Recently in Sherlockiana Category

The final Harry Potter book is due out soon. Not that I'll read it; I haven't read any of them. I'm sure they're fine books for young people. And I've encouraged both my kids to read them. But I'm no longer much into witches, wizards, magic, and demons.

What I do find interesting about the hype surrounding this final HP book is the speculation that old Harry bites the dust. I've seen a few articles about it: Rowling claims this is the last book and won't rule out Harry's death, petitions not to kill Harry are circulating in book stores, children are already crying to their parents, "But she wouldn't kill Harry, would she?"

To which, all I can say is déjà vu, déjà vu, déjà vu.

In 1893, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had grown weary of cranking out the exploits of Sherlock Holmes. Doyle actually resented Holmes because he felt his other works were better, that the public should be reading those, and that Holmes was sapping his literary creativity. So in a fit of pique, Doyle killed off Holmes in that famous hand-to-hand struggle with Professor Moriarty high above Switzerland's Reichenbach Falls. As recounted in The Final Problem, Doyle sent them both plunging into the maelstrom locked in each others arms, battling till the last. All Watson found was a note and a few of Holmes' personal effects. The note was calm; Holmes' handwriting firm and strong: "Rest easy Watson, for I have defeated the Napoleon of Crime."

The furor was immediate and immense.

Grown men wore black armbands. Newspapers headlined the news that Holmes was dead. People went into mourning. Oprah devoted a whole show to the event. Geraldo demanded a full accounting. And for Doyle, it was completely unexpected.

Eight years went by. Then in 1901, The Hound of the Baskervilles came out, though the events in the story predate Reichenbach. The public, not satisfied with a posthumous Holmes, demanded more. So in 1903, in The Adventure of the Empty House, Holmes returned.

Doyle had to concoct an almost hokey explanation for the deception and how Holmes extricated himself from certain doom. "Baritsu" he claimed drolly to Watson.

Homesians call this extended absence "The Great Hiatus."

In reality Doyle wanted the money. The Holmes franchise created a fortune for Doyle. The magazines paid him by the word. Some of his later stories can only be charitably called not his best effort. Doyle raked it in.

So my guess is that Potter will die, venture off into some literary limbo, and then like Holmes (or perhaps, more properly, Gandalf) return from his hiatus refreshed, invigorated, and grown. The clamor for more will be too much for Rowling. The potential for another fortune too great. The only question is:

How long can she wait?
K-

Because I've got nothing better and there is nothing better, 10 Holmesian aphorisms on 10 August:

1. "Come, Watson, come! The game is afoot." (Abbey Grange)
2. "I have made a small study of tattoo marks and have even contributed to the literature of the subject." (Red Headed League)
3. "How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?" (The Sign of Four)
4. "You see, but you do not observe." (A Scandal in Bohemia)
5. "My mind is like a racing engine, tearing itself to pieces because it was not connected up with the work for which it was built." (Wisteria Lodge)
6. "Come at once if convenient - if inconvenient come all the same." (Telegram to Watson - Creeping Man)
7. "Is there any other point to which you wish to draw my attention?"
"To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time."
"The dog did nothing in the night-time."
"That is the curious incident." (Holmes and Inspector Gregory - Silver Blaze)
8. "It is a capital mistake to theorize in advance of the facts." (Second Stain)
9. "There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact." (The Boscombe Valley Mystery)
10. "To a great mind, nothing is little." (A Study in Scarlet)

And finally in case you didn't know:

Sherlock Holmes was, as I expected, lounging about his sitting-room in his dressing-gown, reading the agony column of The Times and smoking his before-breakfast pipe, which was composed of all the plugs and dottles left from his smokes of the day before, all carefully dried and collected on the corner of the mantlepiece. (The Engineer's Thumb)

Have you hugged your Canon today?
K-

The Google logo from today:

What would Holmes have thought of Google?
K-

Was it Christmas 1970? Or was it my 16th birthday? It matters not - they're the same day.

I receive a present, a book, given to me by my father. Why he chose this book I don't know. It wasn't a bestseller at the time. There's nothing flashy about it, nothing spectacular. In fact, most people would likely find this book daunting: a standard-sized hardcover with 1,122 pages of close-set type, no pictures. My father never read it himself, of that I'm certain. Maybe he was passing through a store, saw its cover, and thought I'd like it. Maybe my mother told him to go out and buy me something - anything - so I would have something special from him on my 16th birthday. I'm sure he never once thought that this book, without doubt, would have a greater, more lasting influence on my life than any other single volume.

Everyone has a book that changes their life. I suppose for some that book is the Bible. But I find the Bible - full of great lessons and metaphor - too dry, too broad, too jumbled to effect a life change. For some that book is the seminal publication of some great societal watershed: Common Sense, Uncle Tom's Cabin, or Silent Spring. For most, it's a work of fiction read as a youth: Lord of the Flies, Alice in Wonderland, or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. For nearly everyone, it's a book that fires the imagination.

And so it is with me. I have read The Complete Sherlock Holmes cover to cover at least 4 times. My original copy of the Doubleday tome I keep at work, its bookplate - with my crabbed, childlike scrawl of a signature - adorning the inside front cover. I have three annotated versions of the Sherlockian Canon: Baring-Gould's, Les Klinger's, and the Oxford. I own commentary on these Sacred Writings, histories, chronologies, compendiums, reference works, periodicals, Sherlockian pastiches, Sherlockian crossword puzzles, pictures, statues and crockery, pins and stickers, one large bookcase in all. I subscribe to a Sherlockian quarterly, The Baker Street Journal; belong to two Sherlockian scion societies: Watson's Tin Box and The Six Napoleons of Baltimore; and correspond with the Hounds of the Internet, a Sherlockian discussion group. My nom-de-net namesake, Cyril Morton, was the one electrical engineer specifically mentioned in the Sacred Writings. Even this blog's name and masthead were inspired by a passage from The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb.

The Sherlockian Canon wasn't published in chronological order. His Last Bow, depicting my man Holmes as an energetic 60-year-old catching a German spy on the eve of the Great War, was published nearly 10 years before Doyle's final canonical entry, The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place. His stories were of uneven literary quality. The drama and excitement of The Sign of Four, The Adventure of the Speckled Band, and The Hound of the Baskervilles are utterly lacking from Doyle's later stories. And Doyle wasn't above introducing inconsistencies to the stories. Was Dr. Watson's wound from the "Jezail bullet" in his shoulder or his leg? Sir Arthur was never quite sure.

But Doyle imbued the 56 short stories and 4 novellas composing The Complete Sherlock Holmes with a sense of place and character and detail rarely exceeded in English literature. To this day, Victorian England fixates itself in my imagination with a clarity and presence unlike any other.

"Come, Watson, come! The game is afoot." cries Holmes to a sleeping Watson on a bitterly cold early morning in 1897. "Not a word! Into your clothes and come!" I read those words and am transported back, back to a place I've never been, yet a place real, familiar, and fully-formed in my mind. My breath steams as I nestle ever further into my heavy coat. I sit in a hansom cab with my companions, silent, as we rattle through the still and quiet streets of London on our way to Charing Cross Station. We have work to do, my friends and me, as our hearts quicken at the thrill of the chase. Stanley Hopkins and Scotland Yard await, just as always.

Just as it ever will be.
K-

Today is the 151st Birthday Anniversary of

(William) Sherlock (Scott) Holmes

Born at the Farmstead of Mycroft

In the North Riding of Yorkshire

January 6th, 1854

(Please Make the Usual Canonical Toasts)

..."You have brought detection as near an exact science as it ever will be brought in this world." A Study in Scarlet
I am a brain, Watson. The rest of me is a mere appendix. The Mazarin Stone
You have an extraordinary genius for minutiae. The Sign of Four
I am an omnivorous reader with a strangely retentive memory for trifles. The Lion's Mane

Today is the 150th Birthday Anniversary of

(William) Sherlock (Scott) Holmes

Born at the Farmstead of Mycroft

In the North Riding of Yorkshire

January 6th, 1854

(Please Make the Usual Canonical Toasts)

..."You have brought detection as near an exact science as it ever will be brought in this world." A Study in Scarlet
I am a brain, Watson. The rest of me is a mere appendix. The Mazarin Stone
You have an extraordinary genius for minutiae. The Sign of Four
I am an omnivorous reader with a strangely retentive memory for trifles. The Lion's Mane

In case you were wondering what Canonical Toasts are:

Written by Elmer Davis, the BSI Constitution reads as follows:
Article I
The name of the society shall be the Baker Street Irregulars.

Article II
Its purpose shall be the study of the Sacred Writings.

Article III
All persons shall be eligible for membership who pass an examination in the Sacred Writings set by officer of the society, and who are considered otherwise suitable.

Article IV
The officers shall be: a Gasogene, a Tantalus, and a Commissionaire.
The duties of the Gasogene shall be those commonly performed by a President.
The duties of the Tantalus shall be those commonly performed by a Secretary.
The duties of the Commissionaire shall be to telephone down for ice, White Rock, and whatever else may be required and available; to conduct all negotiations with waiters; and to assess the members pro rata for the cost of same.

The BSI Buy-laws
1. An annual meeting shall be held on January 6th, at which the canonical toasts shall be drunk; after which the members shall drink at will.

2. The current round shall be bought by any member who fails to identify, by title of story and context, and quotation from the Sacred Writings submitted by any other member.
Qualification A. If two or more members fail so to identify, a round shall be bought by each of those so failing.
Qualification B. If the submitter of the quotation, upon challenge, fails to identify it correctly, he shall buy the round.

3. Special meetings may be called at any time or any place by any one of three members, two of whom shall constitute a quorum.
Qualification A. If said two people are of opposite sexes, they shall use care in selecting the place of meeting, to avoid misinterpretation (or interpretation either, for that matter).

4. All other business shall be left for the monthly meetings.

5. There shall be no monthly meetings.

Canonical Toasts
The obligatory canonical toasts are typically as follows: to the Woman, Irene Adler; the Master, the Doctor and, of course, long suffering Mrs. Hudson. These are always followed by toasts of varying propriety to the more colorful characters of the Canon and often the less fortunate fellow Irregulars.

(Note: I have yet to become an investitured member of the BSI.)
K-

I consider myself a Sherlockian, a member of a small, rabid group of devotees of the world's first consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes. Indeed, my humble blog derives its name from a passage in The Engineer's Thumb.

Consider my credentials: I've read The Complete Sherlock Holmes at least 4 times, I've read Baring-Gould's Annotated Sherlock Holmes once, I'm a member of 2 scion societies of the Baker Street Irregulars, I read daily The Hounds of the Internet (a LISTSERV for Sherlockians), I have an extensive Sherlockian library, and I subscribe to two Sherlockian periodicals. So I like to think I know my Sherlockian stuff.

Imagine the mingled strands of glee and bewilderment I experienced on the way to work this morning when I saw this bumper sticker:

From a Sherlockian standpoint it makes no sense. Mycroft, who is Sherlock's elder brother and appears in 4 of the stories, rarely exerted himself and in no story did he risk life and limb to the point he required rescue by Holmes, Watson, or anyone.

What can this mean?

Who's behind it?

I have no explanation!

This is so tantalizing!

I must have an answer!
K-