Jan 91 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press Travelers to Britain will know how colorful the Bank of England's notes are. They also carry copyright notices (on the new L5 note, at least). One would think that the laws against counterfeiting would cover violation of the copyright on bank notes, but perhaps not. Editions Claude Lefrancq is issuing a series of attractive 48-page hard- cover graphic-novel adaptations and pastiches, including SHERLOCK HOLMES: LA SANGSUE ROUGE [The Red Leech], with a story by Andre-Paul Duchƒteau and artwork by Guy Clair. LA BEQUILLE EN ALUMINIUM [The Aluminum Crutch] is scheduled later in the series, and the company's address is 386 chaussee d'Alsemberg, 1180 Bruxelles, Belgium. Videotaper alert: The Movie Channel will show "Duck Soup" (1933) on Feb. 8 and 9. This is a Marx Brothers comedy, with Harpo in Sherlockian costume in one of the early scenes. Reported by Tim O'Connor: the next issue of Argosy (v. 3, n. 3) ($4.00 in most comic-book shops) will have a cover portrait of Sherlock Holmes by Steranko, plus a reprint of Ellery Queen's "A Study in Terror" (D6065a). Also: your bookstore bargain tables should have Charles Viney's SHERLOCK HOLMES IN LONDON ($12.50, discounted from $24.95) and Ken Greenwald's THE LOST ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES ($4.98, discounted from $9.98). Reported by Joe Eckrich: lengthy discussion of Universal's Rathbone/Bruce pictures in UNIVERSAL HORRORS: THE STUDIO'S CLASSIC FILMS, 1931-1946, by Michael Brunas, John Brunas, and Tom Weaver (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co., 1990; 616 pp., $45.00). And discount offers in the latest catalog from Edward R. Hamilton (Falls Village, CT 06031): MYSTERY FOR CHRISTMAS, edited by Richard Dalby (New York: Gallery Books, 1990; $5.98), with Ron Weighell's pastiche "The Case of the Fiery Messengers" (first published by Michael O'Mara in London at L14.95); and CRIME AT CHRISTMAS, edited by Jack Adrian (London: Equation, 1988; $7.95), with reprints of the Peter Todd pastiches "Herlock Sholmes's Christmas Case" (D4957b) and "The Secret in the Pudding Bag" (D4965b). An Associated Press report with a Victoria Falls dateline (in the Boston Globe on Dec. 21, 1990) indicates that work is now underway on "Sherlock Holmes and the Incident at Victoria Falls" (with Christopher Lee as Holmes and Patrick Macnee as Watson). "We have brought Holmes to colonial Africa to hobnob with the rich and famous," executive producer Harry Alan Towers said. "We've aged him a little, but otherwise we've taken no liberties." The four-hour television mini-series will be the sequel to "Sherlock Holmes and the Leading Lady" (as yet not scheduled for broadcast). The winter-autumn 1990 issue of The Pipe Smoker's Ephemeris at hand from Tom Dunn (20-37 120th Street, College Point, NY 11356), with 74 pages of news, comment, correspondence, poetry, fiction, and illustrations about pipes, tobacco, cigars, smoking, and anything else that interests members of Tom's "universal coterie of pipe smokers" (and with more than ten pages of Sherlockiana in this issue). There is no charge for membership or for subscriptions, but Tom welcomes contributions, financial or otherwise. Jan 91 #2 Baskerville Hall (well, at least one of the many candidates) is still on the market. Brook Manor, home of the infamous Richard Cabell, was offered for sale a bit more than a year ago (Nov 89 #2), with an asking price of L600,000 (the present owners, after rewiring the house and adding central heating and new bathrooms, used the house for bed and breakfast on a small scale, and the estate agents have suggested that the ten-bedroom property could be adapted as a guesthouse or small hotel). L600,000 is still the asking price, but the last time Brook Manor was on the market (Oct 86 #4), the price was only L150,000. Bill Barton reports that his new tongue-in-cheek rock 'n' role-playing game "So Ya Wanna Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star?" is not Sherlockian, but does include many S'ian names and references. Available for $14.95 postpaid from Bill Barton, Box 26290, Indianapolis, IN 46226. "Mystery!" celebrated its tenth anniversary last year with a poster that shows the series' most popular characters (including Holmes and Watson), drawn by Edward Gorey. The poster (30"x46") is available for $20.00 plus shipping from Signals, Box 64428, St. Paul, MN 55164 (800-669-5225), and they take plastic. Reported by John Stephenson: ABBOTT AND COSTELLO: THE CLASSIC COMICS, a comic book published by Malibu Graphics, with Costello in S'ian costume on p. 44. The Franklin Mint isn't the only company specializing in lengthy series of collectibles: Mike Kean reports that The Teddy Guild (Thistle Mill, Biggar ML12 6LP, Great Britain) has a subscription series of 36 "Famous Teddies". You get two a month (L10.90), and one of them is dressed as Sherlock Holmes (of course). They take plastic, in case anyone wants to subscribe, hoping that Sherlock Holmes won't be in the last monthly shipment. Studio Gallery Decorative Editions has sent an illustrated flier for their new eight-inch bone-china plate honoring the Sherlock Holmes Public House (that's the pub in London). The price is $50.00 postpaid, and the address is 50 Caledonian Road, London N1 9DP, England. Mark Erdrich reports three S'ian rubber stamps available from Stamptastic, 2461 San Diego Avenue (Old Town), San Diego, CA 92110 (800-833-1252); the magnifying-glass design costs $5.45, and the other two cost $6.95 each. Jan 91 #3 And yes, the birthday festivities in New York were (as usual) crowded, hectic, interesting, and enjoyable. Thursday is still essentially a day for informal events (such as the Annual International New York Christopher Morley Memorial Walk and the annual meeting of The Pawky Humorists), book-hunting, and sight-seeing, for those who arrive in New York early. The official festivities started Friday, with the Mrs. Hudson Breakfast for more than 50 people, welcomed by Tom and Ruthann Stetak in a new and comfortable venue on the second floor of the Algonquin. Susan Rice presided over the William Gillette Luncheon at the Old Homestead (also well attended), and Otto Penzler offered hospitality (and Sherlockian books) at his open house at the Mysterious Book Shop. The Baker Street Irregulars met at 24 Fifth Avenue, where *The* Woman was Joan Wood, who was toasted by Andy Peck during the pre-dinner cocktail party, and then departed to dine at Le Quercy with other ladies who have received that honor. The BSI's annual-dinner agenda included the usual toasts and other traditions, David Musto's account of his visit to the U.S.S.R. and his meeting with a newly-founded scion (The Red-Headed League of Moscow), news of "Aunt Clara" from Bill Rabe (Fred Page and Wayne Swift sang her praises with the original music), papers by Bob Brody (on the future careers of some of the Canonical criminals who escaped justice) and Wayne Swift (on his continuing research on Silver Blaze) and Norman Davis (on Sherlockian handicapping), a presentation by Don Yates of a one-minute version of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (followed by his one-second version of the same story), and an award by Philip Shreffler to Don Redmond (honoring his 21 years of indexing of the BSJ). Irregular Shillings and Investitures were awarded to Henry Enberg ("John Garrideb"), Steve Tolins ("John Straker"), Joe Moran ("Augustus Moran, C.B."), Charley Shields ("17 King Edward Street"), Glen Miranker ("*The Origin of Tree Worship*"), and Bill Nadel ("Bartholomew Sholto"), and Ely Liebow received a Two-Shilling Award (for extraordinary devotion to the cause beyond the call of duty). The Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes also gathered for dinner on Friday evening, at the Algonquin, where the entertainment included presentations by Ruthann Stetak (on "An American Borgia") and Linda Anderson (offering her suggestion that Sherlock Holmes, during the Great Hiatus, toured with and occasionally substituted for the divine Sarah Bernhardt), and Ann Byerly's rendition of "Aunt Clara" (also to the original music) and "The Contortionist's Daughter" (also written by Bud Willis and his wife, and no more sedate than "Aunt Clara"). On Saturday morning the usual suspects gathered at the Algonquin to buy and sell in the Huckster's Room, and the BSI's afternoon cocktail party at 24 Fifth Avenue included now-traditional poetic reports by Al Rosenblatt and Susan Rice on the Friday dinners, a presentation of the Commissionaire's Award to George Fletcher in recognition of his 16 years of service to the BSI and the BSJ at the Fordham University Press (George now has a new job, as curator at the Pierpont Morgan Library), a spirited Sherlockian auction that raised $800 for the John H. Watson Fund, and a Canonical fashion show modeled by Cynthia Wein, Joanne Zahorsky, Jean Upton, Ellen Morgenstern, Nancy Klimple, Camille Torrese, Carol Adams, and Maureen Green. Jan 91 #4 Continuing the report on the birthday festivities (and indeed there's more to report) and on Saturday's cocktail party: Tom Stix announced the award of additional Irregular Shillings and Investitures to Edwin V. King ("Captain Arthur Morstan"), Dame Jean Conan Doyle ("A Certain Gracious Lady"), Katherine McMahon ("Lucy Ferrier"), Edith Meiser ("A Fascinating and Beautiful Woman"), Evelyn Herzog ("The Daintiest Thing Under a Bonnet"), Julia Carlson Rosenblatt ("Mrs. Turner"), and Susan Rice ("Beeswing"), and reminded the new Irregulars that all members of the BSI are entitled to attend the BSI's annual dinner. And on Saturday evening some Sherlockians (but not many, since the theater seats only 40) journeyed far off-off-Broadway to the Prometheus Theatre on East 5th Street to see "Sherlock Holmes: The Eclipse Conspiracy" (produced, directed, and written by Fred Fondren, who also played Holmes). Sherlock Holmes foils Moriarty's evil plot to gain control of the crystal cross, a long-lost mystic device that will bring civilization to an end by producing an artificial eclipse. Perhaps the most intriguing item in the Huckster Room during the birthday festivities was a first-of-its-kind $1.00 "Silver Screen" lottery ticket with a portrait of Sherlock Holmes. You scratch the play area to see if you win from $1 to $1,000 or a trip to Hollywood (or nothing, of course). The Western Canada Lottery Corp. runs the show, but guaranteed non-winner tickets are available for $1.00 each postpaid from Benton Wood, Box 740, Ellenton, FL 34222. Ben also offers the latest publication from The Pleasant Places of Florida: the SHERLOCKIAN SING-A-LONG, a 24-page spiral-bound collection of music and words adapted by Charles Michael Carroll and Benton Wood. The collection is billed, and quite accurately, as "a goodly batch of Doylean ditties, Baker Street ballads, and Holmesian hummers especially adapted for scion gatherings and Conanical conclaves," and the booklet costs $6.00 postpaid. Chris Redmond reports his new address: 523 Westfield Drive, Waterloo, Ont. N2T 2E1, Canada (there's no change in his telephone number). Keye Luke died on Jan. 12. His first acting role was in Greta Garbo's film "The Painted Veil" and his last was in Woody Allen's just-released "Alice", but he will be remembered best as Lee Chan, Charlie Chan's "Number One Son" in the long series of Warner Oland films in the 1930s. He can be seen in Sherlockian costume in "Charlie Chan on Broadway" (1937). Reported: THE GREAT DETECTIVE PICTURES, by James Robert Parish and Michael R. Pitts (Metuchen: Scarecrow Press, 1990; 630 pp., $59.50), with coverage of many Sherlockian films. Cricket was one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's favorite sports, and one that was not neglected in his writings (see his fine tribute to W. G. Grace, and his humorous short stories "How the Brigadier Triumphed in England" and "The Story of Spedegue's Dropper"). LORD'S & COMMONS: CRICKET IN NOVELS AND STORIES, edited by John Bright-Holmes (London: Penguin Books, 1990; 352 pp., L7.99), has nothing by Conan Doyle, but offers instead an excerpt from Stanley Shaw's 1985 pastiche SHERLOCK HOLMES AT THE 1902 FIFTH TEST MATCH. Jan 91 #5 Further to the report (Dec 90 #7) that the Langham Hotel will be reopened in March, Mary Ellen Rich notes in the winter 1990 issue of The Serpentine Muse that each of its suites will be named to honor a renowned past visitor (including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle), and that room 333 reportedly houses a possibly-Canonical ghost. The Serpentine Muse is published by The Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes, and costs $6.00 for four issues (Evelyn Herzog, 235 West 15th Street #4-B, New York, NY 10011). CHUCK AMUCK, by Chuck Jones (New York: Avon Books, 1990; $12.95) is a fine autobiography of the man responsible for many of the splendid Warner Bros. cartoons, one of which was "Deduce, You Say!" (1956). The book has many illustrations, including a pencil sketch of Dorlock Holmes and Dr. Watkins (on pages 106-107). Jeremy Brett, very briefly in Washington, reported that the new Granada series will air in Britain in February, and in the United States later in the year, and that he is revising the first act of "The Secret of Sherlock Holmes" and hopes to have the play on tour in the U.S. toward the end of 1991. He was here for Mobil's private dinner party at the State Department to celebrate the 20th anniversary of "Masterpiece Theatre" (other guests included Alistair Cooke, Francesca Annis, Steven Fry, John Hurt, Geraldine James, Hugh Laurie, Ian McShane, Jean Marsh, Keith Michell, Ian Richardson, Diana Rigg, and Simon Williams). A sampling of the long series of school-boy-magazine parodies written by Charles Hamilton (as Peter Todd) (see D4956b-D4966b) was published as THE ADVENTURES OF HERLOCK SHOLMES (1976), and all 95 of the stories are now available in THE COMPLETE CASEBOOK OF HERLOCK SHOLMES (London: Hawk Books, 1989; 287 pp., L9.95). The book may still be available from the Mysterious Bookshop (129 West 56th Street, New York, NY 10019) for $19.95. Also available from the Mysterious Bookshop is A SINGULAR SET OF PEOPLE, edited by Marlene Aig and David Galerstein (New York: Magico Magazine, 1990; 127 pp., $14.95). The book is a fine anthology, presenting (and occasionally reprinting) contributions by an assortment of imaginative Sherlockians who are members of New York scions (or who have attended a meeting of a New York scion, or who may be thinking about doing so). Glen Petrie's THE MONSTROUS REGIMENT: A MYCROFT HOLMES ADVENTURE (London: Bantam Press, 1990; 304 pp., L12.95) is a sequel to THE DORKING GAP AFFAIR (Dec 90 #8), and a good one. Sherlock Holmes has left his university, but again appears only incidentally, and it is Mycroft who frustrates a new scheme devised by the villainous Guttmann and his evil associates. Mark Erdrich reports a remotely-Sherlockian discovery for those who think that the type-face designed by John Baskerville in 1757 is relevant: a ten-inch circular battery-powered wall clock with Baskerville numbering and lettering, offered at $65.00 in a catalog from Williams-Sonoma (Box 7456, San Francisco, CA 94120). And Mark kindly offers photocopies of Bernard Knight's four-page pastiche "Sherlock Holmes Returns to the Case" (New Scientist, Dec. 24, 1988). Send a #10 SASE to Mark W. Erdrich, 49 Kings Lacey Way, Fairport, NY 104450. Jan 91 #6 Viktor Shklovsky's THEORY OF PROSE, written in Russian 1925 but only recently completely translated into English, was published last year in cloth binding ($29.95), and is now available in paper covers (Lisle: Dalkey Archive Press, 1991; 216 pp., $12.95). Shklovsky's book was a highly-regarded (and thoroughly academic) exploration of literary theory, and the literature considered includes mystery stories in general, and the Sherlock Holmes stories in particular (both from the Canon and from early pastiches). The publisher's address is 5700 College Road, Lisle, IL 60532. Videotaper alert: Reginald Owen's "A Study in Scarlet" (1933) will air on Arts & Entertainment cable on Feb. 17. No explanation has been offered for the strange disappearance of "The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes" last month. For those who weren't able to find the discounted one-volume edition of William S. Baring-Gould's THE ANNOTATED SHERLOCK HOLMES (now out of print and with no reprint scheduled), Tim O'Connor reports that it is offered (item 623415) by Edward R. Hamilton, Falls Village, CT 06031, at $29.95 (plus $3.00 shipping per order). A flier at hand with news of the tenth annual Sherlock Holmes/Conan Doyle Symposium at Wright State University in Dayton on Mar. 9-10. The speakers will include Martin Arbagi, Jim Booth, Bob Fleissner, Mary Frost-Pierson, Paul Herbert, Jack Key, Roy Pilot, Jim Ravin, Ruthann and Tom Stetak, and John Zamonski, and additional information is available from Al Rodin, 3041 Maginn Drive, Beavercreek, OH 45385. Late-breaking news on the grand gourmet dinner at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park on May 4: wine and hors d'oeuvres at 6:30, dinner at 7:30, dress is black tie, the cost is $80.00 a person (with a maximum of four persons per reservation), names and addresses requested for all those covered by each reservation, checks should be sent (and made payable) to Albert M. Rosenblatt (Box 221-B, Pleasant Valley, NY 12569), first-come first-served (and you are advised to make your reservations quickly), and a self-addressed postal card is requested if you want postive confirmation. The Radisson Hotel in Poughkeepsie (914-485-5300) offers a special rate of $75.00 a room for those who identify themselves as Sherlockians. According to my records, my 1991 seasonal souvenir ("LIGHT A CIGAR AND LET ME EXPOUND...") should be in the hands of all subscribers, received during the birthday festivities in New York, or since, or with this mailing. If I missed someone, please let me know. The new postage rates will require modest increases in prices. Renewals and new subscriptions to the *Scuttlebutt* now cost $8.50 a year (somewhat higher for subscribers outside the United States). The up-to-date 11-page list of Investitured Irregulars, Two-Shilling Awards, and *The* Women costs $1.10 postpaid. The 57-page list of 532 Sherlockian societies, with names and addresses for the 315 active societies, costs $3.55 postpaid. And the run of address labels for 277 individual contacts (recommended for those who wish to avoid making duplicate mailings to people who are contacts for more than one society) costs $10.25 postpaid. The Spermaceti Press, 3900 Tunlaw Road NW #119, Washington, DC 20007-4830 Feb 91 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press Ronald Pearsall's SHERLOCK HOLMES INVESTIGATES THE MURDER IN EUSTON SQUARE (Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1989; 186 pp., L9.95) is less of a pastiche than an example of how authors use Sherlock Holmes as a hook on which to hang their own work: Pearsall starts with a murder in London in 1877 (the body was not found until 1879), and presents his own solution (a rather complicated one, involving depravity, insanity, and the Royal family) in a ten-years-later investigation by Sherlock Holmes. Reported but not seen: L. B. Greenwood's SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE THISTLE OF SCOTLAND was the Detective Book Club selection for Oct. 1989. This variant is probably identifiable only from the dust jacket. A videotaper alert: Richard Wein reports that Arts & Entertainment has not given up on "The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes" (1935), which is now scheduled for one two-hour showing at 9:00 am on Mar. 16. Spotted by Jim Vogelsang in Kool-Aid's "Having Kids Times": Walt Disney's "The Great Mouse Detective" will be coming your way this season (but with nothing to indicate just which season). An article by Enid Rhodes Peschel and Richard E. Peschel ("Sherlock Holmes Foiled by an Opera Star") in the autumn 1990 issue of Opera Quarterly (at hand from Pat Ward) suggests that the contralto Giulia Ravogli might have contributed to the inspiration for the character of Irene Adler. Ravogli made her debut at Covent Garden in Oct. 1890, appearing in male costume as Urbain in "Les Huguenots" and as Orfeo in "Orfeo ed Euridice", and received rave reviews (George Bernard Shaw said that he was "infatuated" with her). Last year Great Britain issued a set of commemoratives that show the nation's important medals, including the Victoria Cross. The Canonical connection is "Emsworth, the Crimean V.C." in "The Blanched Soldier". Sherry Rose-Bond reports an advertisement by Home Vision offering six of the MPI Home Video cassettes of Granada's Jeremy Brett series at $24.95 each (discounted from the regular price of $29.98). Home Vision, Box 800, Concord, MA 01742 (800-262-8600). The London Library was founded on May 3, 1841, in two rooms in Pall Mall, with 3,000 books. It has close to a million books today, and is still a private library (a year's subscription costs L80). This year's celebration of its 150th anniversary will include publication of RUDE WORDS, a history of the library by John Wells. It remains to be seen whether the book will mention Dr. Watson's visit to the library to consult with his friend Lomax, the sublibrarian, as recorded in "The Illustrious Client". Further to the report (Jan 91 #1) on MYSTERY FOR CHRISTMAS, the anthology edited by Richard Dalby (New York: Gallery Books, 1990; $5.98), with Ron Weighell's pastiche ("The Case of the Fiery Messengers"), the book also has "The Soldier", a non-S'ian story by Roger Johnson, the British Holmesian. Feb 91 #2 Sherlockian games are now being developed for home television sets, and at least one of them will be available this spring. According to an article in the Washington Post (Feb. 6), Nintendo (which has 80 percent of the U.S. market for cartridge games) and Sony have agreed to a joint venture that will put video games on compact discs, using the massive storage capacity available on compact discs to offer better sound and image quality, and some digitized video. The Nintendo-Sony machine is expected to be marketed in Japan in 1992 and in the U.S. in 1993, but a similar machine is already available here: the NEC TurboGrafx-16, which is a cartridge machine ($160 suggested retail) with an add-on machine ($400 suggested retail) that will play compact discs. And Commodore is ready to market its own CDTV compact-disc machine, which will contain an Amiga 500 computer; the CDTV will be released in late March or early April, and will sell for $999 suggested retail; the CDTV will run audio discs, game discs, and text discs (the Grolier Encyclopedia and others now being developed for the CDTV). All three of the systems connect to home stereo and television sets rather than to computers. And ICOM Simulations has developed "Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective" (a compact-disc game based on Sleuth Publications' boxed game). The ICOM compact disc has three adventures ("The Mummy's Curse", "The Case of the Mystified Murderess", and "The Case of the Tin Soldier"), presented with text, graphics, and some video. 120 scenes were taped for the video, with 35 actors, and production costs have totaled $1 million, including $300,000 for the video shoot. ICOM has already engineered the game in Japanese for Fujitsu, and in Japanese and English for NEC, and ICOM is now engineering a version for Commodore. The NEC version of the game is scheduled for launch in March ($62 suggested retail). And Jon Lellenberg reports that Commodore is working with a British company that is developing a different game based on the Webb & Bower "dossier" edition of "The Hound of the Baskervilles". Meetings of The Hansom Wheels of Columbia, S.C., often feature the dramatic efforts of the scion's members, and scripts for five original one-act plays written by Lloyd W. Brown, Jr., in radio format, with broad humor and many fine puns, have now been published as THE UNKNOWN SHERLOCK HOLMES (63 pp., $15.00 postpaid from the author, 103 Snow Court, Lexington, SC 29073). Reported by Jack Kerr: volume 10 of the Simon & Schuster Audioworks series of THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES is in the shops, with "In Flanders Fields" and "The Eyes of Mr. Leyton" from the Rathbone/Bruce radio series. And Marjorie Weinman Sharmat's NATE THE GREAT AND THE HALLOWEEN HUNT has been published as a Dell Young Yearling paperback ($2.95). Reported on audio cassettes: LAST LAUGHS: THE MYSTERY WRITERS OF AMERICA ANTHOLOGY, edited by Gregory Mcdonald (Dove Books on Tape); nine stories, including Edward D. Hoch's "The Most Dangerous Man" (D4992b) read by John Standing. PARTNERS IN CRIME: THREE VOLUMES (Listen for Pleasure); Agatha Christie's stories (including D5857a) read by James Warwick. If you do much airmailing to overseas addresses, you can save some money by making note of the new rates: 50 cents for the first half-ounce, 45 cents for the second half-ounce, and 39 cents for additional half-ounces. I've not seen this mentioned in any of the press reports on the new rates. Feb 91 #3 Henry Lauritzen ("The Royal Family of Scandinavia") died on Jan. 30. Henry was devoted to Sherlock Holmes, horse racing, cigars, and brandy, and he was the sparking-plug of the Sherlockians in Denmark for many years. His long series of Christmas annuals reflected his wide-ranging interests and his wonderful sense of humor, and he was one of the truly great Sherlockian artists (his portrait of John Bennett Shaw can be seen on the title page of the Dec. 1990 issue of the BSJ). He received his Irregular Investiture in 1961, the Two-Shilling Award in 1985, and the Commissionaire's Award in 1990. Reported: THE YEAR'S BEST MYSTERY AND SUSPENSE STORIES, edited by Edward D. Hoch (New York: Walker, 1990; $18.95), has Elizabeth Peters' "The Locked Tomb Mystery" (set in ancient Egypt, with a mystery solved with careful Sherlockian deduction by the sage and scholar Amenhotep Sa Hapu, with the assistance of his friend Wadjsen). Peters' story was first published in SISTERS IN CRIME (Jul 89 #5). Additional comment on our new postal rates, which seem high only until one notes what other countries pay: the domestic rate in Canada is 40 cents (US 35 cents) for 30 grams (1.05 ounces). The rate for international airmail from Canada is 80 cents (US 69 cents) for 20 grams (0.7 ounces). A new Sherlockian statue ("beautiful," according to John Bennett Shaw) has been sculpted by midwestern artist Tom Beard and cast in bronze (9 inches high, on a walnut base) in an edition of 250 copies. $415 (plus $10 shipping) from the Tom Beard Art Studio, 8312 East 104th Terrace, Kansas City, MO 64134). The Sherlock Holmes Wireless Society has commissioned a one-inch lapel pin that will sell for $12.00, and the deadline for orders is Mar. 20. Write to Ron Fish (Box 3382, New Haven, CT 06515) for an illustrated flier. Mary Ann and Ed Rochette (Sherlock, Stock & Barrel, Box 8261, Colorado Springs, CO 80933) have issued a second sales list of Sherlockian honey, statues, T-shirts, and other collectibles. Anna Conan Doyle died in December in Switzerland. She married Adrian Conan Doyle in 1938, joined him in his travels and on some of his expeditions (he described their hunt for Indian Ocean sharks, in a ship they renamed the *Gloria Scott*, in his 1953 book HEAVEN HAS CLAWS), and after his death in 1970 she was for a time manager of the Conan Doyle Foundation in Geneva. If your local fast-food shops include Taco Bell, you might see if they have "Taco Man's Mystery House" carry-out bags and small "activity books" that show a deerstalkered Taco Man. Joanne Zahorsky (5190-3 King's Highway, Saugerties, NY 12477) offers a ten- inch cross-stitched Sherlockian clock ($35.00), and teddy bears dressed as Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson, or Irene Adler ($35.00), and happily accepts commissions for other teddy bears. Write to Joanne for details. Feb 91 #4 The winter 1991 issue of Anglofile reports that "Doctor Who: The Talons of Weng-Chiang" is now available on videocassette from Playhouse Video at $19.95 (the 1977 six-part story featured Tom Baker in Sherlockian costume, battling giant rats). "Summer's Lease" will air on "Masterpiece Theatre" beginning May 12 (the 1989 BBC television series has Sherlockian allusions). And a new adventure/comedy film called "Sherlock Holmes' Arcane Adventure" is scheduled to begin filming in Estonia in April (this may be Loren D. Estleman's "Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula"). Anglofile (six issues) costs $12.00 a year (Box 33515, Decatur, GA 30033), and offers massive coverage of British television, films, books, and records. Current poster prices (from Cinemonde, 1932 Polk Street, San Francisco, CA 94109): $5,500 for a lobby card for "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (1939); $7,000 for a French poster (63x94") for "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" 1939); $750 for a one-sheet (27x41"), and $950 for a three-sheet (41x81") for "The Pearl of Death" (1944); and $125 for a lobby still for "Dressed to Kill" (1945). None of John Bennett Shaw's many S'ian workshops have been directly honored by the U.S. Postal Service, but a postal card was issued last year showing the Memorial Court in the Quadrangle at Stanford University, where John presided over a workshop in 1981 (and where there was a second workshop in 1987). The first of John's S'ian workshops was held at Notre Dame in 1977, and the Postal Service plans to issue a new postal card on Oct. 13, showing the Administration Building at the University of Notre Dame. The Knights of the Gnomon, organized in 1977 (or 1978), have published "An Introductory Handbook" that includes a history of the scion. The 40-page pamphlet is available for $6.00 postpaid from Richard R. Rutter, 1620 Granada Drive, Burlingame, CA 94010. The locked-room mystery is practically a forgotten genre, in an era when who and why are generally considered to be more important than how, but Jack Adrian and Robert Adey have assembled a fine anthology of the genre. MURDER IMPOSSIBLE (New York: Carroll & Graf, 1990; 306 pp., $18.95) was published in Britain as THE ART OF THE IMPOSSIBLE (Xanadu, L14.95), and includes George Locke's short Morlock Tomes parody "A Nineteenth Century Debacle" (previously available only in a 1979 limited edition). Warren Randall reports that there is one (and only one) S'ian reference in FODOR'S 91 LONDON, appropriately on page 221, where the guidebook discusses The Sherlock Holmes in Northumberland Street. A spring 1991 catalog at hand from Jack Tracy (Gaslight Publications, 626 North College Avenue, Bloomington, IN 47404), offering S'iana and D'iana from Gaslight and other publishers. The Beeman's Christmas Annual (1990), published by The Occupants of the Empty House with 33 pp. of Sherlockian studies, is available from William R. Cochran, 517 North Vine Street, DeQuoin, IL 62832 ($7.00 postpaid). Feb 91 #5 Those who own David L. Hammer's splendid travel books THE GAME IS AFOOT and FOR THE SAKE OF THE GAME will need no additional recommendation of TO PLAY THE GAME than the news that it has been published (Dubuque: Gasogene Press, 1991; 397 pp., $39.95 cloth, $19.95 paper). For newcomers, his third volume deals with the North America of Sherlock Holmes (both the United States and Canada), and with a few more recent Sherlockian sites (such as New Mexico's Moriarty Memorial Manure Pile and Oklahoma's Holmes Peak), and his style is both personal and literate. Recommended, and available from the publisher (Box 1041, Dubuque, IA 52004); add $2.50 per copy (up to $5.00 per order) to cover shipping costs. A new society lapel-pin is available from Watson's Erroneous Deductions, in brass decorated in black and white. $10.00 postpaid from Dick and Fran Kitts, 35 Van Cortlandt Avenue, Staten Island, NY 10301. M. J. Trow's LESTRADE AND THE DEADLY GAME (London: Constable, 1990; 224 pp., L11.95) is the latest in his fine series of novels. This one is set in 1908, and Lestrade is now a Superintendent, investigating a series of murders that threaten to disrupt the Olympic Games. As usual, there is plenty of action and broad humor, as well as some fine puns. A catalog at hand from La Sherlockiana, the Italian mystery-specialist book store (Piazza San Nazaro 3, 20122 Milano, Italy), with a nice assortment of Sherlockiana in Italian (priced in lire, currently about 1,133 lire to the dollar): Alan Arnold's PIRAMIDE DI PAURA (18,000), Isaac Asimov's SHERLOCK HOLMES NEL TEMPO E NELLO SPAZIO (22,000); Edmund Aubrey's SHERLOCK HOLMES A DALLAS (15,000); Henri Cami's LE AVVENTURE DI LUFOCK HOLMES (6,000); Allen Eyles' SHERLOCK HOLMES: ALBUM DEL CENTENARIO (35,000); Laura Grimaldi and Marco Tropea's ELEMENTARE, SIGNOR PRESIDENT (10,000); Michael and Mollie Hardwick's VITA PRIVATA DI SHERLOCK HOLMES (10,000); Alexis Lecaye's MARX E SHERLOCK HOLMES (14,000); Nicholas Meyer's LA SOLUZIONE SETTE PER CENTO (7,000); Rene Reouven's I PASSATEMPI DI SHERLOCK HOLMES (24,000); John R. Watson's 30 DUKE STREET (16,000); and translations of the Canon (16,000 to 60,000) and of Conan Doyle's works, including his autobiography UCCIDERO SHERLOCK HOLMES (20,000). Reported by Ron De Waal: "Silver Blaze" in GREAT RACING STORIES, edited by Dick Francis and John Welcome (London: W. W. Norton, 1989), and published in the U.S. by Norton in 1990 as THE DICK FRANCIS TREASURY OF GREAT RACING STORIES ($19.95). Chatto & Windus was one of the many British publishers that issued "popular editions" priced at sixpence and with striking color covers, and SIXPENNY WONDERFULS: 6D GEMS FROM THE PAST (London: Chatto & Windus, 1985; 69 pp.; L5.95) offers a nicely-illustrated tour of that publisher's contributions to the genre. They published only one of Conan Doyle's books (THE FIRM OF GIRDLESTONE), but Gordon Browne's cover for the six-penny edition receives a well-deserved full-page color illustration. The book may turn up on the discount tables (priced as low as $2.99), along with THE BEST OF CRIME & DETECTIVE TV, by Max Allan Collins and John Javna (New York: Harmony Books, 1988; 144 pp., $9.95), with two pages on Sherlock Holmes. Feb 91 #6 Mark Hime (of Biblioctopus) had some nice Sherlockian items on display at the San Francisco International Antiquarian Bookfair this month: an inscribed copy of the first American edition (which appeared before the first British edition) of THE VALLEY OF FEAR ($12,500); the 22- page manuscript of "The Three Garridebs" ($155,000); and the 177-page manu- script of "The Valley of Fear" ($525,000). "It was the worst enemy I had among them all," Jack Douglas said of Ted Baldwin, "one who has been after me like a hungry wolf after a caribou all these years." A recent issue from Canada shows a Peary caribou, and it makes a nice pair with last year's Canadian stamp showing a timber wolf (Feb 90 #6). Bruce Holmes (64 Maple Circle, Dollard des Ormeaux, Quebec H9B 1E5, Canada) offers a sales list of Sherlockian collectibles, mostly philatelic, but also including an authentic J-pen nib. A videotaper alert: Richard Wein reports that "Count Duckula: All in a Fog" will run on Nickelodeon cable at 8:00 am on Mar. 17. "Count Duckula" was a British 30-minute animated series, made by Cosgrove Hall Productions for Thames Television in 1987; in this episode Count Duckula, in an attempt to be a detective, travels to London and meets Hawkeye Soames and Dr. Potson. Richard also reports that "Alfred Hitchcock Presents: My Dear Watson" will be repeated eventually on USA cable, but the repeats are out-of-sequence and he can't confirm a date (if you're desperate, you can call USA cable at 212-408-9100 and ask for programming); filmed in Toronto in 1988 and first aired in 1989, the 30-minute episode features Brian Bedford as Holmes and Patrick Monckton as Watson, but the best part of the show undoubtedly was Hitchcock himself, in a colorized introduction, wearing a deerstalker and blowing bubbles from a calabash pipe. "Peanuts" is one of the largest-circulation comic strips in the world, and there will be few who did not see the pleasant tribute to "The Hound of the Baskervilles" that ran on Feb. 3. Many newspapers, however, do not run the Sunday strips complete: often an initial "throw-away" panel is omitted to make room for more comics, or advertising, or whatever. For the benefit of victims of this sort of censorship, here's the throw-away panel for Feb. 3: The Spermaceti Press, 3900 Tunlaw Road NW #119, Washington, DC 20007-4830 Mar 91 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press Tom Haas died on Feb. 21. He helped to found the Weathervane Theatre in Whitefield, N.H., and directed William Gillette's "Sherlock Holmes" there in 1975, and it was at the Weathervane that his musical "Operetta, My Dear Watson" had its world premiere in 1979. He became artistic director of the Indiana Repertory Theatre in Indianapolis in 1980, reviving his musical in 1982, and directing Charles Marowitz's "Sherlock's Last Case" in 1990. In 1984 there were hopes for a production of "Operetta, My Dear Watson" in New York, and excerpts from the musical were performed for The Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes during the birthday festivities. Spaniels and hounds abound in the Canon, and are shown to nice advantage in a set of stamps issued by Britain this year with paintings by George Stubbs: "King Charles Spaniel" and "Two Hounds in a Landscape". Flier at hand for the Third Canonical Convocation and Caper in Door County, Wis., on Sept. 13-15. Donald B. Izban (5334 Wrightwood Avenue, Chicago, IL 60639) will be happy to send additional information. The Baker Street Dispatch, edited and published by Tom Biblewski and Dick Hopkins, is one of the newer S'ian newsletters, offering brief news items, quizzes, and puzzles. It is published six times a year, and there is no charge for subscriptions (though four or five first- class stamps would be welcome), and the address is Box 5503, Toledo, OH 43613. John Bennett Shaw reports that Libreria Gigamesh has launched a new series of hard-bound Spanish translations of Sherlockiana, with new prefaces or afterwords, priced at 2,600 pesetas each. LAS HAZANAS DE SHERLOCK HOLMES [THE EXPLOITS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, by Adrian Conan Doyle and John Dickson Carr] has commentary by British bookseller David Kirby, and the next books in the series will be William S. Baring-Gould's SHERLOCK HOLMES OF BAKER STREET and Julian Symons' A THREE PIPE PROBLEM (with commentary by John Bennett Shaw). The publisher's address is Rona de San Pedro 53, 08010 Barcelona, Spain, and payment in Spanish currency is requested. Thomas G. Kowols reports in the Feb. 1991 issue of The Police Gazette (the newsletter of The Scotland Yarders) that Doctor Who Magazine recently asked its readers who that would most like to see play the Doctor in a series or film. And the winner was Jeremy Brett (who was under consideration for the role in 1987, when the series was revived after an 18-month hiatus). Reported by Bill Berner and Dick Rutter: a new translation into German by Oliver Bruhns (as WIE ES MIT SHERLOCK HOLMES ZU ENDE GING) of A. Boukhov's pastiche "The End of Sherlock Holmes". Boukhov was a Russian satirist who was forced into exile in 1917, and his pastiche was published in Maurice Dekobra's anthology THE CRIMSON SMILE (London: Laurie, 1929). The German version is a 24-page pamphlet, available for DM 15.00 ($10.00) from Colonel Stark's German Books, Kathe-Kollwitz-Weg 10, D-2400 Lubeck 1, Germany. Mar 91 #2 The real mystery of "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" is how Charles Dickens intended to complete the story, which was unfinished at the time of Dickens' death. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle discussed the problem with Dickens (via the medium Florizel von Reuter), and was told by Dickens that "Edwin is alive and Chris is hiding him" (see THE EDGE OF THE UNKNOWN, 1930, p. 149-153), and many Sherlockians have tried to solve the mystery (as early as Sept. 1905, when Andrew Lang proposed a pastiche-solution in Longman's Magazine). THE DISAPPEARANCE OF EDWIN DROOD, by Peter Rowland (London: Constable, 1991; 176 pp., L11.99), is an imaginative and amusing approach to the mystery: the novel opens with the arrival of John Jasper at Baker Street in 1894, to ask Sherlock Holmes to prove that Edwin Drood has been murdered, and offers an intriguing exploration and explanation of the problems posed by Dickens. Switzerland, mentioned in three of the Canonical cases, celebrates its 700th anniversary this year, and a joint issue by Switzerland and the United States (with similar designs on both stamps) shows the Swiss Federal Palace (the Swiss Parliament building in Berne) and the U.S. Capitol in Washington (a city that is also mentioned in the Canon). August Derleth's talents as a writer extended far beyond his fine stories about Solar Pons, and the August Derleth Society continues to honor his work. Membership costs $6.00 a year (checks to Herb Attix, 3333 Westview Lane, Madison, WI 53713) and includes a quarterly newsletter; the current issue (Feb. 1991) has Robert W. Hahn's reminiscences about his trip, with four other Chicago Sherlockians, to visit Derleth in Sauk City in 1966. For the film buffs: GEORGE FLOREY, THE FRENCH IMPRESSIONIST, by Brian Taves (Metuchen: Scarecrow Press, 1987; 438 pp., $39.50), is a detailed study of one of Hollywood's great film-makers. Florey scripted the original version of "Frankenstein" and directed 65 features, including "Murders in the Rue Morgue", the Marx Brothers' "The Cocoanuts", and Reginald Owen's "A Study in Scarlet" (1933). Taves' discussion of "A Study in Scarlet" can also be found as an article in the spring 1989 issue of The Armchair Detective. Ron De Waal has sent a copy of the winter 1990 issue of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, with a long article by Michael W. Homer on "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: Spiritualism and 'New Religions'". The article covers Conan Doyle religious beliefs, his use of the Mormons in "A Study in Scarlet", and the Mormons' attitudes toward Conan Doyle when he visited Utah in 1923. $7.00 a copy, from the Dialogue Foundation, University Station (UMC 7805), Logan, UT 84322. The price of CD-ROM technology has begun to drop to relatively reasonable levels. For the non-computerized, that's "Compact Disc-Read Only Memory" (a compact disc holds as much information as 1,800 floppy disks, and the entire Oxford English Dictionary will fit on one compact disc). The early spring 1991 catalog from DAK Industries (8200 Remmet Avenue, Canoga Park, CA 91304) offers a BSR external CD-ROM drive (compatible with PC, XT, and AT computers) and six compact discs for $699. One of the compact discs is the "Library of the Future" (which includes THE COMPLETE SHERLOCK HOLMES). Mar 91 #3 Michael Hardwick ("The Sign of the Four") died on March 6. He became a writer almost by accident (working as a film producer in New Zealand, he was commissioned to write a book about the Royal Visit when Queen Elizabeth visited New Zealand in 1954), and he went on to become a prolific author in many fields. His first Sherlockian work, written with his wife Mollie, was THE SHERLOCK HOLMES COMPANION (1962), and their later joint credits included many adaptations of the Canon for stage, radio, and television. He also wrote fine novel-length pastiches (PRISONER OF THE DEVIL, THE PRIVATE LIFE OF DR. WATSON, SHERLOCK HOLMES: MY LIFE AND CRIMES, and THE REVENGE OF THE HOUND), and when he died he was working on his own Sherlockian memoirs for Gasogene Press. He was a fine raconteur, as many Sherlockians know from his American tours in 1980 and 1985, and he will be missed by his many friends and readers. Granada's new series of Sherlock Holmes programs made the newspapers in Britain, but the publicity wasn't quite what Granada expected. "Star's fury as TV Times bans Holmes photo" was the headline on one story, which reported that TV Times (the British equivalent of our TV Guide) had spent L10,000 shooting a cover photo for its Feb. 16 issue, and then killed the cover, which was to have shown Sherlock Holmes burning a letter, because (according to Jeremy Brett) "apparently the picture was too downbeat for the Gulf War." TV Times used instead a picture of newly-wed "Coronation Street" star Helen Worth and husband actor Michael Angelis. "I'm very disappointed," Brett said, "because I always said I'd play the part until I had been on the front cover of TV Times." British newspaper reviews of the new Jeremy Brett series, at hand from Jon Lellenberg, were generally favorable, though not as enthusiastic as for the earlier series. And an article in the Edinburgh Evening News reports that the new statue of Sherlock Holmes will be installed in Picardy Place in May (although the local branch of the Federation of Master Builders has so far raised only two-thirds of the estimated L45,000 cost); Prince Charles and Lady Diana have politely declined to unveil the statue, and the Federation is not optimistic about an invitation sent to the Queen Mother (they are also considering Sean Connery). Jon also reports SHERLOCK HOLMES: BOOK TWO (Newbury Park: Malibu Graphics, 1991; 132 pp., $17.95); this is a collection of the second five stories in Eternity's comic-book reprints of the 1954 comic strips by Edith Meiser and Frank Giacoia, edited by Tom Mason and with an Introduction by Jim Korkis and a Foreword by Martin Powell. Further to reports on the television film of "The Crucifer of Blood" (Oct 90 #5 and Nov 90 #3), Gary Westmoreland has heard from TNT that broadcast is now scheduled for Sept. 1991. The two-hour show stars Charlton Heston as Holmes and Richard Johnson as Watson. Fusion Video (17214 South Oak Park Avenue, Tinley Park, IL 60477) continues to offer 20 programs from the Jeremy Brett series on videocassettes ($19.98 each for the one-hour programs, and $39.98 each for the two longer shows), and "The Best of Sherlock Holmes" (the 30-minute cassette of excerpts from the series) at $9.98; shipping costs $4.50 per order, and their toll-free number is 800-338-7710. All the cassettes are packaged by MPI Home Video. Mar 91 #4 John Bellairs died on Mar. 8. He was the author of 15 fine children's books, including THE TREASURE OF ALPHEUS WINTERBORN (1978), a non-Sherlockian book that turned Sherlockian when it was adapted for television and broadcast in the "CBS Children's Mystery Theatre" in 1980. The television version starred Keith McConnell as Holmes and Laurie Main as Watson, and is available on videocassette (as "The Clue According to Sherlock Holmes") from Video Gems. Chaiky Halpern's children's books MIHU THE DETECTIVE AND THE MYSTERY OF THE MISSING CHAMATZ (Jerusalem: Feldheim Publishers, 1979) and MIHU THE DETEC- TIVE AND THE MYSTERY OF THE BLUE BUDGIE (1987) each feature Mihu in S'ian costume, and Jack Kerr reports that both titles are still available from Philipp Feldheim Inc., 200 Airport Executive Park, Spring Valley, NY 10977 (800-237-7149); $2.95 each, and they take plastic. Jack also notes a sesquicentennial conference honoring "Victorian Punch" at the University of London on July 12-13. The list of speakers includes Richard D. Altick on the early days of the magazine, and Anthony Burton on Richard Doyle (ACD's uncle, who created Punch's famous cover). Additional information is available from Michael Slater, Dept. of English, Birkbeck College, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HX, England. Scott Bond (519 East Allen's Lane, Philadelphia, PA 19119) offers his colorful new Moriarty one-inch lapel pin, for $11.00 postpaid. Scott's earlier matching pins, one with Holmes and the other with Watson, are also still available at the same price. Another plug for THE CONAN DOYLE STORIES, still available from Barnes & Noble (#1262336) at $9.95; this is the Galley Press reprint of the 1956 John Murray edition, with 76 fine examples of ACD's skills as a teller of tales (the stories are non-Sherlockian, except for the apocryphal "The Lost Special" and "The Man with the Watches"). Also available are: Russell Brown's SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE MYSTERIOUS FRIEND OF OSCAR WILDE (#1680404) at $5.98; Ken Greenwald's THE LOST ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (#1609049) at $9.95; Peter Haining's THE ART OF MYSTERY & DETECTIVE STORIES (#1636893) at $7.95; Ronald Pearsall's SHERLOCK HOLMES INVESTIGATES THE MURDER IN EUSTON SQUARE (#1685817) at $7.95; William Neblett's SHERLOCK'S LOGIC (#1688233) at $7.95; and Michael Shepherd's SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE CASE OF DR. FREUD (#1683051) at $3.98. Their address is 126 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10011; shipping is $4.00 per order, and they take plastic. One of the nice things about living on the east coast is that there was time to warn some west-coast Sherlockians to tape "Saturday Night Live" on NBC-TV on Mar. 23 (else we would just wait patiently for a repeat of the show). Jeremy Irons was the guest star, and appeared as Sherlock Holmes in one of the skits. And then won an Oscar on Mar. 25 for his performance as Claus von Bulow in "Reversal of Fortune". Noted in the spring 1991 catalog from What On Earth: "Brilliant Deduction" T-shirts ($12.95) and sweatshirts ($22.95) with a "Sherlock Holmes Tax Service" cartoon by Alan Hutchinson. Their address is 2451 Enterprise East Parkway, Twinsburg, OH 44087, and they take plastic. Mar 91 #5 Diana Rigg, in her introduction to "The Dark Angel" (the 1988 BBC-TV adaptation of Sheridan le Fanu's UNCLE SILAS, broadcast on "Mystery!" by PBS-TV on Mar. 20), stated that "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle lifted the entire plot of 'Uncle Silas' for one of his own books." Diana Rigg was of course working from someone else's script. It would appear to have been M. R. James who first suggested in print, in his Introduction to the World's Classics edition of UNCLE SILAS (1926), that similarities of plot can be found in Conan Doyle's THE FIRM OF GIRDLESTONE. THE FIRM OF GIRDLESTONE, written in 1884-85 but not published until 1890, was the second novel written by Conan Doyle (THE NARRATIVE OF JOHN SMITH, lost in the mail on its first journey to a publisher, was the first), and Conan Doyle, in MEMORIES AND ADVENTURES, said of THE FIRM OF GIRDLESTONE that "save for occasional patches it is a worthless book, and, like the first book of everyone else, unless he is a great original genius, it was too reminiscent of the work of others." At the end of his career, in his "Preface to the Crowborough Edition" he wrote that THE FIRM OF GIRDLESTONE "stands for that crude and imitative stage through which an undeveloped writer may pass," but the book was included in the Crowborough Edition, and Conan Doyle suggested that "I find that it appeals strongly to a certain type of reader who tunes in to my own mind at that point." THE FIRM OF GIRDLESTONE is certainly a neglected book (although reprinted by Jack Tracy in 1980), and it is recommended to admirers of Conan Doyle who might wish to see how much or how little he actually owes to le Fanu. It should also be noted that UNCLE SILAS (1864) is not the only book by le Fanu of interest to Sherlockians: another is A LOST NAME (1868), discussed in letters to the Sherlock Holmes Journal by Cornelis Helling (spring 1960) and Sydney C. Roberts (winter 1960). A LOST NAME involves a man who plays the violin for inspiration when alone, who takes cocaine, and whose name is Carmel Sherlock. There are references to deer in three of the case (Reig, Abbe, and Wist), and our new stamp for the new postcard rate shows an attractive fawn. Andrew Jay Peck wonders about the fleeting view of Jay Ward and Bill Scott wearing deerstalkers in a photograph briefly shown in the PBS-TV special "Of Moose and Men" honoring Rocky and Bullwinkle. Does anyone know of a Sherlockian connection for the show, or for its creators? Sherlock Holmes has registered and entered the finals of the 1991 Fiddle Contest to be held in Shelburne, Ontario, on Aug. 10, according to George A. Vanderburgh. There will also be a Shelburne Fiddle Parade, with a float ("London: 1895") for visiting Sherlockians, and additional information is available from George at Box 204, Shelburne, Ont. L0N 1S0, Canada. A scholarly article by Marty Roth on "Sherlock Holmes and the Madness of Representation", in the summer 1990 issue of the North Dakota Quarterly, begins with a suggestion that Holmes is an "excessive figure" capable of generating "eagerness, study, adoration, fanatic clubs, and cult worship," and continues with an examination of various aspects of Holmes-as-hero. University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, ND 58202; $5.00. Mar 91 #6 SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE WORLD'S MOST FAMOUS CONSULTING DETECTIVE: BROADCAST AND MOVIE LOG, by Gordon E. Kelley, is a checklist (36 pp.) of S'ian radio, records, television, and films, concentrating on adaptations of the Canonical tales but not ignoring the many pastiches in the long-running American radio series. Available for $10.00 postpaid from the author, at 8600 University Boulevard, Evansville, IN 47712. Arthur Liebman, author of THE BIOGRAPHICAL SHERLOCK HOLMES, will offer an "Evening with Sherlock Holmes" at the New School for Social Research in New York at 8:00 pm on May 3. The address is 66 West 12th Street, the cost is $10.00, and you can register for the evening by calling 212-741-5690. Andy Peck also reports that the Detective Book Club's three-in-one volume with Lloyd Biggle's THE QUALLSFORD INHERITANCE (Feb 87 #2) is offered at $7.99 plus shipping in a list received from Black's Readers Service, Box 404, Roslyn, NY 11576. This may be a members-only offer. THE HOLMESIAN FEDERATION #8 is a fine addition to the series launched by Signe Landon in 1978; the current issue offers 129 pages of pastiches, tributes, and artwork by old hands (Tina Rhea, Brad Keefauver, Stefanie Hawks, Robert F. Fleissner, and Dana Martin Batory) and new, and it is available for $6.00 postpaid from Signe Landon Danier, 3800 N.W. Van Buren, Corvallis, OR 97330. Mark Erdrich reports that Burbank Video has issued 18 cassettes, each with two of the 1954 television shows starring Ronald Howard, and that he has found the cassettes at a local K-Mart priced at $3.95 each. Further to the report (Feb 91 #3) on how high Canadian postal rates are, Don Redmond reports that Canadian post offices also charge a 7% sales tax on purchases up to $5.00. The tax is imposed on almost everything, and is called a Goods and Services Tax (GST, which many refer to as a Gouge and Screw Tax). Don also reports that many of his correspondents in the U.S. are overpaying postage. It may be a nuisance keeping a supply of different stamps on hand, but your local post office should have free charts showing the new domestic and international rates. A videotaper alert: Richard Wein reports that USA cable will show "Alfred Hitchcock Presents: My Dear Watson" on Apr. 5. As reported earlier, the best part of the show is the colorized introduction, which has Hitchcock himself, wearing a deerstalker and blowing bubbles from a calabash pipe. Also: "The Invisible Man" (1933) will be shown on American Movie Classics on Apr. 20; it has been reported that footage from the film (the Invisible Man moves a railway-switch lever) was used at the beginning of "Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror" (1942). AMC will also show "Super-Sleuth" (1937) on Apr. 11 and 26; the film has two bits of Sherlockian dialogue. The Family Channel will air "Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon" (1943) and "Terror by Night" (1946) on Apr. 6. And "Tales from the Darkside: The Movie" (1990) will be shown by HBO on Apr. 14, 16, 20, 25, and 26; one of the episodes in the film is an adaptation of Conan Doyle's "Lot No. 249". The Spermaceti Press, 3900 Tunlaw Road NW #119, Washington, DC 20007-4830 Apr 91 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press Edward Hardwicke, on his 21st birthday, was presented with a bound volume inscribed by many of his father's friends. One of those friends, a famous author, offered some advice: "Don't go on the stage, Edward, you would only be Cedric Hardwicke's son at best." The author was George Bernard Shaw; those who admire Edward Hardwicke's portrayal of Dr. Watson in the Granada series will be glad that he did not heed that advice. Further to the query (Mar 91 #5) about the photograph in "Of Moose and Men" showing Jay Ward and Bill Scott wearing deerstalkers, Jerry Margolin asked Skip Craig, editor of the show and a close friend of Ward, and the answer was "Ward and Scott just liked to wear funny hats." But the old shows did have Sherlockian content, as do the newly-released Buena Vista Home Video cassettes ("The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle"). Rosemary Michaud reports that vol. 3 ("Vincent Van Moose") shows a S'ian figure trying to stop the Goof Gas Attack, and vol. 5 ("Le Grande Moose") shows Boris and Natasha dressed as Holmes and Watson, investigating the Box Top Robbery. Our current 21-cent definitive stamp honors Chester Carlson, one of the great benefactors of modern civilization. Even though he was not known to have been a Sherlockian, there are many of us who benefit from his genius, and it is a pity that very few people know who he was, and what he did. Denny Martin Flinn's SAN FRANCISCO KILLS (New York: Bantam Books, 1991; 200 pp., $3.95) begins a new series about Spencer Holmes, a private detective who lives colorfully and eccentrically in San Francisco, and who happens to be the grandson of Sherlock Holmes. The plot is derivative (although not from the Canon), and the style a bit labored. KILLER FINISH, the next in the series, is forecast for Aug. 1991. Further to earlier reports (May 90 #7 and Jun 90 #6) on plans to expand the Granada Studios Tour in Manchester, British newspaper articles, at hand from Jon Lellenberg, report that the L1.5-million expansion should be completed and open to visitors at Easter. One of the new features will be a Sherlock Holmes Museum of Criminology, assembled with the assistance of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society and The Northern Musgraves. Also at hand from Jon is John Russell's review of Granada's "The Problem of Thor Bridge" in the Sunday Express (Mar. 3, 1991), with Russell's complaint that Jeremy Brett's "eerie trance-like state did not change from beginning to end of the sort of preposterous production that must have had Sir Arthur Conan Doyle spinning in his grave." And a letter in the paper on Mar. 10, from Dame Jean Conan Doyle, responding to the suggestion about Sir Arthur: "I think he would have enjoyed both the acting and the production." And a British press report that the twelve stories in the recent BBC Radio 4 series "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" (with Clive Merrison as Holmes and Michael Williams as Watson) are now available on cassettes in the BBC's "Radio Collection". No details on prices or a source, but the cassettes may be available from the BBC World Information Centre and Shop, P.O. Box 76, Bush House, Strand, London WC2B 4PH, England (they take plastic). Apr 91 #2 Carole Nelson Douglas' GOOD NIGHT, MR. HOLMES (Oct 90 #4) had three printings in hardcover, and will be published by Tor as a paperback in June ($4.99). A sequel, GOOD MORNING, IRENE, is due from Tor/ Tom Doherty in July (374 pp., $19.95), and offers a new adventure involving Irene Adler Norton, her husband, and Penelope Huxleigh in an entertaining mystery set in Paris and Monte Carlo. Sherlock Holmes appears, from time to time, but it is the adventurous Irene who solves the mystery. To whet your appetite, here's a quote from the jacket blurb: "On the sailor's chest is a tattoo--a tattoo reminiscent of one Irene saw years ago in London, on another sailor's chest, while the corpse lay upon Bram Stoker's dining room table..." Carole Nelson Douglas is a fugitive from Minnesota (where she was a reporter, feature writer, and editor with the St. Paul Pioneer Press), now living in Fort Worth (where it's warmer), and she has had 22 novels published since her first appeared in 1980. Her genres include science fiction and fantasy (for Del Rey and Tor) and romances (four 1990 romances from Bantam were narrated by Midnight Louie, an 18-pound black alleycat, who will feature in DEAD MATTER, a humorous mystery due next year). The silhouette is her own portrait of Irene Adler Norton, who will appear in at least two more novels now in progress. Jennie Paton reports that the Sherlock Holmes episode with the near-sighted Mr. Magoo as Dr. Watson (D6098b) is included in the Paramount videocassette "Mr. Magoo's Literary Classics" ($12.95); probably available at your local video store, but it's also offered by Movies Unlimited, 6736 Castor Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 91949 (800-523-0823). The same episode was issued a few years ago in another Paramount cassette ("Mister Magoo: Man of Mystery"). Jennie also reports that "Greater Than Sherlock Holmes" is included in the videocassette "Films of Stan Laurel Volume 1" ($24.95) offered by Facets Video, 1517 West Fullerton Avenue, Chicago, IL 60614 (800-331-6197). This is a ten-minute comedy made by Pathe in 1925, with Laurel in Sherlockian costume, released in the U.S. as "The Sleuth" and in France as "Plus fort que Sherlock Holmes". Reported by Gary Thaden: PETER RABBIT PAPER DOLLS IN FULL COLOR, by Kathy Allert (New York: Dover, 1982 but still in print; $3.50); with one doll and 28 outfits, one of which is Sherlockian. Announced by the Opuscula Press: COLLECTING SHERLOCKIANA: AN ESSAY, by John Bennett Shaw, in a 16-page pamphlet with a frontispiece photograph showing the Sage of Santa Fe in his library. Available from the publisher (6307 Forrester Drive, Bradenton, FL 34202) for $5.50 postpaid ($7.00 outside the United States). John Aidiniantz is continuing his efforts to publicize his Sherlock Holmes Museum at 239 Baker Street. According to a recent Reuters dispatch, noted by Barbara Alder, Aidiniantz says that he has secretaries prepared to look up original train timetables for fans who thought Dr. Watson had caught a particular train." Reuters also quoted Erica Harper, who now answers the mail at Abbey National: "We have been replying to fans' letters since 1932 Apr 91 #3 Chester Carlson (Apr 91 #1) invented the photocopier. Anyone who doubts the value of this technology is too young to recall the distant days when purple hectograph masters were the only way one could publish newsletters at a reasonable cost. Graham Greene died on Apr. 3. He wrote a perceptive Introduction for the Murray/Cape edition of THE SIGN OF FOUR (1974), and, for the Spectator, warm reviews of Rathbone's "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (1939) and "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" (1940), and he recommended Hesketh Pearson's biography CONAN DOYLE: HIS LIFE AND ART (1943), suggesting of Conan Doyle that "we see the large, sturdy, working shoulders, a face so commonplace that it has the effect of a time-worn sculpture representing some abstract quality like Kindness or Patience, but never, one would mistakenly have said, Imagination or Poetry." In his Foreword to Richard Lancelyn Green and John Michael Gibson's A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF A. CONAN DOYLE (1983), Greene noted that he had recently reread "A Study in Scarlet" (in his own copy of Beeton's Christmas Annual), cited a few of the Canonical discrepancies, and suggested that "some of the charm of the story-teller lies in the errors, as though we were listening to someone improvising a story for our amuse- ment by our bedside." Travelers to Hyde Park for the Culinary Institute of America dinner on May 4 may also wish to attend the traditional (and recently confirmed) Pancake Breakfast at the Rhinebeck Firehouse on May 5. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle gave a series of lectures about spiritualism at Carnegie Hall in Apr. and May 1922 (filling the 3,500-seat house at each time). Our newest postal card honors the 100th anniversary of Carnegie Hall. Deer me, Mr. Blau. Deer me!" (as Prof. Moriarty almost said). There are two additional mentions of deer in the Canon (in Vall and Suss), not noted in the report (Mar 91 #5) on the new postage stamp, but carefully recorded by Hugh T. Harrington in HARRINGTON'S CANONICAL INDEX, available from The Village Bookshelf, Box 708, Massillon, OH 44648 ($22.00 postpaid). Trevor Hall died on Mar. 8. In his school-days he was taken to London by his father and introduced to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. He was also taken to see Maskelyne's magic show, and Hall continued an interest in spiritualism and conjuring throughout his life, writing many books on both subjects. He also contributed to Sherlockian scholarship, with books such as SHERLOCK HOLMES: TEN LITERARY STUDIES (1969), THE LATE MR. SHERLOCK HOLMES & OTHER LITERARY STUDIES (1971), SHERLOCK HOLMES AND HIS CREATOR (1977), and his last book was THE LAST CASE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (1986), a pastiche in which he used Sherlock Holmes to shed new light on the long-disputed haunting of Borley Rectory. Reported: THE NIGHT FANTASTIC, edited by Poul and Karen Anderson (New York: DAW Books, 1991; $4.50); an anthology of fantasy short stories, including Fritz Leiber's "Midnight by the Morphy Watch" (first published in Worlds of If, Aug. 1974), with a passage of imaginary Sherlockian dialogue. Apr 91 #4 Geo. Gately's "Heathcliff" has occasionally appeared in S'ian costume in Sunday and daily comic strips, and he has now been spotted by Jack Kerr in full rig on the cover (only) of HEATHCLIFF: THE CAT DETECTIVE (New York: Tor Books, 1991; $3.50). Charles Goren died on Apr. 3. A world-famous expert on bridge (he made the cover of Time), he started his widely-read newspaper column about the game in 1944 (and was joined by Omar Sharif as co-author in 1970); the column included occasional mentions of Sherlock Holmes. "Well, I quite my job so I could work all alone,/Then I changed my name to Sherlock Holmes." Those are two lines from the lyrics of a Bob Dylan song that was banned by the Columbia Broadcasting System from the Ed Sullivan show in 1963, and until now available only on bootleg albums. But times do change, and "Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues" (recorded live at Carnegie Hall on Oct. 26, 1963) has been issued by Columbia Records in a authorized collection called THE BOOTLEG SERIES VOLS. 1-3 (RARE AND UNRELEASED) 1961- 1991. The collection is available as a three-CD set (C3K-47382) at $44.99 and as a three-cassette set (C3T-47382) at $34.99 and on records. Sean O'Faolain died on Apr. 20. He was an Irish patriot and a member of the IRA in the 1920s, and then turned to writing, becoming world-famous for his short stories. In his essay "Good Night, Sweet Sherlock" (in the Jan. 1975 issue of Playboy) he suggested that "the magic of Sherlock Holmes has faded because crime has caught up with him," and that Holmes "was far too successful to remain persuasive in these all too crime-laden days." Reported by Jerry Margolin: a new souvenir sheet from the Commonwealth of Dominica that shows "Sherlock Holmes & Dr. Watson watching Brunigline train (built 1888) descending from the Brunig Pass towards Meiringen". It's part of a set showing trains (popular with topical collectors, as well as with small countries that need the money), and there's no need to consult your local stamp dealer (unless you want the complete set): our next issue will tell you how to obtain the souvenir sheet and the first day cover. Apr 91 #5 David Lean died on Apr. 16. He was a magnificent director (his best-known films are "The Bridge on the River Kwai", "Lawrence of Arabia", "Dr. Zhivago" and "A Passage to India"), and his 16 films won 28 Academy Awards, including two Oscars for Lean himself. He was knighted in 1984, and received the American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award in 1990. And he was happy to acknowledge his debt to Sherlock Holmes (and Eille Norwood): "at 17, I sneaked into my first cinema, 'The Hound of the Baskervilles', and it had immediate magic for me." Robert C. Hess (559 Potters Boulevard, Brightwaters, NY 11718) has a new sales list, with more than a hundred items of Sherlockiana: sculptures, china, artwork, dolls, theatrical postcards and programs and posters, and some books and magazines. An illustrated flier at hand from Schomberg Miniatures (52 Proctor Road, Schomberg, Ont. L0G 1T0, Canada) offering a set of figures (Sherlock Holmes and four of the Irregulars) sculpted by John Pryce and cast in pewter, with a walnut base (CA$195.00 plus $15.00 shipping to the U.S.). "There was excellent wild-duck shooting in the fens," Sherlock Holmes said (in "The Gloria Scott"). Robert Giusti's portrait of a wood duck appears on our new booklet stamps. The revised and enlarged edition of A CATALOGUE OF CRIME, by Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor (New York: Harper & Row, 1989; 922 pp., $50.00), has been remaindered at $14.98 and at that price is value- for-money, both as a useful reference work to crime fiction and for the authors' often entertaining opinions on the thousands of items considered. THE ADVENTURE OF THE DOC-CROAKERS' DIRK is the latest round-robin pastiche written by members of The Pleasant Places of Florida (16 pp., and $4.00 postpaid from Ben Wood, Box 740, Ellenton, FL 34222). Local guidebooks are often enjoyable, especially when they include a bit of local history. WELCOME TO WOKING, edited by Ray Veasey and Peter Farr, is a fine example, devoting a page to Borough of Woking resident H. G. Wells (who reduced Woking to "a heap of fiery ruins" in THE WAR OF THE WORLDS) and mentioning in passing that "The Naval Treaty" also involves Woking (but not that Frank and Maude Crosse lived and loved in Woking in Conan Doyle's romantic novel A DUET: WITH AN OCCASIONAL CHORUS). Also in the borough is Brookwood Cemetery, opened by the Necropolis & National Mausoleum Company in 1854, and prominently featured in Basil Copper's NECROPOLIS (1980). The 104-page booklet is available from the Woking Borough Council, Gloucester Square, Woking, Surrey GU21 1YL, England; L1.50. Patti Nead Elrod's THE VAMPIRE FILES #4: ART IN THE BLOOD (New York: Ace Books, 1991; 195 pp., $3.95) is the latest in her series about Jack Fleming (vampire) and Charles Escott (private detective); the only Canonical echo in this volume is in the title (and the epigraph). THE VAMPIRE FILES #5: FIRE IN THE BLOOD is forecast for June 1991. Her artistic "Baker Street Ir-rag-ulars" (original soft sculptures of Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson, and special commissions) are still available: send a #10 SASE for additional information (4800 Kilpatrick Avenue, Fort Worth, TX 76107). Apr 91 #6 Readers who are also baseball fans may recall the Sherlockian commercial that aired on CBS-TV at the end of the 1990 season, produced by Brouillard Communications for the American Gas Association and Lennox Gas Furnaces (with Patrick Horgan as Holmes and Sandy Marshall as Watson). The commercial will be broadcast again this year, during the American League and National League playoffs, and during the World Series. Mentions of the BSI in non- Sherlockian fiction aren't all that common, but Dean Clark has discovered a new one, in Allen Steele's science-fiction novel CLARKE COUNTY, SPACE (New York: Ace Books, 1990; $4.50). "A Birthday on Baker Street" and "A Day in the Life of Mr. Sherlock Holmes" are one-act comedies written in 1990 by Mohamad Bazzi, sparking-plug of The Young Sherlockians of New York. Both plays will be per- formed at the Central Library Auditorium at 89-11 Merrick Boulevard, Jamaica, N.Y., at 1:30 pm on Apr. 3 (admission is free). Further to Mark Erdrich's report (Mar 91 #6) that 36 of the 1954 television shows starring Ronald Howard have been issued on 18 cassettes (at $3.95 per cassette at his local K-Mart), the company named on the cassette sleeves is Video Classics and the name on the cassettes is Burbank Video. Cynthia Wein (65 Briarwood Lane, Plainview, NY 11803) offers a hand-painted 18x18" needlepoint canvas with a bold portrait of Sherlock Holmes in white, black, and red. The cost of the kit (canvas and yarn) is $58.00 postpaid, and if you would like to see a color photograph, send an SASE to Cynthia. Some of the Canadian HOLMES (Home Office Large Major Enquiry System) items (Jul 89 #2 and Sep 89 #4) are still available from Sgt. David A. Reinhardt (76 Lord Simcoe Drive, Bramalea, Ont. L6S 5G6, Canada): lapel pins ($4.00), mechanical pencils ($2.00), and neckties ($15.00). The necktie is in navy blue with the white HOLMES design (and a red maple leaf to show you're not advertising the British system). Prices are in U.S. dollars and postpaid. New comic books: BAKER STREET #7 (from Caliber, $2.50 and recommended for "mature audiences") continues "Children of the Night" (not Sherlockian but with allusions that include of Chief Inspector Lester Strand and a club called The Baskervilles) and TIMEWANKERS #3 (from Eros, $2.25 and for very mature audiences, since it's straight porno) has Jonathan Fegly in S'ian costume in Victorian London (but only on the cover). The Spermaceti Press, 3900 Tunlaw Road NW #119, Washington, DC 20007-4830 May 91 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press FLASHMAN AND THE MOUNTAIN OF LIGHT, by George MacDonald Fraser (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991; 367 pp., $22.00), is an account the exploits of Lt. Harry Flashman in the Punjab in 1845 (too early for anything Sherlockian, but it's nice indeed to have another Flashman book after so long a wait). Fraser's "explanatory note" mentions Flashman's "brief excursion, as yet unpublished, to a brawl in Baker Street as far ahead as 1894, when he was in his seventy-second year." That story ("Flashman & the Tiger") has been published, actually, in installments in the [London] Daily Express, Sept. 29-Oct. 3, 1975, but has not yet appeared in a Flashman book. The Canon has many mentions of eagles, although none of them are described as being bald; our new commemorative honoring U.S. Savings Bonds shows a handsome bald eagle. Reported (in a British newspaper article received from Jon Lellenberg): SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE HENTZAU AFFAIR, a new pastiche by David Stuart Davies (Ian Henry, L9.95). A second pastiche (THE TANGLED SKEIN) is set for publication next year. SECOND THOUGHTS ABOUT SHERLOCK HOLMES is a 30-page pamphlet offering two new pastiches written by Michael Senuta, and an analysis of the stories in THE CASEBOOK OF SHERLOCK HOLMES. Available from the author (881 Columbine Drive, Barberton, OH 44203) for $8.00 postpaid. Some tekkie-talk for computer-literate Sherlockians: DAK Industries (8200 Remmet Avenue, Canoga Park, CA 91304) is a marketer (not a manufacturer), and their summer 1991 catalog offers a Marstek Mars 105 hand-held scanner bundled with an OCR system, for $150. The OCR system will save a text scan as a Lotus, Microsoft Word, WordPerfect, or WordStar file, or as a plain ASCII file. Marstek claims an accuracy of 99.5%, but DAK suggests that 92% accuracy is more realistic, and that a spelling-checker be run on the file (which should be done in case). This is a real advance on old technology: only a few years ago a decent OCR machine cost thousands of dollars, with accuracy of about 80%. Ake Runnquist ("Jacob Shafter") died on Apr. 23 in Stockholm. He was for many years senior literary editor for Albert Bonniers Forlag, dealing with both Scandinavian and foreign literature, and carefully ensured that a fine Swedish translation of the Canon remained in print (a three-volume edition was reissued by Bonniers in 1985). His interest in the mystery field was also one of long standing (he and Jorgen Elgstrom collaborated on a SVENSK MORDBOK in 1957), and he was a devoted Sherlockian, attending meetings in Scandinavia and (when he could) in other countries, including the United States, where he received his Investiture at the annual dinner in 1981. A fine example of his warm and gentle humor will be found in his review of a Dublin production of Hugh Leonard's play "The Mask of Moriarty" in Baker Street Miscellanea (spring 1986). Noted in the summer 1991 catalog from What On Earth: a 10-inch "Sherlock Troll" doll ($29.95) as well as other older offers. Their address is 2451 Enterprise East Parkway, Twinsburg, OH 44087, and they take plastic. May 91 #2 Reported by Ely Liebow: READING(S), a freshman reader edited by Geoffrey and Judith Summerfield (New York: Random House, 1989), with excerpts from "A Study in Scarlet" and from Joseph Bell's introduction (retitled here as "How Conan Doyle Learned to Read"). The next "Canonical Convocation and Caper" is scheduled for Sept. 13-15 in Door County, Wis. The guest speakers will include Norman Davis, Elizabeth Kowols, and Alfred A. Levin, and there is much more on the agenda. Donald B. Izban (5334 Wrightwood Avenue, Chicago, IL 60639) will be happy to send more information on request. There wasn't enough warning to include a videotaper alert in the previous issue, but "Father Dowling Mysteries" on ABC-TV on Apr. 25 handled the appearance of Sherlock Holmes rather nicely. "The Consulting Detective Mystery" undoubtedly will be run again: according to the TV Guide listing, "Dowling (Tom Bosley) doubles his deductive powers while investigating a murder by consulting with his mentor Sherlock Holmes (Rupert Frazer), whom only he can see." The same problem arose with "Life Goes On" on ABC-TV on Apr. 28, when one of the sub-plots involved two of the kids in a Sherlockian investigation, and in Sherlockian costume. Watch for the repeat: TV Guide said, "Cork and Zoe play Sherlock Holmes and snoop into Tyler's furtive behavior." For those who missed the shows and don't want to wait for a repeat, "Father Dowling Mysteries" and "Life Goes On" are available on a VHS cassette from Jennie Paton's lending library. Another of her lending-library cassettes has the "Saturday Night Live" segment with Jeremy Irons as Sherlock Holmes (from Mar. 23) and other short items. The arrangement is a lending-library charge of $5.00 per cassette, and borrowers pay the return postage. Write to Jennie C. Paton, 206 Loblolly Lane, Statesboro, GA 30458. Maurice Binder died on Apr. 9 in London. He was a graphics arts designer, best known for his splendid title sequences for the James Bond films, but his designs can also be seen in the titles for "Indiscreet" (1958), "The Mouse That Roared" (1959), "The Grass Is Greener" (1960), and "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes" (1970). Returning to "Father Dowling Mysteries", it was noted that Holmes drove a car during the program. Can anyone recall any earlier film or television show in which Holmes drove a car? The Apr. 1991 issue of The Devonshire Chronicle also at hand, with a nice reprint of the traditionally-sedate group photograph from the 1991 annual dinner of the BSI. It's published quarterly for The Chester Baskerville Society's quarterly and the cost is $4.00 a year, from Michael W. McClure (1415 Swanwick Street, Chester, IL 62233). DOCTOR WHO: THE SCRIPTS: THE TALONS OF WENG-CHIANG (London: Titan Books, 1989; 154 pp., L3.95), offers Robert Holmes' complete script for the most Sherlockian story in the "Doctor Who" television series, broadcast in 1977 (Tom Baker was in S'ian costume, battling giant rats in Victorian London), accompanied by some interesting background information by John McElroy. May 91 #3 Reported: GOJIRO, by Mark Jacobson (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1991; $22.95); a novel about a 500-foot-tall lizard with human intelligence (and if you think you've heard of the lizard before, you have: the 1954 Japanese film "Gojiro" was retitled "Godzilla" for release in the U.S.). According to David Sacks (in the N.Y. Times Book Review), the book is "profoundly strange, often hilarious, but erratic," and seems to have a "submerged allusion" to "Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon". Sherlockians (and others) who have long yearned to see the uncut three-hour version of Billy Wilder's "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes" (1970) will welcome the news that Wilder was quoted in Liz Smith's syndicated column last month as saying that the film is to be restored, edited, and released in all its original glory (as has been done with "Lawrence of Arabia" and "Spartacus"). "Blood-curdling drama" was the phrase Nicholas Utechin used to describe a dramatization of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" performed by the Steeple Aston Players in Mar. 1982. And the three-act script, written by Anthony Hinds (the producer of Peter Cushing's 1959 film), is now available from the New Playwrights' Network (35 Sandringham Road, Macclesfield, Cheshire SK10 1QB, England) for L5.45 postpaid (sterling only, please). Videotaper alert: the 30-minute series "The Collectors" (produced by Oregon Public Television) will have a segment called "Great Characters" (about an imagined meeting of characters such as Mickey Mouse, Howdy Doody, the Star Wars crew, and Sherlock Holmes) that includes a short interview with Jerry Margolin. The program (broadcast in Oregon on Feb. 18) is syndicated, and will be broadcast on Maryland Public Television on June 16 (and repeated on June 22); the series is not networked, so you should check with your local stations for dates and times. "The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box" is the working title for what will be (eventually) a Hypertext edition of THE COMPLETE SHERLOCK HOLMES: the text of the stories, with annotations from Baring-Gould's THE ANNOTATED SHERLOCK HOLMES, entries from Tracy's THE ENCYCLOPAEDIA SHERLOCKIANA, and anything else that might be appropriate. Hypertext is a computer program that is used to scroll through text, calling up annotations that appear in windows on the screen. A floppy-disk (MS-DOS) test version of "The Red Circle" (annotated from Baring-Gould) is available from George A. Vanderburgh, Box 204, Shelburne, Ont. L0N 1S0, Canada, for US$5.00 postpaid (make sure you specify whether your drive is 3.5-inch or 5.25-inch). The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have gone Sherlockian. Well, one of them, anyway. Jeff Huddleston's imaginative "Michaelange-Holmes" appears as the centerfold in the Apr. 1991 issue of Holmes for the Holidays, published for young mystery fans by Michael W. McClure (1415 Swanwick Street, Chester, IL 62233); $7.50 a year for five issues. Responding to a few queries: Northstar did publish CASES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES #20 (with a 1990 copyright date), with Dan and David Day's art illustrating "The Red-Headed League". #21 has not been seen or reported, and there have been unconfirmed reports that Northstar ended their comic-book series with #20. Northstar's address is 10829 South Western #2-C, Chicago, IL 60643. May 91 #4 The celebration of the "Reichenbach Centennial" at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park on May 4 was both delightful and delicious. There were six buffet alcoves in the Great Hall, honoring various countries and cuisines associated with the historic confrontation and its aftermath, and a seventh buffet table offered deserts for those who were still hungry. Al and Julie Rosenblatt and Fritz Sonnenschmidt did a magnificent job with the meal and with its accompaniments, which included a delightful display of Reichenbach artwork (one splendid item being Sidney Paget's original ink-and-wash drawing for one of the illustrations, loaned to the exhibition by Willy Werby). The evening's agenda also included toasts (traditional and untraditional), an award of the BSI's Queen Victoria Medal to Fritz Sonnenschmidt, and the announcement by Ev Herzog of four new memberships and (imaginatively ashy) investitures in the Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes: John Bennett Shaw ("Arcadia"), Peter E. Blau ("Ship's"), Thomas L. Stix, Jr. ("Shag"), and the late William S. Baring-Gould ("The Blue Swirl of His Tobacco Smoke"). Tom Stix was awarded the formal (and ornate) regalia of the Sherlockian Order of the Garter, in recognition of his contributions to the cause, and Al and Julie Rosenblatt received a copy of Dec. 1893 issue of The Strand Magazine (with the first appearance in print of "The Final Problem"), and formal greetings were offered to the celebrants at the CIA by the Mayor of Meiringen (and the title of honorary citizen of Meiringen was awarded to Sherlock Holmes). Extra copies of the artistic 16-page menu are available for those who could not attend the festivities: $15.00 postpaid from Albert M. Rosenblatt, Box 221-B, Pleasant Valley, NY 12569. A plug for Mysteries by Mail (Box 679, Boonville, CA 95415): their catalogs offer a wide range of in-print (Sherlockian and other) books, video, and audio, and they have a toll-free number (800-722-0726). Syd Goldberg reports that one of his British correspondents reports that Granada is planning "Charles Augustus Milverton" as a two-hour special for Christmas, and may do other stories as well. And (according to a story in the Glasgow Daily Record on May 4, reported by Jon Lellenberg) Granada is not concerned about the need to pad out a short story to fill two hours. The Waterloo Sherlockian Letter is published occasionally by Chris Redmond, offering comment and commentary on whatever comes to Chris' inventive mind. He has no subscription department, but past and current issues (there have been five so far) are available: a dollar or two in U.S. currency will take care of the postage, and his address is 523 Westfield Drive, Waterloo, Ont. N2T 2E1, Canada. Canadians can send postage stamps, Chris advises, since Canada no longer has dollar bills. The new Sherlockian souvenir sheet from the Commonwealth of Dominica (Apr 91 #4) is now available from Ben Wood (Box 740, Ellenton, FL 34222). The souvenir (mint) costs $4.00 postpaid, and the first day cover costs $5.00 postpaid. I also recommend Ben's own irregular newsletter, The Bohemian Scandal Sheet, which is available from Ben on request and without charge. May 91 #5 The newly-expanded Granada Studios Tour is now open, with the Sherlock Holmes Museum of Criminology, a visit to the interior set of 221B, and a stroll along Baker Street (and on May 22 a celebration of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's birthday included a half-hour dramatization of the first meeting between Holmes and Watson, and a Sherlockian debate in Granada's version of the House of Commons). A nicely illustrated booklet describing the S'ian and other attractions is available from the Granada Studios Tour, Water Street, Manchester M60 9EA, England. Klondike Holmes appeared in advertising inserts on May 5, promoting a new "Crack the Klondike Caper" contest in which one of the prizes appears to be a Klondike bear in Sherlockian costume. Details are available on packages of Klondike ice-cream bars, or you can send an SASE to Klondike Caper Rules, Box 8600, Westport, CT 06888. The spring 1991 issue of Freedom Minnesota, reported by Gary Thaden, has a delightful full-page and full-color Sherlockian illustration by Brian Ajhar (for a non-S'ian article about cholesterol and fat). The publisher is the Physicians Health Plan of Minnesota (Communications Dept.), Box 1587, Minneapolis, MN 55440. The 25th issue of The Tonga Times (the newsletter of the Mini-Tonga Scion Society) at hand, with news of Sherlockian miniatures, including reprints of Dee Snyder's interesting articles in the program book for the July 1990 N.A.M.E. Houseparty and in the Dec. 1990 issue of Nutshell News. Send a #10 SASE to Dee Snyder, 8440 Nashua Drive, Palm Beach Gardens, FL 33418. And the Dec. 1990 issue of Nutshell News is desirable for the fine color photographs of Sherlockian houses and rooms accompanying Dee's article. The address is Box 1612, Waukesha, WI 53187 (800-446-5489), and the issue costs $3.50 (shipping extra). Plan ahead: the eleventh annual Sherlock Holmes/Conan Doyle Symposium at Wright State University in Dayton will be held on Mar. 13-15, 1992. The mailing list for the symposium is maintained by Alvin E. Rodin, 3041 Maginn Drive, Beavercreek, OH 45385. Ann Byerly has a new address: 2600 Tunlaw Road NW #1, Washington, DC 20007 (her telephone number has not changed). Jon Lellenberg reports that Prodigy (the on-line computer service) will run a Sherlockian game during July. "In London with Sherlock Holmes" will be sponsored by the National Geographic, with Holmes and Watson exploring the geography of London in "The Adventure of the Jubilee Diamond". Lenore Glen Offord ("The Old Russian Woman") died on Apr. 24. She wrote fine mystery novels in the 1930s and 1940s, and reviewed mysteries for the San Francisco Chronicle for more than 30 years. She was also an ardent Sherlockian, a member of The Scowrers and Mollie Maguires, and the first woman to receive an Investiture in the BSI (from Edgar W. Smith, in 1958); her poetic speculation on her Investiture (in six stanzas, and with eight footnotes) can be found in the anthology WEST BY ONE AND BY ONE (1965). May 91 #6 John Mortimer's "Summer's Lease" (on "Masterpiece Theatre" on PBS-TV) turned out to be more Sherlockian than predicted (Feb 91 #4). Those who did not watch the mini-series are urged to wait for the repeat: there is mystery and humor and fine acting, and the theme of "The Copper Beeches" is echoed in the mystery. The first episode also contains a bibliographic mystery: a long shot of Molly starting to read "The Copper Beeches" in a copy of the John Murray edition of THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES is followed by a close-up of the first page of the story in the John Murray edition of SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE COMPLETE SHORT STORIES. And the cast included two actors who have played Holmes (John Gielgud and Michael Pennington), and one who has played Watson (Dennis Lill). Gielgud starred on radio in "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" (1954), Pennington on television in "The Return of Sherlock Holmes" (1987), and Lill on stage in the London production of "The Crucifer of Blood" (1979). "Autumn in Baker Street" will be held on Nov. 2-3 at the Tarrytown Hilton in Tarrytown, N.Y., according to an announcement sent by Bob Thomalen. The price is $145 per person (double occupancy) for meals, room, refreshments during the sessions, and an agenda that features Murray Cantor, Bob Hess, Susan Rice, Paul Singleton, Dante Torrese, Jean Upton, Delia Vargas, and Joanne Zahorsky. The hotel is taking reservations now (914-631-5700), and a copy of the announcement is available from Robert E. Thomalen at 69 Glen Road, Eastchester, NY 10709. Startling Mystery Stories was launched in 1966 by Robert A. W. Lowndes, who published August Derleth's "The Adventure of the Tottenham Werewolf" in the spring 1967 issue, earning Lowndes his "Praed Street Penny" from Luther L. Norris, on which Lowndes reported in his column "The Cauldron" in the fall 1967 issue. Those who were wise enough to preserve this piece of Pontine ephemera in their collections will be pleased to learn that the fall 1967 issue is of interest for more than its editor's column: it also has a story called "The Glass Floor" (the first published work of Stephen King), and it is now priced at $750 in a catalog just received from Paul Merz (Sandpiper Books, Box 1273, Long Beach, WA 98631). Paul's catalog also includes some Sherlockian material (at reasonable prices). Forecast for 1992: TALES OF MEDICAL HUMANISM AND VALUES, by Alvin E. Rodin and Jack D. Key; this will be an annotated edition of ACD's ROUND THE RED LAMP, six additional medical short stores, and the text of an address to medical students in 1910. Their earlier MEDICAL CASEBOOK OF ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE, a 506-page examination and discussion of his medical career and the medical aspects of his literary work, is still available from the Krieger Publishing Co., Box 9542, Melbourne, FL 32902 ($36.00 plus $4.00 shipping, and they take plastic). One of the nicest things about traveling in Britain is the wide variety of guidebooks available to the tourist (Sherlockian or otherwise), and a fine example is HIDDEN SUSSEX -- THE TOWNS, by Warden Swinfen and David Arscott (Brighton: BBC Radio Sussex, 1990; 158 pp., L4.95). The book provides an informed survey of the legends and history of towns such as Eastbourne, Horsham, Lewes, and Newhaven (all mentioned in the Canon), and Crowborough (with proper attention to its famous resident Sir Arthur Conan Doyle). May 91 #7 More news on the Harmony Gold television films with Christopher Lee and Patrick Macnee, which are now being syndicated by All American Television to independent stations in the U.S. "Sherlock Holmes: Incident at Victoria Falls" is open for broadcast as a four-hour special in a four-week window (Feb. 17 through Mar. 15, 1992), and will be followed by "Sherlock Holmes and the Leading Lady" (Apr. 20 through May 17). "Victoria Falls" also stars Jenny Seagrove (who played Mary Morstan in Granada's "The Sign of Four") as Lilly Langtry, and Claude Akins as Teddy Roosevelt. "The Leading Lady" (as reported earlier) also features Morgan Fairchild as Irene Adler, and Engelbert Humperdinck as Eberhardt Bohm. Three collections of Sherlockiana written by members of The Speckled Band of Boston are still available, from J. Devereux deGozzaldi, Graystone Farm, 79 Frankland Road, Hopkinton, MA 01748 (all prices postpaid): THE FOURTH CAB (1976) and THE BEST OF THE CABS (1980) in paper ($8.00 each), and THE FIFTH CAB (1988) in cloth ($40.00) and paper ($15.00). Also available are Mark Faverman's handsome full-color poster honoring the 50th anniversary of the Band in 1990 ($20.00) and the society's silk necktie in maroon or navy blue ($20.00 or two for $35.00). The Apr. 1987 issue of the Magazine Litteraire paid tribute to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle with 51 pages of articles and essays, many original, and with some reprint material translated into French. Gerald F. O'Hara now offers THE CONAN DOYLE FILE, with the original material translated into English, for US$10.00 postpaid; his address is 3912-115A Street, Edmonton, AB T6J 1R1, Canada. At hand from Paul Singleton is an article from the Sherlock Holmes Gazette about plans to renovate The Sherlock Holmes in Northumberland Street. Work will start in November, and Whitbread expects to spend L500,000 on a new facade and internal alterations that will provide a better viewing area for the recreation of the sitting-room. Landlord Dennis Hough notes that the pub is a favorite with foreign tourists (about 50% from Japan, 30% from the U.S., and 10% from Italy). Another article reports that the Ladbroke Group will spend more than L1 million refurbishing The Sherlock Holmes Hotel in Baker Street. The hotel's 126 bedroom are to be "themed and redesigned" in Victorian style. THE MISADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, edited by Sebastian Wolfe and first published in Britain in 1989, has been reprinted here (New York: Citadel Press, 1991; 249 pp., $16.95 cloth, $10.95 paper). The anthology reprints some of the better burlesques, parodies, and pastiches (only one of which is to be found in Ellery Queen's anthology, of which Wolfe was unaware when he chose the title for his book), and offers one new pastiche ("The Affair of the Midnight Midget", by Ardath Mayhar). M. J. Trow's LESTRADE AND THE GIFT OF THE PRINCE (London: Constable, 1991; 208 pp., L12.99) is the ninth in his series about Sholto Lestrade, who has been summoned to Scotland (where a Scotland Yard superintendent lacks any jurisdiction and gets little if any respect) for an investigation of crimes at Balmoral and Glamis. Trow thoroughly libels the Scots (he lives safely on the Isle of Wight, about as far as one can get from Scotland and still be in Britain), and as usual his book is packed with broad humor and puns. May 91 #8 Barney Gould, one of San Francisco's most famous press agents, died on May 8. He was an enthusiastic member of the Scowrers and Molly Maguires, and in 1982 wrote a play that used Holmes and Watson to expound Alden Brooks' hypothesis that Shakespeare's plays and sonnets were actually written by Sir Edward Dyer. The play was revised with the help of Peter Donat, and "Sherlock Holmes and the Shakespeare Solution" was staged in Barrie, Ont., in 1986, and in Sunnyvale, Calif., in 1989. Simon & Schuster Audio's THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES #12 is now in the stores, according to Jack Kerr, with the 1945 Rathbone/Bruce radio broadcasts of "The Problem of Thor Bridge" and "The Adventure of the Double Zero" (at this rate there will soon be new issues beyond the 14 cassettes in the subscription series from American Express). Jack also reports that MURDER TAKES A HOLIDAY (New York: Galley Books, 1991; $6.95 on the discount tables) includes "The Adventure of the Devil's Foot" and Vincent Starrett's (non-Sherlockian) "Food for Sharks". Reported: SHERLOCK HOUND: DR. WATSON, I PRESUME? (a two-hour videocassette from Celebrity Home Entertainment at $29.99), with more animations from the amusing Japanese/Italian series. Ted Bergman's just-published SHERLOCK HOLMES I SVERIGE: EN BIBLIOGRAFI is a careful and detailed examination of Sherlockiana published in Sweden from 1891 to 1990. The 155-page bibliography includes a summary in English of Ted's introduction, and a glossary, and offers a splendid demonstration of the long-standing Swedish interest in the Canon and the Writings About the Writings. Copies are available for $12.00 (currency only, please) from Ted Bergman, Storkvagen 10, S-181 40 Lidingo, Sweden. Charles Goodman ("The Stockbroker's Clerk") died this spring. Charlie was Christopher Morley's dentist, a member of the Grillparzer Club in the early 1930s, and the last survivor of those present at the first annual dinner of the BSI in 1934. He contributed to our literature, with three long letters he had received from Sherlock Holmes' dentist, Charles A. Wilson (who noted his gratitude to Edgar W. Smith for an offer of honorary membership in the BSI). Charlie was a founder of The Diogenes Club of New York in 1944 (the club's Lantern of Diogenes Awards, for clarity of Sherlockian scholarship, were given to Christopher Morley, President Harry S. Truman, and others), and he received his Investiture in 1950 and his Two-Shilling Award in 1977. Howard Einbinder (180 Clinton Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201) reports that many Sherlockian items (books, recordings, comics, and art) are still available from his collection; send a #10 SASE for a copy of his sales list. Reported: The Sherlock Holmes Gazette, a new quarterly edited by Elizabeth Wiggins and published by Theme Publications, 43 Bowleaze Coveway, Weymouth, Dorset DT3 6PL, England ($40.00 year, and they take plastic). Incidental intelligence: the U.S. Postal Service delivers a total of 166 billion letters, publications, and packages each year, including 52 billion pieces of third-class advertising (known as junk mail to its detractors). The Spermaceti Press, 3900 Tunlaw Road NW #119, Washington, DC 20007-4830 Jun 91 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press B. L. Reid's THE LIVES OF ROGER CASEMENT (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976), recently found on a discount table outside a local used-book shop, is a fine biography, and recommended to those who wish to know more (much more) about one of Conan Doyle's contemporaries. Casement and Conan Doyle worked with E. D. Morel in a campaign against atrocities in the Congo (see Conan Doyle's THE CRIME OF THE CONGO), and in June 1910 they dined and went to see a performance of "The Speckled Band". Conan Doyle wrote to Casement in Aug. 1910 about "a sort of wild boy's book" and asked him to send along "anything weird & strange" he had discovered in South America that might be suitable for the book. Casement visited Conan Doyle in 1912, a few months before "The Lost World" began running in The Strand Magazine. And in 1916, after Casement had been convicted and sentenced to death for treason, Conan Doyle circulated a petition urging (unsuccessfully) that Casement's life be spared. In 1936, Herbert Spencer Dickey, an American doctor who had known and traveled with Casement in Brazil in 1911, suggested that the infamous "Black Diaries" were a forgery perpetrated by the British government, based on an account of sexual perversions among South American natives, dictated by Dickey to Casement and sent by Casement to Conan Doyle. Our compliments to John Bennett Shaw, who was on display this spring in Albuquerque in the Jonson Gallery of the University of New Mexico's Art Museum, in an exhibit of "2,000 Years of Contemporary New Mexico Ceramics". The clay-and-mixed-media portrait is 20 inches high and was sculpted by Caryn Ostrowe-Wagner in 1985. The Scottish art market "appears to have recovered its nerve ahead of the rest of the world," according to an article in the May 4 issue of the [London] Independent, at hand from Jon Lellenberg. At Christie's sale of fine paintings and drawings at Edinburgh's Royal College of Physicians, one of the paintings was "Dancing Round the Moon" (described in the article as "a watercolor of fairies and demons, with the odd policeman and jockey thrown in"), by Charles Altamont Doyle (Sir Arthur's father). Estimated at L3,000 to L5,000, the painting made L9,350 at the auction. Cameron Hollyer wonders who it was who first used the word "Canon" to refer to *our* Sacred Writings. In SHERLOCK HOLMES: FACT OR FICTION? (1932), T. S. Blakeney refers (p. 40) to S. C. Roberts having refused to dogmatize on the "canonicity" of at least one story, and (p. 43) to one of the stor- ies being outside the limits of Ronald A. Knox's "canon". Was Blakeney the first use "Canon" (or "canon") in our context? Tom Stix has found that there are two variants of Edgar W. Smith's pamphlet THE NAPOLEON OF CRIME: PROLEGOMENA TO A MEMOIR OF PROFESSOR JAMES MORIARTY, SC. D. (D3582a). Julian Wolff's copy is #7, inscribed by Edgar on Mar. 16, 1953, and has on the front cover only the title THE NAPOLEON OF CRIME. The other variant has the full title on the cover, and several copies are known inscribed by Edgar on Mar. 9, 1953, and with higher numbers (but none lower than #15). If you have a copy numbered lower than #15, please let Tom know the details (his address is 34 Pierson Avenue, Norwood, NJ 07648). Jun 91 #2 Angus Wilson died on May 31. He wrote fiction, biography, and literary criticism, and was made a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1958 (and served as its president from 1982 to 1988). He received a C.B.E. in 1968, and a knighthood in 1980, and his enthusiasm for the Canon is well demonstrated in his Introduction for the 1974 Murray/Cape edition of THE RETURN OF SHERLOCK HOLMES. John Mortimer's "Summer's Lease" on "Masterpiece Theatre" (May 91 #6) had no Sherlockian allusions in the third and fourth episodes, but was a fine program nevertheless. There are Canonical references in the book, which is available as a tie-in trade paperback (New York: Penguin Books, 1991; 288 pp., $8.95); it was first published in Britain and the U.S. in 1988, and a signed edition was published by the Franklin Library. Spotted by Mary Lellenberg: three thoroughly Sherlockian candlesticks in the summer 1991 issue of Design for Living, the mail-order catalog issued by Bloomingdale's (475 Knotter Drive, Cheshire, CT 06410). The can- dlesticks are about 13 inches high, and are named (by Bloomingdale's) Lou, Jimmy, and Mike (left to right). They cost $14.00 each (plus shipping) and Bloomingdale's toll-free number is 800-777-0000 (they take plastic). The spring 1991 issue of The Compleat Smoker has Alan Smith's long feature article "A Three-Pipe Problem: Pipes, Tobaccos and Sherlock Holmes" (with some nice color illustrations), an original color cover with a Sherlockian theme, and an advertisement (p. 40) for a lithograph portrait of Sherlock Holmes by Warren Prindle. $6.25 postpaid (Box 7036, Evanston, IL 60201), and a subscription (four issues) costs $17.50. Adapting the printed page for film or television is a fascinating process, and published scripts offer a fine opportunity to see how it's done. One such opportunity is Jeremy Paul's excellent 50-page script for Granada's "The Problem of Thor Bridge" (typeset, illustrated, and now available for $11.50 postpaid from Ian Henry Publications, 20 Park Drive, Romford, Essex RM1 4LH, England). Daniel Massey, who plays J. Neil Gibson, was recently seen on "Mystery!" in "Inspector Morse: Deceived by Flight" as the murderer cricketer Anthony Donn. According to the latest (spring 1991) issue of Anglofile, the fall season for "Mystery!" has not been confirmed by WGBH-TV, but it is likely to start with a six-part adaptation of P. D. James' "Devices and Desires", with "The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes" next (but it is also possible that only five programs will air this fall, with the sixth held back as a special during a later pledge drive). "Over My Dead Body!" is a new electronic bulletin board for mystery fans (general, not just Sherlockian). The phone number is 415-893-6707 (N-8-1) and the sysop is Cheri Jung, 1843 Seventh Avenue, Oakland, CA 94606. Jun 91 #3 Coral Browne died on May 29. She was a fine British actress (best known to American audiences as Vera Charles in the film "Auntie Mame"), and in 1974 she married Vincent Price, who arranged for her photograph to appear in a picture frame in a Baker Street set, "identified as none other than Irene Adler, always 'the woman' for Sherlock Holmes." The set was the one used in Boston for her husband's introductions to the Granada television series when it was broadcast on "Mystery!" Further to the report (May 91 #5) on "In London with Sherlock Holmes" (the game that will run on-line on Prodigy during July), Jack Tracy, who worked as a consultant on the project, reports that after July the game will still be available in the National Geographic archives on Prodigy. There appears to be no way to download the game to a disk. Jack also reports that progress is being made on planning for CALABASH (an acronym for Canonical Analysis and Logical Arrangement of Baring-Gould's Annotated Sherlock Holmes). This will be a thorough revision of the 1967 book, and will be published on a CD-ROM disc, with Jack as editor-in-chief. Assistance is needed from people who would like to serve as supervising editors and research editors, and volunteers are invited to call Jack at 800-243-1895. Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, celebrating its 50th anniversary, has been honoring some of its favorite contributors, and the Aug. 1991 issue of EQMM is dedicated to Robert L. Fish, with reprints of two of his stories, one of which is "The Adventure of the Perforated Ulster" (D5779a). David Kirby died on June 3. He was the proprietor of Rupert Books, and in the 1980s issued a series of fine Sherlockian catalogs. He also published a set of cards and prints with David Cory's S'ian color artwork, and in 1987 the splendid facsimile of Beeton's Christmas Annual prepared by John Michael Gibson. "Professor Presbury's Required Reading" is a 12-page list of Sherlockiana (new and used, and including much comic-book material) available from Tim O'Connor (R.R. 1, Box 138-B, Herscher, IL 60941). Richard Lackritz reports a source for Inverness capes: Texas Body Hangings, 1719 East Main, Nacogdoches, TX 75961. $225 to $410 depending on size, and they will be happy to send you a catalog. Sylvia Porter died on June 5. She began writing a financial column for the N.Y. Post in 1935, and in syndication her column eventually was carried by 450 newspapers with 40 million readers. She was also a devoted Sherlockian and a friend of Thomas L. Stix, Sr., who accompanied her, in a horse-drawn carriage, to the BSI's pre-prandial cocktail party in 1957 and toasted her as *The* Woman. Gerald Laing's bronze statue of Sherlock Holmes was scheduled for unveiling in Edinburgh in mid-June. According to the Times (May 2), Sherlock Holmes Museum director John Aidiniantz believes London would far more appropriate, and was disappointed by the Royal Fine Art Commission rejected his proposal for a L29,000 statue at the Baker Street underground station. Jun 91 #4 Troy Taylor, who presides over Ferguson's Vampires, and edits and publishes their periodicals The Peruvian Bird-Bow and The Poisoned Arrow, is also a skillful artist. His illustrated flier, just at hand, welcomes commissions for Sherlockian artwork for journals, books, and society logos, and his address is 436 West William #5, Decatur, IL 62522. Switzerland was not the only venue for a reenactment of the fateful battle at the Reichenbach, although there were many more onlookers at Meiringen than there were at the Katoomba Cascades, where fifty people gathered for a weekend with the Sherlock Holmes Society of Sydney at the Fairmont Resort in the Blue Mountains of Australia. Richard Wein has sent a list of audiocassettes available from BBC World Service Mail Order (room LG26 NE), Bush House, Strand, London WC2B 4PH, England. Each volume contains two cassettes and costs L6.17 (plus 40% for shipping to the U.S.), and they take plastic. The volume titles are: "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" (Clive Merrison and Michael Williams): vol. 1 (Scan/RedH/Iden/Bosc), vol. 2 (Five/Twis/Blue/Spec), vol. 3 (Engr/Nobl/ Bery/Copp). "Sherlock Holmes" (Carlton Hobbs and Norman Shelley): vol. 1 (Scan/RedH/Chas/Spec), vol. 2 (Blue/Silv/Fina/Empt), vol. 3 (Musg/Blac/ Bruc/Danc). The BBC has many other non-Sherlockian titles on its list. Also at hand from Richard Wein is a catalog from Dark House (R.R. 1, Box 140-A, Theilman, MN 55978) offering T-shirts, sweatshirts, greeting cards, tote bags, and buttons with designs that include Sherlock- iana (items M-05, S-01 through S-03, and Z-01-4). The Arts & Entertainment cable channel has purchased rebroadcast rights to the Granada series. "Sherlock Holmes Mysteries" will air weekly beginning on Sept. 30. "Ignite a candle in Bohemia," suggests Sherlockian sculptress Selma Kamil, who offers the Grand Duke and *The* Woman as a pair of ceramic candle holders (five inches high) for $100 (painted and glazed) or $75 (unpainted), plus $5 for shipping. An illustrated flier is available from Selma (32 Overlook Avenue, Cliffside Park, NJ 07010). Jun 91 #5 Welcome news for those who have been searching for copies of THE INTERNATIONAL ILLUSTRATED SHERLOCK HOLMES (Apr 90 #1 and May 90 #3): copies are available for $32.50 from William Berner, 4712 17th Street, San Francisco, CA 94117. The book was edited by John Bennett Shaw, Tsukasa Kobayashi, and Akane Higashiyama, and is a delightful demonstration of how much fun artists in many countries have had illustrating the Canon over the years and in a variety of styles: there are 742 illustrations (and 59 photographs from the Granada series), with captions in both Japanese and English, and there's very little collateral text in Japanese only. Admirers of Christopher Morley's work will welcome the news that the 1940 film "Kitty Foyle" (with Ginger Rogers and Dennis Morgan) is available on videocassette, from Movies Unlimited, 6736 Castor Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19149 (800-523-0823); $19.99. Movies Unlimited also offers "Chip 'n' Dale Rescue Rangers: Super Sleuths" ($12.99) with "Pound of the Baskervilles" (a Sherlockian animation first broadcast in 1989). Kenneth Ludwig's two-act play "Dramatic License" (about William Gillette) premiered in Milford, N.H., in July 1983 (with Patrick Horgan as Gillette), and it was also produced in Cleveland in 1985. Now titled "Postmortem", it is scheduled at the Leeds Theatre at Brown University in Providence, R.I., on July 9-13 and 16-20, and it is recommended to those who are or might be in the area. The Theatre Department's telephone number is 401-863-3283. And travelers to New Mexico may wish to attend a workshop and conference on "Sherlock Holmes: Alive and Well in the Hearts of Readers Everywhere!" at Santa Fe Community College on July 25-26, 1991. The list of speakers includes many local Sherlockians (Shaw, Cohen, Dinegar, Dunning, Farrell, Miller, and Stanton), and the College's telephone number is 505-438-1251. EDGAR W. SMITH'S SHERLOCKIAN DIRECTORIES is a Hypercard computer version of his APPOINTMENT IN BAKER STREET (1938) and BAKER STREET AND BEYOND (1940), prepared by Bob Gellerstedt and offered for $5.00 postpaid on a single 800K disk (you will need Macintosh system 6.0.7 and Hypercard 2.0). A 50-page print-out is also available for $12.00 postpaid, from Bob Gellerstedt, 1035 Wedgewood Drive, Fayetteville, GA 30214. Further to the query (May 91 #2) on Sherlock Holmes driving cars, Steve and Katlin Hecox and Jennie Paton have remembered that he drove across Arizona on television in "The Return of Sherlock Holmes" (1987), and that Sherlock Hound is often seen driving in the Japanese/Italian animations. The Baker Street Bar Association will hold its inaugural dinner during the annual meeting of the American Bar Association in Atlanta in August. For details on the dinner, and on the new professional society, contact David R. McCallister, 2804 Quail Hollow Boulevard, Wesley Chapel, FL 33544. Patrick Campbell reports that the celebration of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's birthday on May 22, at the Granada Studios Tour, was thoroughly enjoyable. The agenda included tours of the sets and the new Museum of Criminology, a performance of David Stuart Davies' play "Fixed Point: The Life and Death of Sherlock Holmes", champagne and an appropriately decorated cake, and a non-Sherlockian debate in Granada's version of the House of Commons. Jun 91 #6 Wiliamsburg in late spring is pleasantly warm (compared to the heat wave that many remembered from the last workshop there in July 1987), and Ray Betzner and The Cremona Fiddlers did a fine job this month with this year's version. There were more than a hundred people on hand for the festivities, which featured a nice range of Sherlockian and Doylean presentations, an opportunity to see the 1957 "Odyssey" television program about the Baker Street Irregulars and a promotional video for the Harmony Gold mini-series starring Christopher Lee and Patrick Macnee, and a radio-theater presentation of "The Maltese Carbuncle" (written by Ray and performed by The Cremona Fiddlers Players of the Air). And one of the more interesting T-shirts at the workshop was worn by Ron Fish, who may be the only Sherlockian winner of one of the "Sherlock Bones" T-shirt offered as prizes by Milk-Bone Flavor Snacks last year (Mar 90 #4). The London Zoo may close in September, according to an article in the May 19 issue of the Philadelphia Inquirer, at hand from Syd Goldberg. The Zoo is run by the Zoological Society of London (and has been since its founding in 1828) and claims to be the oldest and most famous zoo in the world, and has now asked for $21 million from the British government to keep the Zoo open. And it was known to Sherlock Holmes, who asked (in "Charles Augustus Milverton"): "Do you feel a creeping, shrinking sensation, Watson, when you stand before the serpents in the Zoo?" Deen and Jay Kogan, who chaired Bouchercon in 1989, have announced a book fair and convention in Philadelphia on Nov. 8-10. The agenda will include panels, workshops, signings, and a dealer's room, and registration costs $30.00. Details are available from the Mid Atlantic Mystery Book Fair and Convention, c/o Detecto Mysterioso Books at Society Hill Playhouse, 507 South 8th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19147. It's not Sherlockian, but "Northern Exposure" is one of the best series now to be seen (in re-runs) on television. It's on CBS-TV on Mondays at 10:00 pm, and the premise is that it's pay-back time for a young Jewish doctor from Flushing whose medical education has been funded by a grant from the Alaskan state government. Expecting to be working in a modern hospital and living in a condo in Anchorage, he finds himself the only doctor in Cicely, a community so small it hardly qualifies as a town, and he has considerable trouble dealing with the culture shock. The series has excellent stories and fine characters, and is thoroughly enjoyable. While there seems to be no end to the unrecorded cases of Sherlock Holmes that find their way into print, there have been few attempts to extend the sagas of George Edward Challenger or Etienne Gerard. Nicholas Nye's RETURN TO THE LOST WORLD brings Challenger, Roxton, Summerlee, and Malone back to the Lost World in 1912, in a story that is quite faithful to the humor and style of the characters created by Conan Doyle. Their new discoveries on the plateau extend farther into fantasy than he did in THE LOST WORLD, and the story ends with some blunt moralizing that may seem out-of-place in a simple tale of adventure. RETURN TO THE LOST WORLD (256 pp.) costs L16.45 postpaid (sterling only, please) from Images, Lloyds Bank Chambers, 18 High Street, Upton-upon-Severn, Worcs. WR8 0HD, England. The Spermaceti Press, 3900 Tunlaw Road NW #119, Washington, DC 20007-4830 Jul 91 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press Canonical chronology is surely one of the more arcane areas of Sherlockian scholarship (and one of the earliest to be explored by those attempting to reconcile and rearrange the Sacred Writings). Almanacs, weather reports, astronomy, and even astrology have been employed to support or rebut a wide range of dates for most of the stories, and still there is little agreement among those who want an answer to the question, "What was the date?" Henry T. Folsom (a Scandalous Bohemian, and Horror Master of the Cornish Horrors) first published THROUGH THE YEARS AT BAKER STREET in 1962, revised it for a second edition in 1964, and now offers a third (and again revised) edition in an 80-page monograph that provides a fine demonstration of how much fun and frustration are involved in deducing correct dates. The cost is $25.00 postpaid from the Henry T. Folsom, R.R. #1, Box 1413, Randolph, NH 03570. Further to the query (Jun 91 #5) about Sherlock Holmes driving automobiles, Jennie Paton suggests a follow-up: which films or television program show Sherlock Holmes riding a horse? Reported by Jon Lellenberg from the arch-conservative Washington Times: a mention of "Ted Turner, the media Moriarty whose dark one-worldist plots send shivers down the spines of those who still have them." Turner will address a meeting of the Conservative Leadership Conference in Washington in November; the invitation was issued by Reed Irvine, who noted that Ted Turner's only question was, "Can I bring Jane?" Also at hand from Jon are articles in the British press on May 13 about the possibility that the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary may be closed. The Royal is Scotland's largest teaching hospital and its former students include Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. "Labour seized on the disclosure -- so far unconfirmed -- as evidence of underfunding and accused Scottish health minister Michael Forsyth of presiding over the 'destruction' of the NHS. Mr. Forsyth fired off an immediate statement indicating he may veto the plan." And a press report that Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, fresh from the success of their second "Jeeves and Wooster" series, are planning a Sherlock Holmes series, with Fry as Holmes and Laurie as Watson. Their first "Jeeves and Wooster" series has already aired on PBS (with Fry as Jeeves and Laurie as Wooster). They have also performed in various roles in the British series "Black Adder" (on some PBS stations), and they can be seen in "A Bit of Fry and Laurie" (on Saturdays on the Bravo cable channel). Syd Goldberg spotted another passing reference, by William Safire in the N.Y. Times (July 11): "The Professor Moriarty of finance is a Pakistani named Agha Hasan Abedi" (one of the people responsible for the financial shenanigans at the Bank of Credit and Commerce Insternational). Roger Johnson reports that the Federation of Master Builders in Edinburgh (who are paying for the statue of Sherlock Holmes in Picardy Place, where Conan Doyle was born) are offering commemorative medallions (two inches in diameter, modeled in high relief with a polished gilt finish) for L50 each. Checks can be sent to the Federation of Master Builders (Medal Sales), c/o Ian Baird, 206 Ferry Road, Edinburgh EH6 4QZ, United Kingdom. Jul 91 #2 Sleuth & Statesman, the newsletter launched by Winston & Holmes last year (Apr 90 #4), is now a mail-order catalog that offers "smoker's requisites and gentlemen's accessories" and occasional comment on Winston Churchill and Sherlock Holmes. The gentlemen's accessories include Parker Pens, and the accompanying note ("Myth in the Making") suggests that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote his popular mysteries with a Parker pen in the late 1800s. Not quite: the first advertisement by Parker that used Conan Doyle's praise for the Parker Duofold ("I have at last met my affinity in pens") was published in 1931 (and used again in advertisements that ran in magazines in 1989), and Conan Doyle's letter was written from Bignell Wood (the country house that he bought in 1925). Another note suggests that it was William Gillette who first portrayed Sherlock Holmes with a calabash; Gillette did use a curved wooden pipe, but no one has reported any evidence that he used a calabash. The catalog is available from Winston & Holmes at 138 Cumberland Street, Toronto, Ont. M5R 1A6, Canada. If you enjoy spoken-word audiocassettes, there are plenty to choose from: more than 900 companies and more than 44,500 titles are listed in the 1991 edition of R. R. Bowker's comprehensive catalog ON CASSETTE, according to an item in the N.Y. Times Book Review. Bowker's first edition, published in 1985, listed only 11,500 titles. Cathy Childs (Sherlock & Co., 11335 Little Patuxent Parkway #433, Columbia, MD 21044) will happily accept commissions for her original Sherlockian (and Watsonian) artwork. Another plug for the discount-book catalogs from Edward R. Hamilton (Falls Village, CT 06031): his new catalog offers Michael Hardwick's THE REVENGE OF THE HOUND (item 364614) for $4.95, and Isaac Asimov's SHERLOCK HOLMES THROUGH TIME AND SPACE (item 879452) for $3.95. Walt Disney's Goofy Adventures #16 (Sept. 1991 cover date) has a long story ("Sheerluck Goof and the Giggling Ghost of Nottenny Moor") about Sheerluck Goof (Goofy), Dr. Whatsup (Mickey), Chief Inspector Laquacke (Donald), Mrs. Cluckson, and the evil Doctor Mororlessity. Add two Rathbone films to the list of occasions on which Sherlock Holmes can be seen driving an automobile: Hugh Harrington notes that Holmes drives a car while making his getaway from the Nazis in "Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon" (1943). And Lawrence Nepodahl reports that Holmes is at the wheel when he and Watson rendezvous with the Prime Minister of Rovenia in "Pursuit to Algiers" (1954). An illustrated sales list of Sherlockiana (bookmarks, sweatshirts, aprons, buttons, mugs, bookbags, and personalized bookplates) is available from the Dore Collection (1123 Emerson Street #208, Evanston, IL 60201). Pixar and Disney have announced a joint venture to produce and distribute one computer-animated feature-length film a year. You have seen Pixar's work: known then as the Lucasfilm Computer Graphics Division, they designed and animated the "stained-glass knight" in "Young Sherlock Holmes" (1985). Jul 91 #3 Sherlockian touring continues to become more expensive: press reports from London note that St. Paul's Cathedral now requires (rather than asks) visitors to pay an admission charge (but not on Sunday). Mentions of St. Paul's can be found in "The Sign of the Four" and "The Red-Headed League" and in the old and time-honored phrase "robbing Peter to pay Paul" (which dates from the late 16th century, when many of the estates of St. Peter's Cathedral were appropriated to pay for repairs to St. Paul's Cathedral). St. Peter's is mentioned in the Canon, too. In which story? The answer to this question will be given in next month's issue. Discovered by Tim O'Connor: THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES in a hard-bound comic-strip adaptation by Marion Kimberly (New York: Gallery Books, 1991; 30 pp., $4.98). This is not a reprint of the old Classic Comics/Classics Illustrated version. Jennie Paton reports THE GREAT MOUSE DETECTIVE (New York: Gallery Books, 1987; 96 pp.): an attractive large-format book with artwork from the film (in the "Disney Classic Series"), sold by Waldenbooks and B. Dalton (and presumably other stores) for $6.95. Sorry about that: the correct toll-free number for Bloomingdale's (Jun 91 #2) is 800-777-0000. For those who aren't aware of the service, you can call 800-555-1212 to get the directory service for toll-free numbers. Sherry Rose Bond reports another item that may be of interest to admirers of dancing men: an Italian lamp called the "spider lamp" with four flexible eleven- inch legs (and suction cups at the ends of the legs). The spider lamp is available in red, white, or black, at $40.00 each (plus shipping), and it's item 1065 in the catalog from Flex Art and Design, Box 7216, San Francisco, CA 94120 (800-547-7778); they take plastic. Reported: ROUND THE FIRE STORIES (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1991; $9.95) in a trade paperback similar to Chronicle's earlier two volumes with the Professor Challenger stories. The new collection has the apocryphal cases "The Man with the Watches" and "The Lost Special". Jay Pearsall is moving his mystery bookshop Murder Ink to a new location: 2486 Broadway, New York, NY 10025 (between 92nd and 93rd Streets). And his summer 1991 catalog includes an interview with Elizabeth George, who notes her debt to Conan Doyle. C. Bryan Gassner, who presides over The Shadows of the Elm at the Arroyo del Oso Elementary School in Albuquerque, N.M., assisted her students in presenting half-hour adaptations of "The Speckled Band" (in 1990) and "The Norwood Builder" (in 1991). The plays were nicely done, and are available on videocassettes ($7.50 each or $12.00 for both shows on one cassette, postpaid), with "The Norwood Bloopers" (an assembly of out-takes from both shows) available on request on any cassette at no additional charge. Mrs. Gassner's address is 922 Washington Street SE, Albuquerque, NM 87108). Jul 91 #4 Further to the report (Jun 91 #3) on "In London with Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of the Jubilee Diamonds" (the interactive computer game that is now available on Prodigy), the game offers attractive graphics, interesting facts about London, and a fairly elementary mystery to solve. Prodigy is an advertiser-supported on-line service (subscribers pay $12.95 a month, and there are no other charges). Further to the report on Anthony Hinds (May 91 #3), he has a Sherlockian credit in addition to producing the film "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (1959) and writing the play "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (1982). Roger Johnson notes that Hinds (using the pseudonym "John Elder") supplied the story for N. J. Crisp's screenplay for the television program "The Masks of Death" (1984). "John Elder" was Hammer's most prolific scriptwriter, and Michael Carreras (executive producer of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" for Hammer) occasionally used the pseudonym "Henry Younger". Occasional queries about how one can conveniently order in-print books from Britain suggest that it's time for a repeat explanation. Two companies can supply just about anything in print, and they offer two ways to pay without incurring bank surcharges: you can open an account and pay with a check in your own currency (sent to a bank in your country), or you can authorize a charge against a credit card such as Visa or Mastercard. They are W. & G. Foyle (119-125 Charing Cross Road, London W.C.2, England) and Blackwell's (Broad Street, Oxford, Oxon. OX1 3BQ, England). Further to the report