwbp3r0q-XD16Xw_39A01Z3YhshkakcT8WyDaRSUI3V/s200/The+Band+dinner.JPG" title="Dinner at the Speckled Band" width="149" /></a></div>
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Episode 77: The Speckled Band of Boston

"It is a nice household." [SPEC] It's been exactly one month since our last episode, as is our tradition on the 15th...

+ Read more »

by Scott Monty

The Sherlock Holmes Exhibition Catalogue is Here

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"the adequate cataloguing of one of those cabinets" [3GAR]</h4>
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Did you manage to make it to London between October 2014 and April 2015? Neither did we. What we missed was the <a href="http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/archives/sherlock-holmes/" target="_blank">Sherlock Holmes exhibit at the Museum of London</a>. However, we heard from many readers and listeners who did, and they were universally thrilled at the visit.<br />
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The exhibition was remarkably well done, and it included everything from props and costumes from the BBC's <i>Sherlock</i> to original Conan Doyle manuscripts and Sidney Paget illustrations. Material was culled from around the world, from collectors and institutions alike, and it made for what was probably the most heralded Sherlock Holmes display since the Festival of Britain of 1951 that brought us the recreation of the sitting rooms at 221B Baker Street - a set that is now housed by the Sherlock Holmes Pub.<br />
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But don't fret if you missed the opportunity to see all of these remarkable items together in one place. Now, courtesy of the Baker Street Irregulars Press is a remarkable catalogue - <i><a href="http://bakerstreetjournal.com/london.html" target="_blank">Sherlock Holmes: The Man Who Never Lived and Will Never Die - The Museum of London Exhibition</a>.</i></div>
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<br /><br />Compiled by Nicholas Utechin, BSI ("The Ancient British Barrow") and Catherine Cooke, BSI ("<i>The Book of  Life</i>") with a foreword by Alex Werner, the Exhibition's curator, this volume provides an illustrated record of the Exhibition and the "wonderful stuff of Sherlockian collecting fantasy." </div>
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Highlights include the two most important sheets regarding the birth of Sherlock Holmes, three original Holmes manuscripts, two Beeton's Christmas Annuals, eight Sidney Paget original drawings and one by Frederick Dorr Steele. Accompanying the illustrations are the compilers' comments, as well as selected Museum of London captions and contributions by Glen Miranker, BSI ("<i>The Origin of Tree Worship</i>") and Constantine Rossakis, BSI ("St. Bartholomew's Hospital").</div>
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The volume is 96 pages and measures 9.75" x 7.5" and is <a href="http://bakerstreetjournal.com/london.html" target="_blank">available from the <i>Baker Street Journal</i> site</a> for $20 plus shipping.</div>
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We plan to buy one, even though the BSJ (our sponsors) didn't send us a review copy. (cough)<br /><br />
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And just in case you wanted to see more, below are some images from <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/shsl/sets/72157648762051964" target="_blank">Douglas Wilmer's visit</a> to the Exhibition earlier this year, courtesy of the <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/shsl/" target="_blank">Sherlock Holmes Society of London's Flickr account</a>.<br />
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The Sherlock Holmes Exhibition Catalogue is Here

"the adequate cataloguing of one of those cabinets" [3GAR] Did you manage to make it to London between October 2014 and A...

+ Read more »

by Scott Monty

Ferreting Out Untold Tales from the Canon: An Interview with Author Hugh Ashton

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"His name is Hugh" [TWIS]</h4>
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There are a number of stories mentioned within the canon that were never actually completed by Dr. John H. Watson.  While <i>The Hound of the Baskervilles</i> mentions Holmes's investigation into the sudden death of Cardinal Tosca, it is up to the reader to ponder the details of the case.<br />
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That is, until Hugh Ashton discovered a number of notes from the good doctor, and completed a number of untold tales. Ever wonder what happened in the Conk-Singleton forgery case? Now, dear reader, you can discover the answer! These stories as well as several other Sherlock Holmes tales make up the author's Deed Box and Dispatch Box series.  Not content to settle on only editing the works of Dr. Watson, Mr. Ashton also writes the delightful children's book series, <i><a href="http://amzn.to/1QEcZAI" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Sherlock Ferret</a></i>, and has penned several thrillers and other short story collections.  I had a chance to interview the well-regarded Sherlockian via email from his home in Kamakura, Japan.<br />
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<b>I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere:  You are well known for your traditional Sherlock Holmes pastiches, particularly your stories in the <a href="http://221beanbakerstreet.info/" target="_blank">Notes from the Deed Box</a> series.  A number of your tales are untold adventures mentioned in the original Sherlock Holmes adventures.  How do you develop a full tale from a mere mention of a case in the canon?</b></h4>
<b>Hugh Ashton: </b>The case develops itself. By this, I mean that I have a rather cinematic imagination, the scene presents itself in my mind, and the characters play out their actions, depending on what happens to the characters. Watson doesn’t know the ending to the case until Holmes reveals it, and neither do I, many times. I am perfectly capable of getting about 75 percent of the way through an adventure without knowing how it will work out.<br />
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I’ve been told I have a criminal mind, which would either make me a good cop, or a replacement for Moriarty (though I lack criminal tendencies, which is a good thing for all concerned, I feel). So I think like the villain in the case, and the motive, the means, and the opportunity come to me. I may then have to backtrack in the story and plant some clues for Holmes to discover (and Watson to see, but not observe). But basically, I am living the story as Watson lives it. It’s stretching things to say that I become Watson, but I see the adventure through his viewpoint, and I don’t have an overarching overview most of the time. Sometimes I will wake up in the night, or while eating breakfast, and exclaim “So that’s how he did it!”. And the story has just written itself. All I have to do is filter it through Watson’s eyes, and put it into the computer. <br />
<br />
Sometimes ACD leaves you with a wonderful opening, such as “the remarkable worm, said to be unknown to science”, and you just have to take it from there, as I did in my first collection, <i>Tales from the Deed Box of John H. Watson, MD</i>. In that case, the canonical reference is the climax of the adventure. Sometimes he leaves you with a very brief description, which nonetheless intrigues, such as the loss of Holmes’ left canine in the waiting-room at Charing Cross station. This formed the hook for “The Hand of Glory” in The Last Notes from the Dispatch-box, but it was not the climax, but just one of the events in the adventure, albeit one that Holmes would remember for the rest of his life!<br />
<br />
I think it’s also important to have a reason why the untold tales remained unpublished. Scandal in high places (my “Giant Rat” or the uncanonical “Enfield Rope”) or embarrassment to Holmes (my “Phillimore” describes a very ambivalent relationship between Holmes and the police), or maybe there is some indelicacy (a sexual aspect, perhaps, which would prevent Watson from revealing all, as in The Darlington Substitution) are good reasons.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjum72g3rFRLhsqNcDRaBeX0cYIMK07_u4c6pknZXbqfaLkWTb86x69pF7KOJe-OfCCnrXAMcqoc025kqZ9GH0h9qfnao3V6yGzp5WYNZqoLjRGMRY0kjSB-CL7thqLo1uzyCMj3qJp2m2b/s1600/Tales+from+the+Deed+Box+-+Ashton.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjum72g3rFRLhsqNcDRaBeX0cYIMK07_u4c6pknZXbqfaLkWTb86x69pF7KOJe-OfCCnrXAMcqoc025kqZ9GH0h9qfnao3V6yGzp5WYNZqoLjRGMRY0kjSB-CL7thqLo1uzyCMj3qJp2m2b/s640/Tales+from+the+Deed+Box+-+Ashton.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<h4>
<b>IHOSE: The <a href="http://sherlockferret.info/index.html" target="_blank">Sherlock Ferret </a>series is your Sherlock Holmes book series for children.  What made you decide to turn the great detective and his friends into talking animals?  </b></h4>
<b>HA:</b> It was Vinnie, the ferret who shares her life with Andy Boerger, who does the fantastic illustrations for Sherlock Ferret, and has also published several books of his own writing with Inknbeans.<br />
<br />
Andy loves his ferret, and puts drawings of her on Facebook. I asked him if he could produce a picture of a ferret as Sherlock Holmes. And he came up with this wonderful picture of a ferret with a violin.<br />
<br />
From that, it was a short step to populating the Sherlock Ferret universe. Watson – we settled on a mouse. It suits him, and he has a very distinct personality (as does Sherlock Ferret, of course). He has very fine whiskers, of which he is particularly proud, and he is rather put upon by Sherlock Ferret, who is somewhat selfish and self-centered, but though he grumbles at times to himself and his readers about Sherlock, he is a very loyal and decent little beast with a big heart.<br />
<br />
Andy draws lovely rhinoceroses, so we decided that Lestrade should be a rhinoceros (though not a very big one). Colonel Sebastian Moorhen was a no-brainer. Moriarty was originally going to be a crow, but eventually turned into a magpie. The Bakery Irregulars (Sherlock and Watson live under Mrs. Hudson’s bakery) are caterpillars. I had originally wanted Wiggins the Woodlouse, but they’re a bit icky to many people, so we settled on caterpillars.<br />
<br />
In the second book, <i><a href="http://amzn.to/1QEd8Eo" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Multiplying Masterpieces</a></i>, we had fun with artists’ names. The villain is Pablo Pigasso, and Vincent van Goat, and Frieda Koala are mentioned. Thanks to Jo at Inknbeans for some of these. The Poisoned Pond has more of a message than the others, but it tries not to beat readers over the head with it. <br />
<br />
I have no children of my own, but I found it easy to write in a style that seems to have found acceptance with younger readers, while still making the stories interesting enough for their parents. The process of writing was a two-way thing. Andy gave me plot ideas, either directly, or through details in his pictures, and I suggested some ideas for illustrations to him. We developed the stories together – it wasn’t a question of my writing a story and asking him to put pictures to it. <br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjus-KPsLheJy4WZTZbPesYIThYed3aIZLsR9BuMomhiyYqwpFv0E31PGypAf50DVCJHfcBIcO7Qav591bEN6hU5BC61a4Wd83YtWn33CJcNCIpjdi7I7XiH3afTypDjH6mhVcBVDs0L1BL/s1600/Sherlock+Ferret+-+Ashton.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Sherlock Ferret with Inspector Lestrade and Dr. Watson" border="0" height="460" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjus-KPsLheJy4WZTZbPesYIThYed3aIZLsR9BuMomhiyYqwpFv0E31PGypAf50DVCJHfcBIcO7Qav591bEN6hU5BC61a4Wd83YtWn33CJcNCIpjdi7I7XiH3afTypDjH6mhVcBVDs0L1BL/s640/Sherlock+Ferret+-+Ashton.jpg" title="Sherlock Ferret at home" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sherlock Ferret and Dr. Watson with Inspector Lestrade</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<h4>
<b>IHOSE: You have been residing in Japan for several decades now.  How has living in another country influenced your writing?</b></h4>
That’s an excellent question. I am very out of touch with contemporary UK memes and language. I always tell people that when I left the UK, a “mobile” was something you hung in a child’s bedroom, and “text” was a noun, not a verb. That means that I really can’t write contemporary fiction about the UK (or the USA, since I’ve never lived there).<br />
<br />
So… it’s back to the past for me, or writing about Japan (we’re talking fiction here). There are two basic genres about Japan. One is the “cherry blossoms and mystic Orient”, and the other is the “ninja thriller”. Both are clichés, to my mind, and have been successfully exploited by better writers than me.<br />
<br />
I’ve written a Japan-based thriller, <a href="http://www.atthesharpeend.com/" target="_blank"><i>At the Sharpe End</i></a>, which is now published by Inknbeans Press, and which deals with the bank crash of 2008 (where I had quite a lot of personal experience, at first- and second-hand). No ninjas! But, and this is what introduced me to Inknbeans in the first place, I had also written a few short stories about older Japanese people, <a href="http://amzn.to/1IxTOFY" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><i>Tales of Old Japanese</i></a>. Inknbeans had told me they wanted to publish these, and the Sherlock Holmes adventures leapfrogged over them. I do recommend these stories, by the way. They are the nearest thing to literature that I have had published so far.<br />
<br />
But Japan doesn’t have the interest outside the country that once it did, and though there are people producing excellent work in these genres, really, it’s not for me.<br />
<br />
So, back to the past. Inknbeans has just published a Jules Verne-type story, <a href="http://amzn.to/1PfoUYo" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><i>The Untime</i></a>; I hesitate to call it a pastiche, though it’s written in a contrived style, as if it were a 19th-century translation from the French. Shades of Verne, Wells, Dr. Who, and a little H.P. Lovecraft stirred into the mix. I actually think it’s pretty good stuff.<br />
<br />
And Sherlock Holmes, one of my loves from an early age, is a natural. ACD’s style is fun, and (for me at least) fairly easy to imitate. And I love mysteries. <br />
<br />
But it is a little odd, maybe, that Sherlockian pastiches are coming from a Brit living in Japan.<br />
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<h4>
<b>IHOSE: You have a story included in the upcoming anthology The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories.  Can you tell us a little about the story without giving anything away? Also, how did you ended up becoming involved in this project?</b></h4>
Yes, it’s set in Lichfield, Staffordshire, which is a city with which I have family associations (my father worked there) and I will soon have closer associations with the place (I won’t say more right now). It uses real locations (inn names, street names, geographical features, etc.), which is fun. You will be able to find all the places on Google Maps.<br />
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It’s a fairly straightforward locked-room murder. A father retains Holmes to clear his son’s name of the murder, but at the same time, he seems to want his son to be found guilty.<br />
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David Marcum contacted me, I asked permission from Inknbeans to contribute, and Jo, my editor, said “yes”, and I wrote the story. Simple.<br />
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<h4>
<b>IHOSE: The question I ask all Sherlockians.  If you were stranded on a desert with only one Sherlock Holmes story, which would it be and why?</b></h4>
Probably SIGN. Though I love REDH and EMPT, SIGN has more to it, and the backstory doesn’t distract as much as in VALL or STUD. Why not HOUN? Because I don’t think Holmes is as effective outside London as he is in London, or the suburbs. I do find it hard to conceive of him roughing it in a Neolithic hut. He’s a townie, and the tweeds and deerstalker are those of a city-dweller playing at being a countryman.<br />
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<br />
<h4>
<b>IHOSE: What are your current projects?</b></h4>
We’re talking fiction here, of course? A sequel to <i>The Untime</i>, which explores some more Jungian ideas (<i>The Untime</i> is very Jungian in many ways).<br />
<br />
There’s a contemporary thriller/adventure/something, <i>Leo’s Luck</i>, which is coming out in July. I am waiting for an endorsement from my friend Jake Adelstein, the author of <i>Tokyo Vice</i> (his book has been optioned as a movie, and will star Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) as Jake). It’s a little weird – rock and roll, money, telepathy, and some sex.<br />
<br />
And… another box has been discovered. In a Facebook conversation with Luke Kuhns, I discovered the springboard for another Sherlockian adventure, and I am in the middle of another where Holmes is of assistance to the Scandinavian royal family. It’s a tangled tale of deceit and betrayal. There’ll be another collection of Sherlock Holmes adventures published before the end of the year. That’s a promise.<br />
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<h4>
<b>IHOSE: Anything else you'd like us to know?</b></h4>
I can’t let this opportunity go by without thanking Jo, my editor, and all the staff (and other writers) at Inknbeans Press, who have produced not only my books, but many others from many other authors, on a wide variety of subjects. I’ve received nothing but support and encouragement from these people, and Jo has become one of the pillars of my life. A good editor is so much more than a spelling-checker on legs – and Jo provides the impetus and the constructive criticism that every writer needs, as well as sound advice on matters that have little or nothing to do with writing.<br />
<br />
Somehow, we have never met face-to-face, though this is something that I am sure will be remedied before too long.<br />
<br />
Working with Inknbeans has taught me that, however much fun self-publishing may be (and it is fun, though very hard work at times), there is no substitute for productive collaboration with a professionally-minded publisher.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><i>For more on Hugh Ashton, see his author <a href="http://hughashtonbooks.info/about-hugh-ashton.html" target="_blank">web site</a>, his <a href="http://221beanbakerstreet.info/author.html" target="_blank">221 Bean Baker Street</a> site.</i></b><br />
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Ferreting Out Untold Tales from the Canon: An Interview with Author Hugh Ashton

"His name is Hugh" [TWIS] There are a number of stories mentioned within the canon that were never actually completed by ...

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by Belanger Books

A Study in Fitzroy - Inspiration for a Canonical Character

<h4 style="text-align: center;">
"The chaplain, no less!" [GLOR]</h4>
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<div>
There were "some hundreds" of men named Henry Baker, according to "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle", but how many Fitzroy McPhersons would you expect?<br />
<br />
The one we know is of course the hero of "The Adventure of the Lion's Mane", the victim of <i>Cyanea capillata</i>. But let me introduce you to the other Fitzroy Macpherson (note the slightly different spelling), who was — wait for it — a military chaplain. <br />
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Ewen George Fitzroy Macpherson was born in 1863 and educated at the University of Durham. He entered the Church of England clergy and served as a curate for four years, then joined the military chaplains' department and in 1892 was posted to Portsmouth, which is the home of the Royal Navy. He arrived in Portsmouth just too late to overlap with Arthur Conan Doyle, who had moved to Norwood in south London, but they must have had friends in common, perhaps through the Portsmouth Literary and Scientific Society, where ACD had first encountered Spiritualism and many of the other ideas that influenced his life.<br />
<br />
And certainly ACD must have known about Macpherson during the South African War, in which the former was the harassed and unqualified doctor in charge of a field hospital, and the latter was chaplain for various British units. He served in Ladysmith during the famous three-month siege in 1899-1900, and came home from the war with two medals, eight "clasps", two "mentioned in despatches" distinctions and a promotion.<br />
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The case of the two Fitzroys was first noted by my father, <a href="http://www.ihearofsherlock.com/2014/11/remembering-donald-redmond-bsi-2s.html#.VVAPEvlViko" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Don Redmond</a>, in <i><a href="http://amzn.to/1IsrS7T" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Sherlock Holmes: A Study in Sources</a></i> decades ago, but this more detailed information, and more, came to me from the very helpful David Blake, who is curator of the Museum of Army Chaplaincy at Amport, Hampshire. He was most interested to hear of a possible Sherlock Holmes connection to a long-ago chaplain — and I made a point of not spoiling "The Lion's Mane" for him by telling him exactly how Fitzroy McPherson, the one with "Mc" rather than "Mac" in his name, had met his painful end.<br />
<br />
E. G. Fitzroy Macpherson was still a chaplain when World War I broke out, and served briefly with British troops in France before being called home to take an administrative job with what by now was the Royal Army Chaplains' Department. He retired from the armed forces in 1922 and died in 1926.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8qH6wrlVgj0XnurjSTBpdzQvRSbeSPZjx3BSWHfS2L5zZtRN-1wIyuxMHPX3xOGBc-jRX0uvzyH5sHLd3vW-eitBc3aZ_f_nWLZzf62lHk9z2BQysLUP5v29_81UAHffhEUtg8wqhWXjK/s1600/LION+-+Elcock.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="The Lion's Mane - the end of Fitzroy McPherson" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8qH6wrlVgj0XnurjSTBpdzQvRSbeSPZjx3BSWHfS2L5zZtRN-1wIyuxMHPX3xOGBc-jRX0uvzyH5sHLd3vW-eitBc3aZ_f_nWLZzf62lHk9z2BQysLUP5v29_81UAHffhEUtg8wqhWXjK/s1600/LION+-+Elcock.jpg" title="The unfortunate end of Fitzroy McPherson [LION]" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
To be exact, he died November 28, 1926 — the day after "The Lion's Mane" had its first publication in <i>Liberty </i>magazine. (Publication in Britain, in the good old <i>Strand Magazine</i>, came a few days later.) This can't possibly be coincidence. It can only be that ACD heard of Macpherson's final illness in time to honor him by transferring his name to "a fine upstanding young fellow whose life had been crippled by heart trouble", the hero of one of his last Sherlock Holmes stories.<br />
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<br /></div>
</div>

A Study in Fitzroy - Inspiration for a Canonical Character

"The chaplain, no less!" [GLOR] There were "some hundreds" of men named Henry Baker, according to "The Adve...

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by Chris Redmond

Sherlockian Activities During the San Francisco Silent Film Festival

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"those weekend parties" [SOLI]</h4>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVjlnseP-WAtjkDkF8mv5J3GkFOM-J8-F0AUxvFLFxsrt0K6OhoGvsPJg-3QwtFTM5IGs8OXEIw1XKl36QuKVvMBV3K4Ghk05zFteIC763uAaTiZyucohpat5QcFxrL666TEErxxjw4exF/s1600/Gillette+sunglasses.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="William Gillette - Mr. Hollywood, 1916" border="0" height="504" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVjlnseP-WAtjkDkF8mv5J3GkFOM-J8-F0AUxvFLFxsrt0K6OhoGvsPJg-3QwtFTM5IGs8OXEIw1XKl36QuKVvMBV3K4Ghk05zFteIC763uAaTiZyucohpat5QcFxrL666TEErxxjw4exF/s1600/Gillette+sunglasses.jpg" title="William Gillette in sunglasses on the soundstage" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />As you may have heard, <a href="http://www.ihearofsherlock.com/2014/10/breaking-long-lost-william-gillette.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">the long-lost 1916 William Gillette film <i>Sherlock Holmes</i> was found</a>, restored and will be having its premiere in the United States at the <a href="http://www.silentfilm.org/" target="_blank">San Francisco Silent Film Festival</a> on May 31, 2015.<div>
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<div>
The festival itself runs from May 28 - June 1 and there are opportunities available to become part of <a href="http://www.silentfilm.org/homepage/whats-new/join-the-baker-street-circle" target="_blank">the Baker Street Circle</a> of supporters. Such generous donors receive recognition in the program as well as admission for two with reserved seating and a special reception with Baker Street Irregulars and the restoration team.</div>
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<br /></div>
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If that seems beyond your ability, you can always stop by for just the film itself, where ti<a href="http://prod3.agileticketing.net/websales/pages/info.aspx?evtinfo=124514~d9133282-4896-49aa-be18-b053ee8cefc3&epguid=9b9aa81f-61d7-4293-afdc-ddf4e632d0f8&" target="_blank">ckets are just $22 for the 7:00 pm showing on May 31</a>.<br /><br /><br />If you're in town for the weekend, you'll have ample opportunities to join fellow Sherlockians to celebrate the US premiere of the restored Sherlock Holmes starring William Gillette.</div>
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Saturday, May 30, 3-5 PM</h4>
Price: Free (reservation required)<br /></div>
<div>
The Scowrers and Molly Maguires of San Francisco will host a reception. Join them for some complimentary Italian food and some good conversation. Toasts are especially welcome. No host bar.<br /><br />Please RSVP Cade Deverell at <<a href="mailto:hattydoran221@gmail.com">hattydoran221@gmail.com</a>> by Friday, May 22nd. Reservations are required in order to attend.<br /><br />Location: The Firewood Café, 4248 18th St., San Francisco, CA 94114<br /><a href="https://goo.gl/maps/Cu7iR">Google Maps for The Firewood Café</a><br /><br /> <br /><br /><h4>
Sunday, May 31 at noon</h4>
Fortify yourself with lunch and good company at historic Catch Restaurant just around the corner from the Castro Theater. The group will order off the menu [roughly $14-$20 not counting drinks].<br /><br />Seating limited: if you can join, RSVP Marsha Pollak at <<a href="mailto:mlpollak@icloud.com">mlpollak@icloud.com</a>> by Thursday, May 28.<br /><br />Location: Catch Restaurant, 2362 Market St., San Francisco, CA 94114<br /><a href="https://goo.gl/maps/WnSp7">Google Maps for Catch Restaurant</a><br /><br /> <br /><h3>
Bonus Content</h3>
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If you'd like to learn a bit more about William Gillette, we have <a href="http://www.ihearofsherlock.com/search/label/William%20Gillette#.VUrJ1_lVikr" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">a series of posts about him</a>. Just click through to read more. And if you'd like to hear an interview with Henry Zecher, a biographer of Gillette, <a href="http://ihose.co/ihose34" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">we interviewed him on Episode 34</a>.</div>
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<br /><br /><br /></div>

Sherlockian Activities During the San Francisco Silent Film Festival

"those weekend parties" [SOLI] As you may have heard, the long-lost 1916 William Gillette film Sherlock Holmes was found , re...

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by Scott Monty

The Sherlockian Origins of a Massive Jewel Heist

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"All London was interested, and the fashionable world dismayed" [EMPT] </h4>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4EYedR6AsvRQ7FOyBFJ6bA1xQuCQKOU64Iu7qzaXitenrDX94-pKKNQ2AfPgE9SH3-TYWVBLfF7YO37sKHqQyx76uWgkmKFTY8lKRSXhaaYBfrklTIYRRhkPbrmz-jvgsJkRdI33PxgHy/s1600/Hatton+Garden.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="The Red-Headed League is alive and well" border="0" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4EYedR6AsvRQ7FOyBFJ6bA1xQuCQKOU64Iu7qzaXitenrDX94-pKKNQ2AfPgE9SH3-TYWVBLfF7YO37sKHqQyx76uWgkmKFTY8lKRSXhaaYBfrklTIYRRhkPbrmz-jvgsJkRdI33PxgHy/s1600/Hatton+Garden.jpg" title="Hatton Garden bank" width="640" /></a></div>
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Last month's spectacular diamond robbery in London's Hatton Garden was historic in more ways than one, and, while it's still unclear how much loot the thieves made off with, experts estimate the haul's value may exceed £200 million. No arrests have yet been made, but as police disclose more details of the crime, a sense of déjà vu seems inescapable.<br />
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Hatton Garden Safe Deposit, Ltd., has been a leading secure facility for 60 years in the district which has been the hub of London's gold and diamond trade since medieval times. Yet on April 2, 2015, a six-man team entered the building after hours, rappelled down an elevator shaft into the basement, and drilled a six-foot tunnel into the vault, where they plundered 72 safe deposit boxes before absconding, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/09/europe/london-hatton-garden-heist/" target="_blank">according to DCI Paul Johnson of the Met's Flying Squad</a>.<br />
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<h4>
"very willing to have a holiday" [REDH]</h4>
The thieves struck during the Easter holiday weekend, a stratagem which gave them as long as four days to complete the robbery. According to ex-Flying Squad chief Roy Ramm, the affair had "a sort of old-fashioned audacity about it." Police have confirmed that the gang exited the building, only to return at least once during the long bank holiday weekend before escaping again. Investigators have called the Hatton Garden heist "sophisticated" and suggest that only a few individuals in the UK might be capable of pulling it off.<br />
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For students of the Canon, it's a case of life imitating art: A daring weekend robbery via tunnelling into a secure vault must instantly evoke John Clay's raid on the City and Suburban Bank in Conan Doyle's "The Adventure of the Red-Headed League," a scheme that was foiled by Victorian action heroes Sherlock "Hunting-Crop" Holmes and John "Quick-Draw" Watson.<br />
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Jewelry industry expert James Riley told the BBC that the Easter weekend job was "highly organized and very cleverly masterminded." Indeed it was, in a more profound way than Mr. Riley may realize. For as surely as the Hatton Garden caper was life imitating art, the John Clay gang is art imitating life, in the form of the great Boylston National Bank Robbery of 1869, planned and executed by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Worth" target="_blank">Adam Worth</a>, whom <a href="http://www.vincentstarrett.com/" target="_blank">Vincent Starrett</a> called, "the original of Professor Moriarty."<br />
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<h4>
"the Napoleon of crime" [FINA]</h4>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwtMHwrbb3pEL24Y8dRL6epY4XyTY3xHQ_WJkVHQUclQupT0xy5gM71NtMrwWw2E0o18nPP34orZTc1N_NvD6kLpDUS5YWMKOpfJkAuUCU_wxVZp5sBi8B3NEffxNP1AS8WFStYNu9lOeV/s1600/WorthBankJobNYT11231869.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Original Worth bank robbery article - New York Times" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwtMHwrbb3pEL24Y8dRL6epY4XyTY3xHQ_WJkVHQUclQupT0xy5gM71NtMrwWw2E0o18nPP34orZTc1N_NvD6kLpDUS5YWMKOpfJkAuUCU_wxVZp5sBi8B3NEffxNP1AS8WFStYNu9lOeV/s1600/WorthBankJobNYT11231869.jpg" title="Worth bank robbery article" width="166" /></a></div>
Worth, who rose from pickpocket to international master criminal, had a long career marked by audacity and an aversion to violence; his first big score was the Boylston job. In November of 1869, having chosen the Boylston National Bank in Boston as his target, Worth bought the premises next door and opened a shop selling a patent bitters that he claimed would run all others out of the market. The shop window was filled with bottles, preventing passersby from seeing inside, and a new interior wall was added, reducing the sales floor to a tiny area. One member of Worth's four-man team was always on duty dressed as a clerk, while the other three were in the back, tunnelling into the bank and piling the dirt behind the newly added partition. One week later, on a Saturday, the employees of the New Patent Bitters Co. cracked three safes inside the Boylston bank and made off with nearly one million dollars. Worth took his share to England, where he parlayed it into a criminal empire.<br />
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"Everything comes in circles – even Professor Moriarty," said Sherlock Holmes to Inspector MacDonald in <i>The Valley of Fear</i>. <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The most practical thing that you ever did in your life would be to shut yourself up for three months and read twelve hours a day at the annals of crime."</blockquote>
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To that end, you can learn more about Adam Worth in <i><a href="http://amzn.to/1PpPjgV" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Remarkable Rogues:The Careers of Some Notable Criminals of Europe and America</a></i> by Charles Kingston, and in <i><a href="http://amzn.to/1EYHAVM" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Napoleon of Crime: The Life and Times of Adam Worth, Master Thief</a></i> by Ben Macintyre.<br />
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We would hope that police forces and bankers around the world would do the same.<br />
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--<br />
<br />
<br />

The Sherlockian Origins of a Massive Jewel Heist

"All London was interested, and the fashionable world dismayed" [EMPT] Last month's spectacular diamond robbery in Lond...

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by Tim Greer

Sherlock Holmes and Middle East Conflicts

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<span style="text-align: start;">"All hell was loose in the country" [CROO]</span></h4>
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The year was 1895, and Islamic terrorism was much in the news. <br />
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Long before the 21st-century skirmishes in Iraq and Syria and Yemen, long before the "9/11" attacks in 2001 drew certain kinds of extremism to the attention of most North Americans, there were terrorist incidents and guerrilla battles in parts of the Muslim world, and it will be no surprise that Sherlock Holmes was involved.<br />
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Then as now, events grew from a combination of theological differences, economic forces, tribal rivalry, and resentment of western imperialism. From a western point of view, as Holmes might have read them in <i>The Times</i> any morning in the 1880s or 1890s, events unfolded something like this.<br />
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The Muslims of the Sudan region, south of Egypt, were watching for a messiah. In June 1881, Muhammad Ahmad bin Abd Allah, a boat-builder who traced his ancestry to the prophet Muhammad, announced that he was the man, and quickly proclaimed jihad. Four years later his followers had defeated the Turkish and Egyptian rulers of the region and captured Khartoum. Britain had interests in the area too, and Charles George "Chinese" Gordon — the man whose portrait hung on Watson's wall at 221B Baker Street — led an army to rescue foreigners from Khartoum and, if possible, reestablish order. Instead he was hacked to pieces, and his army turned back, at a battle in January 1885.<br />
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Muhammad Ahmad died a few months later, though not before establishing sharia law in his domain. His right-hand man, Abdallahi ibn Muhammad, succeeded him, with the title of Khalifa, or caliph — a word still used today for the leader of an Islamic state such as ISIS. This must have been the Khalifa whom Holmes visited "at Khartoum" — in effect, behind enemy lines — after his equally daring visit to Mecca, as Holmes narrates his movements in "The Empty House". Abdallahi was eventually defeated in 1898 by forces led by Horatio Kitchener, who would become Britain's great general in the early months of World War I (and whose face was well known from recruitment posters).<br />
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Within this broad narrative there were many incidents to catch the attention of western newspaper readers. Arthur Conan Doyle heard of such things during his own visit to Egypt in 1895. Conflict flared up just then, and ACD got himself appointed "honorary" war correspondent for the <i>Westminster Gazette</i> — an excuse to get as close to the excitement as possible. Later, he turned some events and rumours into the plot for a novella, <i>The Tragedy of the Korosko</i>, published in 1898. <br />
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"There is nothing new under the sun," said Sherlock Holmes. Nothing new about confict between Islamic elements and western state power, at any rate.<br />
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<i>Image credit: <a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_war_in_the_Soudan.jpg" target="_blank">Wikimedia Commons</a></i><br />
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--</div>
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<br /></div>

Sherlock Holmes and Middle East Conflicts

"All hell was loose in the country" [CROO] The year was 1895, and Islamic terrorism was much in the news. Long before the...

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by Chris Redmond

May 4, 1891

<h4 style="text-align: center;">
"It is with a heavy heart that I take up my pen" [FINA]</h4>
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The date of May 4 typically means melancholy for anyone who has read "The Final Problem," the short story in which Sherlock Holmes confronts his archenemy Professor Moriarty (who we've inexplicably never heard of up until this point in the Canon) and both of them tumble off the cliff into the Reichenbach Falls.<br />
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As you may recall, after Holmes appeared in Watson's consulting-room and recounted his interaction with Moriarty, the two fled to the Continent, eventually landing in Switzerland:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
It was upon the 3rd of May that we reached the little village of Meiringen, where we put up at the Englischer Hof, then kept by Peter Steiler the elder. Our landlord was an intelligent man, and spoke excellent English, having served for three years as waiter at the Grosvenor Hotel in London. At his advice, upon the afternoon of the 4th we set off together with the intention of crossing the hills and spending the night at the hamlet of Rosenlaui. We had strict injunctions, however, on no account to pass the falls of Reichenbach, which are about half-way up the hill, without making a small d‚tour to see them.</blockquote>
It was here that Conan Doyle chose the final resting place for Sherlock Holmes - a rest that was intended to be eternal but that we now know lasted nearly a decade. The description of the Reichenbach Falls is a fitting one for the epic struggle of good versus evil that took place later in the story:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
It is, indeed, a fearful place. The torrent, swollen by the melting snow, plunges into a tremendous abyss, from which the spray rolls up like the smoke from a burning house. The shaft into which the river hurls itself is an immense chasm, lined by glistening, coal-black rock, and narrowing into a creaming, boiling pit of incalculable depth, which brims over and shoots the stream onward over its jagged lip. The long sweep of green water roaring for ever down, and the thick flickering curtain of spray hissing for ever upwards, turn a man giddy with their constant whirl and clamour. We stood near the edge peering down at the gleam of the breaking water far below us against the black rocks, and listening to the half-human shout which came booming up with the spray out of the abyss.</blockquote>
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And after Watson was lured back to the Englischer Hof with the story of a patient in need (good old Watson!), he returned to the falls to find a note from Sherlock Holmes along with his alpenstock and silver cigarette case. He was led to conclude that that inevitable happened:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
An examination by experts leaves little doubt that a personal contest between the two men ended, as it could hardly fail to end in such a situation, in their reeling over, locked in each other's arms. Any attempt at recovering the bodies was absolutely hopeless, and there, deep down in that dreadful cauldron of swirling water and seething foam, will lie for all time the most dangerous criminal and the foremost champion of the law of their generation.</blockquote>
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But aside from the colorful descriptions of both the setting and the action, this story above many others shows Watson's emotional side. Over the course of two short years, readers had gotten to know Holmes and Watson through 12 stories that made up <i>The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes</i> and 11 stories that comprised <i>The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes</i> (as well as the previously published <i>A Study in Scarlet</i> and <i>The Sign of Four</i>). That's less than half of what would eventually become the entire Canon of 60 stories - stories that would be published over the course of the following 35 or so years.<br />
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For Watson as well as for the readers, that's an intense run of stories - tales which fill us with wonder as we've been learning about the habits, eccentricities, limits and capabilities of the most intriguing detective that the world has ever known. Is it any wonder then that his sudden and tragic loss affected us so deeply?<br />
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Watson opens the story with the fateful line, "It is with a heavy heart that I take up my pen to write these the last words in which I shall ever record the singular gifts by which my friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes was distinguished." We'll never forget reading that line for the first time and feeling a little stab in the gut. The modern equivalent would be exclaiming, "Wait, <b><i>what</i></b>?"<br />
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He went on to describe how the scene affected him: "It was the sight of that alpenstock which turned me cold and sick...I stood for a minute or two to collect myself, for I was dazed with the horror of the thing."<br />
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Even Holmes understood how his untimely departure would affect his friend, writing in his farewell note, "I fear that it is at a cost which will give pain to my friends, and especially, my dear Watson, to you."<br />
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The pain was palpable to readers at the time. There is an apocryphal legend that grown men in London wore black armbands in a demonstration of mourning. We have yet to see any definitive evidence of this occurrence (and the <i><a href="http://bakerstreetjournal.com/" target="_blank">Baker Street Journal</a></i> once offered a bounty for anyone who could prove it). But it rings true to the spirit of what happened at the time, which was an outpouring of grief over the loss of a literary character. Letters flowed to <i>The Strand Magazine</i> and to Arthur Conan Doyle himself, one even beginning "You brute!"<br />
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At least modern readers don't have to wait eight years for Holmes to reappear in <i>The Hound of the Baskervilles</i> or ten years for the first of the stories that would make up <i>The Return of Sherlock Holmes</i>. Can you imagine what it must have been like to have to put Holmes to rest in one's mind and to blindly wait to see if he would ever reappear?<br />
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We're fortunate that the public outcry (and, let's face it, a hefty payday) convinced Sir Arthur to take up his pen once more to provide us with such rich and wonderful stories to fill our desires, fuel our imagination and enrich our friendships. While May 4 may seem one for us to mourn, we're fortunate that, as Watson observed upon Holmes's return in "The Empty House,"<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
...once again Mr. Sherlock Holmes is free to devote his life to examining those interesting little problems which the complex life of London so plentifully presents.</blockquote>
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<br />
--<br />
<br />

May 4, 1891

"It is with a heavy heart that I take up my pen" [FINA] The date of May 4 typically means melancholy for anyone who has rea...

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by Scott Monty

Oldest Footage of London Includes Sherlock Holmes Sites

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"he had lit the oldest" [SHOS]</h4>
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Recently on our Facebook page, we shared an old post in honor of #TBT (Throwback Thursday). The 1927 footage of London in full color was really something to behold, as we're used to only seeing black and white images and early footage from that era.<br />
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Now, thanks to author Dana Cameron (<a href="https://twitter.com/danacmrn" target="_blank">@danacmrn</a> on Twitter), we discovered more film from London of Sherlock Holmes's time - only in this case, it's the oldest known footage of that venerable city that Watson called "that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained." [STUD]<br />
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Have a look at the video of <a href="https://youtu.be/O_me3NrPMh8" target="_blank">the oldest footage of London ever</a>, which chronicles three decades from 1890 through 1920, and join us after the break below to see exactly where the footage intersects with the Sherlock Holmes tales.<br />
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<h4>
Westminster</h4>
Westminster is featured in a number of the stories, which makes sense as it is the spiritual heart of London, with its Jacobean Houses of Parliament and Clock Tower (more commonly, if erroneously, referred to as Big Ben).  In <i>The Sign of Four</i>, Sherlock Holmes requested transportation originating from the area:<br />
"Well, then, in the first place I shall want a fast police-boat - a steam-launch - to be at the WestminsterStairs at seven o'clock."<br />
In "The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax," it was a different form of transportation, shared with the Hon. Philip Green that put Holmes and Watson in the vicinity: "as we drove swiftly past the Houses of Parliament and over Westminster Bridge."<br />
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But the story most closely associated with Westminster is "The Second Stain," in which newspaper headlines bleated "MURDER IN WESTMINSTER" regarding the death of Eduardo Lucas in Godolphin Street. Number 16 Godolphin Street was described as being part of<br />
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one of the old-fashioned and secluded rows of eighteenth-century houses which lie between the river and the Abbey, almost in the shadow of the great tower of the Houses of Parliament."</blockquote>
After digesting the news from the Prime Minister and European Secretary and linking it to the Godolphin Street murder (even though it was an extraordinary coincidence), Holmes said, "Put on your hat, Watson, and we will stroll down together to Westminster."<br />
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And it didn't escape us that that the Houses of Parliament were the primary visual cue in the title card of the 1988 comedy <i>Without a Clue</i>, starring Michael Caine and Ben Kingsley.<br />
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<h4>
Embankment</h4>
There is only one mention of Embankment in the Canon, and that is around the death of John Openshaw in "The Five Orange Pips." When Openshaw's body was discovered near the Waterloo Bridge, Sherlock Holmes wondered, "How could they have decoyed him down there? The Embankment is not on the direct line to the station."<br />
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The footage above at 2:13 shows Blackfriar Bridge in 1896. As the pedestrians pass, one can picture Holmes and Watson strolling along the same path at one point.<br />
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<h4>
St. Paul's Cathedral</h4>
There is but one mention of St. Paul's, and once again, as with nearly all of the river scenery, we return to SIGN:<br />
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"As we passed the City, the last rays of the sun were gilding the cross upon the summit of St. Paul's. It was twilight before we reached the Tower." </blockquote>
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<h4>
Tower Bridge and the Tower of London</h4>
Aside from the Houses of Parliament, there can be no better pieces of architecture that visually symbolize Victorian London. Of course, one had its beginnings in medieval times and the other was a more modern edifice. And it was at the older of the two where Holmes suggested anchoring the police launch while waiting for the <i>Aurora</i> to show itself in SIGN:<br />
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"Where to?" asked Jones.<br />
"To the Tower. Tell them to stop opposite to Jacobson's Yard."</blockquote>
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<h4>
The City</h4>
"The City" - also known as the "Square Mile" - is technically a county that denotes where the original Roman settlement was, and where the financial district lies. A number of Canonical characters had business in the City:<br />
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<ul>
<li>Jabez Wilson had "a small pawnbroker's business at Coburg Square, near the City." [REDH]</li>
<li>Holmes had to write to two establishments regarding Mr. Windibank, "One is to a firm in the City" [IDEN]</li>
<li>Just prior to discovering the fate of young Openshaw, Sherlock Holmes determined that rather than going to Horsham, "I shall commence with the City." [FIVE]</li>
<li>Much of the goings on of Neville St. Claire involved the financial district, as his "dear wife knew that I had business in the City." Of course, she wasn't aware it was "an opium den in the furthest east of the City," nor did she know about Hugh Boone's "hideous face ... which is familiar to every man who goes much to the City." [TWIS]</li>
<li>When dealing with stockbrokers, it would be a considerable surprise if the action didn't take place in the financial district. "Mawson and Williams', the great stockbroking firm in Lombard Street" puts is in the heart of it. And when being flattered by Arthur Pinner, Hall Pycroft, "a smart, young City man," admitted "I had never dreamed that I was talked about in the City in this fashion." [STOC]</li>
<li>Jonas Oldacre sought the legal services of John Hector McFarlane in making up his will in advance of his nefarious plan. McFarlane described their first meeting: "I was very much surprised, therefore, when yesterday, about three o'clock in the afternoon, he walked into my office in the City." [NORW]</li>
</ul>
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The video also shows the Bank of England, and the counterfeiter James Winter (alias John Garrideb, alias Morecroft, alias Killer Evans) reminisced about the skill of his partner, "No living man could tell a Prescott from a Bank of England." [3GAR]<br />
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<h4>
Fleet Street and The Strand</h4>
Beginning with the series of stories that became <i>The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes</i> and extending through the rest of the Canon, the <i>Strand Magazine</i> was the main publication that brought Sherlock Holmes to the public.<br />
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When Holmes and Watson took their after-dinner walk in "The Resident Patient," they walked through this very neighborhood. "For three hours we strolled about together, watching the ever-changing kaleidoscope of life as it ebbs and flows through Fleet Street and the Strand."<br />
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Fleet Street was the site of the Red-Headed League, as advertised in the newspaper: "Apply in person on Monday, at eleven o'clock, to Duncan Ross, at the offices of the League, 7, Pope's Court, Fleet Street." [REDH]<br />
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Watson first had rooms in the Strand [STUD] and Henry Baskerville bought his boots there - one of which went missing before mysteriously turned up again [HOUN]. And Holmes instructed Watson very specifically in "The Final Problem":<br />
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In the morning you will send for a hansom, desiring your man to take neither the first nor the second which may present itself. Into this hansom you will jump, and you will drive to the Strand end of the Lowther Arcade, handing the address to the cabman upon a slip of paper, with a request that he will not throw it away.</blockquote>
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And Holmes and Watson met for dinner at Simpsons, where they could be found "sitting at a small table in the front window, and looking down at the rushing stream of life in the Strand." [ILLU]<br />
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<h4>
The West End</h4>
Known today for the theatre and tourist attractions, the West End figures into just a handful of stories - although one of them is critical.<br />
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<ul>
<li>Holmes mentioned having been to "the other side of the West End" after leaving Baker Street with a rude meal in his pocket. [BERY]</li>
<li>Violet Hunter spoke of her job-hunting efforts: "There is a well-known agency for governesses in the West End called Westaway's, and there I used to call about once a week in order to see whether anything had turned up which might suit me." [COPP]</li>
<li>Spies - including Oberstein - were said to have residences in the West End [SECO, BRUC]</li>
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But perhaps one of the most significant locations in the Canon was located in the West End: the Criterion Bar (now the <a href="http://criterionrestaurant.com/" target="_blank">Criterion Restaurant</a>) in Picadilly Circus, where Watson "was standing at the Criterion Bar, when someone tapped me on the shoulder, and turning round I recognized young Stamford," [STUD] who then led him to meet Sherlock Holmes. If you visit the Criterion today, you can see the meeting memorialized.<br />
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<h4>
Charing Cross and Trafalgar Square</h4>
Also one of the most popular destinations today, Trafalgar Square is at the intersection of roads leading to the Strand and Whitehall, with the National Gallery on one side of the square, St. Martin-in-the-Fields on another, and the <a href="http://www.sherlockholmespub.com/" target="_blank">Sherlock Holmes Pub</a> not very far way on Northumberland Street - which, incidentally used to the be the Northumberland Hotel (where Sir Henry Baskerville stayed) and later the Northumberland Arms.<br />
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The cabman that trailed Sir Henry to Baker Street told Holmes about his fare: "He hailed me at half-past nine in Trafalgar Square. He said that he was a detective, and he offered me two guineas if I would do exactly what he wanted all day and ask no questions." [HOUN]<br />
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When Holmes heard of Lestrade's wild goose chase after Hatty St. Simon, he jokingly asked, "Have you also dragged the basin of the Trafalgar Square fountain?" [NOBL]<br />
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<h4>
St. James and Buckingham Palace</h4>
In the video, we see the Crimean War Memorial, a monument to those British soldiers who lost their lives in supporting the Ottoman Empire against Russia. The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_War" target="_blank">Crimean War</a> warranted a few mentions in the Canon:<br />
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<ul>
<li>Trevor Senior recalled his time as a convicted criminal: "It was the year '55, when the Crimean War was at its height, and the old convict ships had been largely used as transports in the Black Sea." [GLOR]</li>
<li>The Royal Munsters were given an alias but their heritage was acknowledged: "The Royal Mallows is, as you know, one of the most famous Irish regiments in the British Army. It did wonders both in the Crimea and the Mutiny" [CROO]</li>
<li>Interestingly, one of the household tasked with watching over the Russian Professor Coram was on the opposing side during the war: "Mortimer the gardener, who wheels the bath-chair, is an Army pensioner - an old Crimean man of excellent character." [GOLD]</li>
</ul>
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While there is no mention of Buckingham Palace in the Canon, there is the Victoria Memorial and we do know that Holmes "spent a day at Windsor, whence he returned with a remarkably fine emerald tie-pin" which was "a present from a certain gracious lady in whose interests he had once been fortunate enough to carry out a small commission." [BRUC]<br />
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<h4>
Hyde Park</h4>
The largest park in London would seem to be a natural place for action in the Canon. However, the only reference to Hyde Park in the stories was in "The Noble Bachelor" when Lady St. Simon "was afterwards seen walking into Hyde Park in company with Flora Millar," and Lestrade later began "dragging the Serpentine" in his search for her.<br />
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It's fascinating to see the London of then and now, and to note that much of the pedestrian and vehicular traffic patterns haven't changed and that even after the Blitz, many of the historic structures remain. One thing did strike us in some of the old footage: London's legendary fog was present and even obscured some of the landscape.<br />
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Oldest Footage of London Includes Sherlock Holmes Sites

"he had lit the oldest" [SHOS] Recently on our Facebook page, we shared an old post in honor of #TBT (Throwback Thursday). Th...

+ Read more »

by Scott Monty

The Lighter Side of Sherlock Holmes: An Interview with Glenn Schatell

<h4 style="text-align: center;">
"which drew good humour" [VALL]</h4>
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Humorists have been taking stabs at Sherlock Holmes since about the same time as Doyle started writing his detective stories.  The first parody was probably anonymously penned by J.M.Barrie in 1891.  Since then, authors and artists have had a grand time making the great detective a bumbling fool or the butt end of a joke.  One of the most talented Holmes comedians was Norman Schatell, BSI ("Jonathan Small"), a cartoonist whose Holmes parodies were published in Sherlockian publications during the 1970s, such as <i><a href="http://bakerstreetjournal.com/" target="_blank">The Baker Street Journal</a></i> and <i><a href="http://www.sherlock-holmes.org.uk/category/journal/" target="_blank">The Sherlock Holmes Journal</a></i>. Schatell had a knack for creating jokes that only lovers of the original canon could get, such as having a doctor complain that Watson's delirious because he can't decide if his injury is in his arm or his leg. <br />
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Fortunately for those who enjoy a dose of humor with their Holmes, all of Norm Schatell's Sherlockian  pieces have been collected by his son, Glenn, in the book <i><a href="http://amzn.to/1DPhTD4" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Lighter Side of Sherlock Holmes</a></i>.  I had the opportunity to interview Glenn Schatell via e-mail and discover what drove his dad to make funny drawings of the world's greatest detective. <br />
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<h4>
<b>IHOSE: Your father is one of the best known Holmes humor cartoonists.  What inspired him to combine the detective with cartoons?</b></h4>
<b>Glenn Schatell:</b>  My father loved mystery books, especially English ones.  At the very beginning of Jon Lellenberg's introduction to the book, Jon mentions that when my Dad was 17, and still in high school, he asked the famous Sherlockian, Howard Haycraft, about someday becoming a Baker Street Irregular.  Eventually, my Dad's dream came true!<br />
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My father had a great sense of humor.  I've been told that my Dad's father, my Grandpa Nat, used to draw cartoons for my Dad when he was a child.  Grandpa Nat, who was a senior Internal Revenue Agent, and a local Union City, New Jersey, politician, was renowned for his sense of humor and often was asked by civic organizations to do humorous toasts.<br />
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My Dad was primarily a teacher.  He taught art at Union Hill High School in Union City for 25 years.  He also taught adults and children.  What he mainly taught students was "creativity".  My Dad really enjoyed drawing cartoons although he also did absolutely terrific realistic paintings,watercolors, abstract artwork, pen and ink drawings, murals, sculpture, and greeting cards.  However, he basically gave all of his artwork away for free, to his friends and relatives, and especially to his Sherlockian friends.<br />
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<h4>
<b>IHOSE:  How did you decide to organize this book?</b></h4>
<b>GS: </b>My wife, Gail Tavlin Schatell, was a great help in organizing the book.  We decided to begin the book with more precise cartoons my father did for Sherlock Holmes magazines, such as The Baker Street Journal.  Following that section is a series of cartoons that were originally drawn on legal-sized paper.  At the bottom of each page my father provides detailed information about where in the stories he found the idea for the cartoon.  The following section is what I call "rough sketches". These are "quick drawings" done primarily in pencil.  Following that section are 5 pages with a total of 60 cartoons (12 per page), which my father gave out as a Christmas gift to attendees at a Baker Street Irregulars dinner in the late 1970s.<br />
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Sections that follow include three "Sherlock Holmes through Literature" cartoons, the Arts and Crafts Sherlock Holmes (my father used to teach arts and crafts to children), and a section with photographs (including photographs of Sherlockian sculpture my father did, a picture of my Dad and his friend Irving Kamil, and prizes he did for Mrs. Hudson's Cliffdwellers meetings, the scion he helped found). Next is a series of illustrations he drew in a Pablo Picasso style, drawings he did for various Sherlockian events, and Sherlockian stationery, including stationery (one-page) he drew for The Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes.<br />
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The next main section my father called "The Anthropological Holmes", a series of humorous illustrations he drew about Sherlock Holmes in different cultures from around the world.  It is followed by a serious of envelopes he illustrated with cartoons on the cover, which he sent to some of his friends, including John Bennett Shaw and Peter Blau.   (Peter is the Sherlockian who told me about MX Publishing.  He also runs "The Red Circle", the Washington, D.C. area scion, to which I belong).  On the book's last page, I decided to include a photograph of my father's Baker Street Irregulars investiture award.  He was given the name "Jonathan Small".  This was meant as a joke.  My Dad was almost 6 feet, 4 inches tall.<br />
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<h4>
<b>IHOSE:  Who were your father's main artistic influences?</b></h4>
<b>GS: </b>I previously mentioned that my Grandpa Nat liked to draw cartoons for my Dad.  His mother, my Grandma Eva, was also interested in art.  My father studied art at New York University, and received a master's degree in art education from Hunter College in New York City.  He always enjoyed going to school.  He would go to many museum shows in Manhattan, and visited countless art galleries.  He would often talk to many of the artists he met at art gallery shows.  My father was familiar with practically every well-known artist, and was especially fond of Pablo Picasso.<br />
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<h4>
<b>IHOSE:  Are you planning any more collections of your father's artwork?</b></h4>
<b>GS:</b> I am not planning on any more collections of my father's Sherlock Holmes artwork.  I included every Sherlock Holmes cartoon and humorous illustration I could find in this book.  However, when I have time, I would love to try to have a museum show of my Dad's non-Sherlockian artwork, which is of museum quality.<br />
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<b>IHOSE:  Is there any additional information you'd like our readers to know?</b></h4>
<b>GS:</b> I donated my half of my father's Sherlock Holmes artwork, which my mother, Diana Schatell, gave me, to The University of Minnesota Library several years ago.  (My sister, Amy (Shea) Schatell decided to keep her half of the artwork for our family; however, I gave photocopies of what she kept to the Library.)  Julie McKuras, the editor of the Library's Sherlockian newsletter <a href="https://www.lib.umn.edu/scrbm/holmes/friends-newsletters" target="_blank">The Friends of The Sherlock Holmes Collections</a>, intends to write an article about the book in the June 2015 edition.  <a href="http://sherlockholmesexhibition.com/" target="_blank">The International Exhibition of Sherlock Holmes</a> is now selling the book at its gift shop.  This travelling exhibition is currently at The Perot Museum in Dallas, Texas. Over the last few years, Steven Rothman, the editor of <i>The Baker Street Journal</i>, has been printing my Dad's cartoons in this quarterly publication.<br />
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My father wasn't just the leading Sherlock Holmes artist of the 1970s.  He was also a major collector of Sherlockian material.  He collected everything he could find about Sherlock Holmes, such as movie posters, radio scripts, Sherlock Holmes games and toys, and every edition of <i>The Hound of the Baskervilles</i> he could find (including foreign versions).  I couldn't possibly mention all the types of collectibles he acquired in this e-mail.  He also bought original copies of the <i>Strand Magazine</i>, and purchased a series of letters that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and William Gillette exchanged when the actor was writing the play "Sherlock Holmes".  My mother gave some of the material my father collected to The University of Minnesota Library, but sold the letters, and many of the Sherlockian books my Dad bought, to a Japanese collector.<br />
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My father also drew about 300 cartoons when he was in the United States Navy during World War II. They are mainly about Navy life in Australia, the Philippines, and Hawaii.  They're very funny!  I donated them to The Library of Congress (Veterans History Project) a number of years ago.  You can <a href="http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/vhp/story/loc.natlib.afc2001001.65697/artworks" target="_blank">see a sample on-line</a>.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilxZY_SoSfri8nwhiOs29YbQ-8CpFYjsbqwHYcyW6tf0deaedIzU6PkHbBYDxm8HcskIErnQCGajuiAskeDNSmSeW_m-D-b-EBQdPeYafKiPkJ5wTmtIaesvWiLlW08KDyUP7ciuXE2h3y/s1600/Schatell+LoC+image.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilxZY_SoSfri8nwhiOs29YbQ-8CpFYjsbqwHYcyW6tf0deaedIzU6PkHbBYDxm8HcskIErnQCGajuiAskeDNSmSeW_m-D-b-EBQdPeYafKiPkJ5wTmtIaesvWiLlW08KDyUP7ciuXE2h3y/s1600/Schatell+LoC+image.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Click to enlarge</i></td></tr>
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In the early 1950s, my father briefly worked on "The Popeye" television series.  He also illustrated a very funny book called "How to Curse in Yiddish".   Quite a few of my Dad's cartoons were printed as greeting cards by "The Murder Ink" book store in Manhattan.  I would like to re-issue them some day.<br />
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My father would have been happy knowing that a new generation of readers is enjoying the artwork in his book.<br />
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For more about Norman Schatell and his artwork, see <a href="http://lightsidesherlockholmes.tumblr.com/" target="_blank">The Lighter Side of Sherlock Holmes</a> on Tumblr.<br />
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<span style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="http://amzn.to/1DPhTD4" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkD_VzdhJX9mHdhsKEmR8fRHpF1yPJ-9_mz3pV79TdPRZa3P2LKog3AN4b7YF_5_HOysOjcsxb5axIXIvTF8WbM1fjGV5dkn6jj2P24NUuoFqVue2LcVJG9l7Ts0snc16J62O5fxFlvFgK/s1600/Lighter+side+of+Sherlock+Holmes.jpg" width="131" /></a></span></div>
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The Lighter Side of Sherlock Holmes: An Interview with Glenn Schatell

"which drew good humour" [VALL] Humorists have been taking stabs at Sherlock Holmes since about the same time as Doyle s...

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by Belanger Books

Exercise in the Sherlock Holmes Stories

<h4 style="text-align: center;">
"flushed with the exercise" [STUD]</h4>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvnmh4X-ZRKVoLFjlVPnMGeOo_m1JsnouDHmnkRVsruA4vSaYNoPzXqZkq4860-OuHII02Kp-dwADgvOmYlgSPgvg9QheTf9ktj7SF1ihERh_Ghnt6bOfffdh-c6Nh0qOa8jLoK3Vj7SJv/s1600/Resident+Patient+-+Sidney+Paget.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvnmh4X-ZRKVoLFjlVPnMGeOo_m1JsnouDHmnkRVsruA4vSaYNoPzXqZkq4860-OuHII02Kp-dwADgvOmYlgSPgvg9QheTf9ktj7SF1ihERh_Ghnt6bOfffdh-c6Nh0qOa8jLoK3Vj7SJv/s1600/Resident+Patient+-+Sidney+Paget.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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We recently saw <a href="https://twitter.com/EditorBrooke/status/590140485198446594" target="_blank">a tweet</a> from a listener that caught our attention. Brooke Hall (<a href="https://twitter.com/EditorBrooke" target="_blank">@EditorBrooke</a>) indicated that the <a href="http://www.ihearofsherlock.com/p/show-archives.html#.VTkzsiFViko" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere audio program</a> was part of her workout routine:</div>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
Morning workout, listening to <a href="https://twitter.com/IHearofSherlock">@IHearofSherlock</a>.<br />
— Brooke Hall (@EditorBrooke) <a href="https://twitter.com/EditorBrooke/status/590140485198446594">April 20, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script><br /></div>
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Of course we were pleased to know that our show is interesting enough to distract someone from the pain she's putting her body through. But it also got us to thinking about physical fitness and exercise in the Canon.<br />
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<h3>
Sherlock Holmes, uninterested exerciser</h3>
When Watson first met Holmes in <i>A Study in Scarlet</i>, one of his observations was on the latter's physical characteristics:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
His very person and appearance were such as to strike the attention of the most casual observer. In height he was rather over six feet, and so excessively lean that he seemed to be considerably taller.</blockquote>
Watson himself must have been in good shape when in the army, but after spending many months recuperating, it's not surprising that Stamford thought he looked "as thin as a lath". [STUD]<br />
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While Holmes occasionally forgot about eating [FIVE] or even asked for dinner to be significantly delayed ("Seven-thirty, the day after tomorrow" [MAZA]), what do we know of his exercise habits?<br />
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We're told that <b>"Sherlock Holmes was a man who seldom took exercise for exercise's sake."</b> [YELL] However, Watson goes on to describe his friend's capabilities:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Few men were capable of greater muscular effort, and he was undoubtedly one of the finest boxers of his weight that I have ever seen, but he looked upon aimless bodily exertion as a waste of energy, and he seldom bestirred himself save where there was some professional object to be served. Then he was absolutely untiring and indefatigable. That he should have kept himself in training under such circumstances is remarkable, but his diet was usually of the sparest, and his habits were simple to the verge of austerity.</blockquote>
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In "The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist" Holmes does indeed put his boxing skills to use, sending Mr. Woodley home in a cart. But he lamented, <b>"I get so little active exercise that it is always a treat"</b>.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhgWWSeD1Tm9O19XX5fqwpSFVPzV5XCCL4LBKg9FIwnLcLCLwX_I4iAn6vVk1MmiBWyQW28Q7m40tMw7kpDfki9-aG4UB_qHDIx3h5B6BVEtToYgZUtG9zpDDaPA66_Q4Nx77zlLCTayCX/s1600/Sherlock+Holmes,+Boxer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhgWWSeD1Tm9O19XX5fqwpSFVPzV5XCCL4LBKg9FIwnLcLCLwX_I4iAn6vVk1MmiBWyQW28Q7m40tMw7kpDfki9-aG4UB_qHDIx3h5B6BVEtToYgZUtG9zpDDaPA66_Q4Nx77zlLCTayCX/s1600/Sherlock+Holmes,+Boxer.jpg" /></a></div>
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Holmes put that muscular effort to work in "The Adventure of Black Peter":<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
There can be no question, my dear Watson, of the value of exercise before breakfast. But I am prepared to bet that you will not guess the form that my exercise has taken."</blockquote>
In this case, the exercise took the form of trying to spear a dead pig hanging from a hook in the ceiling at Allardyce's butcher shop.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr8mxgXCiWdJuLxfvzNmtC4xp4ABc6ooVt8pYt4TmNXkGSN1eHEW2Efco9lLDfLtJYrRxpb9j8Zo7SXOziyJ32GftclIEGK1DH6bxbbpplM53fGvUwvIv-spDi5r2xaXH-DslbA3FVRtsV/s1600/Black+Peter+-+Holmes+and+the+harpoon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Holmes returns from the butcher shop, with nary a steak nor a pork chop." border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr8mxgXCiWdJuLxfvzNmtC4xp4ABc6ooVt8pYt4TmNXkGSN1eHEW2Efco9lLDfLtJYrRxpb9j8Zo7SXOziyJ32GftclIEGK1DH6bxbbpplM53fGvUwvIv-spDi5r2xaXH-DslbA3FVRtsV/s1600/Black+Peter+-+Holmes+and+the+harpoon.jpg" title="Sherlock Holmes returns with a harpoon in "Black Peter"" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Pork chops again?"</td></tr>
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We also see Sherlock Holmes going at it when a professional object was served, such as in "The Adventure of the Three Students":<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Aha! It is not for nothing that I have turned myself out of bed at the untimely hour of six. I have put in two hours' hard work and covered at least five miles, with something to show for it."</blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white;">In "The Resident Patient," Holmes became tired of the sitting room at Baker Street and asked Watson to join him in <b>"a ramble through London,"</b> which then turned into a three-hour walk. Upon returning, they found a new client in Dr. Trevelyan, who told them of Mr. Blessington, who himself took a <b>"</b></span><b>short walk which had usually been the prelude to his dinner."</b><br />
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<h3>
Unfit to exercise</h3>
While Sherlock Holmes was capable of spurts of exercise, there were others in the Canon who were, shall we say, less than physically fit. Occasionally, Holmes and Watson had clients or engaged with other characters who displayed the hallmarks of those not accustomed to physical activity.<br />
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In "The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet," Alexander Holder ran down Baker Street <b>"puffing and blowing"</b> and explained his actions to Holmes and Watson thusly: "That is why I was so out of breath, for <b>I am a man who takes very little exercise."</b><br />
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While his advanced age may be an excuse for lack of exercise presently, Nathan Garrideb's posture gave us a clue to a lifetime of habit in "The Adventure of the Three Garridebs":<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Mr. Nathan Garrideb proved to be a very tall, loose-jointed, round-backed person, gaunt and bald, some sixty-odd years of age. He had a cadaverous face, with the dull dead skin of a man to whom exercise was unknown.</blockquote>
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<b>Others worth mentioning:</b><br />
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<ul>
<li>Jabez Wilson was referred to as "portly" and obese" by Watson. [REDH]</li>
<li>Henry Baker, the forlorn goose owner, was said to be "out of training entirely" as his hat bore "the marks of moisture upon the inside are proof positive that the wearer perspired very freely, and could, therefore, hardly be in the best of training." [BLUE]</li>
<li>Jephro Rucastle was described as <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, Verdana;"> "</span>A prodigiously stout man with a very smiling face, and a great heavy chin which rolled down in fold upon fold over his throat," who had "fat hands".  [COPP]</li>
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<h3>
He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother</h3>
A little closer to home, Sherlock Holmes's brother was certainly no fan of exercise, as his habits indicated:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Mycroft lodges in Pall Mall, and he walks round the corner into Whitehall every morning and back every evening. From year's end to year's end he takes no other exercise, and is seen nowhere else, except only in the Diogenes Club, which is just opposite his rooms." [GREE]</blockquote>
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His appearance also backed up this assertion, as Watson noted Mycroft's "broad, fat hand, like the flipper of a seal."</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPz4V05OqeSN0DWSGqvKgeGuZxqYrm4GlcOavbJlA0AxDfnTzthXX7se5h4CwxuiM5mXjJG1338rvcQlnjiFKqvM3CZU7C5hhgvXn0Otsx_ItcAf910WWn8qYiJfhXC6tC9rJyapW8-wvp/s1600/Mycroft+Holmes+in+The+Greek+Interpreter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPz4V05OqeSN0DWSGqvKgeGuZxqYrm4GlcOavbJlA0AxDfnTzthXX7se5h4CwxuiM5mXjJG1338rvcQlnjiFKqvM3CZU7C5hhgvXn0Otsx_ItcAf910WWn8qYiJfhXC6tC9rJyapW8-wvp/s1600/Mycroft+Holmes+in+The+Greek+Interpreter.jpg" width="232" /></a></div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Mycroft Holmes was a much larger and stouter man than Sherlock. His body was absolutely corpulent, but his face, though massive, had preserved something of the sharpness of expression which was so remarkable in that of his brother.</blockquote>
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So there you have it. Are there other characters in the Canon with whom you associate exercise (or lack thereof)? Let us know in a comment.</div>
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