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Blog post[Some pieces of this essay were originally published in two parts as "A Series of Tales" in The Proceedings of the Pondicherry Lodge, (Volume 9, Issue 1 [Summer 2021] and Volume 9, Issue 2 [Winter 2021]), the official journal of The Sherlock Holmes Society of India, Jayantika Ganguly, BSI, editor.]
THE LATTER-DAY LITERARY AGENTS
Old Edgar W. Smith, BSI, said it right:
There is no Sherlockian worthy of his salt who has not, at least once in his l -
Blog post[A version of this essay originally appeared in "Proceedings of the Pondicherry Lodge", the journal of The Sherlock Holmes Society of London, edited by Jayantika Ganguly, BSI, Vol. 8, No. 2, December 2020]
I tend to be cautious when it comes to actors' portrayals of Holmes and Watson, finding that, for one reason or another, the version of Holmes in my mind is rarely reflected by the actors who have portrayed him – even those who make a sincere effort. I believe that this -
Blog post[A version of this essay originally appeared on the Undershaw website, August 23, 2017] NOTE: This essay refers to the Stepping Stones School at Undershaw. In September 2021, the school changed it's name to simply "Undershaw".
[Updated November 28th, 2022]
I have to warn you: This is written from the perspective of a Sherlockian. I’ve been a fan of Sherlock Holmes since I was ten years old, in the mid-1970’s. In the forty-five-plus years since then, I’ve collected l -
Blog post[A version of this essay appeared in The Proceedings of the Pondicherry Lodge, the official journal of The Sherlock Holmes Society of India (Volume 8, Issue 1, June 1, 2020)]
In December 1939, a mystery novel entitled Red Threads by Rex Stout was published, apparently to little acclaim then, and today it’s mostly forgotten.At that point, Stout had been serving as the literary agent to Archie Goodwin for five years, and he’d been involved in the publication of six Nero Wolfe adventur -
Blog post[A version of this essay originally appeared in Vol. 7, No. 2 (December 2019) of "Proceedings of the Pondicherry Lodge", the journal of The Sherlock Holmes Society of India]
“In the beginning was The Canon, and it was good.
But it was not enough.”
– The Book of Holmes, (Chapter I, Verses 1-2)
As an energetic missionary for The Church of Holmes, spreading The Word about the world’s first (and for a time only) consulting detective, I honor Th -
Blog post[The Fall 2020 edition of The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories will be "Some More Untold Cases" - Thus, this essay is being presented on my irregular blog, a version of which originally appeared as my Editor's Foreword of The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories: Some Untold Cases - Part XI (1880-1891) and Part XII (1894-1902)]
There are certain numbers that are triggers to deeply passionate Sherlockians. One of these is 221. I’ve discussed this with other people o -
Blog post[A version of this essay originally appeared in Volume 7, Issue 1 (June 1st, 2019) of Proceedings of the Pondicherry Lodge, the official journal of The Sherlock Holmes Society of India, edited by Jayantika Ganguly]
The question of Dr. Watson’s wives has been addressed elsewhere in countless scholarly inquiries. Although there will never be agreement – because agreement in Sherlockiana is as common as when it occurs in religion or politics – there are some theories – such as the one -
Blog post[A version of this essay originally appeared in The Watsonian (Spring 2018, Vol. 6, No. 1)]
Sherlock Holmes and the Deerstalker
The deerstalker hat is probably the most identifiable symbol associated with Sherlock Holmes. The silhouette of a profile wearing such a hat is universally connected with him - although some purists maintain that Holmes actually had no connection with the deerstalker at all, based on the fact that it isn’t specifically mentioned in The Canon. < -
Blog post[The following essay originally appeared in a slightly different form in "Proceedings of the Pondicherry Lodge" (Vol. 6, Issue 2, December 1, 2018), the journal of The Sherlock Holmes Society of India]
Children in The Canon
Very early in The “Official” Sherlock Holmes Canon, made up of those pitifully few sixty stories that crossed the First Literary Agent’s desk, there is one of the few recorded instances of Holmes’s Canonical interactions with children. Spec -
Blog post[Portions of this essay appeared as the Editor’s Foreword to The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories – Part V: Christmas Adventures (MX Publishing, 2016)] It was updated on December 1st and 24th, 2021]
“I had called upon my friend Sherlock Holmes upon the second morning after Christmas, with the intention of wishing him the compliments of the season.”
– “The Blue Carbuncle” The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
It has been said that Charles Dickens invented our mo -
Blog post[The following is modified from the Editor’s Forewords to "The Complete Dr. Thorndyke”, edited by David Marcum, and available from MX Publishing]
Dr. John Thorndyke was once one of the well-known Great Detectives. Now, his adventures have been reissued for a new generation. What? You aren't familiar with the amazing Dr. Thorndyke? Read on . . . .
When Sherlock Holmes began his practice as a “Consulting Detective”, his ideas of scientific criminal investigations ca -
Blog post[A version of this essay originally appeared as the Editor's Foreword to The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories - 2018 Annual: Parts IX (1875-1895) and Part X (1896-1916)]
In his introduction to The Return of Solar Pons (1958), Edgar W. Smith, a legendary member of the Baker Street Irregulars, wrote:
There is no Sherlockian worthy of his salt who has not, at least once in his life, taken Dr. Watson’s pen in hand and given himself to the production of a veritable Ad -
Blog post[A version of this essay originally appeared in "Proceedings of the Pondicherry Lodge", the newsletter of The Sherlock Holmes Society of India (Vol. 6, No. 1, June 1, 2018)]
England has called to me as long as I can remember.
I’ve always been fascinated by all of it. If something comes on television about England, I’ll stop and watch. I look at maps and old photos, and wonder about the various pieces of history that have happened in so many corners. And I like -
Blog post[The following initially appeared in a somewhat different form in
The Watsonian Vol 5, No. 1, 2017]
Not only do I read and collect all the traditional Canonical Holmes adventures that I can find – literally several thousand of them now – I chronologicize them. Along with being a devout Holmesian, I am a Sherlockian Chronologicist – and not just of the pitifully few sixty stories in the original Canon. While some agonize over where to put those stories, I’ve long since settled -
Blog post[A version of this essay originally appeared in "The Proceedings of the Pondicherry Lodge", the newsletter of The Sherlock Holmes Society of India, Volume 3, Issue 1, June 1, 2017]
It was once a long-held belief that no Sherlock Holmes film was set in the correct Victorian or Edwardian period until 1939’s The Hound of the Baskervilles with Basil Rathbone as Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Watson. This idea was disproven with the discovery and release of the “lost” William Gillet -
Blog post[A version of the following was originally published in the "Proceedings of the Pondicherry Lodge", the official journal of The Sherlock Holmes Society of India (Vol. 5, Issue 2, December 1, 2017), edited by Jayantika Ganguly, BSI]. Also updated a little bit on April 18th, 2021
Sherlock Holmes is one of the most recognizable figures on the planet. Just the sight of his profile, or those objects associated with him – a deerstalker, a magnifying glass, or a pipe – is enough -
Blog postWith the release of the fifth – and latest – filmed version of Murder on the Orient Express, interest has increased even more from an always high level in the world-famous Belgian sleuth, Hercule Poirot. With that in mind, I was prompted to weigh in with some of my own rambling thoughts and observations.
Discovering Hercule Poirot
I first became aware of M. Poirot in the fall of 1978, when the film Death on the Nile was released. I was thirteen, and had been a developin -
Blog postThe Papers of Solar Pons - New Adventures of the Sherlock Holmes of Praed Street by David Marcum
Solar Pons – If you’ve already met him, then you know that he’s the next best thing to Sherlock Holmes. And if you don’t yet know him, what are you waiting for?
Sherlock Holmes is one of the most recognized figures in the world. Just his profile, or the items associated with him – the deerstalker, the magnifying glass, and the pipe – are enough to suggest “detective” to peop -
Blog postOn January 1st, 1881, Dr. John H. Watson, a recently returned wounded veteran from Afghanistan, happened to mention to an old acquaintance that he was in need of new lodgings, having recently realized that he could no long afford to keep living in a hotel in the Strand on his wound pension of eleven shillings and sixpence per day. His acquaintance, Stamford, mentioned that he’d heard someone else mention upon that very day a desire for comfortable rooms at a reasonable price. Intrigued, Watson
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Blog post(The following essay originally appeared in a slightly different form in The Watsonian, Fall 2016, Vol.4, No.II)
I play The Game with deadly seriousness. It started early. I first discovered Sherlock Holmes when I was ten, in the mid-1970’s, and not long after, I received a copy of Baring-Gould’s Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street. I began to learn of The Game, the belief that Holmes and Dr. Watson were living historical characters, and not simply fictional creations. It’s been a grea -
Blog postI’ve been collecting Sherlock Holmes stories, both Canon and Pastiche, since 1975. One of the busiest and most important periods in Holmes's life was in the fall of 1888, during The Autumn of Terror. There have been dozens narratives about this subject over the years, each offering different and sometimes conflicting versions of the battle with Jack the Ripper. What follows is an explanation of how none of these accounts actually contradict each other, with only one version being “true”, thereb
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Blog postThe following is an essay that I wrote which was originally published in The Baker Street Journal (Vol.63, No.4, Winter 2013). Over the past few years, whenever I've seen discussion about the modern settings of the Basil Rathbone films produced by Universal, I've referenced this essay, and then sent PDF's of it to those who showed an interest. After doing so again today, I realized that I could just as easily place it on my Irregular Blog, and then just post the link whenever the discussion res
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Blog postIMPORTANT HISTORICAL EVENTS FOR August 7th, 1852 – The birth of Dr. John H. Watson
Happy Birthday, Dr. Watson!
Although January 6th, 1854 has become the traditionally celebrated birthday for Sherlock Holmes, remembered ‘round the world, it sometimes happens that his Boswell’s birth anniversary tends to be forgotten. It does tend to sneak up on one, or get lost in the summer shuffle (if you’re in the Northern Hemisphere.) I know that I neglect it in far more years than I -
Blog postA few weeks ago, I offered an entry on the way that I re-read the Nero Wolfe Corpus, as the collection of Wolfe novels, novellas, and related ephemera are known. It was an essay that I wrote a couple of years ago for The Gazette, the journal of the Wolfe Pack.
http://www.17stepprogram.blogspot.com/2016_01_01_archive.html
At the same time that I initially produced that essay, I also wrote a companion piece, parallel in many ways, regarding how I return regularly to the world o -
Blog postAs I’ve mentioned before, I’m a fan of Sherlock Holmes pastiches. To me they’re as important as the Canon, because if they’re done right – set in the correct time period, and presented so that Holmes isn’t some drug-addicted sloppy barely-functioning murdering sociopath who can’t crawl out the door without Watson propping him up – then they add wonderfully to the World of Holmes in incredible ways. There are literally thousands of these correct pastiches in my collection, all of various lengths
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