Jan 96 #1                             Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press

The birthday festivities in New York were a relatively easy commute for all
those who arrived on Thursday (the day that people who had been marooned in
the city for three days were able at long last to escape), and not quite as
easy for those who arrived on Friday (by which time it was snowing again),
and it was bright and sunny by Sunday, and presumably everyone made it home
safely, except for those who never left home in the first place (and there
were a few who decided not to make the trip from Oregon and Minnesota).

Thursday evening still is the time for informal gatherings (a few members
of The Hounds of the Internet and their friends dined on mutton chops and
other delicacies at Keen's Chop House), but there was no Aunt Clara Sing at
O'Lunney,s (because there's no longer an O'Lunney,s).

Friday began with the Mrs. Hudson Breakfast at the Hotel Algonquin (where
sometimes the lobby seemed to be populated entirely by Sherlockians during
the weekend), and continued with the William Gillette Luncheon at Moran's
Restaurant, where Andrew Joffe, Sarah Montague Joffe, and Paul Singleton
presented a new play by Andrew about what really happened when Arthur Conan
Doyle first met William Gillette.  And Otto Penzler's open house on Friday
at the Mysterious Bookshop offered collectors an opportunity to see (and of
course to purchase) some of the treasures Otto brought back from the London
auction of Stanley MacKenzie's collection.

The Baker Street Irregulars gathered at 24 Fifth Avenue, where Mike Whelan
toasted Barbara Herbert as *The* Woman during the pre-dinner cocktail party
(Barbara then went on to dine at the Algonquin with other ladies who have
received that honor), and the evenings' entertainment included the usual
traditions, imaginative toasts by Bob Katz to the Second Dr. Watson and by
Sherry Rose-Bond to Peter Steiler the Elder, Shirley Purves' tour of the
moors (with thoughts on a computerized Sherlock Holmes), and Ev Herzog's
rhyming tribute to her fine collection of M's.

Irregular Shillings and Investitures were awarded to Steven T. Doyle ("The
Western Morning News"), Ralph Hall ("Smack! Smack! Smack!"), Hugh Harring-
ton ("Wisteria Lodge"), Peter Horrocks ("The Inner Temple"), Kate Karlson
("The Evening Standard"), John E. Pforr ("Police-Constable Cook"), Marsha
Pollak ("A Small But Select Library"), and Robert J. Stek ("The Mysterious
Scientist").  And Bob Thomalen received the BSI's Queen Victoria Medal in
recognition for his work as Cartwright (a post from which he has retired).  
Tom Stix announced that Mike Whelan succeeds Bob as Cartwright, and that
Tom and Ruthann Stetak are now the BSI's joint Simpsons, taking over the
secretarial duties that the late John Bennett Shaw performed so well for
many years.

The Fortescue Symposium also convened on Friday evening, at the St. Moritz
Hotel, where the entertainment included Jan Stauber's description of what
it's like to arrive in the world of Sherlockians, Francine Kitts' report on
entries in her contest that sought answers to the question "What would you
give for the box?" (Dr. Watson's battered tin dispatch-box), and presenta-
tions by Barbara Fleming on bootlaces and (in verse) on "The Tale of the
Pinch of Victor Lynch".

Jan 96 #2   On Saturday morning the huckster room at the Algonquin (known
            temporarily known as Covent Garden West) offered a wide variety
of Sherlockian wares that included newly-published Sherlockian and Doylean
books, as well as the usual assortment of old-and-rare and new-and-artistic
material.  The BSI Saturday afternoon cocktail party at the National Arts
Club offered a pleasant venue and excellent food and drink and conversation
that were briefly interrupted by the entertainment: Al Rosenblatt reported
poetically and melodiously on both the Sherlockian year and the BSI dinner,
a hotly-contested auction for eager collectors raised more than $1,000 for
the John H. Watson Fund, and Mike Whelan presented the Morley-Montgomery
Award for the best article in last year's Baker Street Journal to Margaret
K. Nydell (who received an attractive certificate and a check for $500).

The Morley-Montgomery Award will be offered again for the best article in
the BSJ in 1996, and potential contestants are invited to send submissions
to Donald K. Pollock (19 Putnam Street, Buffalo, NY 14213.  Don is the new
editor of the BSJ, beginning with the March 1996 issue (Tom Stix's message
announcing the change, and thanking Bill Cochran for his work over the last
three years appeared in the Sept. 1995 issue).

Samuel Rosenberg died on Jan. 5.  He was a photographer, playwright, stage
manager, artist, literary consultant, and the author of NAKED IS THE BEST
DISGUISE: THE DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (1974).  Michael
Harrison thought that the book "certainly set the deductional cat amongst
the Sherlockian pigeons," and Rosenberg did indeed find many critics who
were outraged by the analysis and analogy presented in that book and in a
essay in Harrison's BEYOND BAKER STREET: A SHERLOCKIAN ANTHOLOGY (1976).  
But there also were many who enjoyed Rosenberg's new approach to the Canon
and to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (his book sold well in cloth and paperback
editions), and it was delightful to spend time with him (he was one of the
speakers at a Sherlockian symposium at Colorado State University in 1975,
and attended at least one annual dinner of The Baker Street Irregulars).  
He sometimes genially claimed to be a trivialist, but whether in person or
on the printed page he was a guaranteed antidote to boredom.

The current issue of Anglofile quotes British press reports that ITV has
axed the "Poirot" series (there still are some shows not yet aired here).  
A decline in the ratings was cited: the latest shows had only half of the
14 million viewers the series had at first (and the shows aren't cheap, at
L1.2 million each).  But consider: the United States has about four times
the population of Britain.  There aren't all that many shows on the air in
the United States that have more than 28 million viewers.  Anglofile is a
monthly newsletter with detailed coverage of British entertainment; $12.00
a year (Box 33515, Decatur, GA 30033).

Something new, and nicely done: "Sherlock Through the Magnifying Glass: A
Female Perspective" was dramatized by David Stuart Davies and performed for
the first time for The Northern Musgraves in 1992; now Classic Specialties
has produced an audiocassette performed by Vanessa Maroney, who also reads
an introduction written by Catherine Cooke.  There are has some interesting
insights into the Canon, and some imaginative surprises, in the 60-minute
cassette.  $13.45 postpaid to North America from Classic Specialties, Box
19058, Cincinnati, OH 45219 ($14.95 to Europe, $16.45 elsewhere).

Jan 96 #3   Jack Tracy notes that the new MERRIAM-WEBSTER'S ENCYCLOPEDIA OF
            LITERATURE (Springfield: Merriam-Webster, 1995) has entries for
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes, and The Hound of the Baskervilles;
the anonymous author of the entry on Conan Doyle didn't confirm the titles
of all the Sherlock Holmes book, but it's nice to see continuing attention
paid to the Canon and its author.

Readers who enjoyed Kim Newman's ANNO DRACULA (in which Mycroft Holmes and
other members of the Diogenes Club were working to overthrow Vlad Tepes,
who had married the Widow of Windsor and was ruling as Prince Consort and
Lord Protector) likely will want to read the sequel, THE BLOODY RED BARON
(Carroll & Graf, $21.00).  According to Tim Sullivan's review in the Wash-
ington Post (Dec. 31), the book is a fanciful tale of vampire flying aces:
Prof. Ten Brincken and Dr. Mabuse have turned Richtofen and his brethren
into huge bat-winged night flyers, and the Germans have hired Edgar Allan
Poe (who was vampirized by his child bride Virginia) to write about them.

"Every last one of them," said Altamont of the signals he
had brought to Von Bork, "semaphore, lamp code, Marconi."
Great Britain honored Marconi last year (the centenary of
the first wireless message) with a pair of stamps showing
him as a young man (with early wireless equipment) and as
an older man (using a radiophone).  Thanks to John Baesch
for spotting this philatelic Sherlockiana and for confirm-
ing that the sinking ship in the design of the 60p stamp
is the Titanic.  That tragedy was not the first use of the
S.O.S. signal, but it did result in a public exchange of
letters between George Bernard Shaw and Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle in the [London] Daily News in May 1912.

The birthday blizzards marooned Ben and Joan Wood in Flor-
ida, so they were unable to see their Sherlockian wares at
the Algonquin.  But a sales list of philatelic and other
material is available from Benton Wood, Box 740, Ellenton,
FL 34222-0740.

Cheryl Hurd reports that her local public radio station carries a 30-minute
weekly series called "NPR Playhouse" and (nice news for listeners where the
series airs) that "The Cases of Sherlock Holmes" began on Jan. 14.  This is
a series recorded in Britain by Independent Radio Drama Productions (with
Edward Petherbridge as Holmes and David Peart as Watson), and broadcast in
the United States in 1991 and in Britain in 1992.  The original series had
"A Study in Scarlet" (in 6 episodes), "A Scandal in Bohemia" (2 episodes).  
"The Speckled Band" (2 episodes), "The Valley of Fear" (9 episodes), "The
Five Orange Pips" (2 episodes), and "The Man with the Twisted Lip" (2 epi-
sodes).

Robin Leckbee has reported that one of the floats in the Mardi Gras parades
in New Orleans will feature Sherlock Holmes.  Endymion's parade on Feb. 17
will have "Great Storytellers" as its theme (this won't be the first time
that an image of Holmes has been used to honor the man who created him, of
course).  Mardi Gras now gets national television coverage, but there's no
way of knowing whether or when we might see the float on the air.

Jan 96 #4   A GRAND NIGHT FOR MURDER (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995;
            213 pp., $20.95) is the latest novel by H. Paul Jeffers, whose
earlier Sherlockian works include THE ADVENTURE OF THE STALWART COMPANIONS
(1978) and MURDER MOST IRREGULAR (1983).  The new book involves the murder
of the Mystery Writers of America's newest grand master, who has a host of
enemies (including a book dealer who is an enthusiastic Sherlockian), many
Sherlockian allusions, and some nice twists in the plot.

            A new catalog at hand from Femmes Fatales (Box 3457, Lakewood,
            CA 90712-3457) (800-596-3323), with many mystery-related items,
            decorative and otherwise, including attractive pins (3" high)
            designed by Glyn Swanson.  One of them (as might be expected)
            is Sherlockian; item J101 ($27.95).

            Charles Marowitz's play "Sherlock's Last Case" will be produced
            at the Ted Paul Theatre at Mankato State University, Feb. 1-11,
            1996.  The box-office address is: MSU Theatre Arts, Box 8400,
            Mankato, MN 56002 (507-389-6661).

SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE TRUTH ABOUT LUDWIG II, by Zeus Weinstein, is Richard
R. Rutter's translation of SHERLOCK HOLMES: DIE WAHRHEIT UBER LUDWIG II,
first published by Deutsche Verlagsanstalt in 1978.  Zeus Weinstein is the
pseudonym of Peter Neugebauer, who has contributed some fine Sherlockian
scholarship to the German literature.  His pastiche brings Holmes (posing
as an American journalist) and Watson (posing as an American millionaire)
to Bavaria in 1886, unable to prevent the death of the "mad king" who was
responsible for some of Europe's most romantic castles.  $27.00 postpaid
from George A. Vanderburgh, Box 204, Shelburne, ON L0N 1S0, Canada.

Nellie Brown notes that the Quality Paperback Book Club now offers Loren D.  
Estleman's SHERLOCK HOLMES VS. DRACULA and DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HOLMES in one
volume ($12.95); Camp Hill, PA 17012-0001 (800-348-7128).

William Hjortsberg's NEVERMORE (Oct 94 #5) is now available in paperback
(New York: St. Martin's Paperbacks, 1996; 302 pp., $5.99); the novel brings
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini to New York in 1923, where they
are involved with Opal Crosby Fletcher (a provocative and beautiful medium)
and a mysterious serial killer (who copies murders described in Edgar Allan
Poe's stories, and whose targets include Conan Doyle and Houdini).

"Richard III" is now in the theaters: Ian McKellen is executive producer,
wrote the screenplay, and plays the title role, and other actors include
Maggie Smith, Annette Bening, Nigel Hawthorne, and Edward Hardwicke (as
Lord Stanley, played as an Air Vice Marshal who joins Richmond's forces,
taking the RAF with him).  The play is set in the 1930s, and McKellen is
playing Richard as a fascist leader.

The World Wide Web, which now is much more than a hideaway located in stray
corners of the Internet, has a growing list of Sherlockian home pages, one
of which is maintained by Chris Redmond (and which has links to most if not
all of the others).  During the first 17 days of 1996 he averaged 93 hits
per day; you can see what's available by telling a computerized friend that
the URL is <http://watserv1.uwaterloo.ca/~credmond/sh.html>.

Jan 96 #5   David Healy died on Oct. 25.  He was born in Texas, according
            to information at hand from David Morrill, but found an acting
career in Britain, on stage and screen and television.  He played a fine
Watson to Ian Richardson's Holmes in the television film "The Sign of Four"
(1983), and he played Aloysius Moran in "The Noble Bachelor" (1991) in the
Clive Merrison series on BBC Radio 4.

Delicate Arch (in Arches National Park) is featured in McRay
Magleby's design for our new stamp honoring the centennial of
statehood for Utah, and (indirectly) "A Study in Scarlet".

Helen Commodore spotted the announcement of a one-session "An
Evening with Sherlock Holmes" at the New School in New York
City on Apr. 26 (taught by Arthur Liebman, in costume, with
Nickelodeon piano accompaniment by Joyce Ann Liebman); course
0537, 8:00-9:30 pm, $10.00 (212-229-5690).

Plan ahead: an International Sherlockian Congress in honor of "The Devil's
Foot" will be held at Perth in the Swan River Colony on Oct. 4-6, 1997.  If
you are considering a journey to Australia and would like more information
about the festivities, you can contact Douglas Sutherland-Bruce, P.O. Box
74, Sawyers Valley, W.A. 6074, Australia.

A fine way to listen to the Sherlock Holmes tales is when Dr. Watson tells
them himself; Edward Hardwicke does just that, and does it well, in two new
audiocassette sets available from Tangled Web Audio: SHERLOCK HOLMES: TALES
OF INTRIGUE (with Croo/Gree/Nava) and SHERLOCK HOLMES: TALES OF SUSPENSE
(with Suss/Cree/Spec).  Each set contains two cassettes and costs $20.45
postpaid ($39.90 for two sets); 3380 Sheridan Drive #167, Amherst, NY 14226
(800-249-2666 operator 616); credit card orders welcome.

Jennie Paton reports a box of "34 Tiny Toon Adventures Mystery Valentines"
with two cards with Sherlockian motifs on the back (and more cards inside);
apparently the similar box last year sold well enough be repeated (the new
box is a minor variant).  About $2.00 (check your local drug stores).

"Lasting Impressions" is the newly-chosen title for the celebration by The
Bootmakers of Toronto of their silver anniversary, at the Arts and Letters
Club in St. George's Hall, on June 26-29, 1997.  If you would like to be on
the mailing list for news about the gathering, the address is 30 Elm Avenue
#210, Toronto, ON M4W 1N5, Canada.

Jon Lellenberg was the first to report John McPhee's "The Gravel Page" in
The New Yorker (Jan. 29).  McPhee has been explaining geology to non-geolo-
gists since 1980, and the magazine's lead-in to his latest article suggests
that: "The most frightening crimes have no witnesses except the ground on
which they were committed.  And from that alone forensic geologists illumi-
nate cases in a way that would impress Sherlock Holmes, the science's first
practitioner."  McPhee was aware from the very start that "detective work
is what geologists do," and his article offers a well-written exploration
of how geologists help solve crimes today, and careful acknowledgement of
Sherlock Holmes' contributions to the science he invented (and the title
"The Gravel Page" is taken from the Canon).

Jan 96 #6   THE THINKING MACHINE: JACQUES FUTRELLE, by Freddie Seymour and
            Bettina Kyper (Dennisport: Graphic Illusions, 1995) is a fine
biography of a mystery writer who was only 37 years old when he died on the
Titanic in 1912; his "The Problem of Cell 13" still is widely reprinted in
anthologies of mystery stories, and Prof. Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen rated
two appearances (played by Douglas Wilmer) in the British television series
"The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes" in 1971 and 1973.  The book also has some
of his stories, and is available from Seymour/Kyper Productions, Box 1369,
Sandwich, MA 02563; $12.00 postpaid.

Cadds has issued a Sherlock Holmes Diary for 1996: spiral bound, with page
size 6 x 8.25" and a page for each week, with small illustrations (mostly
by Paget) and Canonical quotes.  Available from Cadds Printing (59 Lancas-
ter Avenue, West Norwood, London SE27 9EL, England; $11.00 postpaid (checks
payable to Hugh Scullion).

Sherlockian tourists have long enjoyed visiting Sherlockian sites with the
help of David Hammer's series of guidebooks, and now there's an opportunity
for a guided tour of one of the Canonical tales, with Brad Keefauver as the
almost-always-genial expert in charge of the tour.  Readers of Brad's work
in the BSJ and Plugs & Dottles and The Dangling Prussian APA already know
his fine style, humor, and imagination, all on display in his THE ARMCHAIR
BASKERVILLE TOUR (New York: Magico Magazine, 1995; 153 pp.).  Brad takes a
party of tourists through "The Hound of the Baskervilles", and it's a grand
tour indeed, at least until some members of the tour group vanish in the
midst of the tour (and the story).  The tour allows the tour guide to offer
some intriguing insights into the story, and to answer some unasked-until-
now questions, and it's an enjoyable excursion.  $27.00 postpaid from the
publisher (Box 156, New York, NY 10002).

Our new booklet showing five winter flowers includes a stamp
portraying crocuses, which are mentioned twice in the Canon
(in "The Speckled Band" and "The Empty House").

A new catalog from 800-Trekker, Box 13131, Reading, PA 19612
(800-873-5537) has collectibles for "Star Trek", "The X-Files",
and "Doctor Who", including a videocassette of Tom Baker in
"Doctor Who: The Talons of Weng-Chiang" (1977) at $19.95; the
Doctor is in Sherlockian costume, in Victorian London, fighting
giant rats.

Vincent Price did some grand work in a career that lasted 55 years, and he
was a splendid Ratigan in "The Great Mouse Detective" (1986).  THE COMPLETE
FILMS OF VINCENT PRICE, by Lucy Chase Williams (New York: Citadel Press,
1995; 290 pp., $19.95) offers a biography (with interviews with his friends
and fellow stars), a filmography, stills, posters, and much more.

"In the vaults of Cox was an old tin box, With Watson's name on the lid."
Jay Finlay Christ wrote many years ago, asking "What wouldn't we pay for
that box today, And the secret notes there hid?"  Francine Kitts wonders
what modern Sherlockians would give for that old tin box, and will welcome
brief and imaginative suggestions; her address is 35 Van Cortlandt Avenue,
Staten Island, NY 10301-4019.

Jan 96 #7   Thanks to Janice Fisher and Herb Tinning for forwarding an item
            in Florence Fabricant's column in the food section of the N.Y.
Times (Jan. 24): D. R. Finley, president of the Eerie Establishment restau-
rant company (which includes the Jekyll and Hyde Club on the Avenue of the
Americas near 57th Street), plans to open the Sherlock Holmes this spring,
at 176 West 4th Street (near Jones Street).

It is a pity that some admirers of Sherlock Holmes are not acquainted with
some of the other grand tales told by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  One of the
best of those tales is THE LOST WORLD, and a fine way to explore that book
is in THE ANNOTATED LOST WORLD, by Roy Pilot and Alvin Rodin (Indianapolis:
Wessex Press, 1996; 264 pp., $34.95).  The annotated version offers a well-
researched introduction, and annotations, and appendices that cover topics
that include the 1925 silent film and the fascinating archival material to
be found with the manuscript of the story in the Berg Collection at the New
York Public Library, and the wonderful illustrations from both the British
and the American periodical appearances of the stories.  And there is THE
LOST WORLD itself, of course, still full of romance and fun, and enhanced
by excellent contributions from Pilot and Rodin.  The publisher's address
is Box 68308, Indianapolis, IN 46268; $37.70 postpaid.

"Cousins' fairy tale casts a spell over Hollywood film-makers" is the head-
line on a story in The Times (Jan. 9), kindly forwarded by Pat Ward.  The
cousins are Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths, and the fairy tale involves
the Cottingley fairies that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle thought really had been
photographed by the schoolgirls in 1917.  And the Hollywood film-makers are
Paramount, now planning to make "The Golden Afternoon" at Pinewood studios
and on location in Yorkshire this spring.

Visitors to London can choose from a variety of guides to London pubs (and
they still are wonderful places to see London and Londoners at their best).  
John Baesch notes that the NICHOLSON LONDON PUB GUIDE (1995) has cover art
showing the Peter Cushing side of the sign for The Sherlock Holmes.

The Hounds of the Internet (which has almost 500 members who
meet out there in the electricity) now have a lapel pin (one
inch square) based on artwork by Stu Shiffman, available from
David L. Hobbet (816 Hill Street, Shelby, NC 28152; the cost
is $3.50 postpaid to U.S. addresses; $5.00 postpaid to other
countries (checks in dollars or U.S. currency, please).

CELEBRITY VAMPIRES is an anthology edited by Martin H. Greenberg (New York:
DAW Books, 1995; 31 pp., $4.99), with stories that include "Dracula on the
Rocks" (by Carole Nelson Douglas, starring Irene Adler), "A Singular Event
on a Night in 1912" (by Roman A. Ranieri, starring Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
and Bram Stoker), and non-Sherlockian tales by Jerry Neal Williamson and
Patti Nead Elrod.

The annual meeting of The STUD Sherlockian Society will be held on Mar. 9
at the Ridgemoor Country Club in Chicago, and the weekend also will feature
a meeting of The Solar Pons Breakfast Club and a visit to the site of Vin-
cent Starrett's grave on Mar. 10.  Additional information is available from
Donald B. Izban, 5334 Wrightwood Avenue, Chicago, IL 60639-1524.

Jan 96 #8   New York had many attractions in January in addition to all the
           Sherlockian birthday festivities, including interesting exhibits
at the New York Public Library, which is celebrating its centennial with a
display of one hundred "Books of the Century" (1895-1995); the books are in
various categories, one of which is "Popular Culture & Mass Entertainment".  
And the eighteen books in that category range from Bram Stoker's DRACULA to
Tom Wolfe's THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES, and include a copy of THE HOUND OF
THE BASKERVILLES.

The fourth installment in the BSI's archival-history series is IRREGULAR
PROCEEDINGS OF THE MID 'FORTIES, edited by Jon L. Lellenberg (New York:
Baker Street Irregulars, 1995; 392 pp., $24.95), covering the period from
the Trilogy Dinner in March 1994 to Christopher Morley declaration in June
1947 that there would be no more BSI annual dinners.  Those were interest-
ing days, and the book includes reports by Ted Schulz (on The Scowrers and
Molly Maguires of San Francisco), Ronald Mansbridge (on Basil Davenport),
Hugh Harrington (on Clifton T. Andrew), Russell McLauchlin (on The Amateur
Mendicant Society of Detroit), and Allen Robertson and Paul S. Clarkson (on
The Six Napoleons of Baltimore), and fascinating tales of feuds and foibles
and furor, and photographs from the Trilogy Dinner and the annual dinners
in 1946 and 1947, and much more.  The annual-dinner photographs are welcome
indeed, because Bill Vande Water has managed to identify almost everyone in
them, so you'll be able to see what people looked like half a century ago. 
$27.90 postpaid ($28.90 postpaid for international orders) from The Baker
Street Irregulars, Box 465, Hanover, PA 17331.

The 15th annual Sherlock Holmes/Arthur Conan Doyle Symposium will be held
at the Holiday Inn Conference Center in Dayton on Mar. 15-17, with papers,
a banquet, and readers-theater presentations of "the Solitary Cyclist" and
"A Duet: With an Occasional Chorus".  Additional information is available
from Jean C. Rodin, 3041 Maginn Drive, Beavercreek, OH 45434.

Dick Lesh notes that bargain-books catalogs from Edward R. Hamilton (Falls
Village, CT 06031-5000) continue to offer all sort of Sherlockian bargains,
Nicholas Meyer's THE CANARY TRAINER ($6.95) and the British edition of Mark
Frost's THE LIST OF SEVEN ($4.95).

And a few commercials: the revised 15-page list of Investitured Irregulars,
Two-Shilling Awards, *The* Women, and the Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes
costs $1.15 postpaid.  The 74-page list of 682 Sherlockian societies, with
names and addresses for contacts for the 413 active societies, costs $3.80
postpaid.  A run of address labels for 347 individual contacts (recommended
if you wish to avoid making duplicate mailings to people who are contacts
for more than one society) costs $10.35 postpaid.  Checks payable to Peter
E. Blau, please.

For the electronically enabled, the 15-page list of Irregulars and others
is available from me as e-mail (no charge), and both lists are offered by
Willis Frick via ftp from <ftp://sanar.kaiwan.com/user/Sherlocktron/> or on
the Web at <http://www.kaiwan.com/~sherlock/stron1.html>.

 The Spermaceti Press: Peter E. Blau, 3900 Tunlaw Road NW #119, Washington,
  DC 20007-4830 (telephone: 202-338-1808) (Internet: pblau@capaccess.org)

Feb 96 #1                             Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press

David M. Martill continues to find and name new fossils from the Lower Cre-
taceous formations of Brazil.  The pterosaur "Arthurdactylus conan-doylei"
(Sep 95 #2) had been joined by the tetrapod "Irritator challengeri" (which
is described in great detail in the Journal of the Geological Society, vol.  
153, 1996, pp. 5-8, at hand from Bill Sarjeant).  It's the first real dino-
saur to be described from the Santana Formation: it was carnivorous, and it
had a crested skull up to 840 mm long (that's just under 3 feet).  The name
"Irritator" derives from the irritation that Martill and his fellow authors
felt when they discovered that the snout had been artificially elongated by
the professional fossil-hunter who found and sold the skull, and the name
"challengeri" honors Professor George Edward Challenger, of the Lost World.

Martill notes in correspondence that "Irritator challengeri" is the first
fossil named in 1996 (the JGS is published on the first day of the year),
and he says that if enough new fossils turn up he hopes to honor everyone
else in Challenger's party ("Summerleetator and Youngfellameladosaurus are
names to get your tongue around").

Two of Britain's best-known landmarks are for sale, at a combined asking
price of L5.5 million, according to a story in the Yorkshire Post (Jan. 8),
at hand from Jon Lellenberg.  They're John o' Groats and Land's End, and
both are owned by Gulf Resources Pacific (of New Zealand); John o' Groats
consists of 20 acres, and attracts more than 250,000 visitors a year, while
Land's End is 100 acres and has 500,000 visitors a year.  Sherlockians, of
course, will want the one that's mentioned in the Canon: "A draghound will
follow aniseed from here to John o' Groat's," said Sherlock Holmes in "The
Missing Three-Quarter").  John o' Groats (as it's spelled in the guidebooks
now) is named for a man named John who built a house there in the 15th
cen-tury, and it is romantically regarded at the northernmost place in
Britain (it's in Caithness, in the northeastern corner of Scotland).  It
isn't the northernmost place in Britain, actually (that's Dunnet Head,
about 12 miles to the west), but the tourists don't care.

Jerry Siegel died on Jan. 28.  He was a high-school student in Cleveland in
the 1930s when he and classmate Joe Shuster invented Superman, who became a
world-famous superhero as well as one of the most popular characters in the
history of comic strips, films, and television.  During World War II Siegel
and others on the staff of the Pacific edition of Stars and Stripes founded
The Baker Street Irregulars of Honolulu (active 1944-46).

Reported by Don Hobbs: a colorful poster (18 x 26") showing a very stylized
Sherlock Holmes urging "Smart Skin Care: It's Elementary", offered by the
American Academy of Dermatology, Box 2289, Carrol Stream, IL 60132 ($5.00).

Kathy Barry-Hippensteel's "Little Sherlock" doll ("a clever little boy who
thinks he's the world's greatest sleuth") was heavily promoted in 1989 and
1990 by the Ashton-Drake Galleries at $87.00, and now it's available as an
"heirloom ornament" for your Christmas tree a recent catalog, at hand from
Jack Kerr.  It's in a set of three 3" ornament (the other two aren't Sher-
lockian) that's item #96909 ($33.79 postpaid).  Ashton-Drake Galleries, Box
856, Morton Grove, IL 60053 (800-346-2460); credit-card orders welcome.

Feb 96 #2   THE YOUNG WITCHES is a thoroughly adults-only six-issue comic-
            book mini-series from Eros Comix; it's a porno Jack the Ripper
story, and Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson make an appearance in the second
issue (Dec. 1995), and may well turn up in the next issue.  The cover price
The cover price is $3.50, or $4.00 postpaid from the publisher (Box 25070,
Seattle, WA 98125).

Norma Schier died on Nov. 17.  She was a mystery novelist and short-story
writer, and one of the founders of the Rocky Mountain chapter of the Mys-
tery Writers of America; her imaginative collection THE ANAGRAM DETECTIVES
(1979) offered pastiches of famous detectives, including Hoskell Chomers
and Sandwort in "The Adventure of the Solitary Bride" by Aldon Canoy, and
Mooch Sheckls and Tweany in "The Adventure of the Boing! Ritual" by Rif H.  
Lobster.

Jennie Paton reports that "Wishbone: The Slobbery Hound" is now available
on a commercial videocassette from Polygram Video.  This is the "Hound of
Baskervilles" episode of the 30-minute PBS-TV children's series that has
Wishbone (a Jack Russell terrier) encouraging kids to read good books.  If
your local video shop has never heard of Polygram, the address is 825 8th
Avenue, New York, NY 10019 (800-825-7781).

Conan Doyle proposed the principal toast ("The Immortal
Memory") at the Edinburgh Burns Club Dinner on Mar. 23,
1901 (the meeting was postponed from January because of
the death of Queen Victoria), and on Jan. 25 this year
the Royal Mail honored The Immortal Memory on the 200th
anniversary of the death of Robert Burns with a set of
four stamps designed by Tayburn McIlroy Coates.  The 19p
stamp is especially nice for Sherlockians, with the "wee
sleeket, cowran, tim'rous beastie," made famous in Burns' poem "To a Mouse"
(it was in "The Copper Beeches" that Violet Hunter said of Edward Rucastle
that he showed "quite remarkable talent in planning the capture of mice").
Thanks to Catherine Cooke for her capture of this philatelic mouse.

CANONICAL CRIME SCENES & INVESTIGATIONS, VOLUME 1, by William H. Conway and
Linda L. Conway (Cincinnati: Classic Specialties Books, 1995) offers a new
approach to the Canon: summaries of 14 cases done as official crime-scene
reports; the 54-page spiral-bound book costs $17.95 postpaid from Classic
Specialties (see above), and there are many more books and other Sherlocki-
ana in their new illustrated catalog.

Warren Randall plans to honor the late Bob Brodie in a collection that will
be called "The Log of the 'Gloria Scott'" and would like to hear from those
who corresponded with Bob about Sherlockian matters or who have reminiscen-
ces of Bob that you would like to share.  Warren's address is 15 Fawn Lane
West, South Setauket, NY 11720-1346.

If you don't have a local Wal-Mart, their Sherlockian "bloodhound" plaster
statue (Nov 95 #5) is described as a coon dog in the Dec. 1995 catalog from
Thompson & Co. (Box 30303, Tampa, FL 33630) (800-237-2559) and offered for
$29.95 plus shipping.  The catalog, kindly forwarded by Laura Kuhn, also
has a set of Holmes and Watson meerschaum pipes at $57.50.

Feb 96 #3   The winter 1996 issue of The Armchair Detective has arrived,
            with Daniel Stashower's excellent tribute to and interview with
Jeremy Brett.  And Scott and Sherry Rose Bond's regular Sherlockian column
discusses collecting, with an account of their experience bidding in the
auction of Stanley MacKenzie's collection.  $31.00 a year (quarterly); 129
West 56th Street, New York, NY 10019-3808.

Michael Dibdin's THE LAST SHERLOCK HOLMES STORY (1978) has been reprinted
as a trade paperback (New York: Vintage Books, 1996; 190 pp., $10.00); the
pastiche pits Sherlock Holmes against Jack the Ripper.

Laurie King reports that the Bantam paperback of THE BEEKEEPER'S APPRENTICE
will be issued this summer as part of their "read mysteries" promotion, and
the book will be prominently featured in a display rack decorated by Edward
Gorey (who unfortunately has not drawn a portrait of Mary Russell).  A LET-
TER OF MARY, the third title in the series, is due in November, and Laurie
is now working on the fourth book, which involves Mary in a mysterious case
on Dartmoor.

Don Hobbs spotted a "Barnes & Noble Classics" edition of THE ADVENTURES OF
SHERLOCK HOLMES with an Introduction by Eric Ambler ($5.98); it's a reprint
of the volume published by John Murray and Jonathan Cape in London in 1974.  
They published all nine volumes of the Canon, so Barnes & Noble may reprint
all of them eventually.

Michael Brady has forwarded the Sherlockian design
used by the Background Investigation Unit of the
California Youth Authority.

The Wigmore Street Post Office is an electronic
journal published on the Prodigy computer service,
but some of its material can be found in an ink-
on-paper journal of the same name; the winter 1995
issue has 40 pages, and subscriptions cost $6.00 a
year (two issues) from Donald H. Meyers, 4757 47th
Avenue NE, Seattle, WA 98105.

The last six shows in Granada's "Sherlock Holmes" series are now available
on commercial videocassettes from MPI video: all 41 shows are offered by
Scarlet Street Video (Box 604, Glen Rock, NJ 07452) at $19.98 each; write
for their price list (which has other Sherlockian videos as well).

Karl Gunnar Ekblad suggests that visitors to Norway might enjoy a visit to
Sherlock's Pub at C.J. Hambros pl. 5 in Oslo (telephone 2241-8218).

Ray Betzner reports that autograph dealer Robert F. Batchelder offers some
Conan Doyle material: item 161 in catalog 101 consists of 14 items relating
to spiritualism, including three autograph letters from Conan Doyle to Mrs.  
Cadwallader, an American from Chicago whom he apparently met during one of
his American visits; there's also a note from Lady Doyle written in 1932,
and the price for the lot is $2,200.  Item 214 in catalog 102 is a letter
from Conan Doyle about spiritualism, and the price is $1,400.  The dealer's
address is 1 West Butler Avenue, Ambler, PA 19002 (215-643-1430).

Feb 96 #4   Diana Ver Nooy, who is editor of Neurology Reviews (a journal
            for neurologists), has begun a continuing quote-of-the-month
feature; the first one (titled "Phrenologically Speaking") is in the Jan.-
Feb. 1996 issue, and should be familiar to Sherlockians: "You interest me
very much, Mr. Holmes.  I had hardly expected so dolichocephalic a skull or
such well-marked supra-orbital development.  Would you have any objection
to my running my finger along your parietal fissure?  A cast of your skull,
sir, until the original is available, would be an ornament to any anthropo-
logical museum.  It is not my intention to be fulsome, but I confess that I
covet your skull."  Suggestions for futures issues can be sent to Diana c/o
CPG, 4 Brighton Road, Clifton, NJ 07012.

Don Pollock reports O XANGO DE BAKER STREET, by Jo Soares (Sao Paulo: Com-
panhia das Letra, 1995); it's a pastiche that brings Holmes and Watson to
Rio de Janeiro to investigate the disappearance of a valuable Stradivarius
during Sarah Bernhardt's first visit to the city.  And it's available from
Luso-Brazilian Books, Box 17028, Brooklyn, NY 11217; $28.95 postpaid (they
take plastic, and have an e-mail address <llbooks@aol.com>).  And in Portu-
guese, Don notes, there's a chapeuzinho ("little hat") accent over the O's
in XANGO and Jo.

Barbara Holmes has designed a set of ten Sherlockian notecards available
(with envelopes) for $4.90 postpaid, and a design sheet showing the pencil-
sketch artwork on the notecards is offered in return for a self-addressed
stamped envelope; her address is Box 446, Scottsville, VA 24590.

The Practical, But Limited, Geologists will convene on Wednesday, May 22,
at Luigi's in San Diego, during the annual meeting of the American Associa-
tion of Petroleum Geologists.  Sherlockians and geologists are welcome to
join in honoring the world's first forensic geologist; Luigi's is at 861
West Harbor Drive, in Seaport Village (next to the convention center), and
the festivities will begin with cocktails at 7:00 and continue with dinner
at 8:00; reservations are not needed.

The Jan. 1996 issue of Baker Street W1 offers news from Sherlockian socie-
ties west of the Mississippi, excellent articles about Sherlockian rooms,
both full-size and miniature, and John Farrell's review of the punk rock
song "Quick, Watson" on the stiffs, inc. debut recording "Nix Nought Noth-
ing" (American Records CD 9-43030-2); subscriptions are $9.00 a year (three
issues), from Jerry Kegley, 110 South El Nido #41, Pasadena, CA 91107.

Peter H. Wood's THE WINGED WHEEL is a new novel-length pastiche that brings
Holmes and Watson to the Isle of Man in 1912, investigating a mystery that
involves both the "Old Religion" and a German plot, and that offers Watson
an opportunity to participate in a Manx motorcycle race.  The 180-page book
is available from George A. Vanderburgh, Box 204, Shelburne, ON L0N 1S0,
Canada; $27.00 postpaid.

John Ruyle, who occasionally masquerades as ringmaster of the Quaker Street
Irregulars, has announced a new collection of poetry from the Pequod Press:
WIGGINS & COMPANY deals with Irregulars and other odd characters and will
be (as usual) set and printed by the proprietor of the Press.  521 Vincente
Avenue, Berkeley, CA 97407-1521; $40.00 (cloth) or $20.00 (paper).

Feb 96 #5   Further to the report (Jan 96 #7) on the Sherlock Holmes Pub
            (which is due to open later this year at 176 West 4th Street in
New York), John Baesch has reported that it will be across the street from
The Slaughtered Lamb Pub (honoring "An American Werewolf in London") and
not far from the Jack the Ripper Pub, all owned by Eerie Entertainment Inc.

The Easton Press has published a new "Collector's Edition" of the Canon in
three leather-bound volumes that reprint the text of The Limited Editions
Club set and, for the first time, all of the fine introductions (as well as
Edgar W. Smith's "Note on the Collation" and his "Epilogue"); the previous
sets from Easton have been reprints of the Heritage Press version, which
did not have all of the additional material.  The Limited Editions Club set
was warmly welcomed by Sherlockians, not only for its carefully edited text
but also for its excellent illustrations and the new introductions (by Vin-
cent Starrett, Elmer Davis, Fletcher Pratt, Rex Stout, Anthony Boucher, and
Christopher Morley, all still names to conjure with).  Each volume of "The
Leather-Bound Complete Sherlock Holmes" has a color frontispiece (Richard
Sparks' new portrait of Conan Doyle in the first volume, and illustrations
by Frederic Dorr Steele in the other two), and the cost is $41.85 postpaid
per volume; the address is 47 Richards Avenue, Norwalk, CT 06857 (800-243-
5160), and they accept credit-card orders.

Philip Weller reports that The Franco-Midland Hardware Company has issued a
new edition of Arthur Conan Doyle's short story "The Winning Shot" (which
has been reprinted from the original appearance in Bow Bells in 1883), with
a new introduction, illustrations, maps, and more than 300 textual annota-
tions.  L7.00 or $14.00 postpaid (L8.00 or $16.00 for airmail) (please send
dollar payments in U.S. currency), and the address is 6 Bramham Moor, Hill
Head, Fareham, Hampshire PO14 3RU, England.

Solar Pons, created by August Derleth almost seventy years ago as a tribute
to Sherlock Holmes, starred in a long series of stories popular with Sher-
lockians, and the saga was continued after Derleth's death by Basil Copper.  
Copper's THE RECOLLECTIONS OF SOLAR PONS (Minneapolis: Fedogan & Bremer,
1995; 248 pp., $25.00) contains four stories, three of them new and one a
revision from an earlier appearance, with fine illustrations by Stefanie K.
Hawks.  The book also is available ($27.00 postpaid) from the publisher at
603 Washington Avenue SE #77, Minneapolis, MN 55414 (800-738-2660); credit-
card orders welcome.

Joseph A. Coppola has reported that The Mycroft Holmes Society of Syracuse
will celebrate its 25th anniversary on Apr. 20, and that a special commem-
orative postmark (with the logo of the society) will be applied by the post
office there.  The Society will offer a cover with its own cachet and with
Sherlockian stamps for $2.00 postpaid (mailed under separate cover); $5.00
postpaid for a set of three covers with different Sherlockian stamps.  You
can send advance orders to Hodge Hodgskin, 7328 Jamesville Road, Manlius,
NY 13104.  If you want to have the postmark on your own covers, you should
send them to the Main Post Office, 5640 East Taft Road, Syracuse, NY 13200;
the postmark will be available from Apr. 20 for 30 days.  This may well be
the first official commemorative postmark honoring a Sherlockian society;
there have been other official postmarks honoring Sherlock Holmes, but I'm
not aware of one honoring a Sherlockian society.

Feb 96 #6   "The Man Who Disappeared" (a dramatization of "The Man with the
            Twisted Lip") was produced in Britain in 1950 as a pilot film
for American television, with John Longden as Holmes and Campbell Singer as
Watson; it never made it onto the air at the time, but it was released to
theaters in 1951, and eventually found its way onto videocassette, although
very little has been known about the history of the project.  Now Richard
Lancelyn Green, drawing upon the correspondence files of Denis Conan Doyle,
has written THE MISADVENTURE OF THE SHERLOCK HOLMES PILOT, a 36-page mono-
graph published by The Northern Musgraves with illustrations from the film,
and it's a delight to have the details.  $13.00 postpaid from Classic Spe-
cialities, Box 19058, Cincinnati, OH 45219; credit-cards orders welcome.

Issue #13 of the Sherlock Holmes Gazette includes a fine tribute to Jeremy
Brett, with articles written by David Stuart Davies, Michael Cox, Elizabeth
Wiggins, and Jean Upton, plus reviews and columns and letters about Holmes
and Conan Doyle.  $9.50 postpaid from Classic Specialties (see above).

Leslie Klinger is scheduled to teach a six-week, Monday-evening, extension
course on "Sherlock Holmes and His World" at the University of California
in Los Angeles from Apr. 15 to May 20; details are available from the UCLA
Extension Writer's Program (310-825-0107).  The press contact for the UCLA
program is John G. Watson (no relation, he admits).

There are realtors using the name "Sherlock Homes" here and there, but John
Baesch spotted an advertisement for a different approach, by Rob Watson, in
business in Wilmington, Del., as "Homes & Watson" (800-296-7629).

The Franco-Midland Hardware Company (American Exchange Branch) is planning
a "Valley of Fear" weekend in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, on March 30
and 31.  The focus will of course be on The Molly Maguires, and the plans
included tours of Pottsville and vicinity.  Details are available from Bob
Carter, Box 762, Fort Montgomery, NY 10922.

Herman Herst Jr. (Box 1583, Boca Raton, FL 33429) offers a copy of William
S. Baring-Gould's THE ANNOTATED SHERLOCK HOLMES (1967): two volumes, dust
jackets, second edition (with the added Index of Titles on p. 806); $50.00
postpaid.  Also available from Pat (he was born on St. Patrick's Day) is a
pamphlet reprint of "Dirty Pool" (a pleasant philatelic pastiche that was
published in The Baker Street Journal in June 1966) and a round-robin pas-
tiche to which he contributed; autographed copies of the 24-page pamphlet
cost $10.00 postpaid (same address).

Spotted by Tim O'Connor: SHERLOCK HOLMES: SOUL OF THE DRAGON, a comic-book
collection published by Northstar Press in Sept. 1995 with three stories
written by Joe Gentile and illustrated by different artists (in different
styles), and an introduction by Brad Keefauver; $9.95.

Chuck Kovacic (14383-B Nordhoff Street, Panorama City, CA 91402) offers an
illustrated sales list of reproductions of Sherlockian cigar-box labels and
cigarette cards, postcards, and the 1880 Afghan Campaign medal.

 The Spermaceti Press: Peter E. Blau, 3900 Tunlaw Road NW #119, Washington,
  DC 20007-4830 (telephone: 202-338-1808) (Internet: pblau@capaccess.org)

Mar 96 #1                             Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press

J. Adrian Fillmore is back, no longer involved with incredible and amorous
umbrellas, but rather as the author of the introduction to Marvin Kaye's
new anthology THE RESURRECTED HOLMES (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996;
337 pp., $24.95).  Kaye has posed his authors a double problem: to write a
Sherlock Holmes story, and to write it in the style of yet another author.  
And the results are intriguing: the authors pastiched vary widely, and are
as unusual as Jack Kerouac and H. P. Lovecraft and J. Thorne Smith (and I
wonder uneasily how many of us there still are who fondly remember Smith's
racy novels).  You won't find the styles of Watson or Conan Doyle in this
anthology, but there's fun to be had reading the stories.

And for those who are wondering about J. Adrian Fillmore: sometimes known
as James Phillimore, he was the hero of Marvin Kaye's fantasy novels THE
INCREDIBLE UMBRELLA (1979) and THE AMOROUS UMBRELLA (1981).

                   The United States has marked the Lunar New Year with a
                   stamp honoring the Year of the Rat (that's the first in
                   the twelve-year cycle celebrated by the Chinese).  Rats
                   are mentioned in nine Sherlock Holmes stories (and that
                   doesn't count the giant rat of Sumatra, or the dreaded
                   Balla rat of Australia).

Edward D. Hoch writes delightful short stories, and he has had at least one
story in each issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine for many years (John
Dickson Carr who once wrote about Hoch that "Satan himself would be proud
of his ingenuity").  One of his series detectives is Dr. Sam Hawthorne, and
a dozen of those stories have been collected in DIAGNOSIS: IMPOSSIBLE (Nor-
folk: Crippen & Landru, 1996; 203 pp., $38.00 for a signed edition bound in
cloth, or $15.00 for the trade paperback).  And one of the stories is "The
Problem of the Covered Bridge" (reprinted from EQMM, Dec. 1974), which has
an appropriate Sherlockian allusion.  The publisher's address is Box 9315,
Norfolk, VA 23505; add $2.25 for shipping.

Plan ahead: the sixth annual Mid-Atlantic Mystery Book Fair and Convention
will be held at the Holiday Inn (Independence Mall) in Philadelphia on Nov.
8-10.  Membership is limited to 450 and full registration costs $50.00, and
the contact is Deen Kogan, Detecto-Mysterioso Books, 507 South 8th Street,
Philadelphia, PA 19147.  Plan well ahead: the seventh annual convention is
scheduled for Oct. 3-5, 1997.

Forecast: ELEMENTARY, MRS. HUDSON, by Sydney Hosier (from Avon in April at
$5.50); "Introducing Emma Hudson, the other sleuth of Baker Street: called
in by old friend Vi Warner, who believes her employer has been murdered, a
diligent Mrs. Hudson begins an investigation of the snobby upper-crust St.
Clair family and uncovers evidence of a second murder."

"Mad Dogs and Englishmen" (Jeremy Brett's last film) opened in Britain last
June, and was broadcast on German television (VOX) on Dec. 3, according to
Michael Ross, who now edits The Striking Trifles and The Soft-Nosed Bullet-
In for Von Herder Airguns Ltd.  Details on the society and its publications
are available from Michael (Bendheide 65, 47906 Kempen, Germany).

Mar 96 #2   Dorothy Stix has reported on the formation of a new Sherlockian
            society for collectors of foreign-language editions.  The name
of the new society is thoroughly appropriate ("Sherlock Holmes Around the
World"), and membership (including the quarterly newsletter) costs $10.00 a
year.  There's also a lapel pin designed by Jeff Decker, available only to
members, at $10.00 postpaid (or $18.95 for a one-year membership plus the
pin).  Checks to Ralph Hall, 2906 Wallingford Court, Louisville, KY 40218.

TIMEWANKERS #3 (Mar. 1991) had Jonathan Fegly in Sherlockian costume on the
cover, and a non-S'ian pornographic time-travel comic-book story by Stephen
Sullivan; now reprinted in TIMEWANKERS #13 (Aug 94), a graphic album from
Eros Comic (Box 25070, Seattle, WA 98125) with a small S'ian vignette on
the cover.

Thelma Steward is an award-winning doll-maker, and she
now has a "Sherlock Holmes Series" that features Holmes,
Watson, Mrs. Hudson, and Moriarty.  The dolls are hand-
crafted from Cernit polymer and are about 20" high, and
cost from $1,350 to $1,500 each.  Mrs. Steward will be
happy to provide additional information on request (6720
Happy Valley Road, Somerset, CA 95684).

For the dedicated marginalists: Will Walsh reports that
the Eddie Bauer chain is selling a $19.95 stuffed puppy
wearing an Eddie Bauer cap, which is a deerstalker.

Eleanor N. Schwartz wrote the text that accompanied a fine photo story on
"Hooray for Hollywood" in Life (Mar. 1996); the lead photograph (by Alfred
Eisenstadt) shows "Sherlock Holmes and Jessica Fletcher" in the Paramount
commissary in 1955, when Basil Rathbone and Angela Lansbury had roles in
Danny Kaye's "Court Jester".

"A Gathering of Inquiring Minds" is the formal title of the John Bennett
Shaw Memorial Conference in Santa Fe on Apr. 19-20, and the agenda includes
presentations by Sherlockians local and far-flung, and a live broadcast of
Bill Dunning's radio adaptation of "A Scandal in Bohemia".  An illustrated
flier with all the details is available from Rita Martinez-Purson, Santa Fe
Community College, Community Services Office, Box 4187, Santa Fe, NM 87502
<rpurson@santa-fe.cc.nm.us>.

The commercial videocassette of "Wishbone: The Slobbery Hound" is in the
shops at $9.99 (discounted to $7.95 at Best Buy, according to Laura Kuhn).  
It's the "Hound of Baskervilles" episode of the 30-minute PBS-TV children's
series that has Wishbone (a Jack Russell terrier) encouraging kids to read
good books.

Congratulations to William A. S. Sarjeant, who has been elected a fellow of
the Royal Society of Canada, recognizing his long career as a geologist and
as editor of an award-winning bibliography of geologists and the history of
geology.  Bill uses the pseudonym Antony Swithin for his fantasy novels,
and his own name for his Sherlockian and Doyleana, which include MS. HOLMES
OF BAKER STREET: THE TRUTH ABOUT SHERLOCK HOLMES (1989) articles about the
geology of "The Lost World" and "The Terror of Blue John Gap".

Mar 96 #3   The Scowrers and Molly Maguires of San Francisco continue to
            devise interesting events, such as the "day of gala events and
fun" scheduled for June 15 at the Scowrers Inn and Gaming Parlor (aka the
Holiday Inn-Union Square) in San Francisco; details are available from the
Scowrers (V.V. 341, Mount Eden, CA 94557).

THE MAN WITH THE FISTED GRIP is the thirtieth narrative of Turlock Loams,
to be revealed by Dr. Fatso, who is celebrating the occasion with a glass
of cooking sherry (according to his Agent).  Finely printed as always at
the Pequod Press, the booklet costs $40.00 (cloth) or $20.00 (paper) from
John Ruyle, 521 Vincente Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94707-1521.

                    The Lynn Peavey Co. has a thick mail-order catalog full
                    of things of interest to law-enforcement professionals,
                    such as fingerprint kits, evidence bags, prisoner prop-
                    erty bags, gunshot residue kits, and some amusing souv-
                    enirs, including "Tracker the Investigator" (a 13" tall
                    plush dog wearin a trenchcoat and deerstalker).  $24.95
                    plus shipping, and their address is Box 14100, Lenexa,
                    KS 66285 (800-255-6499).

                    The new catalog from Bits & Pieces, 1 Puzzle Place,
                    Stevens Point, WI 54481 (800-544-7297) offers (on page
                    40) two new Sherlock Holmes jigsaw puzzles ("read the
                    mystery story inside, assemble the jigsaw, then try to
                    solve the crime") at $10.95 each or $16.95 for both;
                    shipping extra, and credit-card orders are welcome.

Harry Ryba died on Mar. 4.  He owned hotels and boarding houses and bicycle
rental shops on Mackinac Island (where bicycle rental shops did quite well,
since motor vehicles are banned from the island).  He opened a fudge shop
on the island in 1959, and quickly became known as the "Fudge King", thanks
to the late Bill Rabe, whose inspired public-relations campaign for every-
thing there touted Mackinac Island as "the Miami Beach of the North."  And
of course Bill ensured that those who attended the The Mrs. Hudson Breakast
all those years ago went home with samples of the Fudge King's fudge.

"Sherlock Holmes faces a new challenge...perhaps his greatest ever...and
while he's singing, yet!"  That's the blurb for "Sherlock in Love", a new
musical scheduled at the Alleyway Theatre in Buffalo from Apr. 11 to May 5.  
The box-office address is One Curtain Up Alley, Buffalo, NY 14202, and the
telephone number is 716-852-2600.

Jim Hillestad (The Toy Soldier, Paradise Falls, R.R. 1, Box 379, Cresco, PA
18326) welcomes visitors to his museum (you can call 717-629-7227 for hours
and directions) and mail orders (he offers 54-mm figures of Holmes and Wat-
son, and other Sherlockiana).

Further to last month's mention (Feb 96 #6) of the John Longden film "The
Man Who Disappeared" (1951), David Pearson sent a reminder that the film is
available on videocassette at $19.99 from Movies Unlimited, a firm that is
an excellent source of almost all videocassettes; 6736 Castor Avenue, Phil-
adelphia, PA 19149 (800-523-0823) <movies@moviesunltd.com>.

Mar 96 #4   The winter 1996 issue of Scarlet Street is a fine one, and has
            more than a dozen pages of well-illustrated tributes to Jeremy
Brett, and an interview with Hillary Brooke (who acted with Basil Rathbone
and Nigel Bruce in three of their Universal films), and a note that Steven
Spielberg will start filming "The Lost World" in September (that's Michael
Crichton's book, of course).  Scarlet Street is published quarterly ($20.00
a year), and the address is Box 604, Glen Rock, NJ 07452.

George Burns died on March 9.  His career as an entertainer and comedian
spanned 90 years, and included four decades as genial straight man to his
wife Gracie Allen.  His sense of timing was impeccable, and there still are
many who fondly remember "The Burns and Allen Show" from radio and televis-
ion.  Basil Rathbone was one of the many guest stars who appeared with them
on radio, and you'll find a picture of them on page 83 of Michael B. Drux-
man's BASIL RATHBONE: HIS LIFE AND FILMS (1975).  Rathbone and Allen are in
Sherlockian costume, with Burns as the suspect, in a publicity shot from
the 1940s.

Readers of Playboy surely will recall the magazine's recent pictorial about
Bettie Page, whose many fans were delighted to hear that she is alive and
well, and the subject of a new biography BETTIE PAGE: THE LIFE OF A PIN-UP
LEGEND, by Karen Essex and James L. Swanson (Los Angeles: General Publish-
ing Group, 1996).  In 1953 she was working in New York, enrolled in acting
classes, going to movies, and reading fiction.  "She also loved detective
stories, and read Sherlock Holmes, Raymond Chandler and Erle Stanley Gard-
ner," the biography notes (and thanks to John Comstock for the report).

Classic Specialties Audio has issued a five-cassette (320 minutes) record-
ing of Ronald C. Weyman's SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE MARK OF THE BEAST, read
by the author, who has an excellent voice and does well with accents.  The
pastiche was first published by Simon & Pierre in 1990, and brings Holmes
to Canada during the Great Hiatus to rescue the Empire from "a diabolical
weapon before which nothing could live."  $34.05 postpaid (Classic Special-
ties, Box 19058, Cincinnati, OH 45219); credit-card orders welcome.

"Footrot Flats" was a comic strip that ran for many years in newspapers in
New Zealand (and it was syndicated elsewhere), about a rancher named Wally
Footrot, and his friends, neighbors, family, and pets, and his dog (named
Dog).  The strip was drawn by Murray Ball, and this excerpt, noted by Linda
Anderson, is from the paperback collection "...LET SLIP THE DOGS OF WAR!"
(Lower Hutt: Inprint, 1992), kindly forwarded by Alex Mitchell.













Mar 96 #5   The fifth annual Watsonian Weekend (celebrating Dr. Watson and
            the Battle of Maiwand) will begin with a regimental dinner at
Knickers Restaurant in Des Plains, Ill.,  on July 19 (when Dr. Watson will
"Meet the Press"), and continues with the 37th annual running of The Silver
Blaze at Arlington Race Course on July 20.  More information is available
from Fred Levin, 8242 North Ridgeway Avenue, Skokie, IL 60076.

Patricia E. Moran ("Patience Moran") died on March 12.  Pat was one of the
founders of The Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes, and one of the Albertus
Magnus sextette who picketed the annual dinner of The Baker Street Irregu-
lars on a wintry evening in 1968.  She helped edit the Adventuresses' news-
letter, and then their more formal The Serpentine Muse, and always was one
of the usual suspects whenever the game was afoot or aflight or just cooked
and served at the rowdy table.

Richard Wein notes that there's a lot of Sherlockiana in the latest catalog
from Barnes & Noble (126 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10011) (800-843-2665):
THE FINAL ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, edited by Peter Haining (#1884097,
$4.98); THE COMPLETE SHERLOCK HOLMES (#1546977, $14.98); A SHERLOCK HOLMES
COMPANION (a new title for A SHERLOCK HOLMES COMPENDIUM), edited by Peter
Haining (#1903251, $7.98); THE LOST ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, by Ken
Greenwald (#E104047, $5.98); and the American edition of THE LIFE & TIMES
OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, by Philip Weller (#1933860, $17.98).

Richard also reports that the "Barnes & Noble Classics" edition of THE AD-
VENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES with an Introduction by Eric Ambler (Feb 96 #3)
also is available as a trade paperback at $4.98.

The Gleniffer Press has published microbook (7/8" high) editions of THE
THREE STUDENTS (1992) and SILVER BLAZE (1993), and now THE EMPTY HOUSE is
available, with 109 pages set in readable 2-point type.  Gleniffer does
excellent work, and the address is 11 Low Road, Castlehead, Paisley, Ren-
frewshire PA2 6AQ, Scotland, United Kingdom; $26.00 (or L15.00) postpaid
(U.S. dollar checks and credit-card orders are welcome).

The Northern Musgraves held a memorial luncheon for Jeremy Brett at the
Cafe Royal in London on Mar. 16, and it was a splendid gathering indeed,
according to a report from Lisa Oldham.  There were toasts and tributes by
David Stuart Davies, Edward Hardwicke, David Burke, Jeremy Paul, and Myra
Fulford (of the Manic Depression Fellowship), and Lisa's detailed report on
the festivities (retelling some of the grand stories she heard) is in the
latest issue of her electronic newsletter The Brettish Empire.  Her e-mail
address is <loldham@freenet.columbus.oh.us>.

Douglas G. Greene's JOHN DICKSON CARR: THE MAN WHO EXPLAINED MIRACLES is
one of the Mystery Writers of America nominees for an Edgar for Best Criti-
cal Biographical this year (the annual MWA awards dinner will be held on
Apr. 25).  T. R. Bowen's "The Eligible Bachelor" is one of the nominees for
Best Episode in a Television Series, and Jacques Barzun will receive this
year's Ellery Queen Award (for writing teams, editors, and publishers who
have made an outstanding contribution to the mystery genre).  A CATALOGUE
OF CRIME (written by Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor) is still a classic
inventory of the genre, and he has contributed to our own literature.

Mar 96 #6   David Hammer reports on M. F. K. Fisher's LAST HOUSE: REFLEC-
            TIONS, DREAMS, AND OBSERVATIONS 1943-1991 (New York: Pantheon
Books, 1995; 286 pp., $23.00); it was her last book, and chapter 7 ("A Few
of the Men") is her confession about the men she loved, including Brillat-
Savarin, Maigret, and Sherlock Holmes (and there's some excellent analysis
of our hero, David adds).

Frank Darlington notes that THE WORDSWORTH DICTIONARY OF PUB NAMES, by Les-
lie Dunkling and Gordon Wright (Ware: Wordsworth Reference, 1994; 305 pp.,
$3.95 on bargain-books tables), contains entries for The Dangling Prussian
and for all the other inns and pubs mentioned in the Canon, except for the
Alpha (but only The Dangling Prussian is cited as Canonical).  The book was
first published by Routledge & Kegan Paul in London in 1987.

Jerry Bangham spotted an advertisement in Variety (Feb. 26) for "Sherlock
Holmes: The Case of the Temporal Nexus" with a photograph of Patrick Macnee
as Holmes.  The film is billed as produced and directed by David L. Stanton
for Associated Entertainment Releasing in association with Range of Vision
Productions, with the telephone number 310-576-7435, which turns out not to
be in service.  Nor does the telephone company have a listing for either of
the two companies, or for Stanton.  Can someone out there on the southern
Pacific slope find out how to contact someone associated with the film?

SHERLOCK HOLMES' LAST ADVENTURES is a new audiocassette set from K-Tel In-
ternational/AudioScope, with George Takei reading five of the stories (Wist
/Bruc/Lady/ Dyin/Last) on two cassettes; Takei is well-known in the "Star
Trek" world as Mr. Sulu, and has a fine voice (but no British accent).  The
set is in many bookstores at $11.95; the address for K-Tel International is
2605 Fernbrook Lane North, Minneapolis, MN 55447-4736 (612-509-6418).

Walter P. Armstrong, Jr. ("Birdy Edwards") died on Mar. 5.  His career as a
lawyer spanned more than 50 years, as did his interest in Sherlock Holmes:
his first contribution to our literature appeared in the Oct. 1946 issue of
The Baker Street Journal, and his last in the Sept. 1992 issue.  He was one
of the founding members of The Giant Rats of Sumatra of Memphis, and he re-
ceived his BSI Investiture in 1985.  His many essays, articles, and toasts
were collected in HOLMES' RANGE (published by Magico in 1994).

There are few people who have brought as much laughter to as many people as
Chuck Jones has, in the more than 300 hundred animations he has directed in
a career that has lasted more than 50 years.  His Sherlockian "Deduce, You
Say!" (1956) was one of them, and a brief clip from the film was shown when
he received a special Oscar for lifetime achievement at the Academy Awards
on Mar. 25.

Baseball season is almost here, Thom Boykoff notes, and Holmes and Watson
are still pitching: Darren Holmes (traded this winter by the Colorado Rock-
ies to the San Francisco Giants) and Allen Watson (St. Louis Cardinals).              
Thom offers a pair of collectors cards for $2.32 postpaid; his address is
222 Randolph Drive #303, Madison, WI 53717-1647.

 The Spermaceti Press: Peter E. Blau, 3900 Tunlaw Road NW #119, Washington,
  DC 20007-4830 (telephone: 202-338-1808) (Internet: pblau@capaccess.org)

Apr 96 #1                             Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press

"Murder, She Wrote" debuted on CBS-TV on Sept. 30, 1984, with a two-hour
premiere that starred Angela Lansbury as mystery-writer Jessica Fletcher in
"The Murder of Sherlock Holmes" (with Brian Keith playing a man who attends
a costume party dressed as Sherlock Holmes and who may or may not have been
the intended victim of a murderer.  The final episode will be broadcast on
May 19, making "Murder, She Wrote" the longest-running detective-drama ser-
ies in the history of television (it was the highest-rated television drama
series for nine consecutive seasons, from 1985 to 1994).

Kenneth Ludwig's play "Postmortem" is scheduled by the Oldcastle Theatre
Company at the Bennington Center for the Arts in Bennington, Vt., on June
14-29.  The play had its premiere (as "Dramatic License") in 1983 and was
revised and retitled in 1985, and puts William Gillette to work solving a
mystery at his famous home in Hadlyme, Conn.  The box-office phone number
is 802-447-0564.

Simon Callow's ORSON WELLES: THE ROAD TO XANADU was published last year in
Britain, and now has an American edition (New York: Viking, 1996; 638 pp.,
$32.95), and it's an excellent biography of a man known best to many Sher-
lockians as the answer to a trivia-quiz question (name an actor who played
both Sherlock Holmes and Prof. Moriarty).  The book covers only the first
26 years of Welles' life and career, and there was plenty to cover (at the
age of 18 he played Mercutio to Basil Rathbone's Romeo, and by the time he
was 26 he had broadcast his alarming "The War of the Worlds" and launched
his film career with "Citizen Kane").  Callow is himself a director and an
actor (he played Inspector Lestrade in Charlton Heston's "The Crucifer of
Blood" for TNT cable in 1991), and offers splendid insight into what made
Welles such a phenomenon.

John Baesch notes that Sherlockians may wish to visit the Frick Collection
in New York to see a new exhibition called "Greuze: A Portraitist for the
90's" (since Jean-Baptiste Greuze is mentioned in the Canon).  The Frick is
at Fifth Avenue at East 70th Street, and the exhibition closes on Apr. 14.

For those who still know what phonograph records are (and perhaps even have
machines that play them), John Burkardt offers a treasure trove of Sher-
lockian LP records, at reasonable prices; a sales list is available (send
a #10 SASE to him at 750 Hethwood Drive #200-D, Blacksburg, VA 24060).

The continuing saga of St. Bartholomew's Hospital continues: a year ago The
Times suggested that British Health Secretary Virginia Bottomley had "suc-
ceeded where Henry VIII, the Great Fire of London, the Blitz, and Margaret
Thatcher all failed," and that the long campaign to keep the hospital open
seemed to have failed.  But a later article in The Times (Dec. 7, 1995), at
hand from Chris Redmond, reports that the decision to close Bart's provoked
an unprecedented campaign of opposition that culminated in a damaging Tory
back-bench rebellion blamed for unseating Bottomley.  And a new report from
the King's Fund (an independent health-policy think-tank) suggests that the
hospital can be kept going with state, charitable, and private funding.  So
the site of the historic first meeting between Holmes and Watson is safe to
the end of the century, and perhaps much longer.

Apr 96 #2   Michael J. Farrell died on Mar. 1.  He was a doctor in Queens-
            land, and the founder and president of The Resident Patients of
Toowoomba.  He edited their journal Panacea, and organized both the annual
Silver Blaze race day in Toowoomba and the 1994 national meeting of all the
Sherlockian societies in Australia, and with his family had great fun help-
ing keep the memory green in the Antipodes.

Elizabeth Peters' series of mystery novels about Amelia Peabody Emerson now
runs to seven titles, and they're written with style and humor, set in Vic-
torian England and Egypt, and all with direct or indirect Canonical echoes.  
The latest in the series is THE SNAKE, THE CROCODILE & THE DOG (New York:
Warner Books, 1994; 432 pp., $5.99).

"It's a very rare bird--practically extinct--in England
now, but all things are possible upon the moor," Staple-
ton said (in "The Hound of the Baskervilles").  "Yes, I
should not be surprised to learn that what we have heard
is the cry of the last of the bitterns."  It wasn't the
last one, but there may be only 15 breeding males left in
Great Britain.  The bittern is one of the five threatened
birds shown in a set issued there last month to honor the
50th anniversary of the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (the others are the Mus-
covy duck, the lapwing, the white-fronted goose, and the whooper crane);
the stamps feature paintings by the late Charles F. Tunnicliffe.

David Talbott Cox died on Mar. 15.  He was a Chicago producer, director and
actor for many years (and he was on the cover of TV Guide in the 1960s as a
member of the cast of "The Integrators" when the television play aired was
broadcast by WTTW-TV), and a newsletter publisher, and a Sherlockian: David
was an energetic member of Hugo's Companions and one of the founders of The
Criterion Bar Association.

For those who like trivia questions: name two actors who have played Sher-
lock Holmes who also have played actors who have played Sherlock Holmes.  
The answer will appear later in this issue.

Dominica issued a set of eight stamps in 1991 showing historic trains, and
one of them showed "Sherlock Holmes & Dr. Watson watching Brunigline train
(built 1888) descending from the Brunig Pass toward Meiringen"; the set of
eight mint stamps is available from the International Collectors Society.  
Box 854, Van Nuys, CA 91408, for $19.95 postpaid (credit cards welcome).

Brook Manor was the home of the infamous Richard Cabell in 1656, and he is
believed by many to have provided some of the inspiration for the legend of
the Hound of the Baskervilles.  And you can now stay at Brook Manor while
touring Dartmoor: it is open as a guest house, fully restored with modern
conveniences and central heating.  A nicely-illustrated flier is available,
and the address is: Buckfastleigh, Devon TQ11 0HR, England.

William H. "Skip" Boyer has an article "At Holmes with a Good Smoke" (with
a Gahan Wilson illustration showing Holmes offering a cigar to Moriarty) in
the spring 1996 issue of Smoke, a fancy new quarterly for people who fancy
cigars ($3.99); 135 West 41st Street #1050, New York, NY 10036.

Apr 96 #3   Michael Ricker Pewter are preparing to ship the detailed pewter
            reproduction of The Consulting Room (the third element in their
Sherlock Holmes Collection); $260.00 postpaid.  Dr. Watson and Mrs. Hudson
(the first two figures) are still available ($92.00 each postpaid), and the
set will be completed by early 1997 with Inspector Lestrade, a Baker Street
Irregular, and Sherlock Holmes.  An illustrated flier is available from the
company (5333 West 88th Avenue #132, Westminster, CO 80030) (800-554-1571);
credit-card orders welcome.

"George Spelvin, Performing Legend, Takes His Final Bow" was the headline
on an article (not included in every edition of the Newspaper of Record,
but reprinted in New York magazine on Apr. 8).  According to Randall Short,
"It is with sadness tinged by a modicum of embarrassment that these pages
find themselves called upon to report (somewhat belatedly) the passing of
George Spelvin, a giant of the American theater whose legend in that notor-
iously fickle milieu rivals--it is hardly an exaggeration to say--those of
Edwin Forrest, Ethel Barrymore, and warm orange-flavored intermission bev-
erages.  The great man appears actually to have departed the sphere of our
sorrow--or, at any rate, New York--immediately following his last recorded
(1988) appearance in 'The Mystery of Edwin Drood', but it seems to have
been a while before anybody noticed."  Short also notes that Spelvin was a
native New Yorker, and made his stage debut in Charles A. Gardner's 1886
"Karl the Peddler" on 14th Street in a space currently housing Phil's World
of Electronics, and that he is survived by a sister, Georgina.

George Spelvin also had many Sherlockian credits, according to George Van-
derburgh's index to Ron De Waal's THE UNIVERSAL SHERLOCK HOLMES, including
supporting roles in the 1970s and 1980s in productions of Martin Keeley's
"Sherlock Holmes and the C.P.R. Murders", Paul Giovanni's "The Crucifer of
Blood", William Gillette's "Sherlock Holmes", and Dennis Rosa's "Sherlock
Holmes and the Curse of the Sign of Four".  The index also has credits for
Georgina's children Georgia, Garff, and P. Highley Spelvin.

And for those who have not noticed the name of George Spelvin before, it is
traditionally used in cast listings when a producer isn't sure which actor
will be playing a role, or occasionally (and incorrectly) when a character
is another character in disguise.

The question was: name two actors who have played Sherlock Holmes who also
have played actors who have played Sherlock Holmes.  Patrick Horgan, who
played Sherlock Holmes on stage in William Gillette's "Sherlock Holmes" and
in Conan Doyle's "The Speckled Band", played Gillette in Kenneth Ludwig's
play "Dramatic License" (now "Postmortem").  And Nicol Williamson, who was
Holmes in the film "The Seven-Per-Cent Solution", is playing John Barrymore
(who starred in the silent film "Sherlock Holmes") on stage in "Jack" at
the Belasco Theatre in New York.  "Jack" started previews on Apr. 20, and
will have an eight-week run (212-239-6200).

William K. Everson died on Apr. 14.  He was a film historian and collector,
and helped saved hundreds of films from the days when studios didn't bother
to.  He wrote 16 books on the cinema, and included discussion of Moriarty
in THE BAD GUYS: A PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE MOVIE VILLAIN (1964), and had a
chapter on Sherlock Holmes in THE DETECTIVE IN FILM (1972).

Apr 96 #4   Lots of dramatic items in this issue, so I'll also mention that
            Bert Coules (Fairway, Sandling Road, Saltwood, Hythe, Kent CT21
4QJ, England) still offers laser-printed scripts (about 60 pp. each) of his
adaptations for the BBC radio series that stars Clive Merrison and Michael
Williams as Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson ("The Hound of the Baskervilles"
in 1988 had Roger Rees and Crawford Logan in 1999).  The stories are: Stud/
Sign/Scan/Bosc/Blue/Nobl/Silv/Croo/Fina/Empt/Norw/Danc/Soli/Chas/SixN/Seco/
Houn/Wist/Bruc/Devi/Last/Illu/Maza/Suss/Thor/Lion/Reti.  The postpaid cost
(sterling check or draft) for each short-story script is L12.00 (surface)
or L14.00 (airmail), or you can pay with currency ($19.00 or $22.00) or by
dollar check ($28.86 or $30.02).  The cost is doubled for the three long-
story scripts.

One of the nice things about collecting Sherlockiana is that the old can be
as interesting as the new, and it can be fun to catch up with something you
missed.  As is the case with THE NOISELESS TENOR: THE BICYCLE IN LITERATURE
(East Brunswick: Cornwall Books, 1982).  James E. Starrs is well-known now
for forensic investigation of questions such as whether Alferd Packer dined
on the party he was supposed to be guiding over the mountains (Starrs dug
up the victims, and concluded that they had indeed been murdered, and quite
likely butchered).  And he enjoys bicycling, and he has edited a delightful
anthology that includes "The Priory School" (and some discussion of bicycle
tracks), and a splendid Foreword by William Saroyan, and two excerpts from
Christopher Morley, and much more.

Robert C. Hess (559 Potter Boulevard, Brightwaters, NY 11718) offers a new
sales list, with figurines, statues, Mardi Gras doubloons, programs, lobby
cards, books, and other Sherlockiana.

Lawrence J. Kaplan has been teaching a course on "Chemistry and Crime: From
Sherlock Holmes to Modern Forensic Science" at Williams College since 1990,
and this month the National Science Foundation awarded him a $234,539 grant
to create a CD-ROM version of his course.  The disk is intended to make the
laboratory portion of his course accessible to colleges that cannot offer
forensics laboratory classes, and it will include simulations of equipment
used in forensics analysis as well as cases for students to solve using the
equipment.  Kaplan hopes to have a finished product available in two years.

Stuffed Moose Audio has issued an amusing audiocassette with four "classic
humorous ghost stories" written by Stephen Leacock, Charles Dickens, Mark
Twain, and Arthur Conan Doyle (whose story is "Selecting a Ghost").  George
Plumley has dramatized the stories, and they're performed well by a group
of talented actors.  The Lodestone Catalog offers SPIRITED YARNS: VOLUME 1
for $9.95 plus shipping; the address is 611 Empire Mill Road, Bloomington,
IN 47401 (800-411-6463), and credit-card orders are welcome.

Heritage Media (Castle Eden Studios, Castle Eden. Durham TS27 4SD, England)
offers a catalog of classic audio and video, including radio drama: three
double-cassette sets of "The Best of Sherlock Holmes" (each set with four
Gielgud/Richardson broadcasts); L7.99 each (or L19.99 for all three in a
slip case) plus shipping.  The cassettes are available here from National
Review Radio Classics (150 East 35th Street, New York, NY 10016); $16.99
each (or $39.99 for all three); $4.50 shipping per order; plastic welcome.

Apr 96 #5   The first annual Sherlock Holmes Festival will be held in Crow-
            borough on July 5-7, according to an item in The Times Literary
Supplement (Mar. 15).  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle lived in Crowborough for many
years, but the Chamber of Commerce believes that far too few Sherlockians
visit the town.  The festival will feature an exhibition, a street party, a
concert, and a mystery trail, and the organizers are hoping that Sherlock-
ians "will come to see Crowborough as the Mecca for Sherlock Holmes buffs."
Details are available from The Sherlock Holmes Festival, The Town Hall, The
Broadway, Crowborough, East Sussex TN6 1DA, England.

Francine Kitts notes that a radio-theater production of "The Six Napoleons"
will be performed five times at the Snug Harbor Cultural Center in Staten
Island, N.Y. on May 2-5; tickets cost $10.00, and the phone number for the
box office is 718-979-3190.

For anyone who might need another reason to keep away from the moor, Fred
Barbash reported in the Washington Post (Apr. 18), that "There's a monster
loose that's threatening the cities and the towns of Britain, its national
heritage, its animals, its health, and its wealth.  It's called traffic."
The threat is everywhere, including "the great moors of lore and legend,
like Dartmoor, the setting in western England for 'The Hound of the Basker-
villes.'  Any hound venturing into it today risks life and limb, according
to a recent study, which said that some 300 sheep, ponies, and cattle were
run down and killed by speeding cars there last year."

Jim Suszynski spotted Shaggy in a deerstalker in "The Maltese Mutt" in the
comic book SCOOBY-DOO #9 (June 1996) from Archie Comics ($1.50).  And Jack
Kerr spotted Fred Flintstone in a deerstalker in "Fred Flintstone: Private
Eye!" in THE FLINTSTONES #11 (July 1996), also from Archie ($1.50).

FROM PRUSSIA WITH LOVE, by John DeChancie (Rocklin: Prima, 1996; 261 pp.,
$5.99), is a spin-off from the Castle Falkenstein role-playing game created
by R. Talsorian Games.  The game and the novel are set in a magical Victor-
ian alternate universe that includes fairies, dwarves, steam engines, and
dragons, and Prof. Moriarty makes a brief but villainous appearance in the
novel.  Stu Shiffman, who knows far more than I about this steampunk world,
reports that Moriarty also is in a second novel (DeChancie's MASTERMINDS OF
FALKENSTEIN), and that a third novel (by George Alec Effinger) will involve
both Moriarty and Sherlock Holmes.

Richard Olken has reported Alan M. Young's article "C. Auguste Dupin, Alias
Holmes" (about Conan Doyle's debt to Poe) in the Feb. 1996 issue of Sextant
(Salem State College, 352 Lafayette Street, Salem, MA 01970); the article
has some fine illustrations of Dupin and Holmes (and photographs of Poe and
Conan Doyle).  The e-mail address is <sextant@mecn.mass.edu>.

"The Molly Maguires" is a new musical (book by William Strempek, and music
and lyrics by Sid Cherry), and it will have its world premiere this year at
the Grand Candlelight Theatre in Milton, Pa., Aug. 7-31 (800-355-3099), and
at the Media Theatre for the Performing Arts in Media, Pa., Sept. 4-Oct. 6
(800-355-3099).  There will be a theater party for Sherlockians on Sept. 28
at 2:00 pm in Media; details are available from Sherry Rose-Bond, 519 East
Allens Lane, Philadelphia, PA 19119.

Apr 96 #6   Videotaper alert: "Wishbone" is featured in "A Dogged Expose"
            on PBS-TV on May 3.  Wishbone is a Jack Russell terrier who
stars in a fine children's series about a dog who finds himself involved in
literary classics (this time in "A Scandal in Bohemia"); the series has 40
programs that cycle in repeats, and there is another interesting episode
called "The Slobbery Hound" (yes, "The Hound of the Baskervilles").  Also:
many PBS-TV stations are likely to repeat some of the Granada programs with
Jeremy Brett in May: "The Dying Detective" and "The Cardboard Box" will air
in Washington on May 16, and "The Three Gables" on May 23.

It was in the Sept. 1983 issue of Science 83 that John Hathaway Winslow and
Alfred Meyer accused Sir Arthur Conan Doyle of being the perpetrator of the
Piltdown hoax, presenting a detailed and thoroughly circumstantial argument
that received considerable publicity (mainly because they provided the N.Y.   
Times with an advance copy of their article).  And now Robert B. Anderson
has made the same accusation, in the spring 1996 issue of Pacific Discovery
(California Academy of Sciences, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA 94118;
$5.00 postpaid).  Anderson, who is earth science editor at Natural History
magazine at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, has drawn
heavily upon Winslow's work, but (using Sherlock Holmes to reveal the solu-
tion) offers some additional evidence that is just as circumstantial.  One
is tempted to wonder whether the spring issue of Pacific Discovery was pub-
lished on April Fool's Day . . .

ELEMENTARY, MRS. HUDSON, by Sydney Hosier (New York: Avon, 1996; 206 pp.,
$5.50), is yet another yellowed manuscript, part of the "Hudson Collection"
(that's Emma Hudson, housekeeper to Sherlock Holmes), and the story is set
in 1898, when Holmes and Watson are on holiday and Mrs. Hudson answers an
old friend's plea for help and solves two mysterious murders (with the help
of her old friend's powers of astral projection).

R. Dixon Smith and Paulina M. Smith have a new catalog of "Conan Doyle and
Sherlock Holmes" with 592 items old and new: books, pamphlets, magazines,
posters, programs, and other ephemera; write to Rupert Books, 58/59 Stone-
field, Bar Hill, Cambridge CB3 8TE, England.

Societies looking for ideas for souvenirs might take a look through the new
catalog from Best Impressions (Box 802, La Salle, IL 61301) (800-635-2378).  
Their promotional products range from mugs ($35.00 set-up charge, and $2.38
each for 72) to wooden nickels and key fobs and totebags and other items.

Apparently I'm not the only one who has had trouble ordering new magazine
cases from the Magafile Company in Vandalia, Mo., and it may well be that
the company has gone out of business.  Please let me know about alternate
sources for inexpensive fold-up cardboard cases in various sizes.

Is anyone planning a visit to Moscow?  Does anyone know anyone who is plan-
ning a trip to Moscow?  I need a courier who can retrieve some Sherlockian
videocassettes that I am reluctant to entrust to the Russian mail system.  
Please let me know if you can help.

 The Spermaceti Press: Peter E. Blau, 3900 Tunlaw Road NW #119, Washington,
  DC 20007-4830 (telephone: 202-338-1808) (Internet: pblau@capaccess.org)

May 96 #1                             Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press

Marlene R. Aig died on Apr. 25.  She earned a Master's degree from McGill
University (as did Christopher Morley's friend Jane Nightwork), and joined
the Associated Press in 1978, becoming their Westchester correspondent in
1983.  Marlene was as enthusiastic and energetic as a Sherlockian as she
was as a journalist, and she made sure that her AP beat also included the
Sherlockian world, filing stories on the birthday festivities and on other
important events.  Her AP obituary described her as a small, fast-talking,
frequently squawking mass of energy, with a mop-top of rusty red hair and a
spirit to match: that's the sort of personal touch that journalists like to
give their colleagues, and it's the way her friends will remember her.

The spring 1996 issue of The Armchair Detective includes excellent articles
by Jan B. Steffensen and Kate Derie about the continuing spread of mystery-
related material on the Internet, and Scott and Sherry Rose Bond's memorial
to Jeremy Brett and Robert Stephens.  $31.00 a year (quarterly); 129 West
56th Street, New York, NY 10019-3808.

Nice news for everyone interested in the Sherlock Holmes Collections at the
University of Minnesota (now the home of John Bennett Shaw's collection and
much more): the state legislature has approved a bill that provides $38.5
million to build the new Minnesota Library Access Center, which will be the
new home of the special collections, and the governor has signed the bill
into law.  That's bricks-and-mortar money, and The Friends of the Sherlock
Holmes Collections are always happy to accept tax-deductible contributions
to help maintain the collections.  And there's an excellent reason to give
now: the F. R. Bigelow Foundation in St. Paul will match all contributions
(up to a total of $30,000) to the John Bennett Shaw Fund (fund no. 3906).  
You can send your donations to the Sherlock Holmes Collections, 466 Wilson
Library, Minneapolis, MN 55455 (matching gifts from employers also qualify
for the for the matching grant).  And there's a deadline: the first $15,000
must be raised by June 30.

Christopher Roden reports that EMI has issued a "Writers and Poets" set of
three CDs (L26.99 in Britain) that includes an excerpt (3:48 minutes) from
the longer recording that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle made for His Master's
Voice in 1930.

Further to last month's report (Apr 96 #5) on a paperback spin-off from the
Castle Falkenstein role-playing game, the second book in the series is MAS-
TERMINDS OF FALKENSTEIN, by John DeChancie (Rocklin: Prima, 1996; 25 pp.,
$5.99); Moriarty turns up again in a magical Victorian alternate steampunk
universe.  The third novel in the series will be THE LEAGUE OF DRAGONS, by
George Alec Effinger, due in October ("Tom Olam and the lovely, swashbuck-
ling Marianne meet Sherlock Holmes, the young, not-yet-famous hero of Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle's series").  If your local bookseller can't find Prima
Publishing, their address is Box 1260-BK, Rocklin, CA 95677.

John Ruyle is once again perpetrating poetry, and hand-printing it himself
at the Pequod Press: SIR ARTHUR AGONISTES "dips into unexpected areas of
the Canon and ranges over other Holmesian matters as well."  521 Vincente
Avenue, Berkeley, CA 97407-1521; $40.00 (cloth) or $20.00 (paper).

May 96 #2   Do any "Howdy Doody" fans remember Inspector John J. Fadoozle?
            Paul Martin spotted mention of the Inspector ("America's number
one--boi-i-i-i-nggg--puh-rivate eye"), and a photograph showing him with a
deerstalker, cape, and mustache, in HOWDY AND ME: BUFFALO BOB'S OWN STORY,
by Buffalo Bob Smith and Donna McCrohan (New York: Penguin/Plume, 1990).

Orville Prescott died on Apr. 28.  He was a book critic for the N.Y. Times
from 1942 to 1966, and reviewed John Dickson Carr's THE LIFE OF SIR ARTHUR
CONAN DOYLE (1949) and Adrian Conan Doyle's HEAVEN HAS CLAWS (1953), prais-
ing them both but noting that Adrian Conan Doyle "lacks the literary skill
to present his material in effective fashion."  Prescott also enjoyed the
writings of Christopher Morley, and in his review of Morley's THE MAN WHO
MADE FRIENDS WITH HIMSELF (1949) suggested that if the book "is a failure
as a novel and as a commentary on the neurosis of our time, it at least
flashes intermittently with wit and charm.  Christopher Morley never wrote
anything that didn't do that."

Herman Herst Jr. was able to combine his knowledge of philately and his in-
terest in Arthur Conan Doyle in a souvenir he prepared for the 1981 annual
dinner of The Baker Street Irregulars.  If you would like learn more about
the world's first Christmas envelope (which was designed by Conan Doyle's
uncle, Richard Doyle, in 1840) you can send him a #10 SASE (Box 1583, Boca
Raton, FL 33429).

Malice Domestic VIII (in Bethesda, Md., at the end of April) was an inter-
esting convention, with Peter Lovesey as guest of honor and Josephine Tey
as ghost of honor, and a focus on "mysteries of manners," although not ex-
clusively, since this year there were sessions on "The Scientific Sleuth:
from Sherlock Holmes to Gideon Oliver" and on "Sherlock Holmes as a Foren-
sic Scientist".  The first session offered a panel consisting of Douglas G.  
Green, Aaron Elkins, Paul Sledzik, and me, and the second session was just
me (and questions and comments from the audience).  Audio Visual Inc. off-
ers audiocassettes of any of the 50 convention sessions at $10.00 each plus
shipping (there's a discount for volume); 4390-B Parliament Place, Lanham,
MD 20706 (credit-card orders welcome).

Mary Frost-Pierson also was at the convention, offering a demonstration of
the "mysteries" division of America Online, which is an excellent reason to
try out AOL's free-trial-offer (now 15 hours).  You'll need to be driving a
Macintosh, or running Windows, with a 256-color card, and then you can take
your own tour through Mary's offerings, which include on-line editions of
magazines (The Sherlock Holmes Review and Scarlet Street), bulletin boards,
discussion groups for kids and teachers, opportunities to browse the stock
and buy books and gifts (Sherlockian and otherwise) from Mary's bookshop
(Mysteries from the Yard), and much more.  The address of Mary's shop is
253-B Xenia Avenue, Yellow Springs, OH 45387 <msteries@aol.com>; ask for
AOL's 15-free-hours floppy disk.

Glyn Szasz reports from Australia that a Planet Hollywood opened recently
in Sydney, packed with movie memorabilia, including the pipe from "Young
Sherlock Holmes".  Glyn is the first Sherlockian I've heard of who has ad-
mitted going to a Planet Hollywood, let along finding anything Sherlockian
there (I have been to a Hard Rock Cafe, but didn't).

May 96 #3   Web-cruiser alert: thanks to the energy and expertise of Willis
            Frick, the three most recent issues of the electronic edition
of this newsletter are now available on a home page at his kaiwan.com web
site; the URL is: <http://www.kaiwan.com/~sherlock/SCUTTLE.HTML>.  URLs are
case-sensitive, so you need to use the upper-case letters.

Stephen Hemming died on Apr. 19.  He was an actor in Wisconsin, and one of
his fellow actors said that "when he was given a role, he was like Sherlock
Holmes, investigating it, diving into learning everything he could about
it."  And perhaps that was only natural: he played Sherlock Holmes in "The
Case of the Lurking Variable" on an audiocassette made for an instructional
series on mathematics distributed the University of Wisconsin in 1987.

Thanks to all who responded to my request for other sources for inexpensive
cardboard magazine cases, what with the Magafile Company having vanished.  
The good news is that there are alternate sources, and the bad news is that
all the different sizes aren't available.  The office-supply stores such as
Staples and Office Depot offer "regular" (12" x 4" x 9") cut-corner boxes
for about $1.60 each.  So do mail-order companies such as Quill (800-789-
1331) and Highsmith (800-558-2110); Highsmith offers inexpensive boxes at
$19.15 for 20.  Brodart (800-233-8959) offers "super-budget files" at $0.96
each (cheaper by the dozen), and "economical shelf files" in five different
sizes, ranging from 8.5" high ($1.30 each for a dozen) to 14.5" high ($1.95
each for a dozen); Brodart would be best for those who want BSJ-size boxes
and for those who want low prices (don't forget that shipping costs extra).

Bartholomew's Ink (Box 359, Warner, NH 03278-0359) offers a catalog full of
mystery-related rubber stamps (with quite a few Sherlockian designs).

Tim Kelly's adaptation of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" will be performed
at the Huron Country Playhouse in Grand Bend, Ontario, July 16-27.  Their
address is R.R. #1, Grand Bend, ON N0M 1T0, Canada (519-238-6000) (800-706-
6665).

"Holmes lies on the border of fantasy.  He has charm and verve, but no one
actually knew him.  This gives every actor who plays Holmes an unexcelled
chance to use his imagination, but also exposes him to criticism from every
person with an imagination of his own."  According to Basil Rathbone, in an
article "On Playing Sherlock Holmes" in Radio Varieties (Mar. 1940).  And:
"Portrayal of Sherlock Holmes on the screen, I might say, causes me more
worry than my portrayal on the radio.  The screen leaves little to the ima-
gination, and anyone in the audience may disagree with my idea of how Sher-
lock Holmes should look and act.  Radio leaves every listener free to draw
individual mental pictures of Holmes."

"A New Pinnacle for Sherlockian Achievement" is the slogan of the Downstate
Illinois Sherlockian Invitational, to be held on Sept. 28 in Peoria.  The
Hansoms of John Clayton have offered a challenge to other societies in a
Knowledge Competition, to be followed by The Nineteenth Annual 2704 Banquet
of the Hansoms, and anyone interested participating, or merely attending,
is invited to communication with Robert C. Burr, 4010 Devon Lane, Peoria,
IL 61614-7109, by Aug. 31.  One wonders about those pinnacles in downstate
Illinois, which is not known for its mountains.

May 96 #4   "While the British Library management makes swingeing cuts to
            finance its move to St. Pancras, the British Museum is this
month seeking planning permission and listed building consent to vandalise
the Round Reading Room when, and if, the British Library finally leaves
Bloomsbury," is the news from Marysa Demoor, posted to the Gaslight elec-
tronic mailing list.  "Contrary to its stated policy over many years, the
British Museum is now preparing to sacrifice its commitment to keeping the
Round Reading Room as a library and work place for scholars.  Such a com-
mitment is now deemed to be inconvenient to the realisation of 'The Great
Court Scheme' in which the Round Reading Room is redefined as circulation
space, with information terminals and, as one British Museum spokesman mem-
orably reported, 'a place for schoolchildren to eat their sandwiches'.  The
'library' element is restricted to a small sector, surrounded by low glass
walls, providing passing tourists with a glimpse of how things used to be."

And there's more, of particular importance to Sherlockians: "The desks, in-
tegral to the original design, will have to be largely removed."  One would
hope that before all those desks are hauled off to a land-fill, they will
be carefully inspected to see whose initials might be carved in or on them.  
If Sherlock Holmes carved his initials on a laboratory stool at Bart's (and
that one has been found and preserved), perhaps he did the same at a desk
in the British Museum.  "When I first came up to London I had rooms in Mon-
tague Street, just round the corner from the British Museum," he recalled
(in "The Musgrave Ritual"), "and there I waited, filling in my too abundant
leisure time by studying all those branches of science which might make me
more efficient."

Moris H. Goldberg died on Apr. 29.  Moris ("that's with one r," as he liked
to remind people) was an enthusiastic member of The Giant Rats of Massillon
and The Inverness Capers of Akron, and he was the founder of The Deerstalk-
ers of Akron, and a grand story-teller, Sherlockian and otherwise.

Tim O'Connor notes that Parade Magazine is offering $100 prizes to ten win-
ners of a contest for funny, clever, or unusual vanity license plates; you
need to enter a photograph of the actual license plate of a vehicle regis-
tered to the contestant, and the winners will need to prove that they are
the registered owners of the vehicles.  The complete rules were in the May
12 issue of Parade, and entries must be received by June 16; the address is
Vanity License Plate Contest, c/o Parade, Box 4943, Grand Central Station,
New York, NY 10163-4943).  In the early 1980s someone had a vanity plate in
San Francisco reading BSKRVLS, on a Honda.

Tim also reports that Charles Marowitz's play "Sherlock's Last Case" will
be produced at the Candlelight Dinner Theater from Mar. 5 to May 25, 1997.  
The address is 5620 South Harlem Avenue, Summit, IL 60501 (15 minutes from
downtown Chicago, according to the advertisement), and the box-office phone
number is 708-496-3000.  It is likely, of course, that one or more of the
local Sherlockian societies will arrange for a theater party.

Planning continues for Australia's seventh national Sherlockian convention,
to be held on Oct. 4-6, 1997, in Perth, with festivities centering on "The
Devil's Foot".  The organizers are Tim Richards and Narrelle Harris, and
their address is Box 896, Fremantle, W.A. 6160, Australia.

May 96 #5   The Practical, But Limited, Geologists met for dinner on May 22
            at Luigi's in San Diego to honor (as always) the world's first
forensic geologist and to celebrate some local Sherlockian and Doylean con-
nections.  We were made welcome by Darlene Nelson, Debi Pollard, and Vinnie
Brosnan, who all quite modestly declined personal responsibility for spring
weather as delightful as any I've seen anywhere this year, and the visitors
included Les Clutter, who has ascended Holmes Peak both as a geologist and
as a member of the Afghanistan Perceivers of Tulsa.  Our peripatetic socie-
ty will meet next in Denver in October 1996 and in Dallas in April 1997.

Visitors to San Diego may wish to stay at the Hotel del Coronado, which is
the world's largest wooden hotel, carefully preserved and established as a
national landmark, and it would be especially appropriate to stay in room
3236, since that's the room where William Gillette stayed in December 1898,
when he settled in to write his play "Sherlock Holmes".  Visitors also can
visit the Spreckels Theater in downtown San Diego: the theater was built in
1912 and seats 1,400 (it was the largest theater of its kind west of New
York), and it was still quite new when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle lectured at
the theater in May 1923.  And it's still in use as a theater, with much of
the grand old decorative style.

My journey to the Left Coast also included a stop in Long Beach for dinner
with some of the Trained Cormorants, and a trip to jail for a visit with
the Dartmoor Residents, the latter society being students in classes taught
by Michael Brady at the California Youth Authority; Mike uses the Canon to
good advantage, and his students are interested and knowledgeable.

And I descended briefly on Los Angeles, where I had arranged for a Houdini
Seance at the Magic Castle, which is a private club for magicians.  There
were twelve of us at the seance, and the medium was impressive indeed: he
managed many of the manifestations produced by mediums in Houdini's time,
and an appearance by Houdini himself.

Vinnie Brosnan, I hasten to add, still presides over Sherlock in L.A. (1741
Via Allena, Oceanside, CA 92056); his new mail-order catalog is as always
well-illustrated and has 711 items of Sherlockian and Doylean literature,
Vinnie's warm tribute to John Bennett Shaw, and an intriguing "brief look"
at Sherlockian scion societies by Bill Vande Water and fellow non-members
of A Case of Identifiers.

Videotaper alert: "Remember WENN" is an original 30-minute series now seen
on Saturdays on American Movie Classics cable, about a fictional Pittsburgh
radio station during the golden age of radio; it's written by Rupert Holmes
(who is perhaps best known as the author of the musical "The Mystery of Ed-
win Drood" and whose pen name reflects his enjoyment of Rupert Knickerbock-
er beer and the Canon), and the episode scheduled for June 22 (titled "Arm-
chair Detective") will be Sherlockian.

And: the "Wishbone" series continues to repeat on PBS-TV, and it's a grand
way to get kids interested in literature.  Wishbone is a Jack Russell ter-
rier who finds himself involved in literary classics, and "A Dogged Expose"
(about "A Scandal in Bohemia") will air on June 28.  "The Slobbery Hound"
(about "The Hound of the Baskervilles") also is well worth watching for.

May 96 #6   It was only last month (Apr 96 #6) that there was a report of
            yet another article identifying Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as the
perpetrator of the hoax at Piltdown, but now there's real news: an article
by Kings College professor Brian Gardiner in the May 23 issue of Nature
suggests that the culprit was Martin A. C. Hinton, a curator at the Natural
History Museum in London.  And for the first time there's some persuasive
physical evidence: a trunk left behind at the museum by Hinton has been
found to contain bones, teeth, and fossils stained with the same chemical
mixture that was used to deceive those who first examined the Piltdown dis-
coveries.  Gardiner also found that Hinton had done some staining work for
Charles Dawson (who made the Piltdown discovery), and was an expert on the
geology of the area of Sussex where the find was made, and had good reason
to bear a grudge against Arthur Smith Woodward (who was thoroughly deceived
by the hoax).  Hinton, who died in 1961, lived to see the hoax exposed by
modern scientists in the early 1950s.

"The Incredible Murder of Cardinal Tosca" will be performed at the Thousand
Islands Playhouse in Gananoque, Ont., July 25-Aug. 25.  That's not far from
Kingston; their address is: Thousand Islands Playhouse, Box 241, Gananoque,
ON K7G 2T8, Canada (613-382-7020).

                      Lisa Lambert (77 Mendham Avenue, Hastings on Hudson,
                      NY 10706) has designed some attractive Sherlockian
                      wine labels (6.5x4.5") and bordered quotations (7.5"
                      x 3.5"); the artwork is hand-colored and thoroughly
                      artistic, and the prices are about $25.00 postpaid,
                      and complementary matting is available.  The wines
             include varieties such as Silver Blaze Bordeaux, Hound Port,
             Musgrave Montrachet, Speckled Band Claret, and Holmes Port,
             and they make for nice displays.  If you're interested, Lisa
             will be glad to send you a photocopy that will show her work
             to better advantage than I can.

The Sub-Librarians Scion of The Baker Street Irregulars in the American Li-
brary Association will meet in New York this year during the annual meeting
of the ALA, at the Renaissance Hotel at 4:30 pm on July 7.  For additional
information, you can write to Marsha L. Pollak, 1318 Mildred Avenue, San
Jose, CA 95125 (and non-librarians are welcome to attend the festivities,
of course).

Laura Kuhn reports that the latest catalog from What on Earth is offering a
one-third-off discount on its Sherlock Holmes Pub T-shirts (now $9.95) and
sweatshirts (now $18.95); 2451 Enterprise East Parkway, Twinsburg, OH 44087
(800-945-2552).  Note: the design is their own, rather than the actual pub
sign.

David Pearson reports that Critics' Choice Video offers discounts through
July 1 on Peter Cushing's "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (1959) at $14.77,
and Cushing's "The Masks of Death" (1986) at $14.95; Box 749, Itasca, IL
60143 (800-367-7765).

 The Spermaceti Press: Peter E. Blau, 3900 Tunlaw Road NW #119, Washington,
  DC 20007-4830 (telephone: 202-338-1808) (Internet: pblau@capaccess.org)

Jun 96 #1                             Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press

The long series of Rathbone/Bruce radio programs on audiocassettes produced
by Ken Greenwald and his 221A Baker Street Associates is expanding into the
1946-47 season with Tom Conway as Sherlock Holmes.  There are new introduc-
tions by old-time radio actors Elliott Reid and Parley Baer, and there will
be 16 cassettes in the new series (and four cassettes will be issued every
three months).  Eight cassettes are available now, and they are a grand re-
minder of the wonderful old days of radio, with scripts by Denis Green and
Anthony Boucher, nice performances by Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson (he got top
billing) and the rest of the cast, and fine high-fidelity engineering.  The
series title is MORE NEW ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES; the cassettes (each
with two shows) are distributed by Brilliance Audio and cost $9.95 each; if
you can't find them in local stores, Brilliance is at Box 887, Grand Haven,
MI 49417 (800-222-3225).  The eighth cassette includes "The Singular Affair
of The Ancient Egyptian Curse" (1947), in which Ben Wright played Sherlock
Holmes while Tom Conway was ill.

Minnesota voters will have a chance to vote for a Sherlockian on Sept. 10,
in the state's Republican primary: one of the six candidates for the Senate
is former Senator Rudy Boschwitz, who lost the seat to Democrat Paul Well-
stone in 1990.  Boschwitz attended meetings of The Red Circle in the 1980s,
and hopes to return (to the Senate, that is, although of course he's always
welcome in The Red Circle).

Andy Peck reports that eagle-eyed Sherlockians will find two small plaques
at Doc Watson's (a bar-style restaurant at 1490 Second Avenue in New York),
but nothing else Canonical.  And that he and Les Klinger hard at work pre-
paring an up-to-date revised edition of his comparative chronology THE DATE
BEING --? (first published in 1970, with an addendum in 1973).

Movies, movies, movies.  Clint Eastwood received a Life Achievement Award
from the American Film Institute (the televised special was broadcast by
ABC-TV last month), and his many fans will recall that in "The Dead Pool"
(1988) Dirty Harry's boss Captain Donnelly (played by Michael Currie) has a
framed portrait of Sherlock Holmes on the wall of his office; it also is of
(remotely) Sherlockian interest that Callahan kills the villain by pinning
him to a wall with a harpoon through his chest.  Entertainment Weekly has a
brief report on the film "The Lost World" (due for release in the summer of
1997): co-screenwriter David Koepp's $1.5 salary is the most ever paid for
an adapted screenplay; the film is based on the book by Michael Crichton,
and will be directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Julianne Moore and Jeff
Goldblum.  And: Jeremy Brett's last film was "Moll Flanders" (released this
month), starring Robin Wright as Moll, Stockard Channing as the evil madam
who makes Moll's life miserable, and Morgan Freeman as Hibble (who doesn't
appear in Daniel Defoe's book); Brett has a brief appearance as the wealthy
father of the artist with whom Moll falls in love.

"Sherlock Holmes and the Sticky Wicket" is the title of an interesting and
well-illustrated article by Peter N. Street in the Jan.-Feb. 1996 issue of
the Journal of Sports Philately, about Holmes and Conan Doyle and cricket.  
The issue costs $2.50 postpaid from John La Porta, Box 2286, La Grange, IL
60525 (checks payable to Sports Philatelists International, please).

Jun 96 #2   Ralph Hall spotted a new paperback edition of Graham Landrum's
            THE ROTARY CLUB MURDER MYSTERY (New York: St. Martin's, 1996;
$4.99); there are two Sherlockian chapters ("The Baker Street Irregulars"
and "Second Meeting of the Baker Street Irregulars"), and there was a hard-
back edition from St. Martin's in 1993.  Also: Maurice Horn's 100 YEARS OF
AMERICAN NEWSPAPER COMICS (New York: Gramercy Books, 1996; $14.99) will be
found on the bargain tables, with sections on Sherlock Holmes, Hawkshaw the
Detective, and Sherlocko the Monk.

Laurie R. King reports that A LETTER OF MARY (her third mystery novel about
Mary Russell) is now set for publication in January 1997, and that THE BEE-
KEEPER'S APPRENTICE is due in England this summer ("at long last").

Tamara Toumanova died on May 29.  At the age of five she danced with Anna
Pavlova in France, and was one of the first of George Balanchine's "baby
ballerinas" when she joined his Ballet Russes de Monte Carlo in 1932.  She
danced on Broadway and in films, and played the ballerina Petrova in "The
Private Life of Sherlock Holmes" (1970), proposing that Sherlock Holmes
father a child with her, so that the child would have his brains and her
beauty.  Mrs. Patrick Campbell made the same proposal to George Bernard
Shaw, who pointed out that the child might have his beauty and her brains,
but Holmes managed to find another way to avoid a liaison with Petrova.

Al Gregory and Jan Stauber offer three new lapel pins
with artwork by Sidney Paget (shown here actual size);
$6.00 each postpaid (checks made payable to Al Gregory,
please), and Al's address is 118 South Prospect Street,
Verona, NJ 07044.

Captain Sharkey was one of the more memorable characters
created by Arthur Conan Doyle, and he was one of the most
vicious villains to be found in literature (if you like
tales of pirates and the high seas).  There are four sto-
ries about Sharkey, and you can find them in THE DOYLE      FINA-1   NAVA-1
STORIES and in other collections.  "How the Governor of
St. Kitt's Came Home" was published in Pearson's Magazine
in Jan. 1897, and the 23-page signed manuscript went to
auction at Christie's in New York on May 17, estimated at
$4,000-6,000.  And it sold for $12,650 (including the 15%
buyer's premium).                                               BOSC-1

"I do believe we're dealing with something we haven't seen before..." was
the quote in a full-page advertisement in the May 6 issue of Variety for
"Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Temporal Nexus", one of the television
projects promoted at the Cannes film festival by Associated Entertainment
Releasing.  And promoted quite successfully: the project has been pre-sold
in European markets, and filming will begin soon in and near Los Angeles,
with Patrick Macnee as Holmes, assisted by a young American reporter.  The
"legendary investigator is immersed in a case of paranormal murders and ex-
tra-terrestrials" in the two-hour television film that will be followed by
a series of 22 one-hour shows.  Work also is underway in England on a one-
hour series of television specials called "Sherlock Holmes' Tour of London"
with Macnee as host, viewing London through the eyes of Sherlock Holmes.

Jun 96 #3   Allen Mackler has spotted some bargains available from Daedalus
            Books (Box 9132, Hyattsville, MD 20781): the Chronicle Books
editions of THE HORROR OF THE HEIGHTS & OTHER TALES OF SUSPENSE (1990) and
WHEN THE WORLD SCREAMED AND OTHER STORIES (1992), now discounted at $3.98
each; and Carroll & Graf's 100 GREAT DETECTIVES, edited by Maxim Jakubowsky
(1992), with H.F.R. Keating's discussion of Sherlock Holmes, at $2.98.  And
The Scholar's Bookshelf (100 Melrich Road, Cranbury, NJ 08512) offers the
Academy Chicago editions of Conan Doyle's THE BEST HORROR STORIES (1989),
THE LOST WORLD (1989), and TALES FOR A WINTER'S NIGHT (1990) at $19.90 for
all three.

A hot plate: license plate, that is.  The culprit most likely is a cruising
teen-ager collecting things to display on a wall, but if you discover some-
one with a Maryland license plate reading BAKERST, it was stolen from a car
owned by Wayne and Francine Swift.  Just the one plate, which is why it's
likely to be on a wall rather than one someone else's car.

Marcus Geisser, the editor of The Reichenbach Journal (published in German
by The Reichenbach Irregulars, the Sherlockian society in Switzerland), has
been publishing German translations of some of the classic writings about
the writings, including essays by Ronald Knox and Christopher Morley, (and
an essay by Dorothy L. Sayers will be in the next issue).  And Marcus would
like to hear from anyone who can help with future translation; his address
is 40 avenue de la Gare, CH-1003 Lausanne, Switzerland; and or by e-mail at
<mgeisser@access.ch>.

              "The Ku Klux Klan ... rapidly formed local branches in diff-
              erent parts of the country, notably in Tennessee, Louisiana,
              the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida," according to the Ameri-
              can Encyclopaedia consulted by Sherlock Holmes in "The Five
              Orange Pips".  The State Capitol Building is seen in a photo-
              graph on a new stamp honoring the 200th anniversary of Tenn-
              essee's statehood.

              "Sitting in a London pub, James O'Brien admits that he con-
              templated wearing his deerstalker hat, but opted instead for
the more conservative blazer and tie of an academic," Alina Tugend noted in
her article in The Chronicle of Higher Education (May 24).  Jim, usually to
be found teaching chemistry at Southwest Missouri State University, taught
a two-month weekly course on the science of the Sherlock Holmes stories at
the University of London's Imperial College.

Percy Edwards died on June 8.  "Of Psyche the dog and other noises," is the
subhead on The Guardian's obituary for Edwards, who made his show-business
debut at the Pier Pavilion in Worthing in 1928, so intriguing the audience
with his bird songs and growls that other seaside engagements followed.  In
1931 he took his act to London's Windmill Theatre (more famous for its nude
tableaux), and in the 1950s and 1960s he starred on BBC radio as Psyche the
dog, and as Gregory the chicken (in different series).  He also performed
in films (producers often found that he was far more reliable and cheaper
than real animals).  The obituary reports that he once was The Hound of the
Baskervilles (most likely with Carlton Hobbs and Norman Shelley in the BBC
Radio series in 1958, but full credits for that series aren't available).

Jun 96 #4   Paula M. Brown is starting work on planning for a memorial to
            Jeremy Brett at the Holiday Inn (Union Square) in San Francisco
on Sept. 14, and she would be happy to hear from anyone who would like to
participate in the program, and to share thoughts and memories of the actor
and his career.  Paula's address is 40787 Canyon Heights Drive, Fremont, CA
94539; e-mail <vgtd52b@prodigy.com>.

"Autumn in Baker Street" will be held on Oct. 26-27 at the Tarrytown Hilton
in Tarrytown, N.Y.  This annual gathering is always well-attended, and the
agenda always interesting (this year the speakers will include Wilma Brown,
Carey Cummings, Sue Dahlinger, David Houle, Bill Hyder, Dick Kitts, Sandra
Kozinn, Linda Spessotti, and Diana Ver Nooy).  Details are available from
Robert E. Thomalen, Highview Drive, Carmel, NY 10512 <crwk02a@prodigy.com>.

"The Terror of Blue John Gap" continues to delight geo-
logists who admire Conan Doyle's fiction, because the
story offers an interesting mineral and a monster that
turns out to be a Pleistocene cave bear.  In a fine ar-
ticle about the story published in A.C.D. (1994), Dana
Martin Batory and William A. S. Sarjeant suggest that
the terror was not, in fact, a cave bear, but rather a
great scimitar cat (*Homotherium sainzelli*).  The dirk-
tooth cat (*Megantereon megantereon*), was a close relative and much better
known, since its upper canines were much longer, and thus tends to show up
on postage stamps, such as the one just issued by the United States.

The Running Press published a semi-miniature edition (2.75 x 3.25 in.) of
SHERLOCK HOLMES: TWO COMPLETE ADVENTURES in 1989, and there's a new edition
(1994) with a truly handsome jacket and illustrations by Andrew Davidson,
the British artist who designed the attractive Sherlockian covers for four
stamp booklets issued by Britain in 1987-1988, and the set of five Sherlock
Holmes stamps issued by Britain in 1993.  The cost is $4.95 in bookstores,
or $5.95 from the publisher (125 South 22nd Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103-
4399); "But try your bookstore first!" the publisher urges.

John Ruyle modestly suggests in the 50th issue of Tantalus that ten years
ago he had no idea that The Pequod Press would survive for ten years, but
it certainly has, and its latest pressing will be THE ADVENTURE OF THE SEC-
OND BRAIN, another of Dr. Fatso's accounts of the many cases of his friend
Turlock Loams.  $40.00 (cloth) or $20.00 (paper) postpaid from John, at 521
Vincente Avenue Berkeley, CA 94707-1521.

The lion's mane jellyfish seem to be spreading, turning up last year in an
exhibit at the New England Aquarium in Boston (Mar 95 #3), and now, accord-
ing to Peter Calamai, in an exhibit of "Phantoms of the Deep" at the Aquar-
ium in Baltimore.

Francine Swift notes that the Carriage Museum at the Ladew Topiary Gardens
contains a fine hansom, and a very sporting dog cart, for those who might
wish to see what those methods of Canonical transportation look like close
up.  The Ladew Topiary Gardens are at 3535 Jarrettsville Pike, Monkton, MD
21111 (410-557-9570); that's north of Baltimore, about halfway to the bor-
der, and the dates are mid-April through the end of October.

Jun 96 #5   THE HERPETOLOGICAL HOLMES: A MONOGRAPH ON REPTILES AND AMPHIB-
            IANS IN THE TIME OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, illustrated with artwork
of the period, is the eighth volume in Donald Girard Jewell's continuing
Sherlock Holmes Natural History series; the pamphlet costs $12.95 postpaid
from the Pinchin Lane Press, 4685 Geeting Road, Westminster, MD 21158.

There are many singular Sherlockian societies, of course, and Luther Norris
delighted in making The Praed Street Irregulars singular in more ways than
one.  Vinnie Brosnan has recently found that Luther awarded the Investiture
"Meadows" to Basil of Baker Street.

The Stage One Theatre Company will launch a tour of Tim Heath's play "Sher-
lock Holmes: The Adventure at Sir Arthur Sullivan's" in Brighton on Sept.  
11, playing for three weeks in Croydon, and will close at Walton-on-Thames
on Nov. 30; details of the schedule are available from Stage One at 34 Jas-
mine Grove, London SE20 8JW, England).  Miles Richardson will play Holmes,
and he is the son of Ian Richardson, who was Holmes in two television films
(and as far as I know this is the only father-and-son to play the role).

Jack Tracy ("A Case of Identity") died on May 9.  He was an author, editor,
and publisher, and a Doylean as well as a Sherlockian.  His first article
in The Baker Street Journal appeared in 1971, and his investigation of "St.  
Savior's near King's Cross" earned him the Morley-Montgomery Award for the
best article in the BSJ in 1977.  His ENCYCLOPAEDIA SHERLOCKIANA (1977) and
his Conan Doyle collections SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE PUBLISHED APOCRYPHA (1980)
and MASTERWORKS OF CRIME & MYSTERY (1982) were widely distributed by trade
publishers, and his own Gaslight Publications, founded in 1979, issued many
fine Sherlockian books by authors such as Robert L. Fish, David L. Hammer,
Michael Harrison, Paul D. Herbert, and Jon L. Lellenberg, as well as seven
books by Conan Doyle, each carefully edited and with new Afterwords written
by Doylean enthusiasts.  The many books he wrote and edited and published
are a fine memorial to Jack.

Hugh Scullion (Cadds Printing, 59 Lancaster Avenue, West Norwood, London
SE27 9EL, England) offers an illustrated sales list of Sherlockiana, old
and new (the new includes The Norwood Magazine, which is "The Empty House"
reset in Strand Magazine format, with color covers, at $5.00 postpaid); his
e-mail address is <beetons@aol.com>.

Thanks to Debi Rotmil for an item from The Times (May 23): "Mr. Peter Will-
iam Jeremy Huggins, of London SW4, Jeremy Brett, the actor, known for his
portrayal of Sherlock Holmes on television, left estate valued at L634,744
net.  He left L3,000 to his fan club known as 'The Regulars', with the wish
it be divided equally between those persons who are members at his death."
"The Regulars" is a group of fans who met during the run of "The Secret of
Sherlock Holmes" (the group was founded by Linda Pritchard, and they were
responsible for placing his memorial plaque at Wyndham's Theatre).

Further to the report (May 96 #3) on other sources for magazine file cases,
it turns out that The Magafile Company is back in business ("after experi-
encing some difficulties that we have fortunately been able to overcome");
I have received a shipment of cases from them.  They offer a wider range of
sizes (heights and widths), and the address is Box 66, Vandalia, MO 63382.

Jun 96 #6   Plan ahead: "Sherlock's Secret Life" (a new play written by Ed.  
            Lange) is scheduled at the New York Theatre Institute in Troy,
Mar. 13-26, 1997.  Lange describes the play as "a good mystery with lots of
'inside' references and plausible speculations," and the box-office address
is 155 River Street, Troy, NY 12180 (518-274-3256).

SHERLOCK HOLMES: CLASSIC THEMES FROM 221B BAKER STREET is a new "music to
read Sherlock Holmes by" compact disk produced by Varese Sarabande (with
liner notes by the Scarlet Street's editor Richard Valley), offering music
from films and television, from "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" (1939)
to the Granada series.  $18.98 postpaid (or $24.98 to Canada, $27.98 else-
where); credit card orders welcome, and the Scarlet Street address is Box
604, Glen Rock, NJ 07452.  Note: all of the music is newly recorded, by an
orchestra conducted by Larry Meyers.

An official Baker Street Irregulars necktie is again available (but only to
those who have Investitures in the BSI), in a new edition (a bit wider, and
with slightly different shades of the traditional purple, blue, and mouse);
$23.00 postpaid ($25.00 outside the U.S.) from Wayne B. Swift, 4622 Morgan
Drive, Chevy Chase, MD 20815-5315.

The Eighth International Holmesian Games will be held on Sept. 21-22 at an
extinct volcano in Mount Tabor Park in Portland, Ore. [warning: the locals
may claim that the volcano is extinct, but volcanoes are either active or
dormant].  Additional information is available from Karen Bridger (940 S.W.  
Vincent Place, Portland, OR 97201) or Don MacLachlan <donmac@wimsey.com>.

Meg Moller Martin spotted an interesting item in the June issue of Esquire
(in the "Reality Check"): some celebrities use pseudonyms when they travel
(to avoid publicity and occasionally overeager admirers), and Indiana Pacer
guard Reggie Miller checks into hotels as Sherlock Holmes.

Carolyn and Joel Senter's latest sales list ("Quick Watson...!" #2) offers
some nice Sherlockian books, audio, video, pins, and much more, including
some items for admirers of Inspector Morse; Classic Specialties, Box 19058,
Cincinnati, OH 45219.

A new catalog from MindWare (6142 Olson Memorial Highway, Golden Valley, MN
55422) (800-999-0398) includes an illustration showing the Sherlockian art-
work on the cover of Eleanor W. Hoomes' book CREATE-A-SLEUTH: WRITING A DE-
TECTIVE STORY.

Jennie Paton spotted some videocassette bargains: Nicol Williamson's "The
Seven-Per-Cent Solution" (1976) and Peter Cushing's "The Masks of Death"
(1984) at $14.99 each from Movies Unlimited, 6736 Castor Avenue, Philadel-
phia, PA 19149 (800-523-0823) <movies@moviesunltd.com>

Jennings Lang died on May 29.  A veteran MCA-Universal vice-president, he
was the producer of "Earthquake" and "Airport", and "They Might Be Giants"
(1971) was "a Jennings Lang presentation."

 The Spermaceti Press: Peter E. Blau, 3900 Tunlaw Road NW #119, Washington,
  DC 20007-4830 (telephone: 202-338-1808) (Internet: pblau@capaccess.org)

Jul 96 #1                             Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press

A plaque on all your houses.  Members of The Wolfe Pack were on hand at 454
West 35th in New York to watch the installation of a plaque that reads: "On
this site stood the elegant brownstone of the corpulent fictional private
detective Nero Wolfe.  With his able assistant Archie Goodwin, Mr. Wolfe
raised orchids and dined well, while solving over seventy cases as recorded
by Rex Stout from 1934-1975."  Three brownstones at the site were torn down
after Wolfe retired to his house in Egypt, and a new building erected.  The
new building houses formerly homeless adults, and the ceremony was attended
by Parks Commissioner Henry Stern and Rex Stout's grandson Reed Maroc.

The Wolfe Pack has about 400 members world-wide, and some of them are just
as fanatic about Wolfe as some Sherlockians are about Holmes.  Membership
in The Wolfe Pack costs $25.00 for two years (including four issues of The
Gazette); Box 822, Ansonia Station, New York, NY 10023.

The Sherlock Holmes Museum (221B Baker Street, London NW1 6XE, England) has
a 28-page full-color catalog of Sherlockian souvenirs and mementoes: dolls,
deerstalkers, buttons, badges, figurines, plaques, posters, prints, books,
and videos.  This is the museum founded some years ago by John Aidiniantz
at 239 Baker Street; Grace Riley and Linda Riley are the directors now, and
the e-mail address is <sherlock@easynet.co.uk>.

Albert R. "Cubby" Broccoli died on June 27.  He started his film career in
1938 as an assistant directory with 20th Century-Fox, and is best known as
the producer of all but one of the James Bond films.  Born in New York, he
was an agronomist before entering the film business.  His obituary in the
Washington Post noted that agronomy was in the family: forebears in Italy
invented the vegetable that bears their name by crossing the Italian rabe
with cauliflower.

Caliber has started a new comic-book mini-series called THE SEARCHERS, with
a story by Colin Clayton and Chris Dows and artwork by Art Wetherell: issue
#1 ($2.95) is in shops now.  Real-life descendants of characters created by
Wells, Verne, Haggard, Burroughs, and Conan Doyle "must band together in a
mutual quest for not only their own survival, but that of reality itself."
But the Conan Doyle character isn't a Holmes: she's a Moriarty.

Laura Kuhn notes that bargain-books catalogs from Edward R. Hamilton (Falls
Village, CT 06031-5000) continue to offer all sort of Sherlockian bargains,
and items such as THE BOXTREE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF TV DETECTIVES, by Geoff Tibb-
alls (1992) at $3.95; with brief entries for many of the Sherlockian series
from 1951 (with Alan Wheatley) through the Granada series.

The Washington Post has a contest each Sunday called "The Style Invitation-
al" (in the Style section), and a recent contest called for tasteless "what
is" jokes punning on someone's name.  Among the runners-up were "What revo-
lutionary leader led his guerrilla forces while wearing an evening gown and
a string of pearls? (Che Edgar Hoover)" and "Who steals from the rich and
mismanages the proceeds? (Robin HUD)", and the winning entry was "Who wrote
'The Hatchback of Notre Dame? (Victor Yugo)."  An honorable mention went to
"What famous mystery writer had no heirs? (Sir Arthur Condom Doyle)".

Jul 96 #2   DINOSAUR TALES is a fine collection of stories by Ray Bradbury,
            illustrated by Gahan Wilson, Steranko, and others; the book was
first published by Byron Preiss in 1983, and is now available in a new edi-
tion (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1996; 144 pp., $5.98).  Bradbury dedicated
the book to Willis O'Brien, "who animated the beasts in 'The Lost World' in
1925, and so changed my life, forever."  Ray Harryhausen tells in his fore-
word of seeing the same film when he was five; he worked with Bradbury on
"The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms" (based on the story "The Fog Horn", which
is included in the book.

And no, there's no real Sherlockian connection for Cubby Broccoli, but the
story about the vegetable having been named for an ancestor deserved to be
shared.  And apparently it's too good to be true; according to the Oxford
English Dictionary, the word was first in print in 1699 and the vegetable
wasn't named for anyone.  But it's pleasant to think of great-grandfather
telling his children the story.

Luci Zahray has noted Ellis Peters' THE HIPPOPOTAMUS POOL (New York: Warner
Books, 1996; 384 pp.); this is the eighth in her series of mystery novels
about Amelia Peabody Emerson, set in Victorian England and Egypt, all with
direct or indirect Canonical echoes.

Hugh S. Scullion's SHERLOCK HOLMES STORIES:--POLITICALLY CORRECT? examines
the Canon for examples of language and attitudes and actions that would be
considered incorrect or offensive by today's standards, and finds a lot of
them, and he concludes that the author of the stories was a racist bigot.  
The paperback book (97 pages) costs $16.00 postpaid from Hugh Scullion at
59 Lancaster Avenue, West Norwood, London SE27 9EL, England.

There's a new society lapel pin, from Watson's Tin Dispatchers,
and the cost is $6.00 postpaid from Francine Kitts, 35 Van Cort-
landt Avenue, Staten Island, NY 10301.

For Sherlockian societies tired of the same old lapel pins and
mugs and such: Calico Temporary Tattoos (2" x 2") cost $189.00
for 1,000 (and $10.00 for shipping); they use your design, and
offer full-color service.  And their address is 315 Plantation Way, Vaca-
ville, CA 95687.  No reports of a Sherlock Holmes Tattoo Society so far,
but I wouldn't be surprised if someone starts one.

Further to earlier reports (Jul 95 #1 and Aug 95 #3) on cameo appearances
by Sherlockians in non-Sherlockian books, Bill Nadel reports that you will
find him (as Chick Nadel, a barkeep with a load of hot radios) on page 44
of James Ellroy's L.A. CONFIDENTIAL (New York: Mysterious Press, 1990).

Those who felt the recent film "Moll Flanders" (wi