From: "Peter E. Blau" To: "Willis G. Frick" Subject: another updated file ... Date: Monday, October 07, 2002 17:01 Jan 00 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press It was nice to get back to Washington after the "triple play" (three Sher- lockian events in three countries in one week); the three events were the 50th-anniversary annual dinner of the Sherlock Holmes Klubben i Danmark on Jan. 7, the annual dinner of The Sherlock Holmes Society of London on Jan. 8, and the start of the birthday festivities in New York on Jan. 13). For readers who aren't familiar with American sporting traditions, the triple play is from baseball, and involves ending an inning by getting three men out on just one hit ball. And I wasn't the only one participating in the historic Sherlockian triple play: the others were Mike Whelan and Mary Ann Bradley, Kate Karlson, Herb and Addie Tinning, and Susan Dahlinger (from the U.S.), and Anders Hammar- qvist (from Sweden), and Bjarne Nielsen, Bjarne Rother Jensen, and Jan B. Steffensen (from Denmark). Denmark was delightful, and those who were able to arrive early enjoyed a visit with Bjarne Nielsen at his Sherlock Holmes Museet in Nykobing and some sight-seeing in Copenhagen as well as the annual dinner at the Hotel Ascot, where about 40 Sherlockian from four countries celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Sherlock Holmes Klubben i Danmark; Ted Bergman was on hand from Sweden, with a grand video tour of his miniature of the house at 221 Baker Street, and the toasts and reports were all delivered in English, in honor of the more far-flung guests. London was just as much fun (and the weather just as pleasant); there were about 160 gathered in the Great Hall of the Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn (it's one of the four Inns of Court and a spectacular place in which to dine), and somewhat fewer for the Morning-After Get-Together at the Royal Commonwealth Society the next day, just round the corner from The Sherlock Holmes (which still happily offers a warm welcome to visitors from near and far). And there was time to visit (or perhaps revisit) the statue of Sher- lock Holmes, which presides over Marylebone Road outside the Baker Street tube station, undisturbed by local pigeons; sculptor John Doubleday now is working on his third statue of Sherlock Holmes, which will be installed in Switzerland (where the first one greets visitors to Meiringen). I don't think that anyone has mentioned (in print or otherwise) an intrigu- ing Sherlockian tourist site: the public convenience across Marylebone Road from the statue of Sherlock Holmes. There is a decorative mural over the urinals, and it shows a party of tourists heading happily for The Sherlock Holmes. We await word from the distaff side on whether there is a ladies' loo with equally appropriate decoration. The birthday festivities in New York began on Wednesday this year, with an Ash Wednesday luncheon at O'Casey's attended by about 40 enthusiasts pursu- ing a truly long weekend, and continued on Thursday at the Williams Club, where Michael Dirda (senior editor of the Washington Post's Book World) was the BSI's Distinguished Speaker, he reminisced fondly about his childhood discovery of Sherlock Holmes, and noted the intriguing coincidence of three brothers named Moriarty and three more named Morley, and you'll be able to read the full text in an early issue of The Baker Street Journal. Jan 00 #2 The Hotel Algonquin offered a fine venue for an informal Mrs. Hudson Breakfast on Friday morning, and about 160 people were on hand for the William Gillette Luncheon at Moran's Chelsea Seafood Rest- aurant, where Andrew Joffe and Paul Singleton (aka The Friends of Bogie's) provided entertainment: delightful impersonations of Chip Finney and Bob Spacey (neophyte Sherlockians on their first visit to the birthday festivi- ties from Traverse City, Mich., Community College), and Richard and Cynthia Wein, David Stuart Davies, Susan Rice, Mickey Fromkin, and Peter Blau (all of whom also were in the audience and none of whom were aware they were to be impersonated). And Otto Penzler's traditional open house at the Myster- ious Bookshop provided the usual opportunities to browse and buy. There were about 190 at the annual dinner of The Baker Street Irregulars at the Union League Club, where the pre-dinner cocktail party featured Steven Rothman's toast to *the* Woman: Eleanor Baker O'Connor, who for many years has assisted Julian Wolff, Tom Stix, and now Mike Whelan with arrangements for the annual dinner. The dinner honored the BSI's "moment of creation" by copying the menu from January 1934 (oysters, pea soup, curried chicken, ice cream, petits fours, and cafe), and the entertainment offered the usual traditions, a discussions of Canon and Cult in three centuries, and of Can- onical maladies, Bob Coghill's warm tribute to the late S. Tupper Bigelow, and (as always) much more. Mike Whelan (the BSI's "Wiggins") awarded this year's Birthday Honours: Ir- regular Shillings and Investitures to Michael Meer ("The Englischer Hof"), Fred Kittle ("Jack Stapleton"), Douglas Wilmer ("The Lyceum Theatre"), Ben Vizoskie ("Alexander Hamilton Garrideb"), Jean Upton ("Elsie Cubitt"), Doug Elliott ("Canadian Pacific Railway"), Karen Anderson ("Emilia Lucca"), An- ders Hammarqvist ("Jacob Shafter"), and Don Curtis ("Jabez Wilson"); and the BSI's Two-Shilling Award ("for extraordinary devotion to the cause be- yond the call of duty") to Scott Bond. The Baskerville Bash also took place Friday evening, at the Manhattan Club and with about 100 people on hand, and with entertainment that included a pastiche/parody by Rosemary Michaud ("Jeeves and the Horrible Hound"), a performance by the irrepressible Sherlettes (as the Dartmoorsketeers), and a musical toast by Cynthia Wein ("There is Nothing Like a Hound"). On Saturday morning the dealers' room (at the Algonquin) was as always full of dealers and a wide variety of Sherlockiana to delight eager browsers and collectors. And the Saturday-afternoon cocktail party attracted a capacity crowd to the National Arts Club, where a display of interesting items from the Sherlock Holmes Collections at the University of Minnesota honored John and Dorothy Shaw. Al Rosenblatt reported in verse on the previous evening and the previous year (and you will be able to read that in the BSJ, too), and events, and Susan Dahlinger was applauded as the winner of the Morley- Montgomery Award (an attractive certificate and a check for $500) for the best contribution to last year's Baker Street Journal (her fine article on William Gillette in the September issue). And The Dr. John H. Watson Fund benefited from June Kinnee's energetic marketing of raffle tickets for Jeff Decker's original artwork for his portrait of Julian Wolff (won by Bruce R. Parker, who will present it to Ted Schulz), as well as from the enthusias- tic bidders in the traditional auction. Jan 00 #3 On Saturday evening a capacity-house Sherlockian audience saw the American premiere of David Stuart Davies' play "Sherlock Holmes: The Last Act!" with Roger Llewellyn in a fine portrayal of Holmes. The script is nicely done as well, and available from the Calabash Press (Box 1360, Ashcroft, BC V0K 1A0, Canada ; $15.00 or CA$20.00 or L9.50 (shipping extra), and credit-card orders are welcome. I've not reported on everything, I hasten to add; if you want more details than fit into print here, it is quite likely that there will be much longer reports in The Baker Street Journal, which is published quarterly and costs $21.00 a year ($23.50 outside the U.S.), and checks (credit-card payments accepted from foreign subscribers) can be sent to the BSJ at Box 465, Hano- ver, PA 17331. The birthday festivities attracted some attention from the press: Michael Pollak's report that "They Came to Honor Mr. Holmes. Or So, at Least, They Claimed." ran in the home edition of the N.Y. Times (Jan. 16), and Karl E. Meyer's story about "The Curious Incident of the Sleuth in the Meantime" in all editions (Jan. 19); the latter story also ran on the paper's wire, and was reprinted in the Sydney Morning Herald (and perhaps other papers less far-flung). The Scotland Yarders will honor their tenth anniversary with T-shirts with their logo and "10th Anniversary" in silver on black over the left breast; sizes offered are small to extra- large, $16.00 postpaid, and checks (payable to The Scotland Yarders) should be sent to Barbara Wells, 8894 Knight Avenue #413, Des Plaines, IL 60016 (the deadline for orders is Mar. 14). John Archer died on Dec. 5. He began his acting career in radio in 1938, and was best known for his echo-chambered "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?" introduction on "The Shadow" in 1944 and 1945. He appeared on stage and screen and television as well, starring in the science fiction film "Destination Moon" (1950), and he played Lt. Pete Merriam in "Sherlock Holmes in Washington" (1943). The second volume of Leslie S. Klinger's SHERLOCK HOLMES REFERENCE LIBRARY is THE MEMOIRS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (Indianapolis: Gasogene Books, 1999; 303 pp., $26.95), and it's full of excellent scholarship, with a personal ap- proach to the annotations (as was the case with Baring-Gould's THE ANNOTA- TED SHERLOCK HOLMES). $29.70 postpaid from the publisher (Box 68308, Indi- anapolis, IN 46260). Roger Rees, who played Sherlock Holmes in Bert Coules' BBC Radio 4 dramati- zation of "The Hound of the Baskervilles in 1988 (and more recently a "wom- anizing, slightly inebriated English lord who's actually quite brilliant" on the NBC-TV series "West Wing") also is a director: he will stage a revi- val of George Bernard Shaw's "Arms and the Man" for the Roundabout Theatre in New York (in previews for a Feb. 10 opening), and this spring will star in Roundabout's production of "Uncle Vanya". "Arms and the Man" is playing at the Gramercy Theatre at 127 East 23rd Street (212-777-4900). Jan 00 #4 Laurie R. King will be on a book-signing tour in February pro- moting NIGHT WORK (not part of her Mary Russell series); here's the tentative schedule: Feb. 2 Capitola Book Cafe, 7:30 (Capitola, CA); 3 or 4 Orinda Books and Walnut Creek Barnes & Noble; 5 M Is for Mystery, 2:00 (San Mateo, CA); 6 Powell's, 7:30 (Portland, OR); 7 Seattle Mystery Books, 12:00, and Third Place Books, 7:30 (Seattle, WA); 8 Vroman's, 7:00 (Los An- geles, CA), 9 Coffee, Tea & Mystery, 12:00 (Los Angeles, CA) and Barnes & Noble, 7:00 (Huntington Beach, CA); 10 Bookseller, 6:00 (Grass Valley near Sacramento, CA), 11 Mysterious Galaxy, 7:00 (San Diego, CA); 12 Poisoned Pen, 11:00 (Scottsdale, AZ). And Apr. 29 or 30 she will be at the Los An- geles Festival of Books. Geoff Jeffery notes that local Disney stores have a "Count- down to the Millennium" series of lapel pins ($4.00 each); one of the (#27) is "The Great Mouse Detective". TOURNAMENT OF SHADOWS: THE GREAT GAME AND THE RACE FOR EM- PIRE IN CENTRAL ASIA, by Karl E. Meyer and Shareen Blair Brysac (Washing- ton: Counterpoint, 1999; 646 pp., $35.00), received a rave review in the N.Y. Times (Jan. 9); the Great Game was the long-standing competition be- tween Britain and Russia, and the story of the Second Afghan War (and the fatal battle of Maiwand) will of course be of particular interest to Sher- lockians. Nancy Beiman notes that Dr. John H. Watson is included in the index, no doubt thanks to Meyer (who is "Fritz von Waldbaum" in The Baker Street Irregulars). Nathan Lane is reported ready to star in the Broadway revival (set to open on June 30) of "The Man Who Came to Dinner" (in which Monty Woolley starred as Sheridan Whiteside on Broadway in 1939 and in the film in 1942). In the play and the film Whiteside says about Harriett Stanley, "Strange? She's right out of 'The Hound of the Baskervilles'." Peter Jeffrey died on Dec. 25. He was a veteran character actor in British film, television, and radio, and he played Mycroft Holmes in the television film "Hands of a Murderer" (1990). Caroline Bryan offers a new audiocassette with country and western versions of "I Wanna Be the Hound" (which debuted as the open-mike contest-winner at the Under the Arch conference in Saint Louis) and "The Ballad of Moriarty's Excuse"; the cassette costs $5.00 postpaid from Wilson's Basement Dwellers, Box 57057, Albuquerque, NM 87187. Planning continues for the Millennium Congress of Holmesian Societies that will be held in Meiringen on May 4-7; there will be guest speakers from at least four continents, and excursions, exhibitions, and wining and dining, and full details are available from Michael A. Meer (Morgenstrasse 70, CH- 3018 Bern, Switzerland) . Jerry Margolin notes that the second issue of THE GREAT DETECTIVE: SHERLOCK HOLMES (Avalon Communications, $2.95) is in the comic-book shops, with "The Missing Heiress" reprinted from the 1954 comic strip written by Edith Meis- er and drawn by Frank Giacoia; the publisher's address is 2800 Halpern, St- Laurent, QC H4S 1R2, Canada. Jan 00 #5 "Murder Rooms: The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes" aired in Britain on BBC-2 in two one-hour episodes on Jan. 4 and 5, with Ian Richardson as Joseph Bell and Robin Laing as Arthur Conan Doyle; it was interesting indeed to see Richardson, who has played Holmes, as the man who contributed so much to Conan Doyle's portrayal of Holmes, and David Pirie's script has some interesting twists, turns, and surprises. The mini-series will be broadcast on "Mystery!" on PBS-TV on May 18 and 25. THE NAPOLEON OF CRIME: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ADAM WORTH, by Ben Macintyre (Feb 98 #2) is now available in a paperback edition in Britain (Flamingo, L7.99); the book is a fine account of the man who was indeed called "the Napoleon of Crime" by some of his contemporaries. The connection between Worth and Moriarty appears first to have been reported by Vincent Starrett, in his THE PRIVATE LIFE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES in 1933: "this was revealed by Sir Arthur in conversation with Dr. Gray Chandler Briggs, some years ago." James Card died on Jan. 16. He was a devoted collector and admirer of sil- ent films, and he was the founder and the first curator of the Department of Film at the George Eastman House in Rochester, where he arrived in 1948, bringing with him his personal collection of 800 films. He also was an en- ergetic film preservationist, and one of the films he was able to save was John Barrymore's "Sherlock Holmes" (1922), which was restored and shown to a delighted audience of Sherlockians at George Eastman House in 1975. Our "Celebrate the Century" souvenir sheets have reached the 1980s, and the new sheet includes a stamp honoring the musi- cal "Cats", which opened on Broadway on Oct. 7, 1982, and is now the longest-running show in Broadway history; the Andrew Lloyd Webber hit, based on poems in T. S. Eliot's "Old Poss- um's Book of Practical Cats", brought "Macavity: The Mystery Cat" to the attention of millions. The Silver Blaze, an Irregular event conceived by Thomas L. Stix, Sr., and run for the first time at Jamaica Race Course on Long Island in 1952, has been revived, and the next running will be held on Aug. 19, at a new venue for the historic event: Saratoga Race Track in upstate New York. Saratoga is a delightful place to go to the races, and a committee is energetically planning some other events that will be of interest to Sherlockians, and scouting hotels and restaurants. If you'd like to be on the mailing list, please contact Lou Lewis (Box 2990, Poughkeepsie, NY 12603) ; you can expect to receive full details by mid-June. Reported: Barbara Michaels' OTHER WORLDS (Sep 99 #1) in a paperback reprint from HarperCollins ($6.99); Frank Podmore, Nandor Fodor, Harry Houdini, and Arthur Conan Doyle offer (and briefly debate) possible solutions to two un- solved ghostly mysteries from the 19th century. Vinnie Brosnan reports that the late Alvin E. Rodin's collection (including originals, proofs, and drafts of his writings about Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes), is to be sold by Mary Frost-Pierson at Mysteries from the Yard begining Feb. 14. The catalog will be available at Mary's web-site at or via the mail ($5.00 postpaid, and you can order now) from Jean C. Rodin (4440 Pavlov Avenue, San Diego, CA 92122). Jan 00 #6 Brian Pugh reports that the Crowborough Town Council has agreed to fund the life-size statue of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle that the Crowborough Conan Doyle Trust and local enthusiasts have been campaigning for; sculptor David Cornell has started work on the L48,000 statue, and an unveiling is planned for late summer or early fall. This year's Sherlock Holmes Festival (which had been scheduled for July 7-9) will not be held, but the unveiling of the statue will be celebrated with due ceremony. Bill Barnes still has copies of THE HOUNDS' COLLECTION: VOLUME 4 available, (80 pages of pastiche, humor, and serious writing by members of The Hounds of the Internet; most of the material is new, but a few items have appeared elsewhere). $12.00 or CA$17.00 of L7.50 postpaid by airmail, and payment by personal check or currency is welcome; his address is 19 Malvern Avenue, Manly, NSW 2095, Australia. You can get 24 different Sesame Street mini beans in packages of Kellogg's cereals, and they include Sherlock Hemlock, who is one of four characters in packages of Apple Jacks and Honey Crunch Corn Flakes; there's no way of telling who's in any particular package, of course, but if you aren't lucky you can send in $2.50 and three box tops to get the set of four. Issue #34 of Sherlock Holmes: The Detective Magazine (edited by David Stu- art Davies) offers the usual wide variety of articles, essays, reviews, and other material about Holmes and other detectives, old and new. Davies' new series on "Sherlock Holmes: The Millennium Film Star Hero" starts in this issue, which also has the conclusion of Paul Chapman's two-part article on Sherlock Holmes and Jack the Ripper. Annual subscriptions (six issues) are L20.00 (U.K.)/L22.00 (continent)/$40.00 (U.S.), and the address is Box 100, Chichester, West Sussex PO18 8HD, England ; their U.S. representative is Classic Specialties (Box 19058, Cincin- nati, OH 45219) . Back issues are available, and credit-card orders are welcome at both addresses. Compliments of the season from Andrew G. Fusco, who kindly contributed the enclosed pocket calendar for 1876 (it works just fine for 2000, of course). And a few commercials: the revised 15-page list of Investitured Irregulars, Two-Shilling Awards, The Women, and the Adventuresses costs $1.20 postpaid. The 79-page list of 764 Sherlockian societies, with names and addresses for contacts for 426 active societies, costs $4.20 postpaid. A run of address labels for 359 individual contacts (recommended if you wish to avoid making duplicate mailings to people who are contacts for more than one society) costs $10.40 postpaid. Checks payable to Peter E. Blau, please. The list of irregulars and others also is available from me by e-mail (no charge), and both lists are available at Willis G. Frick's "Sherlocktron" home page at . Also vailable free at Linda Anderson's home page are digital photographs of cel- ebrants at the birthday festivities . The Spermaceti Press: Peter E. Blau, 3900 Tunlaw Road NW #119, Washington, DC 20007-4830 (telephone: 202-338-1808) Feb 00 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press "Burger Giant Chips Away at Holmes Truth" was the headline on a report in the Edinburgh Evening News (Jan. 8), at hand from Jon Lellenberg. Liberton Bank House, where Arthur Conan Doyle lived when he was five to seven years old, and which McDonald's planned to demolish so that they could build a restaurant on the site, was granted a temporary reprieve last month by the Edinburgh City Council (Dec 99 #2), but McDonald's is bringing in its own experts to verify that Conan Doyle actually lived there. Conan Doyle bio- grapher Owen Dudley Edwards said that "McDonald's is perfectly entitled to do its own historical research. I would be extremely glad to see what evi- dence it gets. I hope they develop a conscience at the same time." Sorry about that: my list of the participants in the historic "triple play" (three Sherlockian events in three countries in one week) was not complete (Jan 00 #1). The full list: Mike Whelan and Mary Ann Bradley, Kate Karl- son, Herb and Addie Tinning, Paul and Margaret Smedegaard, Susan Dahlinger, and Peter Blau (from the U.S.), Anders Hammarqvist (from Sweden), and Bjar- ne Nielsen, Bjarne Rother Jensen, and Jan B. Steffensen (from Denmark). And another correction: the home page where you can see digital photographs taken at the birthday festivities in New York (Jan 00 #6) is located at the web-site of the San Francisco Bay Area Sherlockian Societies. The URL is . W. R. Michell ("The Rock of Gibraltar") died on Jan. 18. He was a Captain in the Royal Navy when he joined The Sherlock Holmes Society of London in 1958, and not long after his retirement happily enlisted as Honorary Secre- tary of the society, a post he held from 1973 to 1988. Bill's genial humor was a delight, and he will be missed by his many friends. Paul Martin reports that Critics' Choice Video (Box 749, Itaska, IL 60143) (800-367-7765) offers John Neville's "A Study in Terror" (1965) for $19.95 (discounted from $69.95), and the longer (98-minute) ver- sion of George C. Scott's "They Might Be Giants" (1971) for $14.95. Rich- ard Wein spotted Claude Rains' "The Lost World" (1960) in the same catalog discounted to $10.77; shipping is free until Mar. 31. Sonia Fetherston spotted some business news in the Portland Oregonian (Jan. 23): Pat Sherlock, owner of Sherlock Holmes Real Estate, has merged his 17- year-old company with the Equity Group. Desmond Llewelyn died on Dec. 19. He studied at the Royal Academy of Dram- atic Arts in the 1930s and had a long career in films. Best known as "Q" in all but one of the James Bond films, he also performed in the Merrison/ Williams BBC radio series, as Bannister in "The Three Students" (1993) and as Palfreyman in "Shoscombe Old Place" (1995). News for the electronically-enabled: Chris Redmond's "Holmepage" was as far as I know the first one on the World Wide Web, and it's still an excellent entry-way into the strange Sherlockian world of bits and bytes. And it has name (Sherlockian.Net), a new format, new graphics, lots of revisions and additions, and a new URL: . Feb 00 #2 "Krushchev Wary of Yeltsin's Successor" is the headline on a story in the Providence Journal (Jan. 6), at hand from Al and Julie Rosenblatt. The Krushchev is former Soviet leader Nikita Krushchev's son Sergei, who became an American citizen last summer and is a scholar at Brown University; Vladimir Putin, the new prime minister, was hand-picked by a group of "political oligarchs" aligned with Boris Berezovsky, accord- ing to Sergei Krushchev, who noted that Berezovsky is close to Yeltsin and his family, and is "the Professor Moriarty of the 21st century." SHERLOCKIANS ABROAD: THEIR ADVENTURES AT AND MEMOIRS OF THE RETURN OF SHER- LOCK HOLMES STATUE FESTIVAL, collected and edited by Susan E. B. Vizoskie, with photographs by Ben Vizoskie, offers 71 pages of reminiscences by 32 of the participants; $3.50 postpaid ($3.75 to Canada and $4.00 elsewhere) in U.S. funds, please, with checks payable to The Three Garridebs, and sent to Sue (90 Ralph Avenue, White Plains, NY 10606). Reported: Martin Booth's THE DOCTOR AND THE DETECTIVE: A BIOGRAPHY OF SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE (published in Britain in 1997), in an American edition from St. Martin's Press in January (384 pp., $27.95). "Holmes!" is a work-in-progress musical with book and lyrics by Brett Nich- olson and music by Hans Vollrath, first performed in concert at the Disney Institute in Orlando in Sept. 1997. A revised version of the musical will be presented in a workshop performance on May 4-5 at the Disney Institute Performance Center in Orlando, Fla.; additional details are available from Holmes! (Box 2242, Windermere, FL 34786) . "What is the name of that inn you spoke of?" "The Green Dragon" (as noted in "Shoscombe Old Place"). There are two other allusions to dragons in the Canon (in "Charles Augustus Milverton" and "The Sign of the Four"), and it is nice to have three appropriate references to help the postal service celebrate the Year of the Dragon. The Village Players will produce William Gillette's "Sherlock Holmes" from Mar. 17 through Apr. 1; the box-office address is Box 712, Birmingham, MI 48012 (248-644-2075) . Art Hoppe died on Feb. 1. He joined the San Francisco Chronicle as a copy boy in 1949 and soon was promoted to reporter, and in 1960 began writing a column that eventually appeared five days a week and was syndicated in more than 100 newspapers. The targets for his political satire included Water- gate, and in 1974 he created Sherlock Helms in a column titled "As American As Ample Spies" (voted "best pun of the year" by John Bennett Shaw). Richard Lancelyn Green and John Michael Gibson's A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF A. CONAN DOYLE, published in 1983, was, as I reported at the time (Sep 83 #2), *the* bibliography of Conan Doyle, and it still is. Long out of print, and only rarely offered by used-book dealers, it will be available again on Mar. 4 in a revised edition (with corrections and additions) by Hudson House (Otto Penzler's new imprint), priced at $100.00 retail. Otto will be glad to ac- cept your orders (The Mysterious Bookshop, 129 West 56th Street, New York, NY 10019 (800-352-2840) . Feb 00 #3 Wolf Ackva died on Jan. 16. He was an actor in Germany, and he provided German dubbing for famous actors such as Clark Gable, Vincent Price, William Holden, James Mason, and Sam (the eagle on "The Mup- pet Show"). He also played Sherlock Holmes in the first known television adaptation of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (broadcast in Germany by ARD on Aug 16, 1955). In 1997, Michael Ross notes, Ackva was made an honorary member of Von Herder Airguns, Ltd. The film "The Ninth Gate" had its world premiere in Spain on Aug. 25, and is scheduled for release in the United States on Mar. 31; directed by Roman Polanski and starring Johnny Depp and Lena Olin, the film's based on Arturo Perez-Reverte's book THE CLUB DUMAS, which one reviewer has called "a cross between Umberto Eco and Anne Rice." But: Marco Zatterin reports from Italy that none of the Canonical echoes in the book, including a woman who calls herself Irene Adler (Sep 99 #5), are in the film. Peter Calamai reports that the fourth (and final) season of "The Adventures of Shirley Holmes" (starring Meredith Henderson as the great-grandniece of Sherlock Holmes) started on YTV in Canada on Feb. 13. TELLER OF TALES: THE LIFE OF ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE, by Daniel Stashower (Apr 99 #5), has been nominated for an Edgar (best critical/biographical work) from the Mystery Writers of America. The winners of the Edgars will be an- nounced at the MWA annual dinner in New York on May 4. Don Martin died on Jan. 7. He began drawing for Mad in 1956, and for more than thirty years he contributed "a gallery of harridans, freaks and imbeciles burdened with over-large feet and bulbous noses, all of whom came too frequently in contact with buzz-saws, steamrollers, and falling safes" (as noted in his obituary in the Independent). His caricature of Sherlock Holmes (as one of eight literary heroes) appeared in the Mad in the 1970s. Reported: THE ILLUSTRIOUS CLIENTS SECOND CASE-NOTES, edited by Steven T. Doyle and Mark Gagen, with an introduction by Don Curtis and contributions by members of the society (96 pp., $12.95); $14.70 postpaid from Gasogene Books, Box 68308, Indianapolis, IN 46268. The winter issue of The Magic Door (the newsletter of The Friends of the Arthur Conan Doyle Collection at the Toronto Reference Library) offers the second part of Barbara Rusch's report on interesting ephemera in the coll- ection, and Victoria Gill's note on a manuscript letter from Conan Doyle in which he affirms the date of the end of the 19th century (Dec. 31, 1899), and much more; you can request a copy from Doug Wrigglesworth, 16 Sunset Street, Holland Landing, ON L9N 1H4, Canada . And (for the electronically enabled), the collection web-site is at . The second issue of Cliff Notes (published by Mrs. Hudson's Cliffdwellers) offers 25 pp. of (viniferous, philatelic, and other) contributions from its members, and it costs $3.00 postpaid (or $5.00 a year for two issues) from Henry Boote, 184 Central Avenue, Old Tappan, NJ 07675. Feb 00 #4 Don Hobbs has compiled a list of sources for translations of the Sherlock Holmes stories into Arabic (Almaktabah, P.O. Box 1998, Beirut 11, Lebanon) ; Croatian (Unival Company) ; Marathi (Rasik) ; Farsi (Ferdosi, Box 45095, S-104 30 Stockholm, Sweden) ; Braille (I Can See Books) ; Urdu (Sang-E-Meel Publications (25 Shahrah-E-Pakistan Lower Mall, Lahore 54000, Pakistan ; and Tamil (Don Hobbs, 2100 Elm Creek Lane, Flower Mound, TX 75028 . Jane L. Jenkins died on Feb. 3. She was a delightful lady, and the widow of William D. Jenkins, and honored by The Baker Street Irregulars as *the* women in 1985. Reported: THE LOST ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, by Paxton Franklin Watson (Chillicothe: Community Press, 2000; 330 pp., $25.00); pastiches. $30.00 postpaid from William C. Paxton (12907 East 36th Street Terrace, Independ- ence, MO 64055). The American Firm, a Sherlockian society whose "resident patient" project raises money to buy large-print editions of the Canon for adult homes and nursing homes, offers badges, bookmarks, tea towels, and other Sherlockian merchandise; an illustrated sales-list is available from Edward S. Smith, Jr. (Box 353, Williston Park, NY 11596) . Nancy Beiman reports that Bert Coules is now at work dramatizing five of the unrecorded cases (starting with "Colonel Warburton's Madness" and "The Disappearance of Mr. James Phillimore") for broadcast by the BBC (and Clive Merrison and Michael Williams have been approached to continue as Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson). Peter Jeffrey died on Dec. 25. One of the more memorable guest actors on "The Avengers", he also appeared in "Room Without a View", "The Joker", and "House of Cards", he played Mycroft Holmes in the television film "Hands of a Murderer" (1990). Al Gregory has noted that THE KEY TO THE NAME OF THE ROSE: INCLUDING TRANS- LATIONS OF ALL NON-ENGLISH PASSAGES, by Adele J. Haft, Jane G. White, and Robert J. White (first published in 1987), has been published in paperback (Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press, 1999); 190 pp., $14.95); fans of Will- iam of Baskerville and his assistant Adso will also welcome the glossary of unfamiliar names of people, places, and heresies. Raymond Murray quotes from the Canon to highlight his article "Devil in the Details: The Science of Forensic Geology" in the February issue of Geotimes (published by the American Geological Institute, 4220 King Street, Alexan- dria, VA 22302; $5.00). Reported: Ron Frantz's FANDOM: CONFIDENTIAL, a 200-page history of two dec- ades of organized fan activity, and comics and nostalgia collecting; there are occasional mentions of Sherlock Holmes, reflected in Pete Morisi's cov- er portrait of Frantz. $17.95 postpaid from Midguard Publishing, Box 1711, Mena, AR 71953 . Feb 00 #5 One does hear of Sherlock everywhere, Scott Monty notes, even on the syndicated radio "Howard Stern Show": on Feb. 10, Howard and his staff were running through true/false trivia questions, and one of them was, "Sherlock Holmes never said, 'Elementary, my dear Watson.'" Both Howard and Robin Quivers quickly said it was a true statement. Robin even went so far as to identify the Rathbone/Bruce films as the source, and How- ard said, "Yeah, he said something else, like 'Hey, Watson,' or something." The Blustering Gales of the South West will hold a conference on "Sherlock Holmes and the Future" on Mar. 25 at the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Club- house (11513 Burbank Boulevard, North Hollywood, Calif.); the speakers will include Poul and Karen Anderson and Len and June Moffatt. More information is available from Paula Salo (4421 Pacific Coast Highway #E-112, Torrance, CA 90505) (310-378-7947) and at the society's web-site . Jerry Margolin notes that the third issue of THE GREAT DETECTIVE: SHERLOCK HOLMES (Avalon Communications, $2.95) is in the comic-book shops, with "The Mystery of The Thames Afire" reprinted from the 1954 comic strip written by Edith Meiser and drawn by Frank Giacoia; the publisher's address is 2800 Halpern, St-Laurent, QC H4S 1R2, Canada. Antonio Iriarte reports that a newly-annotated nine-volume Spanish edition of the Canon is in the works; Juan Antonio Molina Foix, a well-known trans- lator who specializes in fantastic literature (most recently a collection of Arthur Machen's short stories) will be the editor, and Editorial Valde- mar of Madrid will publish the set. "The starting point in any attempt to rewrite the history of the Molly Ma- guires today, is to treat the surviving evidence with the skepticism it de- serves," Kevin Kenny suggests, and he does just that in his MAKING SENSE OF THE MOLLY MAGUIRES (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1998; 336 pp., $19.95). It's an interesting book, and Kenny has done his best to avoid the biases that have colored previous histories of the Mollies. Arthur Conan Doyle is mentioned only in passing in a book that focuses on the facts of Irish his- tory in the Pennsylvania coal fields. A. E. Van Vogt died on Jan. 26. His first science-fiction story was "Black Destroyer" in Astounding Science Fiction (July 1939), and it is often cited as the inspiration for the film "Aliens" and its many sequels; he was one of the great science-fiction writers, and a friend of Luther Norris and a member of the Praed Street Irregulars, and van Vogt's articles about Solar Pons were published in The Pontine Dossier from 1958 to 1977. St. Bartholomew's Hospital (the site of the historic first meeting between Holmes and Watson) was reported to have been saved (Feb 98 #2), but there's still plenty of controversy: according to an article in The Times (Feb. 8), at hand from John Baesch, prime minister Tony Blair's decision to turn the hospital into a specialized cancer and heart unit, at a cost now estimated at L150 million, has been criticized in a report by cancer specialists who say that not enough back-up services are available at Barts. Critics also suggest that Blair's election promise to rescue the hospital was made be- cause his children were born there. Feb 00 #6 Many Sherlockians have wondered and speculated about how Sher- lock Holmes got to where we find him in the Canon, just as many actors who have played him have felt a need to understand his motivations. THE CHILDHOOD OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, by Mona Morstein (Lakeville: Galde Press, 2000; 340 pp., $24.95), presents an imaginative and well-written history of the Holmes family, both parents and children, told by the butler who served them. Available for $28.95 postpaid (shipping costs higher to Canada and overseas) from the publisher, Box 460, Lakesville, MN 55044 (800-777-3454) ; credit-card orders welcome. A colorful brochure for The Sherlock Holmes Society of London's Golden Jub- ilee Cruise, scheduled to the Baltic from Aug. 25 to Sept. 7, 2001 (depart- ing from Harwich and with stops at Oslo, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Tallin, St. Petersburg, Kaliningrad, and Kiel) is offered by from Arena Travel Cruises (Hamilton House, Cambridge Road, Felixstowe, Suffolk, 1P11 7SW, England) . Bjarne Nielsen's February "Millennial Highlights" catalog from the Sherlock Holmes Museet Antikvariatet has a fine assortment of Sherlockian books and pamphlets, in Danish and in English, and Alex Secher's original artwork for a Danish translation of THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES (1976). His address is Algade 3, DK-4500 Nykobing Sjaelland, Denmark, and his material also can be seen on the World Wide Web at . Hammer Films, like its long-running hero Dracula, has been revived, accord- ing a story in the Hollywood Reporter (Feb. 8), at hand from Nancy Beiman. The company that produced Peter Cushing's "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (1959) has been purchased by a private investment consortium (for a little more than L1 million, according to industry sources); the new owners plan to take advantage of Hammer's library of more than 250 film and TV titles by relicensing remake rights, and will expand the Hammer brand into compu- ter games, merchandising, animation, and the Internet. Marina Stajic notes that you can see Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot in the same play on Broadway, at the Music Box Theatre at 239 West 45th Street (212-239-6200). The play is Peter Shaffer's "Amadeus", with David Suchet as Salieri and J. P. Linton as Count Von Strack (Linton played Holmes in Tom McClary's "Flights of Devils" on Long Island in 1987). Charles Schulz died on Feb. 12, the day before his last original "Peanuts" comic strip ran in papers around the world. He became a Sherlock Holmes fan in high school, he wrote in 1975, and it was in 1962 that readers saw Snoopy's first known Sherlockian appearance (Dec 99 #5). That was only the first of the strip's Canonical allusions; this one ran on Aug. 28, 1964: Feb 00 #7 Amanda Foreman's GEORGIANA, DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE was published in 1998 in Britain to great acclaim, and there's now an Ameri- can edition (New York: Random House, 2000; 454 pp., $29.95) that is getting excellent reviews here. It was Gainsborough's portrait of Georgiana that was stolen by Adam Worth, and she's the duchess mentioned in the Canon (in "A Case of Identity"), where Miss Mary Sutherland's broad-brimmed hat was "tilted in a coquettish Duchess of Devonshire fashion over her ear." "Murder Rooms: The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes" (the BBC-2 two-part mini-series starring Robin Laing as Arthur Conan Doyle and Ian Richardson as Joseph Bell) will air on BBC America cable on Mar. 5 and 12, according to Anglofile, and then on "Mystery!" on PBS-TV on May 18 and 25. Anglofile is a monthly newsletter that offers detailed coverage of British entertain- ment; Box 33515, Decatur, GA 30033 ($15.00 a year). The latest issue of Scarlet Street (#36) has David Stuart Davies' interest- ing article on how he wrote his play "Sherlock Holmes - The Last Act!", and a review of the new laserdisc (from Image Entertainment, $29.98) of "Photo- graphing Fairies" (1997, with Edward Hardwick as Conan Doyle), and the usu- al coverage of the mystery-and-horror genre. The magazine costs $35.00 a year (six issues); Box 604, Glen Rock, NJ 07452. And there's a web-site at . "Sherlock Holmes & the Royal Regatta" is the mystery that Holmes and Watson and participants in the next "Victorian Holmes Weekend" will try to solve on Mar. 10-12 in Cape May. The weekend includes a tour of the town's Vic- torian homes, and additional information is available from the Mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts, Box 340, Cape May, NJ 08204 (609-884-5404) (800-275- 4278) . George C. Scott's "They Might Be Giants" (1971) has been released on DVD by Anchor Bay Entertaiment ($24.98); Jennie Paton reports that it's the longer television version with the supermarket food-fight, and additional material that includes commentary by director Anthony Harvey and film archivist Rob- ert A. Harris, theatrical trailers, and a featurette. The late John Ford is said to have had THE WHITE COMPANY in his sights at the end of his career, with John Wayne and Alec Guinness in mind, George MacDonald Fraser notes in his perceptive and interesting introduction to a new edition of Arthur Conan Doyle's two great historical novels: THE WHITE COMPANY/SIR NIGEL (Pleasantville: Akadine Press, 1999; 618 pp., $24.95). Akadine also has published a new edition of Conan Doyle's THROUGH THE MAGIC DOOR (276 pp., $16.95), in which he offers a delightful tour of the books in his own library, and the authors he admired. And you get a discount to $37.70 if you order both books. Akadine Press editions are not available in bookstores, but rather from A Common Reader (141 Tompkins Avenue, Pleas- antville, NY 10570) (800-832-7323) ; I've recommended A Common Reader's catalogs in the past, and am glad to do so again: there's a wide variety of interesting reading, including Christopher Morley's THE HAUNTED BOOKSHOP and PARNASSUS ON WHEELS ($15.95 each, or $26.90 the pair). The Spermaceti Press: Peter E. Blau, 3900 Tunlaw Road NW #119, Washington, DC 20007-4830 (telephone: 202-338-1808) Mar 00 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press The musical "Cats" (based on poems in T. S. Eliot's "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats") is the longest-running show in Broadway history, and was honored by the U.S. Postal Service in January (Jan 00 #5), but weekly re- ceipts are dwindling, and Andrew Lloyd Webber announced on Feb. 19 that the show will close on June 25. Fans of "Macavity: The Mystery Cat" will still be able to see him, however: the London production, which opened on May 11, 1981 is still running. More translations available: Atanas Topalov offers Bulgarian translations of the Canon (ABLEN, 2 Elena Snejina Street, Dragalevtsi, Sofia 1415, Bul- garia) . "Beautiful? It's elementary, my dear Watson" is the headline on Lee Karen Stow's two-page discussion of the southwest of England in a "Britain: Time to Travel" booklet published by the British Tourist Authority and spotted by Laura Kuhn. The BTA's address is 551 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10176 (888-364-6101). Daniel Stashower's TELLER OF TALES: THE LIFE OF ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE (Apr 99 #5) has a British edition (London: Allen Lane, 2000; 472 pp., L18.99), and good reviews in The Sunday Times, The Times, and the Daily Telegraph. The eighth annual Mid-Atlantic Mystery Book Fair & Convention will be held on Oct. 13-15 at the Wyndham Franklin Plaza in Philadelphia, with more than 500 people expected to attend; additional information is available from the Society Hill Playhouse (507 South 8th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19147) . Sean Connery, recipient of a Kennedy Center Honor in December (Oct 99 #1), was knighted by the Queen in her New Year's Honours List; he played Jack Kehoe in "The Molly Maguires" (1970), and William of Baskerville in "The Name of the Rose" (1986). Sherlock Holmes (impersonated by John Sherwood) will return to Union City, Mich., on July 8 for an English-style banquet and conversation with guests at the Victorian Villa Inn. Additional details are available from the inn (601 North Broadway, Union City, MI 49094) (800-348-4552) . Ian Richardson's "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (1983), released on digi- tal video disk (DVD) by Image Entertainment last year (Aug 99 #6), will be joined by Richardson's "The Sign of Four" (1983) this year, according to Richard Valley. Albert Whitlock died on Oct. 26, 1999. He was an expert visual-effects ar- tist who began his film career in London as a teenager and came to the U.S. in the 1950s to work for Walt Disney. He moved to Universal Studios in the 1960s, and was described by Alfred Hitchcock as the finest artist working in films. Whitlock won back-to-back Oscars (for "Earthquake" and "The Hin- denburg"), and his credits include the special photographic effects for the Stewart Granger television film "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (1972). Mar 00 #2 LANGUAGE OF THE LAND: THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS BOOK OF LITERARY MAPS, by Martha Hopkins and Michael Buscher (Washington: Libra- ry of Congress, 1999; 287 pp., $50.00), does not neglect Sherlock Holmes: the book includes six of Julian Wolff's Sherlockian maps, and "The Sherlock Holmes Mystery Map" published by Aaron Blake in 1987. Robert McG. Thomas died on Jan. 6. He was a splendid journalist: a police reporter, a rewrite man, a society news reporter, and a sports reporter at the N.Y. Times until he began writing obituaries full-time in 1995, "shak- ing the dust from one of the most neglected areas of daily journalism" (as Michael T. Kaufman noted in his tribute to Thomas). He was at his best in writing about people who were out of the ordinary, including Samuel Rosen- berg (Jan. 12, 1996), and Herman Herst (Feb. 7, 1999). The 1999 issue of Beeman's Christmas Annual, published by The Occupants of the Empty House and edited by Janet Bensley and Jack Crelling, is devoted to "Geology in the Canon", with an article by Raymond C. Murray on forensic geology and contributions from society members on other geological aspects of the stories. The 32-page booklet costs $10.00 postpaid; checks (payable able to O.E.H.) can be sent to Stan Tinsley, 105 Wilcox Street, Ziegler, IL 62999. Forecast: THE HAUNTING OF TORRE ABBEY, by Carole Bugge (New York: St. Mar- tin's Press, 2000; 272 pp. $22.95); a new pastiche from the author of THE STAR OF INDIA (Jan 98 #7). THE CASE OF THE SCARLET WOMAN, by Watkin Jones (London: Greenwich Exchange, 1999; 124 pp.), involves Holmes and Watson with members of Aleister Crow- ley's Order of the Golden Dawn, and in an investigation of the occult and of a murder mystery; the cost is L9.95 postpaid (sterling or dollar checks, please) from the Greenwich Exchange (50 Langton Way, Blackheath, London SE3 7TJ, England) or $17.35 postpaid (credit-card orders welcome) from A+ Edu- cational Resource (Box 23781, Phoenix, AZ 85063) (toll-free 877-845-6472) . Joe Coppola reports a Carol Ann Miniatures "Sherlock Holmes with his Magni- fying Glass" flip-top hand-painted pewter thimble (item 4137; $19.95) in a mail-order catalog from Gimbel & Sons Country Store (Box 57, Boothbay Har- bor, ME 04538) (888-633-1463) . John Colicos died on Mar. 6. Best known as the villainous Count Baltar in the television series "Battlestar Galactica", he was the youngest actor, at the age of 22, to play King Lear at the Old Vic in London, and went on to a long acting career that included appearances as Sherlock Holmes in William Gillette's play in Florida in 1975, and as Inspector Lestrade on television in "Alfred Hitchcock Presents: My Dear Watson" in 1989. The caricature of William Gillette as Sherlock Holmes drawn by Leslie Ward ("Spy") for Vanity Fair in 1907 has been reprinted as the four of diamonds in one of a double deck of Vanity Fair playing cards available from Wilfrid M. de Freitas (Box 883, Stock Exchange Tower, Montreal, QC H4Z 1K2, Canada) ; US$26.00 postpaid for both decks, or US$13.50 postpaid for the deck with the Gillette caricature. Mar 00 #3 Mary Bodne died on Feb. 28. She and her husband Ben discovered the Algonquin Hotel on their honeymoon, purchased it from Frank Case in 1946, and lived there for 41 years, happily maintaining its litera- ry and theatrical connections. They sold the Algonquin, still the informal headquarters for the January birthday weekend in 1987, and the current own- ers, the Camberley Hotel Co., continue many of the decades-old traditions, including the lobby cat. Laurie R. King's O JERUSALEM (her fifth novel about Mary Russell and Sher- lock Holmes) is available from Recorded Books, read unabridged by Jenny Sterlin and with a 56-minute interview with Laurie, on ten audiocassettes; it's an excellent reading, and an interesting interview that includes dis- cussion of Russell and Laurie's other protagonists, and of how she writes and why. $80.00 (purchase) or $17.50 (rental); Recorded Books, 270 Skip- jack Road, Prince Frederick, MD 20678 (800-638-1304) ; credit-card orders welcome. If one believes the pundits, the primary campaigns are pretty much wrapped up, which means it's time to focus on the political aspects of the Canon, where one finds a forecast of what will happen when Al Gore faces a family of Republicans: George W. supported by his father and his brother. The ninth annual Watsonian Weekend on July 21-23 will feature Daniel Stash- ower as guest speaker at the Regimental Dinner in Schiller Park, the 41st annual running of The Silver Blaze at Arlington Race Track, and the Fortes- cue Honours Brunch in Des Plaines; more information is available from Susan Z. Diamond (16W603 3rd Avenue, Bensenville, IL 60106) . Britain has opened its first diplomatic mission in Mecca, according to a report in The Times (Feb. 23), at hand from John Baesch. The mission will be led by Labour peer Lord Ahmed and will consist of Muslim diplomats from the foreign Office and Muslim volunteer staff, and will provide assistance to British pilgrims. The article notes that Sir Richard Burton, who visit- ed Mecca in 1883 after staining his skin with walnut juice and undergoing a circumcision, is the only British Christian known to have visited Mecca. Sherlockians, of course, know that Holmes looked in at Mecca. John also has forwarded a story from The Independent on Sunday (Mar. 5) an exhibition "Chapter & Verse: 1,000 Years of English Literature" on display at the British Library through Oct. 15; one of the items is the manuscript of "The Missing Three-Quarter" (the first page in shown in the article). Issue #35 of Sherlock Holmes: The Detective Magazine offers discussion of the television mini-series "Murder Rooms: The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes", Bert Coules' interview with Michael Valle (scriptwriter for the new film "Sherlock Holmes and the Vengeance of Dracula"), the first part of David Stuart Davies' report on Granada's "The Last Vampyre", and much more (S'ian and otherwise). Annual subscriptions (six issues) are L18.00 (U.K.) /L20.00 (continent)/$40.00 (U.S.); the address is Box 100, Chichester, West Sussex PO18 8HD, England , and their U.S. agent is Classic Specialties (Box 19058, Cincinnati, OH 45219) (toll-free 877-233-3823) . Back issues are available; credit-card orders are welcome at both addresses. Mar 00 #4 Diane Nolan writes that she is offering some of the Sherlockian ephemera from Norm's collection in auctions on eBay ; "nothing rare or scarce," she notes, "but mainly the toys, T-shirts, games, etc." (search at eBay for items offered by seller . Diane expects to sell the books eventually, but as a collection. Robert E. Brolli died on Jan. 31. He was an actor and director in local and regional theater in western New England, and appeared on Broadway with Mary Martin in "Skin of Our Teeth". In 1977 he played John Forman in Will- iam Gillette's "Sherlock Holmes" at the Williamstown Theatre Festival (with Frank Langella in the title role), and again in the 1981 broadcast of the play on HBO cable. What will happen when Al Gore faces George W. supported by his father and his brother? The quote's in "Black Peter": Al Gore will be "surrounded on three sides by Bushes." For completists: Andy Peck reports that the Mystery Guild its own edition of the 1999 revised and expanded edition of THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (item #051359, $11.98); their address is Box 6325, Indianapolis, IN 46206 . MORE HOLMES FOR THE HOLIDAYS also is avail- able in a Mystery Guild edition (item #054775, $10.98). The February issue of Baker Street West 1 has 52 pages of Sherlockiana from the western states, including Chuck Kovacic's article on dark lanterns and Stu Shiffman's report on Sherlockian toys and dolls; $6.00 (or $11.00 for a one-year two-issue subscription) (checks made payable to the magazine) from Jerry Kegley, 110 South El Nido Avenue, #41, Pasadena, CA 91107. GOOSE'S CHOICE is described by its editors (John Farrell and John P. Sohl) as a collection of Sherlock Holmes stories chosen by The Goose Club of the Alpha Inn, and original research papers and a Cockroach Bones pastiche; the 88-page book has been published on (and only on) the Internet, as with the latest best-seller by Stephen King, at it costs $6.00 to download the book at . Frank Pape died on Mar. 5. He was regarded as Chicago's toughest cop, and his character and cases were used as a basis for the "M Squad" television series; he joined the force in 1933 and by the time he retired in 1972 he was credited with sending 300 men to prison, including five to the electric chair, and in 16 gun battles he shot and killed nine suspects. He took a leave of absence from 1961 to 1965 to head the security detail at Chicago's racetracks, where owners were concerned about syndicate bookmakers, many of whom Pape and his men knew by sight. He also was a good friend of Chicago Sherlockian Eugene Carey, Bob Mangler reports, and made sure the locals who attended runnings of the Silver Blaze in Chicago "got the royal treatment." Jon Lellenberg notes that the authors at a "N.Y. Times Literary Lunch" at the Fairmont Copley Plaza in Boston on Apr. 9 will include Karl E. Meyer and Shareen Blair Brysac, authors of TOURNAMENT OF SHADOWS: THE GREAT GAME AND THE RACE FOR EMPIRE IN CENTRAL ASIA (Jan 00 #4); Meyer is a member of the Baker Street Irregulars, and the book has many allusions to the Canon. The cost of the lunch is $65.00 (212-556-1905). Mar 00 #5 Dayna McCausland, as this year's "Meyers" of The Bootmakers of Toronto, has decided to set the Sherlockian apocrypha for dis- cussion by the society, and George Vanderburgh has published a helpful 66- page pamphlet: BEYOND THE CANON contains "The Field Bazaar", "How Watson Learned the Trick", "The Story of the Man with the Watches", and "The Story of the Lost Special", with an introduction and notes by Cameron Hollyer and an afterword and illustrations by Dayna. It's available for US $7.00 post- paid from Dayna McCausland (Box 321, Erin, ON N0B 1T0, Canada). Charles Gray died on Mar. 7. His wide-ranging career as a character actor included stage, screen, and television, and his best-known roles were Ernst Blofeld in the James Bond film "Diamonds Are Forever" (1971) and the narra- tor in "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" (1975). He also played a splendid Mycroft in "The Seven-Per-Cent Solution" (1976) and in Granada's "The Greek Interpreter" (1985), "The Bruce-Partington Plans" (1988), and "The Creeping Man" (1991). "Sherlock Holmes for President" proclaims the cover of the March issue of The Holmes & Watson report, and the contents offer a look at the possibili- ties, plus a new Sherlockian word-puzzle from Dana Richards, and much more. $16.00 a year for six issues ($22.00 outside North America), from Brad Kee- fauver, 4009 North Chelsea Place, Peoria, IL 61614. Spotted recently on a bargain table: THE CRIME AND MYSTERY BOOK: A READER'S COMPANION, by Ian Ousby (London: Thames & Hudson, 1997; 224 pp., L12.95 but discounted to $7.00); it's an interesting and nicely-illustrated review of the genre, with due attention to Sherlock Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle. Janus Books has an excellent new Sherlockian catalog available at its web- site: go to and click on "Sherlockiana" and you can view or download the catalog. And if you're not electronically-enabled, Mike Greenbaum will be glad to mail the catalog to you (Janus Books, Box 40787, Tucson, AZ 85717 (800-986-1165). Michael Lawrence is selling full-size reproductions of 20th-century London street signs, and is happy to include one for Baker Street N.W.1 ($185.00 postpaid). His company is Signpost International (19 Bramall Court, Peter- borough, Cambridgeshire PE3 9RD, England) ; details available on request. Hayward Cirker died on Mar. 8. He founded Dover Books in 1941 and special- ized in publishing inexpensive paperback reprints of interesting books that brought good literature to millions of readers; the current series of Dover Thrift Editions ($1.00 to $2.00 each) offers THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES and SIX GREAT SHERLOCK HOLMES STORIES, as well as Douglas G. Greene's 1998 anthology DETECTION BY GASLIGHT: 14 VICTORIAN DETECTIVE STORIES. David Morrill reports news from Hollywood: Don Knotts, five-time Emmy win- ner for his portrayal of bumbling Deputy Barney Fife on "The Andy Griffith Show", was honored Jan. 19 with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. "I can't believe I have my own star," Knotts said. I'm gonna come down here every morning and shine that sucker up." Knotts wore Sherlockian costume as Inspector Winship in the film "The Private Eyes" (1980). Mar 00 #6 Alexander Orlov reports a review in The Economist (Mar. 18) of Jonathan Schneer's LONDON 1900: THE IMPERIAL METROPOLIS (Yale University Press, 1999; 416 pp., $29.95); according to the review, "in half a dozen entertaining pages, Mr. Schneer combs the Sherlock Holmes stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle for a rich store of imperial themes." The same issue has a review of WAINEWRIGHT THE POISONER, by Andrew Motion (New York: Knopf, 2000; 306 pp., $26.00) (and Faber & Faber L20.00); the biography's subject is Thomas Griffiths Wainewright (1794-1847), who was (according to Sherlock Holmes, in "The Illustrious Client") both a great criminal and no mean artist. Sergio Martinez's attractive Sherlockian artwork has been published in the Portland House "Illustrated Classics" edition of THE HOUND OF THE BASKER- VILLES (1988) and the Reader's Digest "World's Best Reading" edition of THE MEMOIRS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (1988), and on the boxes for the audiocassettes of the BBC radio broadcasts starring Clive Merrison and Michael Williams (1991-1999); an illustrated brochure for the original artwork for 27 of his illustrations (priced from $350 to $2,400) is available from Illustration House (96 Spring Street, New York, NY 10012 . The Bimetallic Question's flier for their Second Bimetallic Colloquium (at McGill University in Montreal on June 2-4) is now available from the socie- ty (Box 883, Stock Exchange Tower, Montreal, QC H4Z 1K2, Canada) . Stephen Farrell died on Mar. 6. He was a banker and financial advisor, and an authority on small arms; he joined The Sherlock Holmes Society of London in 1977, served as a Member of Council 1984 to 1987, and contributed often to The Sherlock Holmes Journal in the 1980s and 1990s. The Japan Sherlock Holmes Club has awarded its annual grand prize (for con- tributions to the Sherlockian world in Japan) to the publisher Hara Shobo, honoring the company for its publication of Japanese translations of HOLMES FOR THE HOLIDAYS and MORE HOLMES FOR THE HOLIDAYS, the anthologies of new pastiches edited by Martin H. Greenberg, Jon L. Lellenberg, and Carol-Lynn Waugh and first published in English in 1996 and 1999. Tom Simmons died on Mar. 17. His long career in journalism led to the post of news editor of the Dallas Morning News, and he was a long-time member of The Diogenes Club of Dallas. His article on "Dartmoor: Tracking the Bas- kerville Hound" was published in the Dallas Morning News on Mar. 13, 1994. The new issue of Scarlet Street (#37) has the second part of David Stuart Davies' article about his play "Sherlock Holmes - The Last Act!" (with an interesting account of the tribulations encountered in getting it produced and the pleasures encountered when it eventually was), and the usual cover- age of the mystery-and-horror genre (including excellent tributes to Thorne Smith's "Topper" books, and the films based on the books. Subscriptions to the magazine cost $35.00 a year (six issues); Box 604, Glen Rock, NJ 07452. And there's a web-site at . The Spermaceti Press: Peter E. Blau, 3900 Tunlaw Road NW #119, Washington, DC 20007-4830 (telephone: 202-338-1808) Apr 00 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press Further to the item (Aug 98 #2) about a Daily Telegraph report that Brian Blessed was in Venezuela, filming "The Lost World" for BBC television, it would appear that he was exploring rather than acting. Blessed has written a fine account of his expedition in QUEST FOR THE LOST WORLD (London: Box- tree, 1999; 164 pp., L16.99), and notes that he first fell in love with the romance of the Lost World as a schoolboy, when he had a chance to listen to the BBC radio dramatization of the book. John Baesch has forwarded a story from the Evening Standard (Mar. 20) about plans to sell a Stradivarius at Christie's in New York on May 5. It's the Taft Stradivarius, described as the most desirable Strad at auction since the Kreutzer Strad sold for $1.58 million in 1998. Sherlock Holmes did get a bargain when he paid 55 shillings for his Strad. Abbey National is considering selling off and then leasing back its free- hold buildings, including the head office at 221B Baker Street, according to a report from Reuters (Apr. 7) at hand from Ray Betzner. Abbey has 800 branches and a total of about three million square feet of office space; the sale and lease-back would free up capital to develop the core banking business (the freehold portfolio could be worth as much as L460 million). Sorry about that: Charles Gray, who died last month (Mar 00 #5), played a fine Mycroft in Granada's "The Greek Interpreter" (1985), "The Bruce-Part- ington Plans (1988), "The Golden Pince-Nez (1994), and "The Mazarin Stone" (1994) -- and he didn't appear in their "The Creeping Man" (1991). The opening of the University of Minnesota's new Elmer L. Andersen Library was celebrated on Apr. 8 with a gala ceremony. There are two caverns in the new underground library, with storage space totaling 2.5 million cubic feet; university librarian Tom Shaughnessy told the Minneapolis Star-Trib- une that the $46.5 million library contains some of the most important re- search materials in the world, including the world's largest collection of Sherlock Holmes books and memorabilia. Sy Weintraub died on Apr. 4. In 1958, against the advice of his friends, he acquired the rights to "Tarzan" and produced a new series of films that starred Gordon Scott, Jock Mahoney, and Mike Henry as Tarzan and featured supporting actors such as Sean Connery, Anthony Quayle, Helen Hayes, Diana Ross and the Supremes, John Carradine, Peter Cook, and Woody Strode; Wein- traub retained the television rights, and went to become a highly success- ful television producer. Sherlockians are indebted to him for two televis- ion films that starred Ian Richardson as Holmes: "The Hound of the Basker- villes" and "The Sign of Four" (broadcast by HBO cable in 1983). Nancy Beiman has reported a reissue of the recording of the splendid music composed and conducted by Patrick Gowers for the Granada "Sherlock Holmes" television series, originally published by That's Entertainment Records in Britain (Dec 87 #6) and by Varese Sarabande Records in the United States (Feb 88 #2). The new CD is "Sherlock Holmes" (with the same 19 tracks and a revised booklet), issued by Jay Records in Britain, and it's available here at $17.97, discounted to $13.99 at . Apr 00 #2 The Strand Magazine (published from 1891 to 1950) brought Sher- lock Holmes (and much more) to a wide readership, and the name of the magazine has been resurrected for a new periodical launched in the fall of 1998 and edited by Andrew F. Gulli. The magazine's focus is on the mystery genre, and it has had fine stories by authors such as Henry Slesar, Michael Gilbert, and H. R. F. Keating; and articles by Matthew Prichard on his grandmother Agatha Christie, and Barbara and Christopher Roden on Conan Doyle and other mystery writers. The fourth issue has just been published, and subscriptions (four issues) cost $24.95 (U.S. and Canada) or $29.95 (to other countries); Box 1418, Birmingham, MI 48012 (800-300-6652) (UK: 800- 961-280) . The Speckled Band of Boston are celebrating their 60th anniversary with a poster ($15.00); also available are their 50th anniversary poster, wrist- watches, neckties (four-in-hand and bow), and lapel pins, and you can re- quest their sales-list from Richard Olken, 200 Hyslop Road, Brookline, MA 02445 . Spotted by Doug Wrigglesworth: the Apr. issue of Firsts: The Book Collect- or's Magazine, with an article by Gary Lovisi's on "Not Conan Doyle: Sher- lock Holmes: The Pastiches" and a checklist with current prices (and there also is an interesting article by William F. Nolan on "Collecting: Raymond Chandler"). $4.95; 4493 North Camino Gacela, Tucson, AZ 85718. Noted by Caroline Bryan: Glow Dog (131-A Great Road, Bed- ford, MA 01730) (888-456-9364) offers a "Sherlock Bones" plush doll (20" high) for $350.00 (cred- it-card orders welcome). Peter Calamai's career as a journalist was of great help in his research for a discussion of rare Victorian news- paper accounts of Sherlock Holmes at the 25th-anniversary festivities of The Bootmakers of Toronto in 1997, and you can see his discoveries for yourself in the spring 2000 issue of Canadian Holmes. $20.00 a year (four issues); checks payable to the society can be sent to Derek Thorpe (5 Brownlea Avenue, Toronto, ON M9P 2R5, Canada). E. W. McDiarmid ("The Bruce-Partington Plans") died on Apr. 27. He served a director of the University of Minnesota library from 1943 to 1952, and then was Dean of the university's College of Liberal Arts. In 1948, Mac was one of the founders of The Norwegian Explorers, and helped the society celebrate its 50th anniversary (there are few Sherlockian societies indeed that have celebrated 50th anniversaries with a founder present). He helped edit two excellent Sherlockian anthologies, and he received his Investiture from The Baker Street Irregulars in 1957, and the BSI's Two-Shilling Award in 1985. Jerry Margolin notes that the fourth issue of THE GREAT DETECTIVE: SHERLOCK HOLMES (Avalon Communications, $2.95) is in the comic-book shops, with "The Mystery of Pendennick Castle" (reprinted from the 1954 comic strip written by Edith Meiser and drawn by Frank Giacoia); the magazine's address is 2800 Halpern, St-Laurent, QC H4S 1R2, Canada. Apr 00 #3 Julie McKuras reports that the Hallmark Collectors Club has an- nounced that one of this year's Hallmark ornaments will be "The Detective" (Snoopy, dressed in standard Sherlockian costume, accompanied by Woodstock in Watsonian costume); the ornament will be in Hallmark stores on July 15, priced at $9.95. Another translation noted by Fred Levin: a two-volume Thai translation of THE RETURN OF SHERLOCK HOLMES; $9.38 plus shipping ($18.80 by air or $9.00 by sea to the U.S., but possibly different to other countries), available from the Chulalongkorn University Book Center, P.O. Box 2011, Chulalongkorn Post Office, Phyathai Road, Bangkok 10330, Thailand (credit-card orders welcome). John Sladek died on Mar. 10. Best known as a science-fiction author who specialized in satire and parody, he also wrote fine mysteries, including BLACK AURA (1979), in which his detective Thackeray Phin investigates (with due deference to Sherlock Holmes) a spiritualist mystery. Steve Tolins has served as official quizmaster (described by Joe Fink as a "fearsome inquisitor") for The Three Garridebs for 15 years, and a baker's dozen of his quizzes, together with a fine assortment of his Sherlockian essays, have been collected in SHERLOCKIAN TWADDLE, with illustrations by Paul Churchill. 156 pp., $25.00 postpaid from George A. Vanderburgh, Box 204, Shelburne, ON L0N 1S0, Canada. John Sherwood will appear as Sherlock Holmes (discussing one or more unpub- lished cases involving Freemasons) at the anniversary meeting (and ladies night) of the Patmos Masonic Lodge of Ellicott City at 7:00 pm on May 22nd (at the Candle Light Inn in Catonsville, Md.). The cost of the dinner is $29.00 (including tax and tip), and additional details are available from S. Brent Morris (7780 Blueberry Hill Lane, Ellicott City, MD 21043) (410- 796-7984) . It is interesting to see how the World Wide Web is beginning to have an im- pact on publishing. At least one Sherlockian book has been published on (and only on) the Internet: GOOSE'S CHOICE, edited by John Farrell and John P. Sohl and available at [Mar 00 #4]. And a company called Xlibris has gone a step farther, offering to publish books as trade paperbacks or in electronic form at no cost to the author, distributing via bookselling channels such as Amazon, Borders, and Barnes & Noble, as well as at the company's web-site at . Xlibris also offers in- formation at a toll-free telephone number (888-795-4274). Machines such as Ingram's Lightning Print and a new on-site press called BookBuilder are ex- amples of the new technology available, and are described in an interesting article by Linton Weeks in the Washington Post (Apr. 24), which can be read on-line at . The Practical, But Limited Geologists met for dinner at Ralph and Kacoo's in New Orleans on Apr. 19, during the annual meeting of the American Asso- ciation of Petroleum Geologists, to honor the world's first forensic geol- ogist, and we were welcomed to the Big Easy by Robin Leckbee of The Mystik Krewe of Sherlock Holmes. Our next dinners will be in Reno in November, and in Denver in June and in Boston in November 2001. Apr 00 #4 And here's a reminder that "Murder Rooms: The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes" (the BBC-2 two-part mini-series starring Robin Laing as Arthur Conan Doyle and Ian Richardson as Joseph Bell) will be broadcast on "Mystery!" on PBS-TV on May 18 and 25. it is interesting to see Richardson, who has played Holmes, portray the man who contributed so much to Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, and David Pirie's script has some fine twists, turns, and surprises. About 75 people are expected at the Pleasant Places of Florida's Sunshine State Sherlockian Scion Symposium II at the Dolphin Beach Resort in St. Pete Beach, Fla., on June 9-11, 2000; there's a full agenda scheduled and, additional details are available from Carl Heifetz (3693 Siena Lane, Palm Harbor, FL 34685) . Edward Gorey died on Apr. 15. He was a genius of the macabre as an artist and author, from his first book, THE UNSTRUNG HARP (1953), to his animated artwork for the opening and closing credits for the PBS-TV series "Mystery!". He first drew Holmes and Watson for THE CASE OF THE HEAVY READER: A PASTICHE FOR MADISON AVE- NUE, a brochure published by Esquire in 1967 to per- suade companies to advertise in the magazine. He al- so provided Canonical artwork for Kingsley Amis' "The Darkwater Hall Mystery" in Playboy (May 1978), D. R. Benson's IRENE, GOOD-NIGHT (1982), and the jacket of the American edition of THE D. CASE: THE TRUTH ABOUT THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD (1992), and a portrait of Macavity: The Mystery Cat for a new edition of T. S. Eliot's OLD POSSUM'S BOOK OF PRACTICAL CATS (1982). News for members of The Baker Street Irregulars, and ladies who have been honored as The Woman: the BSI's Shameless Commerce Division (aka George Mc- Cormack & Wayne and Francine Swift) has received a new shipment of rosettes ($10.00 postpaid/$11.00 outside the United States), bow ties, four-in-hand ties, scarves (48 x 6 in.), and cummerbunds (each $29.95/$32.95); all in the BSI's official colors (purple, blue, and mouse), and (sorry about that) available only to members of the BSI and (the scarves) to The Women. Your orders can be sent to George J. McCormack (615 Third Street, Brooklyn, NY 11215 (checks payable to George); those wishing to pay in sterling can send checks payable to Francine Swift. Sorry about that: correcting the report on Britain's first diplomatic miss- ion to Mecca (Mar 00 #3), Mona Morstein has noted that it was in 1853 (not 1883) that Sir Richard Burton visited Mecca. "Try one of these cigars" (as Sherlock Holmes proposed, in "The Sign of the Four"), and you may even wish to keep them in your coal-scuttle. Sherlock- ian cigar-smokers (as well as S'ian collectors who don't smoke cigars) are invited to acquire the new "221b Baker Street Collection" of six cigars (in Churchill, Torpedo, Pyramid, Lonsdale, Corona, and Grand Corona sizes) with Sherlockian labels and in an attractive display case, available for $30.00 (plus shipping) from GSI (485 South Illinois Route 59, PMB 175, Aurora, IL 60504) (877-430-7476) . Apr 00 #5 Andre Deutsch died on Apr. 11. Born in Hungary, he emigrated to Britain in 1939 and soon became a publisher; his first major success was the British edition of Norman Mailer's THE NAKED AND THE DEAD (condemned by The Sunday Times in 1949 as something that should not be left around lest women might read it), and his company's Sherlockian titles in- clude Richard Hughes' FOREIGN DEVIL: THIRTY YEARS OF REPORTING FROM THE FAR EAST (1972) and Julian Symons' PORTRAIT OF AN ARTIST: CONAN DOYLE (1979). There's more news about this year's running of The Silver Blaze at Saratoga Race Track on Saturday, Aug. 19 (Jan 00 #5): "Sherlock at Saratoga" will be a weekend event, with lunch "At the Rail" (a lovely tented pavilion offer- ing a buffet and a nice view of the races); post time is 12:30 pm. And on Sunday morning, Aug. 20, there will be a Sherlockian brunch in the elegant Whitney Room of the Saratogan Sheraton, with distinguished speakers and an excellent meal. The cost of the event (admission to the track, lunch, and brunch) is $95.00, and checks (payable to the Baker Street Irregulars) can be sent to Lou Lewis (11 Raymond Avenue, Poughkeepsie, NY 12603). Participants are invited to make their own hotel reservations, and sooner rather than later, since lots of people go to the races in Saratoga. The Hilton Garden Inn in Saratoga costs $228.00 a night (and a two-night stay is required); the telephone number for reservations is 800-445-8667 (Wayne Swift notes that AARP members qualify for a $225.00 rate). And a block of rooms has been reserved at the Holiday Inn in Albany (about a half hour's drive from the track) with a discount rate of $128.00 a night (reservations for one night only are welcome); the phone number is 800-465-4329. And there's plenty to do in Saratoga before and after the races and such: antiquing and shopping, the National Museum of Racing, the National Museum of Dance, the Saratoga Spa State Park, the Historical Society of Saratoga Springs, and (for Revolutionary War buffs) the Saratoga National Historical Park. Lou will be happy to answer questions by mail (see above) or e-mail , and to supply a detailed schedule to those who regis- ter for the festivities. THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, EPISODE 4, read by Edward Hardwicke, is the latest audiocassette set available from CSA Telltapes (101 Chamberlayne Road, London NW10 3ND, England) . As always, Hardwicke is an excellent Watson reading three stories (Croo/Gree/Nava) on two cassettes. L8.99 postpaid in Britain; L9.99 elsewhere. Note: earlier available from Tangled Web Audio as SHERLOCK HOLMES: TALES OF INTRIGUE (Nov 95 #2). CSA also has CLASSIC DETECTIVE STORIES read by Hardwicke on four cassettes (one of the stories is "The Dying Detective"); the story also was earlier available from Tangled Web (Sep 93 #3). Dave Galerstein and Caroline Bryan, hoping to provide a wider audience for some of the better papers delivered at meetings of Sherlockian societies, are planning to edit an anthology, and invite authors or archivists to sub- bit suitable material ("we are interested in quality," Dave notes, "especi- ally Sherlockian humor") (and, Caroline adds, toasts, lyrics, cartoons, and graphics). The new collection will be similar to A SINGULAR SET OF PEOPLE (edited by Dave and Marlene Aig in 1990), and Dave's address is: 49 Stone- wyck Place, Monroe Township, NJ 08831 . Apr 00 #6 The weekly syndicated radio series "Imagination Theater" con- tinues to broadcast 22-minute Sherlock Holmes programs written by Jim French (Apr 99 #3). Sixteen Sherlockian shows will have aired by the end of May, and they all are available (along with many other shows) on cassette or CD ($7.99 each postpaid) from TransMedia, 719 Battery Street, San Francisco, CA 94111 (800-229-7234) (credit-card orders welcome). Hugh Scullion (Cadds Printing, 59 Lancaster Avenue, West Norwood, London SE27 9EL, England) offers an illustrated sales- list of Sherlockian books, postcards, posters, calendars, keyfobs, etc. Bud Livingston's ANATOMICALLY, MY DEAR WATSON offers "some trifling mono- graphs on Canonical body parts" (extending to beards and voices, with some intriguing thoughts on why so many people in the Canon have grey eyes); the 58-page pamphlet is available for $9.95 (plus shipping) from Classic Speci- alties (Box 19058, Cincinnati, OH 45219) . Also available from Classic Specialties is a 56-page pamphlet with 366 EX- CUSES FOR A SHERLOCKIAN PARTY (or at least a commemoration) in which Joel and Carolyn Senter provide one or more Canonical or Sherlockian events that can be celebrated on each day of the year; $12.95 (plus shipping). Alexander H. Cohen died on Apr. 22. He was one of the most flamboyant and successful theatrical producers, beginning his career with "Angel Street" in 1941 (the play starred Vincent Price and was filmed as "Gaslight") to Noel Coward's "Waiting in the Wings" (starring Lauren Bacall and Rosemary Harris and now playing on Broadway). His production of the musical "Baker Street" (with Fritz Weaver, Peter Sallis, Martin Gabel, and Inga Swenson) has 313 performances on Broadway in 1965, undoubtedly thanks to promotion that included a massive marquee display featuring animated figures from the show, young ladies in "Palace Guard" costumes assisting customers standing in line for tickets, and a theater-lobby exhibit of the manuscript of "The Greek Interpreter", bought at auction at Christie's in Dec. 1964 by Lew D. Feldman on behalf of Adrian Conan Doyle for $12,600 (then the highest price ever paid for a manuscript of any short story by any author, and there was a persistent rumor that Cohen had contributed toward the purchase price as an investment in publicity for the musical). Jay Hyde notes that the May issue of Biography (published by Arts & Enter- tainment for those who watch the series on A&E cable) has a long article by John Kehoe about "The Case of the Murderous Author: Why Arthur Conan Doyle Tried to Kill Sherlock Holmes" (the magazine may be available at bookshops such as Borders and Barnes & Noble). The Pequod Press continues to publish its proprietor's poetry and prose, as always nicely hand-set, hand-printed and bound; the latest titles are MON- GOOSE & MENDICANTS (a collections of verse) and THE ADVENTURE OF THE BEEP- ING MAN (another Turlock Loams tale); each book costs $40.00 in cloth or $20.00 in paper, from John Ruyle, 521 Vincente Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94707. The Spermaceti Press: Peter E. Blau, 3900 Tunlaw Road NW #119, Washington, DC 20007-4830 (telephone: 202-338-1808) May 00 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press The fourth issue of the new Strand Magazine has arrived, with editor Andrew Gulli's interesting interviews with Michael Cox (the first producer of the Granada "Sherlock Holmes" series) and David Suchet (who is ready to do more "Poirot" programs), and a review by H. R. F. Keating of the TV mini-series "Murder Rooms: The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes"; subscriptions (four issues) cost $24.95 (U.S. and Canada) or $29.95 (elsewhere), from Box 1418, Birmingham, MI 48012 (800-300-6652) (UK: 800-961-280) . Laura Kuhn reports that Ian Richardson's "The Sign of Four" (1983) will be released on DVD on June 27; $14.99 plus shipping from , and one assumes that's also a discount street price. The obituary for Sy Weintraub (Apr 00 #1) listed Peter Cook as one of the many actors who appeared in Weintraub's "Tarzan" films. Dave ("I've seen this one a million times since I was a lad") Morrill reports that the end credits for "Tarzan Goes to India" show a Peter Cooke as the foreman in the building-the-dam sequences, and Peter Cooke certainly isn't Peter Cook. The March issue of the quarterly newsletter of The Friends of the Sherlock Holmes Collections at the University of Minnesota offers tributes to Vin- cent Starrett, Grant Allen, and Olga Katzin, and reports on the collections and the library. If you'd like to be on their mailing list you should con- tact Richard J. Sveum (111 Elmer L. Andersen Library, University of Minne- sota, Minneapolis, MN 55455) . Laura Sifurova has reported that the Russian television series (1979-1986) that starred Vasily Livanov and Vitaly Solomin has been repackaged with a new framing story that stars Alexei Petrenko (Arthur Conan Doyle), Larisa Udovichenko (his wife), and Sergei Bekhterev (his secretary Alfred Wood) in a thirteen-part mini-series "Vospominaniya o Sherloke Kholmse" that aired on Russian public television (ORT) in April. But only eleven episodes were broadcast, because a private company that claims to own the rights to the original series sued, and an arbitration court ruled that the new series was using too much from the old series, and it may be a long time (if ever) before the final two episodes are seen. "Nothing stirred over the vast expanse save a pair of ravens, which croaked loudly from a tor behind us," Dr. Watson wrote (in "The Hound of the Baskervilles"). And you can find a pair of ravens in the design of our new sheet of Pacific Coast Rain Forest stamps. It will be interesting to see just what the impact is on Sherlockian phila- tely (and on philatelic Sherlockians) of the new of P-Stamps (called vanity stamps by some). Personalized stamps were introduced by Australia in 1999: Australia Post printed your own photograph on tabs attached to each stamp in a sheet of Australian stamps. The most recent nations to join the move- ment are Great Britain and Canada; one assumes that it won't be long before we see P-Stamps that honor Sherlock Holmes and other Canonical characters (Canada Post will charge $24.95 for a booklet of 25 standard 46c stamps). May 00 #2 Penelope Fitzgerald died on Apr. 28. She was the daughter and niece of great names in the Sherlockian world: her father was E. V. Knox, who used the pen-name "Evoe" when he edited Punch in the years when it published much Sherlockian material, and one of her uncles was Ron- ald Knox, inventor of the grand game so many Sherlockians play. She wrote a fine biography of THE KNOX BROTHERS in 1977 (her other uncles were Dill- wyn, a classical scholar and a noted code-breaker in both World Wars, and Wilfred, an Anglo-Catholic priest and teacher). That was the year she be- gan her literary career, at the age of 60, and she went on to win England's prestigious Booker Prize in 1979 and the U.S. National Book Critics Circle Award in 1998. Laura Kuhn reports that the latest mail-order catalog from Skeletons in the Closet (1104 North Mission Road, Los Angeles, CA 90033) offers their Sher- lockian skeleton mascot on coffee mugs, buttons, mouse pads, baseball caps, T-shirts, pins, etc. Profits help support the Los Angeles County Coroner's Department's Youthful Drunk Driver Visitation Program. THE OXFORD COMPANION TO CRIME AND MYSTERY WRITING, edited by Rosemary Her- bert (London: Oxford University Press, 1999; 608 pp., L30.00/$50.00), has had excellent reviews, and (of course) does not neglect Sherlock Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle. Congratulations to Daniel Stashower, who has won an Edgar from the Mystery Writers of America (for the best critical/biographical work) and an Agatha from Malice Domestic (for the best non-fiction work) for his biography of Arthur Conan Doyle, TELLER OF TALES. The Edgar is a juried award, and the Agatha is awarded by vote of those attending the convention, and it's rare for an author to win both awards the same year. Malice Domestic XII was great fun, of course, with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as the ghost of honor. There was a session titled "A Study in Sir Arthur" with panelists Carole Nelson Douglas, Roberta Rogow, Walter Satterthwait, and Daniel Stashower (and Peter Blau as moderator), and Dan Stashower and Verena Rose presided over a Sherlockian "In Jeopardy at Malice" contest, and Douglas G. Greene's convention souvenir from Crippen & Landru was a re- print of Conan Doyle's "The Surgeon of Gaster Fell" (from the original per- iodical text) with an afterword by Dan Stashower. Malice Domestic sessions are audiotaped, and you can purchase a copy of "A Study in Sir Arthur" (session 021) from Audio Recording Services (1103 But- terworth Court, Stevensville, MD 21666) ; $11.00 post- paid. Copies of the reprint of "The Surgeon of Gaster Fell" are offered by Crippen & Landru free to those who buy at least one of their other books. One such book might be DIAGNOSIS: IMPOSSIBLE, a collection of stories by Ed Hoch about Dr. Sam Hawthorne (Mar 96 #1); the book has just been reprinted, and one of the stories is "The Problem of the Covered Bridge" (there's an appropriate Sherlockian allusion); $17.25 postpaid. Or THE VELVET TOUCH, a collection of Ed's stories about Nick Velvet (including "The Theft of the Sherlockian Slipper"), due in late June or early July; $40.00 cloth/$16.00 paper. Crippen & Landru's address is Box 9315, Norfolk, VA 23505 (toll- free 877-662-6656) . May 00 #3 Malice Domestic XIII will be held May 4-6, 2001, at the Crystal Gateway Marriott in Arlington, Va.; Margaret Maron will be the guest of honor, and Rex Stout the ghost of honor. If you would like to be on the mailing list, you can write to Malice Domestic (Box 31137, Bethesda, MD 20824); there's a web-site at . A bit nearer on the calendar is Bouchercon 2000 at the Adam's Mark Hotel in Denver (their motto is "High Crimes") on Sept. 7-10, with Elmore Leonard as the guest of honor; Box 17910, Boulder, CO 80308 . Bouchercon 2001 ("A Capital Mystery") will be held in Washington, at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City on Nov. 1-4, 2001, with Sue Grafton as American guest of honor and Peter Lovesey as international guest of honor; Box 11700, Washington, DC 20008 . Reported by Christopher Roden: a new four-DVD set AN EVENING WITH SHERLOCK HOLMES with four Rathbone/Bruce films ("Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Wea- pon", "The Woman in Green", "Terror by Night", and Dressed to Kill"); thea- trical trailers; film production notes; a photo gallery; and the sound-on- film interview with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; plus 15 hours of Rathbone/Bruce "Sherlock Holmes" radio broadcasts. The list price is $69.96. The films are the four that are in the public domain; Les Klinger notes that the DVD versions are not from high-quality masters, but the quality of the inter- view and the radio shows is excellent. The set of four "Great Mouse Detective" mini bean bags (Basil, Dr. Dawson, Olivia, and Ratigan) is back in the Disney catalog, at $24.00 the set (item 20078-560). The Disney Catalog, Box 29144, Shawnee Mission, KS 66201 (800- 237-5751) . The Liberton Bank House saga continues: further to the earlier report (Feb 00 #1) about attempts to save the house where Arthur Conan Doyle lived when he was five to seven years old from being demolished so that McDonald's can build a restaurant on the site, a story in the Edinburgh Evening News (May 4) noted that McDonald's and its partner Pearl Assurance have warned that if their plans are thwarted they will sue for up to L1.7 million -- and if they're given an okay to build the restaurant they may sue for "significant compensation" from the city council for the delay. The story also reports that Pearl bought the property in 1997 for L245,000. The 500-member Japan Society Scotland joined the campaign to preserve the house, which was owned by the Burton family when the Doyles lived there. William K. Burton, who was a childhood friend of Conan Doyle, was invited by the Japanese government to teach sanitary engineering at the Imperial University of Tokyo, and married a Japanese woman and settled in Kyoto, which now is Edinburgh's sister city. And the preservationists have won, no doubt assisted by the fact that Mary Burton, owner of the house in the 1860s, was the first woman governor of what is now Edinburgh's Heriot Watt University, and perhaps in defiant re- action to McDonald's bullying tactics: on May 24, Historic Scotland decided to list the house as a building of special interest that cannot be altered or demolished unless special permission is granted. Allen Simpson, a local resident and historian who led the campaign to save the house, said "this almost certainly means plans to demolish it will be turned down." May 00 #4 Bill Barnes (19 Malvern Avenue, Manly, NSW 2095, Australia) has published THE HOUNDS' COLLECTION: VOLUME 5; the book contains 76 pages of pastiche, poetry, song, and serious writing by members of The Hounds of the Interne. Most of the material is new, but a few items have appeared elsewhere; the cost is $9.00/CA$13.00/$9.00/L5.00/AU$9.00 postpaid by air (payment in currency preferred, but checks are acceptable). David Stuart Davies' play "Sherlock Holmes...The Last Act!" (starring Roger Llewellyn as Holmes) was performed on tour in Britain last year to excell- ent reviews, and for an enthusiastic Sherlockian audience in New York dur- ing the birthday festivities in January, and it will be on tour in eastern Canada in June and July: at the Centaur Theatre (Montreal) on June 4-7; St. Luke's Church Theatre (Ottawa) on June 9-11; The Playhouse (Fredericton) on June 13-14; the Centenary Theatre (Saint John) on June 15-18; the Neptune theatre (Halifax) on June 22-25; the Waterloo Stage Theatre (Waterloo) on June 28-29; the Market Centre (Woodstock) on July 4-5; the Old Factory The- atre (London) on July 6-9; the Von Ayres CC Theatre (Wallaceburg) on July 11-12; Mackenzie Hall (Windsor) on July 14-15, and the Palmerstown Library Theatre (Toronto) on July 19-29. The tour is produced by the Federal Bur- eau of Entertainment (29205 Greening Boulevard, Farmington Hills, MI 48334) ; FBE's proprietor, Joseph S. Ajlouny, would be delighted to hear from a booking agent interested in arranging a tour in the U.S. Further to the report (Jan 00 #1) that sculptor John Doubleday is working on his third statue of Sherlock Holmes, the statue is to be installed in 2002 outside the village of Meiringen, facing the Reichenbach Falls. And in the meantime, Michael Meer reports, there is a limited edition of small statuettes, in solid bronze, 32 cm high on a wooden base; one of them is for sale now, and you can contact Michael at Morgenstrasse 70/1/1, CH-3018 Bern, Switzerland . Jerry Margolin spotted the new comic book STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - EMBRACE THE WOLF (Wildstorm/DC Comics, $5.95); 7910 Ivanhoe Avenue #438, La Jolla, CA 92037. The story brings back Redjac, the villain of the episode "Wolf in the Fold" written by Robert Block in 1967; Data once again appears in Sherlockian costume on the holodeck. In his preface to The Crowborough Edition (1930), Arthur Conan Doyle wrote that "the small book, *The Parasite*, has also a psychic, or at any rate a psychological, interest." The story, first published in 1894, only a year after he joined the Society for Psychical Research, deals with mesmerism and obsession, and there's a new edition with an introduction by Martin Ed- monds, who discusses Conan Doyle's interest in spiritualism and the super- natural. The 69-page booklet is available from Rupert Books (58/59 Stone- field, Bar Hill, Cambridge CB3 8TE, England) ; L13.26 postpaid (to the UK) or $22.82 (to the US) or L13.83 (elsewhere). Checks payable to R. D. Smith, please; credit-card orders welcome. Rupert Books also published A STUDY IN CELLULOID: A PRODUCER'S ACCOUNT OF JEREMY BRETT AS SHERLOCK HOLMES, by Michael Cox (the first producer of the Granada series); Dixon Smith describes it as "the most popular, best-sell- ing, award-winning Sherlockian book" of 1999. 235 pp. and 21 photographs; L19.00 plus shipping from Rupert Books (address above). May 00 #5 Les Klinger reports a facsimile edition of WHITAKER'S ALMANACK 1900, published by Stationery Office Books in London (928 pp., L25.00); in the section about "Landmarks in the History of Whitaker's Alma- nack" the entry for 1914 is: "In THE VALLEY OF FEAR, Sherlock Holmes uses the Almanack to decode a message." WHITAKER'S ALMANACK still is published, by the way; the 2000 edition (1,291 pp.) costs L40.00. David Waxman (Estates of Mind, 217 Shoreward Drive, Great Neck, NY 11021) (516-487-5160) offers a copy of Beeton's Christmas Annual for 1887 (with "A Study in Scarlet"): the text pages only, without wrappers or advertisements, bound together with Bow Bells Annual for 1870 in contemporary cloth. He believes that the book was purchased shortly be- fore or after WWII by an Englishman and has been in the family since, and surfaced last year in England. The asking price is $20,000. Bloomsbury Book Auctions (3 & 4 Hardwick Street, London EC1R 4RY, England) offers 79 lots (#258-336) of Sherlock Holmes material in an auction on June 15, including first editions, first appear- ances in periodicals, and other items. The items are described at the web- site, and the catalog costs L10.00 (UK and Europe) or $21.00 (US/Canada) or L12.00 (elsewhere). Peter Calamai reports that the final mailing for the Second Bimetallic Col- loquium is available; the convention will be held at McGill University in Montreal on June 2-4, and there's a fine assembly of speakers. Additional information is available from The Bimetallic Colloquium (Box 883, Stock Ex- change Tower, Montreal, QC H4Z 1K2, Canada) . The next meeting of The Sub-Librarians Scion will be at 4:30 pm on Sunday, July 9, at the Sheraton Chicago Hotel (Ballroom 9/10) during the annual conference of the American Library Association; the guest speaker will be Philip Jose Farmer, and there's no charge to attend. Additional informa- tion is available from Marsha Pollak (1318 Mildred Avenue, San Jose, CA 95125) . The 18th annual "Autumn in Baker Street" will be held at the Tarrytown Hil- ton in Tarrytown, N.Y., on Oct. 28-29, with an agenda full of Sherlockian doings and undoings. This will be the last event in the series, Bob Thoma- len has announced, and more information is available from Paula Perry (one of the stalwart band assisting Bob with his swan song); her address is 346 East 87th Street #4-A, New York, NY 10128 (212-348-8817) . The U.S. Navy and the U.S. Postal Service are celebrat- ing the 100th anniversary of the submarine service, and a new sheet of stamps includes one showing the USS Holl- and, which was accepted for service on Apr. 11, 1900. It was designed by Joseph P. Holland, who may or may not have been aware of the earlier Bruce-Partington plans. For the electronically-enabled: Stephen Davies has reported to the Gaslight mailing list that mp3lit.com (a web-site with excepts from talking books) offers a chance to hear Basil Rathbone read from Edgar Allan Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum". The URL is . May 00 #6 Richard Lancelyn Green and John Michael Gibson's A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF A. CONAN DOYLE (1983) is an invaluable reference for anyone who collects Arthur Conan Doyle's works; long out-of-print (and seldom seen advertised by used-book dealers, since those who own and use the book tend to keep it). The bibliography is available again in a revised and expanded edition (New York: Hudson House, 2000; 726 pp., $100.00/L65.00); it's a re- print of the first edition, with 14 pages of addenda and corrigenda, and it is nice indeed to see it back in print. It's available from the Mysterious Bookshop (127 West 56th Street, New York, NY 10019) and from Nigel Williams (22 Cecil Court, Charing Cross, London WC2N 4HE, England) ; shipping is additional, and credit- card orders are welcome. The May issue of The Holmes & Watson Report offers Brad Keefauver's consid- eration of the similarities between Sherlockian scholarship and profession- al wrestling and Dave Morrill's return visit to "BrettBash '95", and other reverent and irreverent approaches to the Canon; $16.00 a year for six iss- ues ($22.00 outside North America), from Brad Keefauver, 4009 North Chelsea Place, Peoria, IL 61614. Reported: Dan Kilcup's CHINESE BOX MYSTERIES: SHERLOCK HOLMES offered three pastiches (Jul 96 #3), and there are eight new stories in CHINESE BOX MYS- TERIES: VOLUME TWO (260 pp.), due this month. $16.00 postpaid from Allen Wayne Ltd., 14121 Parke Long Court #104, Chantilly, VA 20151 (703-321-7414) (800-695-8880) ; credit-card orders welcome. "Footprints of the Hound" (celebrating the centenary of the first publica- tion of "The Hounds of the Baskervilles in The Strand Magazine) has been rescheduled, and will be held in Toronto on Oct. 19-21, 2001 (Doug Wrigg- lesworth notes that the International Organization of Chiefs of Police has block-booked all of the decent hotel and meeting rooms in Toronto on the weekend the festival was planned to be held). If you'd like to be on their mailing list, the address is HOUND2001, 18 Jackson Avenue, Etobicoke, ON M8X 2J3, Canada . "Stop being Sherlock Holmes," Israeli president Ezer Weizman told a report- er last month, according to a Reuters dispatch that ran in the Philadelphia Inquirer on Apr. 10 (at hand from Syd Goldberg). Weizman, his reputation damaged by a secret-gifts scandal, had announced plans to resign some time before his term expires in 2003, but would not give a specific date. Scott Monty notes news of a modern "Aurora" rather more grandiose, but no less problem-free, than the one in the Canon: "Lauded Luxury Liner Limps Home" was the headline on an Associated Press dispatch from London that reported that a luxury super-liner christened with great fanfare last month had developed a mechanical problem and headed home, just one day into its maiden voyage. An overheated propellor shaft on the $320 million "Aurora" forced the liner to return to its home port of Southampton, and a two-week Mediterranean cruise for 1,800 passengers was canceled. The ship had been christened by Princess Anne, but the traditional champagne bottle failed to break against the side of the ship, a bad omen to seafarers. The "Aurora" is Britain's largest cruise liner, with five lounges, 12 bars, five restau- rants, a theater, a concert hall and cinema, and three swimming pools. May 00 #7 Sir John Gielgud died on May 21. He made his professional act- ing debut as a walk-on herald in "Henry V" at London's Old Vic in 1921 and appeared in a silent-movie melodrama in 1924, and went on to become a consummate actor and director, winning a Tony as the director of "Big Fish, Little Fish" on Broadway in 1961, and an Oscar as the austere butler Hobson in "Arthur" (1982). He played Sherlock Holmes (with Ralph Richardson as Dr. Watson) in 16 delightful 30-minute radio broadcasts pro- duced by the BBC in 1954, and Lord Salisbury in Christopher Plummer's film "Murder by Decree" (1979). My long-weekend first-time-ever visit to Disney World in Florida was quite enjoyable, with splendid weather, helpful staff, uncrowded theme parks, and lots of interesting things to see, even though a long weekend offered time to visit only two of the parks (Epcot and Disney-MGM Studios). There's not much Sherlockian at Disney World, except for occasional glimpses of Basil and Dr. Dawson in some of the animation shows (Disney Store merchandise is an entirely different set-up, and the mini bean bags aren't sold at Disney World), and the movie memorabilia available at Sid Cahuenga's One of a Kind shop, which offers lobby cards and posters from "The Great Mouse Detective" and (no longer available) a "certificate of alien claiming residence in the United States" signed and dated by Basil Rathbone in 1965. Sid Cahuenga's shop has some serious memorabilia, including movie props and clothes, and books from Marilyn Monroe's library, and prices are serious as well, but other material is quite reasonable. Actually, there is something else Sherlockian at Disney World: "Sherlock Goofy" T-shirts and pins that were given to cast members (employees) who participated in a treasure hunt a while back and now available in a special store that's open only to cast members. And no, you can't sign up as a very-short-term employee. There also was time to visit the Grosvenor Resort, and inspect Moriarty's Pub, and Baskervilles Restaurant, and the recreation of the sitting room at 221b Baker Street furnished by the Werbys (the west-coast version still is in storage and available for rental); if you know of a restaurant or hotel that might want to display it, you should contact Willy Werby at 2700 19th Street, San Francisco, CA 94110 . A spoiler alert: those who have not yet seen the mini-series "Murder Rooms" should skip the rest of this paragraph and go directly to the next page of the newsletter. Still here? Okay: American television viewers did not see exactly the same version of "Murder Rooms" that British viewers saw. For one thing, the mini-series was titled "Murder Rooms: The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes" in Britain, and "Murder Rooms: The Dark Origins of Sher- lock Holmes" in the United States. But that was only a minor difference; more interesting were the closing credits for the second episode, which in Britain offered viewers more information about the villainous Neill: "Dr. Thomas Neill Cream did attend medical school alongside Arthur Conan Doyle. Finally convicted as a serial killer, Neill was hanged at Newgate Prison in 1892. To this day he remains a prime suspect in the case of Jack the Rip- per." In the United States the closing credits did not mention Cream. It is likely that after the program aired in Britain someone pointed out that Cream studied at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons in Edinburgh, not with Conan Doyle at Edinburgh University. May 00 #8 David Spencer Smith's article on "The Dog and the Afghanistan Campaign Medal" in the May issue of the NI Bulletin (at hand from Bob Fritsch) discusses the penny-size medallet available at the Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire, and Wiltshire Regimental Museum in Salisbury, honoring the battle of Maiwand with portraits of Queen Victoria and the rough-haired terrier Bobbie; a display at the museum notes the similarity between the severe injury sustained by Dr. Watson at Maiwand with the in- jury suffered by Surgeon-Major A. F. Preston, as recorded in the official 66th (Berkshire) Regimental History. The magazine is published by Numisma- tics International (Box 670013, Dallas, TX 75367); $2.00. "BBC seeks ratings triumph with Conan Doyle epic combining technology and costume drama," according to The Guardian (May 23), which reported that the BBC aims to repeat the ratings bonanza won by its acclaimed "Walking with Dinosaurs" (which aired on the Discovery channel here). "The Lost World" will be a L5 million project, with filming on location in Australia or New Zealand from January to March, and some scenes shot in London. The adapta-tion will be largely faithful to the book, according to co-producer Jane Tranter (head of drama serials), but a new female character has been intro-duced to spice up the plot. "A load of sweaty men would be a bit dull," she said, adding that the character will be a "plucky lass," and that "love does eventually blossom." The other co-producer, Tim Haines (who was res-ponsible for "Walking with Dinosaurs") said that Conan Doyle's novel, while not a classic, was a "rollicking good story." The BBC's plans call for the program to air as a mini-series with two 75-minute episodes at Christmas in 2001. The next grand gourmet Sherlock Holmes dinner at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., will be held on May 12, 2001, and Al and Julie Rosenblatt and Fritz Sonnenschmidt are again hard at work on plans for the event. The dinner is a year away, and no price has been set, and reserva- tions are not being accepted; if you would like to be on the mailing list for more information (when it's ready), send a self-addressed stamped enve- lope to the Rosenblatts (300 Freedom Road, Pleasant Valley, NY 12569), and they will send a mailing to you some months from now. There may still be rooms available at the historic Beekman Arms in Rhinebeck (800-361-6517); information on other hotels in the vicinity of the CIA will also be avail- able anon. Fritz is the culinary dean at the CIA, and he is featured in the February issue of Chef Educator Today, at hand from Joe Coppola. "When he's not directing the futures of chef-hopefuls, Fritz Sonnenschmidt lives a life of crime," the sub-head to the article notes, and there's a photograph of him with his deerstalker and calabash. If you'd like to see how much fun a past CIA dinner was, copies of Al and Julie's 20-page souvenir menu for "An Evening in Scarlet" on May 16, 1987, handsomely devised, designed, and produced, with many illustrations, anno- tations, and explanations, are still available; $20.00 postpaid (checks to and payable to Peter E. Blau, please). The Spermaceti Press: Peter E. Blau, 3900 Tunlaw Road NW #119, Washington, DC 20007-4830 (telephone: 202-338-1808) Jun 00 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press Katherine McMahon ("Lucy Ferrier") died on Dec. 26, 1999. She was the last survivor of the elite band who earned membership in The Baker Street Irreg- ulars by submitting correct solutions to the Sherlock Holmes Crossword that was devised by Frank V. Morley and published by Christopher Morley in the Saturday Review of Literature on May 19, 1934. Katherine received a Queen Victoria Medal from the BSI in 1990, but it was not until 1991 that she re- ceived her Investiture and Irregular Shilling from John Bennett Shaw at a small gathering in his library in Santa Fe, while the BSI's cocktail party was underway in New York. There's much more about this interesting lady in Caroline Bryan and Morrow Hall's excellent article "The Haunted Bookplate" in the Sept. 1994 issue of The Baker Street Journal. "Sherlock at Saratoga" is this year's renewal of the original Silver Blaze, on Aug. 19 at the Saratoga Race Track ("At the Rail," with a buffet and a nice view of the races), and on Aug. 20 at the Saratoga Sheraton (with a brunch and speakers); more information is available from Lou Lewis, 11 Ray- mond Avenue, Poughkeepsie, NY 12603. Issue #36 of Sherlock Holmes: The Detective Magazine has David Stuart Dav- ies' report on the recent discovery of a videocassette with a conversation between Holmes and Watson about the Abbey National Building Society (appar- ently made in the spring of 1988 with Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke), Nick Connell's report on the Sherlock Holmes correspondence in the Scotland Yard Files at the Public Records Office, an interview with Roy Ward Baker (who directed some of the programs in the 1979 "Sherlock Holmes" television series and the 1984 television film "The Masks of Death"), a note on a new Sherlock's Bistro at the Victoria Hotel in Cottingley; and much more (both S'ian and otherwise). Annual subscriptions (six issues) are L18.00 (U.K.)/ L20.00 (continent)/$40.00 (U.S.); the address is Box 100, Chichester, West Sussex PO18 8HD, England , and their U.S. agent is Classic Specialties (Box 19058, Cincinnati, OH 45219) (toll-free 877-233-3823) . Back issues are available; credit-card orders are welcome at both addresses. The television series "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World" (starring Peter McCauley as Challenger) was launched with a two-hour pilot in 1999, followed by 22 one-hour episodes (including a two-part repeat of the pilot) that runs on DirecTV (a direct broadcast service) and in syndication on lo- cal stations. It's reported to be the #2 rated new syndicated action ser- ies in the United States, and the #1 new adventure series in Germany, and it has been renewed for 22 more one-hour episodes, according to a press re- lease spotted by Dave Morrill. There's a web-site with lots of graphics at . "Sherlock Holmes to Succeed Mrs. Hudson as British Spy Chief" isn't how the headline read, but it could have. Dave Morrill has kindly forwarded a Reu- ters dispatch citing a report in The Mirror (May 18) that Edward Woodward will play "M" in the next James Bond film; Woodward was Holmes in the tele- vision film "Hands of a Murderer" (1990); Judi Dench, who played "M" in the first three films starring Pierce Brosnan as Bond, was Mrs. Hudson in the BBC Radio broadcast of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (1998). Jun 00 #2 "Welcome to the land of G-men (and women), foreign operatives, political consultants, secret tapes, shredded papers, special prosecutors, and interns," according to the invitation to Bouchercon 2001; the convention will be held at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City on Nov. 1-4, 2001, and there are some interesting events planned, including a pre-con- vention Halloween party, FBI and CIA expect panels, guided mystery tours of Washington, and a Nick & Nora Charles Martini Happy Hour, and certainly a lot more than when Bouchercon was last in Washington, at the National Press Club in 1980. The cost of registration is $135 though Sept. 1, 2000 (high- er afterward). Additional details are available from Bouchercon 2001 (Box 11700, Washington, DC 20008) . Cameron Hollyer ("The Three Students") died on June 4, 2000. Cam was a li- rarian in the Literature Department of the Toronto Public Library when he helped organize the first Sherlockian conference ever held, in Dec. 1971, an event that led to the founding of The Bootmakers of Toronto and the Ar- thur Conan Doyle Collection at the Library, and he worked hard on behalf of both those institutions for many years, retiring from his post as curator of the collection in 1991. The Bootmakers honored him in the autumn 1991 issue of Canadian Holmes by publishing his delightful paper "The Curator's Egg" (a fine example of how well he combined humor and scholarship). He received his Investiture from The Baker Street Irregulars in 1978. Paul D. Herbert (734 Alpine Drive, Milford, OH 45150) offers The Tankerville Club's new lapel pin (designed by Jeff Deck- er); $11.00 postpaid. Tracy Cooper-Posey's CHRONICLES OF THE LOST YEARS: A SHER- LOCK HOLMES MYSTERY (Winnipeg: Ravenstone, 1999; 209 pp., $14.95) offers quite a bit of adventure and romance: Holmes is involved with a mysterious and accomplished woman named Elizabeth Sigerson before, during, and after the Great Hia- tus, but there's mystery, too, and the adventures are interesting. Raven- stone is an imprint of Turnstone Press (607-100 Arthur Street, Winnipeg, MN R3B 1H3, Canada) . The SHERLOCK HOLMES READER #3 is now in the shops from Tome Press/Caliber Comics, $3.95), Jerry Margolin notes, with another installment of "The Loch Ness Horror" (story by Martin Powell and artwork by Seppo Makinen) and oth- er Sherlockiana; 225 North Sheldon Road, Plymouth, MI 48170 (888-222-6643) . "Better Holmes and Gardens: Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Archi- tectural Design 'Down Under'" is the title of an exhibition on the fourth floor of the Wilson Library at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis through the first week of August, Tim Johnson reports. It's a collabora- tion by Derham Groves, his students of Architectural Design and Practice at the University of Melbourne, and the Department of Special Collections & Rare Books at the University of Minnesota, and a 28-page illustrated cata- log is available on the Web at and ($10.00 postpaid) from Special Collections, Anderson Library #111, Univer- sity of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455 (checks payable to the University of Minnesota, please). Jun 00 #3 Roberta Rogow's THE PROBLEM OF THE EVIL EDITOR (New York: St. Martin's Minotaur, 2000; 298 pp., $23.95) is her third mystery novel about Charles Dodgson and Arthur Conan Doyle; Dodgson is in London in Feb. 1886 to introduce Conan Doyle to an editor, and they quickly become involved in solving a murder. It's an interesting story, and in the midst of their investigation Dodgson and Conan Doyle get to visit the Cafe Royal in search of Oscar Wilde, who (needless to say) is far more at home there than the two visitors. Dame Barbara Cartland died on May 21. She launched her writing career in 1925, and for decades ruled the romance genre with more than 700 books that sold more than one billion copies. "My heroines are always virgins," she said in 1973. "They never go to bed without a ring on their fingers; not until page 118 at least." She also maintained that a truly sexy man was one who was "fully clothed and preferably in uniform." She often alluded to Sherlock Holmes in her books, and in her author's note in MOON OVER EDEN (1976), set in Ceylon in the 19th century, she wrote that "the success of Ceylon tea after the failure of the coffee was immortalized by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle when he wrote: 'Not often is it that men have the heart, when their one great industry is withered, to rear up in a few years another as rich to take its place, and the tea fields of Ceylon are as true a monument to courage as is the lion at Waterloo.'" Jeff MacNelly died on June 8. He was 24 years old in 1972, when he won the first of his three Pulit- zer prizes for editorial cartoons, and his comic strip "Shoe" runs in more than 1,000 papers. He used Sherlockian icons in his editorial cartoons, including one from July 1992 on the U.N. in Iraq. Sorry about that: Malice Domestic XIII (May 00 #3) will be held May 4-6, 2001, at the Crystal Gateway Marriott in Arlington, Va. Thanks to Donna Gold- thwaite for noting the typo. Jerry Margolin notes that the fifth issue of THE GREAT DETECTIVE: SHERLOCK HOLMES (Avalon Communications, $2.95) is in the comic-book shops, with "The Mystery of the Black Death" (reprinted from the 1954 comic strip written by Edith Meiser and drawn by Frank Giacoia); the magazine address is 2800 Hal- pern, St-Laurent, QC H4S 1R2, Canada. And the comic-book mini-series THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN (from America's Best Comics, with a story by Alan Moore and powerful artwork by Kevin O'Neill) has reached the fifth issue (June 2000, $2.95). Holmes and Moriarty are involved, along with Allan Quatermain, Captain Nemo, and many others; the mini-series will end with the sixth issue, and the address is 7910 Ivanhoe #438, La Jolla, CA 92037 . Mary Erickson reports that she now has a new home: a trailer with "washer, dryer, central air, telephone, and *no* kerosene heater" (there was a kero- sene heater in her previous home, which didn't survive the fire), and four new cats, and that she is grateful to Sherlockian friends for their concern and generosity. Her new address is 212 Zurich Drive, Lynwood, IL 60411. Jun 00 #4 The tenth volume of ACD: The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (May 2000) offers 110 pages of interesting scholarship, including Dana M. Batory's conclusions about the internal dating of "The Lost World", Wladimir V. Bogomoletz's report on Conan Doyle's seven visits to Paris, and Thomas R. Tietze's discussion of Conan Doyle poetry. Member- ship in the society (including two issues of the journal) costs $27.00 a year (CA$33.00/L16.00); credit-card orders are welcome, and the address is Box 1360, Ashcroft, BC V0K 1A0, Canada . The new issue of Scarlet Street (#38) offers David Stuart Davies' review of the television mini-series "Murder Rooms: The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes" (noting that the BBC has commissioned four new episodes, with film- ing on the first one, set in Southsea, to begin this fall), discussion by Richard Scrivani of John Morgan's work on a soon-to-be-released Marco Polo CD with an orchestral recreation of the theme music for "Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror" (1942), and other coverage of the mystery-and-hor- ror genre. Subscriptions to the magazine cost $35.00 a year (six issues); Box 604, Glen Rock, NJ 07452 . The Illustrious Clients of Indianapolis offer their new lapel pin, available in two versions, one for members and the other for non-members; each costs $10.00 postpaid, from Yvonne De Tar (1838 Portage Terrace #C, Indianapolis, IN 46227); please make checks payable to The Illustrious Clients. Membership in the society costs $10.00 (same address), which includes their news- letter and allows you to buy the members-only version. Ben and Sue Vizoskie have noted in the April issue of the Foolscap Document (the newsletter of The Three Garridebs) that Bill Schweickert was once in- terviewed for a newspaper article about Holmes and Watson, and was pleased to find that the article was published without mistakes -- until the last paragraph, which reported there was a plaque in the men's room at Barts to honor the first meeting of Holmes and Watson. The reporter seems to have thought that Bill said that the meeting took place in the lavatory. The Three Garridebs' newsletter is published six times a year for the soci- ety's members; dues are $6.00 a year (Ben Vizoskie, 90 Ralph Avenue, White Plains, NY 10606). Bob Robinson spotted Keith Aitken's article in Scottish Life (summer 2000) on "The Case of the Missing Memorial", in which he suggests that "While Ar- thur Conan Doyle's immortal Sherlock Holmes stories were inspired by Edin- burgh's people and places, the capital city seems intent on wiping out all connections to its native son." Some of Conan Doyle's residences survive, however, in Sciennes Hill Place and Argyle Park Terrace, and at 23 George Square, all dating from the 1870s, in the years after he was sent to stay with Mary Burton at Liberton Bank House (May 00 #3). Box 403, Vandalia, OH 45337; $4.50. Jennie Paton reports a DVD due from Focus Film: SHERLOCK HOLMES COLLECTION with four of the 1940s Rathbone/Bruce films ("The Woman in Green", "Terror by Night", "Dressed to Kill", and "Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon") and the film interview with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (list price $19.99). Jun 00 #5 The June issue of National Geographic has two articles of in- terest: "Jelly Bellies" has a splendid photograph of a lion's mane with a caption quoting Sherlock Holmes that the creature "can be as dangerous to life as, and far more painful than, the bite of the cobra." But: "It's a bad rap," the caption notes, "The sting of a lion's mane jelly hurts but almost never kills--unless you're a copepod." And an article on London is accompanied by a double map supplement of "Britain and Ireland" and "The Heart of Tourist London" that includes the Sherlock Holmes Hotel on Baker Street. Nicholas Clay died on May 5. He began his acting career on screen in 1971, and he played Stapleton in Ian Richardson's "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (1983) and Dr. Percy Trevelyan in Granada's "The Resident Patient" (1985). William Serad's article on "Sherlockian Pipes" in the summer 2000 issue of Pipes & Tobaccos has a list of all the pipes mentioned in the Canon, with illustrations of the first results of his decision to commission his own series of Sherlock Holmes pipes from Mark Tinsky, of the American Smoking Pipe Company. The magazine is published by SpecComm International, 3000 Highwoods Boulevard #300, Raleigh, NC 27604 ; $3.95. Carole Nelson Douglas has reported that her fifth novel about Irene Adler will be published in Nov. 2001, "with that ubiqui- tous consulting detective, I suppose, and some surprise guest villains, vamps, and victims." And in the meantime, her "The Dame's Afoot" silhouette of Irene (with artwork by Carole) is offered on embroidered T-shirts (S/M/L/XL $28.75 2X $31.75 3X $32.75 4X $35.75), golf shirts (S/M/L/XL $33.75 2X $36.75 3X $37.75 4X $40.75), and totebags ($33.75); all prices are post- paid. Checks or money orders only, please, payable to Carole Douglas: Box 331555, Fort Worth, TX 76163 . John Hillen spotted an announcement from the UCLA Film and Television Ar- chive for its Tenth Festival of Preservation (July 28-Aug. 26). "Sherlock Holmes Faces Death" (1943) and "The House of Fear" (1945) will be screened at 7:00 pm on Aug. 13 (Hugh Hefner provided funds for restoring the Univer- sal "Sherlock Holmes" films). Details on the festival are available from Nancy Reed (310-206-8588) . Otto Penzler (The Mysterious Bookshop, 129 West 56th Street, New York, NY 10019) (800-352-2840) publishes an interesting series of pastiches and parodies, some are reprints and some originals, and almost all first separate publications; $10.00 each (with shipping extra, and there's a 10% discount for standing orders). The list so far: SHADY SINNERS OF THE STYX (Lawrence Daniel Fogg); THE MYSTERY OF PINKHAM'S DIA- MOND STUD (John Kendrick Bangs); THE SLEUTHS (O. Henry); THE ADVENTURE OF THE CIPHER IN THE SAND (Ed Hoch); A PRAGMATIC ENIGMA (John Kendrick Bangs); THE ADVENTURE OF THE DIAMOND NECKLACE (George F. Forrest); MURDER IN STUDIO 221B (Ron Goulart); SHERLOCK HOLMES AGAIN (John Kendrick Bangs); SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE MYSTERIOUS CARD (Joel Lima); ME, OR THE STRANGE EPISODE OF THE REINCARNATED GREEK (E. V. Knox); THE ADVENTURE OF THE WOODEN BOX (Les- lie Klinger); ANATOMY OF TWO MURDERS (Murray Shaw), HERLOCK SHOMES AT IT AGAIN (anonymous); and THE MARRIAGE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (Gregory Breitman). Jun 00 #6 The Virginia Romance Writers' next "Step Back in Time" confer- ence on romance, history, and crime is scheduled for Mar. 23- 25, 2001, in Williamsburg, and it will include a workshop on criminology; if you'd like to be on their mailing list, you should send a self-addressed stamped envelope to Virginia Romance Writers, 13 Woodlawn Terrace, Freder- icksburg, VA 22405 . Sorry about that: the Baker Street Irregulars (Shameless Commerce Division) merchandise (Apr 00 #4) is available from George J. McCormack, but his best address is at Cusack & Stiles, 61 Broadway #2912, New York, NY 10006. Ray Betzner spotted the announcement on America Online News: "Chapters On- line Extends Digital Delivery Strategy with Addition of New eBook Titles at Chapters.ca" (May 29). The electronically-enabled can now go to a web-site at and download a long list of electronic books (including THE MEMOIRS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES) using the free Glassware Reader software also available at the web-site. Customers can also pay for and download more recent titles; the company reported that in March more than 10,000 people downloaded Stephen King's eBook RIDING THE BULLET in the first 48 hours after its release. "The Rock says, call Sherlock Holmes! Call Magnum P.I.! Call Scooby-Doo himself!" The Rock is World Wrestling Federation superstar Rocky Maivia, on "WWF Smackdown" on UPN-TV on June 15, as reported by Brad Keefauver. The House of Ascot (4450 Arapahoe Avenue #100, Boulder, CO 80303) (800-717-3105) has an interesting catalog of Brit- ish collectibles, including a Lakeland Studios oval wall plaque (8 x 6 in.) showing the sitt- ing room ($39.95) and Hazle Ceramics' Sherlock Holmes Museum house-front ($74.95) and minia- ture teapot ($24.95); shipping is extra, cred- it-card orders are welcome, and there's a 10% discount in July if you quote "CR07". The 90-minute laserdisc of "The Lost World" (1925) released by LumiVision (Apr 92 #4) is now available on DVD from Slingshot Entertainment (with a trailer, a promotional short, and a demonstration of the stop-motion spec- ial effects devised by Willis O'Brien), priced at $19.99. Check your local shops, or their web-site at . Dennis France died on June 20. He was an attorney, and an energetic member and officer of many of the Chicago-area societes, including The Criterion Bar Association and The Scotland Yarders, and The STUD Sherlockian Society. Pat Ward has reported that "Bloomington by Gaslight: Sherlock Holmes in the Lilly Library" is now on display in the library's main gallery at Indiana University in Bloomington, through Sept. 19. The exhibit includes a copy of Beeton's Christmas Annual for 1887, the manuscript of "The Red Circle", a manuscript page with the first three sentences of the note Holmes left for Watson at the Reichenbach, and Darryl F. Zanuck's personal copy of the script for Rathbone's "The Hound of the Baskervilles" Jun 00 #7 This year's Christmas card from The Sherlock Holmes Society of London will have another attractive watercolor by Douglas West, showing Holmes and Watson looking out across the Thames, captioned "There is a boatman here with a wherry, Watson. We shall take it and cross the river." $13.00 postpaid for ten cards (L5.50 to the U.K., L6.00 to Europe, L7.00 elsewhere); checks payable to the Society, please, and orders can be sent to Cdr. G. S. Stavert, 22 Homeheights House, Clarence Parade, South- sea, Hants. PO5 3NN, England. Note: you can order now, but the cards will not be shipped until September. The latest issue of Reichenbach Cliff-Notes, edited by Kendall Pagan and published occasionally by The Reichenbach Cliff-Divers, offers four pages of skewed Sherlockiana, including a report on S'ian lapel-pin piercings. A few copies are still available from the Punctuality Press (4010 Devon Lane, Peoria, IL 61614) in return for a #10 self-addressed stamped envelope. A three-hour special "AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs" (broadcast by CBS-TV on June 13, 2000) honored the 100 funniest American films, chosen by a jury of 1,800 film-industry leaders for the American Film Institute. Buster Keat- on's "Sherlock Jr." (1924) was #62 on the list. Is it possible that none of the Sherlockians who watch the show are willing to admit they watch "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" on ABC-TV? A non-Sher- lockian has reported that on June 11 one of the early questions asked which street Sherlock lived on. "Baker Street" was one of the answers, and the contestant got it right, adding, "it was at 21 Baker Street." Uno Studio in Holmes (the Sherlockian society in Italy) has arranged for a symposium in Milan on Sept. 9-11 and in Sesto Fiorentino (near Florence) on Sept. 15-17; there will be exhibits, papers, films, games, excursions, and a concert, and additional details are available from Gianluca Salvatori, cp 14, 55042 Forte dei marmi (LU), Italy . BLOODLINE (New York: St. Martin's Paperbacks, 2000; 316 pp., $6.50) is Jill Jones' seventh romance novel, and she combines the romance and mystery gen- res in an investigation of a modern serial killer whose murders start at a Sherlockian "The Unsolved Case of Jack the Ripper--Where Was Sherlock When We Needed Him?" conference in London. The hero's a Scotland Yard inspector and the heroine an FBI agent, there