Jan 06 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press Travelers from afar found clear skies and pleasant temperatures when they arrived in New York for the birthday festivities (but winter had returned by the time people left on Sunday). The ASH Wednesday supper was held at O'Casey's, the Christopher Morley Walk was led by Jim Cox on Thursday morn- ing (with lunch at McSorley's, where Chuck Kovacic presented the restaurant with a color portrait of Morley). This year's Baker Street Irregulars Dis- tinguished Speaker at the Williams Club on Thursday evening was Leroy Lad Panek, who talked about the impact of Sherlock Holmes on Early American De- tective Fiction. The William Gillette Luncheon attracted a sizeable crowd on Friday at Mor- an's Chelsea Seafood Restaurant, where Curtis Armstrong introduced Denis, Adrian, and Dame Jean Conan Doyle (impersonated by Paul Singleton, Andrew Joffe, and Sarah Montague); Charles Foley (grandson of Sir Arthur's sister) congratulated them, but only after saying that "my lawyer will be contact- ing you." Chuck Kovacic presented Moran's with a color portrait of William Gillette. And the traditional open house at Otto Penzler's relocated Mys- terious Bookshop offered the usual opportunities to browse, The Beacon Society held its annual meeting in the Algonquin lobby on Friday afternoon; the group's mission is to encourage and recognize programs that introduce young people to Holmes, and the winners of this year's award were Lynn Beaulieu and Kim Bartolo, teachers in upstate New York, who were hon- ored for their long-standing work introducing fifth-graders to the Canon. The Irregulars and their guests gathered for the BSI's annual dinner at the Union League Club, where Peter Blau delivered the cocktail-party toast to *the* Woman: Norma Hyder (who went on to dine at the Club with other ladies who have been honored in past years). The agenda of the annual dinner in- cluded the usual toasts and traditions;ypresentations by David Musto and Terry Belanger and Lloyd Rose; Tyke and Teddie Niver in a music-hall per- formance; and a tribute to an era of old Irregulars (the 1950s) by Art Le- vine (Art and two other Irregulars at the dinner received their Shillings in the 1950s). Mike Whelan (the BSI's "Wiggins") announced the Birthday Honours, and Ir- Irregular Shillings and Investitures were presented to Richard Olken ("Bob Carruthers"), Regina Stinson ("A Little Ribston Pippin"), Curtis Armstrong ("An Actor and a Rare One"), Paul Churchill ("Corot"), Jerry Kegley ("Nath- an Garrideb"), Trevor Raymond ("Horace Harker"), and Jennie Paton ("Laura Lyons"). The Baskerville Bash, held at the Manhattan Club, featured the "Sherl-Oscar Awards" presented by the Academy of Sherlockian Arts and Sciences; categor- ies for the awards were "Least Fearsome Hound of the Baskervilles", "Most Shameless Display of Overacting in a Sher-lockian Film", "Best Portrayal of Holmes and Watson in an Alternative Lifestyle", "Best Drug-Induced Halluci- nation in a Sherlockian Movie", "Best Tribute to Arthur Conan Doyle's Ob- session with the Spirit World", "Worst Disguise Featured in a Sherlockian Film", and "Best Choreography in a Sherlockian Film". And miniature Oscars were awarded to those at the table that won the evening's quiz. Jan 06 #2 On Saturday morning the dealers room at the Algonquin was (as usual) crowded with sellers and buyers, and at 12:30 The Cli- ents of Adrian Mulliner (devotees of the works of both Wodehouse and Wat- son) gathered for their Junior Bloodstain, which featured a discussion of pig-stealing (methodology, not morality), and a reading of Marilyn MacGreg- or's dramatization of Robert L. Fish's "The Return of Schlock Homes". The BSI's Saturday-afternoon cocktail party attracted a goodly crowd to 24 Fifth Avenue, where Mary Ann Bradley introduced the ladies who have been honored as *the* Woman over the years, and Al and Betsy Rosenblatt reported in verse on the events of the previous year and the previous evening. The new winner of the Morley-Montgomery Award (an attractive certificate and a check for $500) for the best contribution to The Baker Street Journal last year was Catherine Cooke, for her article on "Mrs. Hudson: A Legend in Her Own Lodging House". And the John H. Watson Fund benefited from the raffle prize, kindly donated by Jerry and Chrys Kegley and The Curious Collectors of Baker Street: Maggie Schpak's replica of the snuffbox of old gold, with a great amethyst in the center of the lid, presented to Sherlock Holmes by the King of Bohemia, and from energetic bidding in the traditional auction. The Watson Fund (administered by a carefully anonymous Dr. Watson) offers financial assistance to all Sherlockians (membership in the BSI is not re- quired) who might otherwise not be able to participate in the birthday fes- tivities. The generous donors to the auction were Joanne Zahorsky-Reeves (a custom-made Inverness cloak with a matching teddy bear); Ron White and The Scowrers and Molly Maguires and The Persian Slipper Club (Ron's framed color photograph of Willy Werby's reproduction of the sitting-room formerly on view in San Francisco), and Paul Smedegaard (a complete set of the six medals issued for the excursions of The Sherlock Holmes Society of London). And on Sunday a convivial group of visiting long-weekenders were on hand at the Oldcastle Pub & Restaurant for a brunch arranged by the Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes. I've not reported on everything, I hasten to add; if you want more details than I've provided here, there will be much more in The Baker Street Jour- nal, which is published quarterly and costs $24.95 a year ($27.50 outside the U.S.), and checks (credit-card payments accepted from foreign subscrib- ers) should be sent to the BSJ (Box 465, Hanover, PA 17331); and there's an option offering a subscription to the BSJ and to the Christmas Annual for $34.95 (or $38.50 foreign). You can also subscribe at the BSJ web-site at , where there's additional interesting materi- al, such as issues of The Lamp-Post (the BSJ's occasional newsletter), some of the papers that have won Morley-Montgomery Awards for their authors, and news of various BSI publications. The Baker Street Irregulars are planning a sequel to the excursion into the Valley of Fear (Oct 04 #6); the next one (open to all) will be to Salt Lake City, Aug. 29 through Sept. 1, 2008; Salt Lake City was an important venue for part of the first published Sherlock Holmes story, of course, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle visited in 1923 (there's still much to see now that he saw then). Additional details are not yet available, but the contact for the mailing list is Gideon Hill (215-887-8110) . Jan 06 #3 Francine Kitts spotted something worth watching for when there is a repeat of the episode "Hunting" (Nov. 22, 2005) of the TV series "House" (on the Fox network): Dr. Gregory House, played by Hugh Lau- rie, is seen leaving his home, which has the address 221B. According to TV Guide (Dec. 26), series creator David Shore explained that when they built the set, he said "Let's put Sherlock Holmes' address on it." Shore has of- ten acknowledged that he modeled House after Holmes. Allen Mackler ("Sarasate") died on Dec. 29. His enthusiasms included cats, classical music, pigs, fine cuisine (he reported often in Baker Street Mis- cellanea on the grand gourmet Sherlockian dinners at the Culinary Institute of America), and the thoroughly Sherlockian room in his home, and he was an energetic member of Sherlockian societies in Chicago, Washington, and Minn- eapolis. He became a member of the Baker Street Irregulars in 1990. The December issue of the quarterly newsletter of The Friends of the Sher- lock Holmes Collections at the University of Minnesota has Julie McKuras' "100 Years Ago" discussion of the poet Harry Graham, a "50 Years Ago" re- port on The Five Orange Pips and their first anthology of Canonical schol- arship, and news from and about the Collections; copies of the newsletter are available on request from Richard J. Sveum, (111 Elmer L. Andersen Li- brary, Univ. of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455) . "Smoking Ban Will Leave Theatre World Fuming" was the headline on a story by Mark Fisher in Scotland on Sunday (Jan. 8) about the ban on smoking that will come into force on Mar. 26, when "actors in film, television, and the- atre will be forbidden, like the rest of us, from smoking in enclosed pub- lic spaces." Other countries allow the use of herbal cigarettes by actors. Pattie Tierney has added to her collection of Sherlockian jewelry (Sep 05 #3): the new items are four domino necklaces with photo transfers of por- traits of Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, and Jeremy Brett; $25.00 each plus shipping, and you can request an illustrated flier from Pattie (229 Here- ford Avenue, St. Louis, MO 63135 . For the "I hear of Sherlock everywhere" department: Peter Ashman reports that in Truman Capote's IN COLD BLOOD (1965), the elderly mail messenger of Holcomb, Kansas, recalls: "Time was wasn't anybody here wasn't my kin. Them days, we called this place Sherlock." And yes, there was a Sherlock, Kan- sas; according to the Finney county library, the Santa Fe railroad changed the name of its station from Sherlock to Holcomb in 1907. The Sherlockians in Kansas might consider erecting a commemorative plaque there some day. "Quick, Dogson," cried Whippet, "the game is afoot!" That's Sherlock Whip- pet and Dr. Dogson, in John Semper Jr.'s THE SINGULAR AFFAIR OF THE MISSING BALL: A SHERLOCK WHIPPET MYSTERY (Toluca Lake: Barker Street Press, 2005; 70 pp., $24.95); it's an imaginatively illustrated parody, "for children of all ages," and offers a sample of the artwork and a link for purchasers. The book also can be ordered through bookstores, or from the publisher (10153.5 Riverside Drive, Toluca Lake, CA 91802); checks or money orders, please. Semper has a long list of credits as a television writer and producer, from "Smurfs (1981) to "Jay Jay the Jet Plane" (2005), and he reports that a sequel, BAST OF THE HOUNDERVILLES, is due soon. Jan 06 #4 Admirers of Bert Coules' BBC Radio 4 series "The Further Adven- tures of Sherlock Holmes" (starring Clive Merrison and Andrew Sachs in programs based on the unrecorded cases) will welcome the news that the BBC has commissioned Bert to write a third five-program series, to be recorded later this year (the first two series aired in 2002 and 2004). Tina Rhea has noted the 101st annual quiz from King William's College, in The Guardian (Dec. 23) and (one hopes) still available at the paper's web- site . It's a delight- ful example of something typically British that one seldom sees here, and Section 17 will be of particular interest to Sherlockians. Phil Attwell notes that the "Complete Sherlock Holmes Box Set" (Nov 04 #2) with the entire Canon broadcast by BBC Radio 4, starring Clive Merrison as Holmes and Michael Williams as Watson (48 hours on 64 CDs), together with a book written by Bert Coules (who dramatized many of the programs), has been discounted to L115 at the BBC Shop (P.O. Box 308, Sittingbourne, Kent ME9 8LW, England) . Gordon Lee died on Oct. 16. Credited as Eugene Lee, he starred as Spanky McFarland's chubby little brother Porky in more than 40 "Our Gang" films in the 1930s; two of the films were "Rushin' Ballet" in 1937 (in which he wore a deerstalker) and "Hide and Shriek" in 1938 (in which the kids played de- tective) Lee told friends that when a growth spurt made him thinner, he was replaced (his replacement was Robert Blake). Julian Barnes' ARTHUR & GEORGE (Sep 05 #5) now has an American edition (New York: Knopf, 2006, 390 pp., $24.95), and his book has been widely and well reviewed. He is on tour in the United States, through Feb. 13 (at least), and you can check his schedule at . And Laura Kuhn reports that ARTHUR & GEORGE is one of the two "main selec- tions" from the Book-of-the-Month Club for February. Forecast: THE SCIENCE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, by E. J. Wagner, from John Wiley & Sons in March (256 pp., $24.95); "from Baskerville Hall to the Valley of Fear, the real forensics behind the great detective's greatest cases." Andy Peck notes a Mystery Guild "editor's choice" edition of Les Klinger's THE NEW ANNOTATED SHERLOCK HOLMES (the first two volumes) in paper covers ($39.95); it's likely the same edition offered earlier by the Quality Pap- erback Book Club (Oct 05 #2). The Mystery Guild also offers Steve Hocken- smith's HOLMES ON THE RANGE and Laurie R. King's LOCKED ROOMS. The winter issue of The Magic Door (the newsletter published by The Friends of the Arthur Conan Doyle Collection at the Toronto Reference Library) off- ers Doug Wrigglesworth's discussion of Conan Doyle's poem "On the Athabaska Trail" (the collection has acquired his notebook with an early draft of the poem), a reminiscence by Peter Wood, a report on the collection by curator Peggy Perdue, and other news. Copies of the newsletter are available from Doug Wrigglesworth (16 Sunset Street, Holland Landing, ON L9N 1H4, Canada) . The next Cameron Hollyer Lecturer will be Glen Miranker, who will speak at the library on Apr. 1, with a meeting of The Bootmakers of Toronto following. Jan 06 #5 THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES, valued at L80,000, came in sec- ond in a recent poll of the most valuable works of fiction in the 20th century, according to an article in the January issue of Book and Magazine Collector that ranks first editions in very good condition. James Joyce's ULYSSES led the list (L100,000), and T. E. Lawrence's SEVEN PILLARS OF WISDOM was third (L60,000); only first editions in dust jackets were in- cluded in the survey, and a list of the top 100 books was published in The Guardian (Jan. 19). A copy of the first edition of THE HOUND OF THE BASK- ERVILLES in dust jacket was auctioned at L72,000 (plus 15% buyer's premium) in July 1998, and a copy in splendid condition but without dust jacket sold for L5,000 (plus the premium) in December 1998. Cyril Wecht, whose book MORTAL EVIDENCE quoted the Canon (Jan 05 #6), has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges he misused his public off- ice for private gain; the 84-count indictment includes charges that the Al- legheny County Coroner traded unclaimed bodies stored by the coroner's off- ice to Carlow University in Pittsburgh in exchange for use of a laboratory there for his private practice. Gideon Hill has spotted a polyester Sherlock Holmes apron (item T24426) offered ($18.50) by Linefeed (Gatterburggasse 15, A-1190 Vien- na, Austria) . Many of us have fond memories of the musical "Baker Street" (1964), which starred Fritz Weaver, Inga Swenson, and Martin Gabel; the original-cast LP has long been out of print, but Decca has issued a new CD ($14.98). Laura Kuhn spotted a press release announc- cing plans for "CBS's Secret Saturday Morn- ing Slumber Party" (three hours of FCC-com- pliant children's programming) scheduled for this fall; one of the older series to run in the period will be the animated "Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century" (Aug 99 #4). Guy Deel died on Dec. 13. Best-known for his cover art for western novels, he had more than 250 covers to his credit, as well as a 130-foot mural at the Gene Autry Museum of Western Heritage in Los Angeles. He also painted covers for the eight-volume set of Sherlock Holmes paperbacks published by Berkley in 1977, and the Berkley paperback editions of John Gardner's "Mor- iarty" novels, and he illustrated the Reader's Digest edition of GREAT CAS- ES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (1966). If you enjoyed Neil Gaiman's story "A Study in Emerald" in SHADOWS OVER BA- KER STREET (Jan 05 #3), it's available as a signed print ($40.00) and as a poster ($10.00) at his official on-line store at . Or you can wait for the new version of the web-site to launch in February with the story in PDF format that can be downloaded free. Neil was in New York for the birthday festivities, and to make some recordings for Harper Audio, and "A Study in Emerald" will be issued on a CD later this year. Jan 06 #6 How many members of The Baker Street Irregulars have had songs named for them? Just one (known so far, at least): "The H.C. Potter's Ball" (recorded in 1946 by Johnnie Mercer with Freddie Slack and his Orchestra) released last year by Mosaic Records in a 3-CD set "Mosaic Select: Freddie Slack" (MS-018; $39.00). Jon Lellenberg heard it played on WAMU-FM's "Hot Jazz Saturday Night" on Jan. 21; host Rob Bamberger talked about Potter's career as a movie director. Potter was "The Final Problem" in the BSI (1971), and he is the only member of the BSI to have a star on Hollywood Boulevard. Details are now available for the next annual STUD-Watsonian Weekend in and near Chicago on Mar. 31-Apr. 2; there will be a dinner (with Les Klinger as featured speaker), a running of The Silver Blaze at Hawthorne Race Course, and a Fortescue Honours brunch. You can ask Susan Diamond, 16W603 3rd Ave- nue, Bensenville, IL 60106 for a registration form. The Mystery Writers of America have announced their nominations for Edgar awards, including Les Klinger (best critical-biographical) for THE NEW AN- NOTATED SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE NOVELS; The winners will be announced at the MWA awards dinner in New York on Apr. 27. History Magazine offers a "Private Investigation" section; their December/ January issue has Phill Jones' four-page article on the "Pinkerton Detec- tive Agency" (with a sidebar on "Sherlock Holmes and the Pinkertons"), and the February/March issue his one-page article on "William J. Burns". Back issues can be ordered at their web-site (US$5.55 or CA$6.65); and you subscribe for a year for US$24.00/CA$28.00. Al Gregory offers (e-mail only) his 2006 edition of "The ABC of the BSI" (an alphabetical listing of Investitures, with recipients, from "Abbey Grange" to "Young Stamford") and "The Florin Society" (couples in which both spouses have received Irregular Shillings). Domestic postage rates went up in January, and so has the cost of my news- letter, to $10.25 a year (as in the past, for six or more pages a month of whatever gossip I find appropriate, most of it quite trivial, but much of it Sherlockian or Doylean). The new cost to Canada is $13.15, and overseas it's $15.65. Thanks to Willis G. Frick, the text (without illustrations) is available at . And a few commercials: a 16-page list of the Investitured Irregulars, the Two-Shilling Awards, *the* Women, and the Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes costs $1.30 postpaid. An 82-page list of 841 Sherlockian societies, with names and addresses for contacts for 435 active societies, is $4.85 post- paid. A run of address labels for 357 individual contacts (recommended to avoid duplicate mailings to those who are contacts for more than one soci- ety) costs $10.65 postpaid (checks payable to Peter E. Blau, please). The list of BSIs and others also is available from me by e-mail (at no charge), and both lists are available at Willis G. Frick's "Sherlocktron" home page at . The Spermaceti Press: Peter E. Blau, 7103 Endicott Court, Bethesda, MD 20817-4401 (301-229-5669) Feb 06 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press Bob Verrey died on Jan. 31. He was an energetic member of The Red Circle of Washington and an enthusiastic performer with The Red Circle Players in various roles in the serial "Upstairs, Downstairs, All Around the Holmes" in the 1970s; he also played Sherlock Holmes in "The Certain and Answerable Story of Irene Adler" for the Adventuress of Sherlock Holmes in New York in 1979, and Billy in "The Painful Predicament of Sherlock Holmes" at Boucher- con in 1980. Sorry about that: The Baker Street Journal has increased the price of sub- scriptions, now $25.95 a year ($28.50 outside the U.S.), or $35.95/$39.50 for the four issues plus the Christmas Annual; credit-card payment can be made only via PayPal at the BSJ web-site . Skeletons in the Closet still offer their Sherlock Mugs and other interest- ing merchandise (their profits help to support the Los Angeles County Coro- ner's Department's Youthful Drunk Driver Visitation Program); their address is 1104 North Mission Road, Los Angeles, CA 90033 . This isn't really a trivia question, because I don't know the answer: many people believe that the folks who made the Reginald Owen film "A Study in Scarlet" stole the plot device from Agatha Christie's book, but in fact it was the other way round (the film was released in 1932, while the book was published in 1939). And the question is: was the plot device original when the film was made, and if not, who came earlier, and when and where? Yes, I've not described the plot device, and I'm not going to, because I'm sure there are people out there who don't know what it is, and I'm not go- ing to spoil the fun. The book was published at TEN LITTLE N****RS, then as TEN LITTLE INDIANS, and now as AND THEN THERE WERE NONE. Dave Morrill spotted the report that after 145 years Western Union has gone out of the telegram business; effective Jan. 27 they discontinued all Tele- gram and Commercial Messaging services. Of course they discontinued sing- ing telegrams many years ago, and then stopped having their agents hand-de- liver telegrams. According to one article, there were 20 million messages sent in 1929, and 20,000 in 2005. The headline on the story in the Wash- ington Post was "WE REGRET TO INFORM YOU THAT THE TELEGRAM HAS DIED STOP IT IS SURVIVED BY EMAIL CELL PHONE AND THE INTERNET STOP". And yes, it's quite true that it was the post office that handled telegrams in the U.K. in Sherlockian times, but Holmes did send a telegram to Cleve- land in "A Study in Scarlet"; it's likely that Western Union was involved at the American end, and in the reply. The company hasn't gone out of bus- iness; according to news reports their revenue last year from money trans- fers rose 14 percent to $3.8 billion. The Company of Animals (Ruxbury Farm, St. Ann's Hill Road, Chertsey, Surrey KT16 9NL, England advertises a wide variety of products, including (in the "not all dogs are angels!" department), their Baskerville muzzle, available in 14 sizes and "suitable for most breeds." Thanks to Phil Attwell for reporting on his discovery. Feb 06 #2 Further to the item about Western Union going out of the tele- gram business, Sam Roberts' story in the N.Y. Times (Feb. 12) quotes from Linda Rosenkrantz's TELEGRAM! (2003) with a sampler of "famous, infamous, and apocryphal dispatches"; one of them is "Both Mark Twain and Arthur Conan Doyle supposedly sent similar telegrams to a dozen prominent men, all of whom packed up and left town immediately. FLEE AT ONCE--ALL IS DISCOVERED." The story's widely told, about both authors, but it's always unsourced, and it's not to be found on the CD "The Works of Sir Arthur Co- nan Doyle"; can anyone provide a source for the quote? The Royal Mail honored the 50th anniversary of the In- dependent Television Authority last year with a set of postage stamps featuring six "Classic ITV" series; "The Avengers" included "The Curious Case of the Countless Clues" (1968) with Peter Jones as Sir Arthur Doyle, and "The South Bank Show" had "The Underground of the Imag- ination" (1987) with a segment showing Bernard Davies leading members of the Sherlock Holmes Society of Lon- don on a "Bruce-Partington Plans" tour. , maintained by Ron Fish and Ben and Sue Vizoskie, is an excellent list of upcoming Sherlockian events at; if you would like to have something listed, Ron is at . Scott Tate spotted a report about A STUDY IN SCANDAL, by Robyn DeHart (New York: Avon Books, 2006; 368 pp., $5.99); it's a romance novel, and the Pub- lishers Weekly review noted: "Enthralled by the fictional Sherlock Holmes, Victorian aristocrat Lady Amelia Watersfield has recruited three reluctant friends to form the Ladies' Amateur Sleuth Society." The author has a web- site at www.robyndehart.com, and according to the Romantic Times Book Club magazine (Mar.), there are to be four books in the series; the second one, tentatively title DELICIOUSLY WICKED, is due in October. Gary Lovisi's "The Adventure of the Missing Detective" (in SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE HIDDEN YEARS), nominated for an Edgar from the Mystery Writers of Amer- ica last year, is reprinted in THE ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING DETECTIVE: AND 25 OF THE YEAR'S FINEST CRIME AND MYSTERY STORIES!, edited by Ed Gorman and Martin H. Greenberg (New York: Carroll & Graf, 2005; 336 pp., $15.95) John Woodnutt died on Jan. 3. He began his acting career on stage in 1942 and went on to become a prolific character actor on British screen, radio, and television; he played a station master in "The Bruce-Partington Plans" and a pawnbroker in "The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax" on televis- ion in the 1965 Douglas Wilmer series, Mr. Merryweather in the Granada ver- sion of "The Red-Headed League" (1985), and Arthur Frankland in "The Hound of the Baskervilles" on BBC Radio 4 in 1998. Megan Kean spotted an announcement that New Line Television will bring "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World" back into syndication this fall; there were 52 episodes in the series, which ran from 1999 to 2002 and used Conan Doyle's title but not much else from the book. Jennifer O'Dell, the skimp- ily-dressed local girl was Babe of the Month in Playboy (Sept. 2002). Feb 06 #3 "Return of the Black Bullet Elementary to Holmes Clan" was the headline on a story in a New Zealand newspaper (Feb. 4), noted by Karen Murdock. A man named Sherlock Holmes (also known as Shock) built and raced the midget speedway car at the Waiwhakaiho Speedway in 1955, and two Taranaki men found the car in Australia and have brought it home. Mr. Holmes died in 1996. survived by his wife Margaret, his daughters Judy and Pauline, and a son Sherlock (who lives in Australia). David L. Hammer describes A TALENT FOR MURDER as his first book, written in 1958 and published (almost posthumously) in 2000; it's a mystery, dedicated to citizens of Dunleith (a "pleasant little Iowa river town" that resembles Dubuque in many ways), where three murders are committed, and solved (by a young lawyer who might think resembles the author), and there's an admirer of the Sherlock Holmes tales involved in the story. 120 pp., $15.00 (plus shipping) from George A. Vanderburgh (Box 204, Shelburne, ON L0N 1S0, Can- ada) . Among the nice things about looking through single issues of The Strand Magazine are the occasional surprises: in the Aug. 1943 issue they had "Away from It All" photographs of four "men of fame caught in moments of war- time relaxation," one of them with the cap- tion "Leslie Howard, actor and film produc- er, takes to clarinet-playing, accompanied by his son." His son was Ronald Howard, who was Sherlock Holmes in the 1954 television series. Thanks to Ted Schulz for tracking down the issue. If you want to see what people are buying, you can consult the list of "top sellers" at and the best-seller lists in the N.Y. Times and the Los Angeles Times and other newspaper, but if you want to know what people are reading, you can check the "top 100 books and authors" at Project Gut- enberg , where they list the top 100 eBooks and authors downloaded yesterday, last 7 days, and last 30 days. Conan Doyle ranks second (behind Mark Twain and ahead of William Shakespeare in all of the three author lists. The Silver Blaze, conceived by Thomas L. Stix, Sr., was run for the first time at Jamaica Race Course on Long Island in 1952; it was revived by The Baker Street Irregulars at historic Saratoga Race Track in upstate New York in 2000, and the next running of the race at Saratoga will be on July 29. It will be a weekend event, with lunch at the track on July 29, and brunch and a program on July 30, all for $115 and with a maximum of 60 people; you can send your checks (made payable to The Baker Street Irregulars, please) to (and obtain more information from) Lou Lewis (2 Lookerman Avenue, Pough- keepsie, NY 12603) , and you can visit the web-site for the race at . And there's a special rate available for rooms at the Johnstown Holiday Inn. Feb 06 #4 John Baesch spotted the letter to the Daily Telegraph (Jan. 29) written by Robert Epps, former chief police officer at the Bow Street Police Office (as it was originally called), lamenting "the neglect and contempt of this Government and the Mayor of London, who appear to be about to sell off the old Bow Street Police Station." Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson visited the Bow Street station at least once (in "The Man with the Twisted Lip"). Yuichi Hirayama maintains an interesting "blog" about "Sherlockiana in Jap- an" (with content in English) at , and it's helpful to know that you can buy Japanese books on-line at (there's an "in English" link at the upper right of the opening screen). Karen Murdock reported a library-catalog record for BLEAK HOUSES: MARITAL VIOLENCE IN VICTORIAN FICTION, by Lisa Surridge, (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2005; 272 pp., $55.00 cloth, $24.95 paper); the author surveys fact and fiction (from Dickens through Conan Doyle), with a final chapter "Are Women Protected? Sherlock Holmes and the Violent Home" that offers inter- esting commentary on marital violence recorded in the Canon. There are those who believe that Arthur Conan Doyle hated Sherlock Holmes, or merely disliked him, and it is interesting to remember what Sir Arthur wrote in The Strand Magazine (Mar. 1927), recalling his decision to end the stories at the conclusion of THE MEMOIRS: "I did the deed, but, fortunate- ly, no coroner had pronounced upon the remains, and so, after a long inter- val, it was not difficult for me to respond to the flattering demand and to explain my rash act away. I have never regretted it, for I have not in ac- tual practice found that these lighter sketches have prevented me from ex- ploring and finding my limitations in such varied branches of literature as history, poetry, historical novels, psychic research, and the drama. Had Holmes never existed I could not have done more, though he may perhaps have stood a little in the way of the recognition of my more serious literary work." And he repeated those sentiments in his Preface to THE CASE BOOK OF SHERLOCK HOLMES. Frederick Busch died on Feb. 23. He was a highly-regarded novelist, and a professor at Colgate University, and he wrote an introduction for THE SHER- LOCK HOLMES MYSTERIES (New American Library, 1985) and an article on Sher- lock Holmes' centenary for the Chicago Tribune (1987). Greg Darak has noted an article by Francois Thomas on "Les 'dix grandes in- terpretations' selon Orson Welles (1938)" in the French film magazine Posi- tif (Oct. 2005); according to a clipping found in a scrapbook in the N.Y. Library for the Performing Arts, Welles was one of many people asked by an unknown newspaper in 1938 to list ten great performances. Welles' list in- cluded William Gillette in "Sherlock Holmes"; later that year he performed on stage in Gillette's "Too Much Johnson" and then on radio in Gillette's "Sherlock Holmes". The others on Welles' list were Mrs. Patrick Campbell in "The Matriarch", Edith Evans in "The Way of the World", Sir Cedric Hard- wicke in "The Barretts of Wimpole Street", Spencer Tracy in the film "Now I'll Tell", Whitford Kane in "Juno and the Paycock", Emil Jannings in the film "The Last Laugh", Fedor Chaliapin in "Boris Goudenov", Charles Chaplin in all his films, and Kirsten Flagstad in "Tristan and Isolde". Feb 06 #5 "Russian Actor Livanov to Receive Order of British Empire for Acting Sherlock Holmes" was the headline on a story on Feb. 23, quoting a Radio Liberty report that Tony Brenton, Brit- ish ambassador to Russia, had said that the Queen had made that a decision. had more detail: the award is a CBE (Companion of the Order of the British Empire), and Brenton made the announcement during a recep- tion at his residence, and Livanov said he was grateful for the honor; he also expressed regret that his friend Vitaliy Solomin, who had played Wat- son in the series, had died, saying that "I think we would have shared this high award with him." Honours are generally announced in January and June, and by the prime minister rather than an ambassador, and awards are seldom made to a foreigner, but it's not unprecedented. Don Knotts died on Feb. 24. He began his entertainment career before World War II as a ventriloquist, and after the war appeared on stage, screen, and television, winning five Emmys as Deputy Barney Fife on "The Andy Griffith Show". In the film "The Private Eyes" (1981) he starred as Inspector Win- ship, wearing Sherlockian costume throughout the film. Phil Attwell notes that "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: The Real Sherlock Holmes" is available on DVD from Razamataz (Parkside, Avenue 2, Station Lane, Wit- ney, Oxon. OX28 4YF, England) for L5.95 plus shipp- ing; it's a 57-minute documentary produced, directed, and narrated by Liam Dale in 2004, with (as a "special feature") the radio broadcast of "The Ad- venture of the Devil's Foot" (1947) starring Nigel Bruce and Tom Conway. Amy Spencer, in her article on "12 Ways to Remake Your Boring Old Self" (in New York magazine, Feb. 27) suggests as #12 "Disappear Completely"; it may or may not be a coincidence, but she includes information from two sources in Manhattan: Sherlock Investigations and the Holmes Detective Bureau . Reported: THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES, edited (and annotated) by Francis O'Gorman (Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2006; 300 pp., CA$11.95/US$9.95/ L5.99); O'Gorman's introduction "places the text in the context of numerous literary and cultural debates, about aristocracy, primitivism, biology and criminology, the supernatural, Empire, and spiritualism." "Sherlock Holmes just might be the man to give the Mary Winspear Centre a jumpstart," according to a report in the Victoria Times Colonist (Feb. 16) on how better use might be made of a community center in Sidney in British Columbia. A report with 42 recommendations begins with a suggestion that the center host a series of festivals, with an annual Sherlock Holmes-in- spired gathering leading the list. "There are hundreds of Sherlock Holmes clubs around to world, and Japan has a huge number of them," said Michael Wicks, the report's author, "We certainly believe that there's huge mileage in that." The Friends of the Arthur Conan Doyle Collection are continuing their ann- ual Cameron Hollyer Memorial Lectures: Glen Miranker is their guest speaker this year, on the topic of "When Is a Book Not a Book?"; the lecture will be at 3:00 pm on April 1, at the Elizabeth Beeton Auditorium in the Toronto Reference Library (no charge for admission). Feb 06 #6 Further to the item (Dec 05 #7) on Paul Spiring having conclud- ed that Fletcher Robinson died of natural causes, rather than murder by Conan Doyle, Plymouth's Western Morning News reported (Feb. 20) is still determined to prove his claim of murder. Garrick-Steele and Spir- ing "went their separate ways," and Garrick-Steele now says that Fletcher Robinson's death certificate is a forgery. The Diocese of Exeter has still not decided to permit an exhumation (which Spiring still hopes to perform). The next day the paper reported that BBC South West had broadcast an "In- side Out" segment about Garrick-Steele on Feb. 20. William R. Hanson, MD, has created more Sherlockian first day covers, one for "The Blue Carbuncle" (with the 37c Holiday Cookies stamp and his ori- ginal artwork in the cachet); $10.00 postpaid. The other was for the Sher- lock Holmes/William Gillette festival in Tryon, N.C. (with the festival's pictorial cancel); $4.50 postpaid, or $4.00 if ordered with the Christmas cover. Checks or money orders can be sent to Dr. Hanson at 78 West Notre Dame Street, Glens Falls, NY 12801. "I very much didn't want it to be one of those books for Holmesheads," Ju- ian Barnes said about his novel ARTHUR & GEORGE in an interview published i in the Madison Capital Times (Feb. 3), adding that "I didn't want there to be obscure planted references to a detail in 'The Case of the Upturned Sau- cer,' where they would be able to tug on their deerstalkers and say, 'Ah, yes.'" If you're unhappy about the increase in U.S. postage to 39c, consider that in April the basic letter rate in Britain will increase to 32p (that's al- most 56c); postage in most other countries costs even more. The Internet is a blessing, of course, to those who can use e-mail instead of the postal service. Ernest Dudley died on Feb. 1. He was an actor, a writer, and a journalist, and in 1930 he married Eille Norwood's step-daughter Jane Grahame; accord- ing to Jack Adrian (who wrote Dudley's obituary in The Independent), this gave rise to an oft-used conversational gambit: "You don't know it, my dear chap, but you're looking at Sherlock Holmes' stepson-in-law!" He adapted "The Return of Sherlock Holmes" (the 1923 play that starred Norwood) for a new production in 1953, and again for a tour in 1997. The Spermaceti Press: Peter E. Blau, 7103 Endicott Court, Bethesda, MD 20817-4401 (301-229-5669) Mar 06 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press The Baker Street Irregulars' next annual dinner will be held in New York on Jan. 12, 2007, and I expect to have the detailed forecast of weekend events in the end-of-October issue of my newsletter. The Sherlock Holmes Society of London will have their annual dinner in London on Jan. 20. Further to the report on the Penguin Classics edition of THE LOST WORLD AND OTHER THRILLING TALES (Jul 04 #1) with an introduction and notes by Philip Gooden and three additional stories ("The Poison Belt", "The Terror of Blue John Gap", and "The Horror of the Heights"), there was a separate Penguin edition of THE LOST WORLD issued as a tie-in to the mini-series (with Bob Hoskins as Challenger) broadcast by BBC-1 in 2001 and by A&E cable in 2002. The separate edition has only "The Lost World" and Gooden's notes on that story, and a ferocious *Tyrannosaurus rex* on the cover. "It is difficult to be moderate about the charm of these brief portraits," Michael Dirda wrote at the beginning of his review (in the Washington Post Book World on Feb. 5) of Javier Marias' WRITTEN LIVES (New York: New Direc- tions, 2006; 192 pp., $22.95); one if those portraits is a seven-page essay on "Arthur Conan Doyle and Women", and it's nicely done indeed. The book was originally published in Spanish as VIDAS ESCRITAS in 2000. The March issue of Golf Digest has a well-illustrated article on "How Golf Saved Sherlock Holmes" (by Charles McGrath), which notes that there are on- ly passing allusions to the sport in the Sherlock Holmes stories, and deals in considerable detail with what golf meant to Arthur Conan Doyle, and whom he played with, and where and when. Ev Herzog spotted the Gemstone comic book "Mickey Mouse and Friends" (#261, February, $2.95) with a Sherlockian cover and with a story "Mickey Mouse in Surefoot Jones" (with Jones' smarter assistant Dr. Watsup). "Rich Seam of Technology Behind the Start of Another Australian Gold Rush" was the headline on a story in the Daily Telegraph (Feb. 6), noted by John Baesh. The gold new rush is in the "Golden Triangle" bounded by the towns of Ballarat and Bendigo. "Mining in the past was a disorganized treasure hunt. Computer modelling means we can be much more accurate about where we think the gold is," explained Joel Forwood, a geologist with Ballarat Gold- fields, which poured its first ingot in December; the company hopes to ex- tract 200,000 ounces of gold a year, worth about L60 million. No mention of a modern Black Jack of Ballarat in the article. John also spotted an editorial in the Daily Telegraph (Feb. 2) that reminds us of just what one of the Moriarty brothers did for a living, in the days when each railway station was looked after by its own dedicated stationmas- ter. "Stationmasters have been replaced by managers, each responsible for several of the smaller stations," the editorial lamented, leading to an in- crease in vandalism. "Instead of boasting about the millions that they are spending on CCTV and maintenance, the train operating companies should put an individual member of staff in charge of each station. They should equip him or her with a broom, a pot of paint, and a hanging basket or two. Pride and a spirit of competition will do the rest." Mar 06 #2 From Tom Deveson's review (in the Sunday Times on Feb. 26) of Jeffrey Archer's FALSE IMPRESSIONS: "Allow one honest sentence to emerge from all this feeble, formulaic footling. Give your elderly aris- tocrat the chance to say on page 352 that 'we have been giving honours to pop stars, footballers, and vulgar millionaires.' Cherish this tiny seed of self-knowledge, Lord Archer." Deveson obviously didn't like Archer's new the book, and complains (when it comes to plot): "Take an idea from an 1893 Sherlock Holmes story and wrap it in pages of stuff about real and fake Van Goghs." Pattie Tierney now has a web-site at showing her Sherlockian "wearable art" (including her new "Great Detectives" mys- tery necklace" that can be customized). The electronically-handicapped can request a copy of her illustrated flier (229 Hereford Avenue, St. Louis, MO 63135). Further to the item (Nov 05 #8) on the diamond necklace/tiara owned by Dame Jean Conan Doyle, scheduled to be auctioned at Bonhams in London on Dec. 8 and described as "late 19th century (circa 1890), set throughout with old brilliant and single-cut diamonds," the hammer price was L13,000 (add 20% for the buyer's premium); Lady Doyle's will bequeathed her diamond tiara to her daughter, and of course it's likely that the tiara was a gift from her husband. Is there a photograph somewhere of Lady Doyle wearing the tiara? One of the interesting aspects of the Internet is how international it is. offers Italian readers links to stories by Conan Doyle (and many other authors) at Project Gutenberg and other web-sites, and to articles in newspapers and magazines in Italy and other countries. Douglas Johnston, who maintains the web-log "A Million Monkeys Typing: Ran- dom Musings from a Primate Mind" at has launched a new Sherlockian blog "A Study in Sherlock" at . The Internet and the World Wide Web offer far more Sherlockian content than anyone has time to read, and the amount of content increases by the minute, but if you want to explore an interesting Sherlock blog, this one's a good place to start. Scott Monty notes that Ch. Rocky Top's Sundance Kid (affectionately known as Rufus) won best in show at the Westminster Kennel Club dog show in Feb- ruary. Add there's a Sherlockian connection: Rufus is a bull terrier, and has a nice photograph of him. Scott also notes that there's another Canonical connection for Rufus (not the red-bearded Duke of Holdernesse or all those people in "The Red Headed League"); answer below, for those who can't fig- ure out the answer. The Sherlock Holmes pub at the Gulf Hotel in Bahrain (May 92 #1) now has a web-site at , Scott Monty reports. The "events" section at the web-site explains that "Sher- lock Holmes and Dr. Watson lived at 221b Baker Street between 1881-1904. Now he and his partner currently resides at the Gulf Hotel where they hold office and offering their clients live sports coverage, live entertainment, and the best fish and chips in town." Mar 06 #3 It's still possible to dine at the Langham Hotel in London, just as Arthur Conan Doyle and Oscar Wilde did on Aug. 30, 1889, when they were commissioned to write stories for Lippincott's Monthly Magazine, although it costs a lot more now (L36.00 for a three-course dinner) than it did then. The Langham opened in 1865 as Europe's first Grand Hotel, and it eventually was turned into offices for the BBC, and then back into a luxury hotel (Dec 90 #7) that is now the flagship for the Langham Hotel Group; you will find other Langhams in Auckland, Boston, Hong Kong, and Melbourne, and there's a web-site at . Ewan McDonald began his re- view of the Auckland Langham's restaurant in the New Zealand Herald (Mar. 8) with the story of that long-ago dinner in London. And in case you don't know the story, Conan Doyle wrote "The Sign of the Four" for Lippincott's, and Wilde "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (there are some Sherlockian scholars who believe that you can see some of Oscar Wilde in the mannerisms of Thad- deus Sholto in "The Sign of the Four"). Further to the item (Oct 05 #4) about Steven Dietz's play "Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure", the script is not yet available, but Dietz has a web- site with information about this and his other plays. Don Hobbs put together a "Great Whimsical Sherlockian Tour of Oklahoma and Texas" last year, and it was thoroughly Sherlockian and decidedly whimsi- cal; (click on "Activities" and then on "2005 Whimsical Tour") has Jim Webb's delightful description of the tour at the web-site of The Diogenes Club of Dallas. There are a few railroad spikes collected at Sherlock, Texas, available as souvenirs (with a small brass plaque commemorating the tour); $15.00 postpaid from Don at 2100 Elm Creek Lane, Flower Mound, TX 75028. "Sherlockian Resources on the Internet: A Survey" is the title of a useful web-site maintained by John Bergquist at , with discussion of many of the better Sherlockian links; its goal being "to help one pick out a few choice strands to follow along the World Wide Web." Further to the forecast (Feb 06 #5) of THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES WITH "THE ADVENTURE OF THE SPECKLED BAND", edited by Francis O'Gorman (Peterbor- ugh: Broadview Press, 2006; 300 pp., CA$12.95/US$9.95/L4.99), the book has a long and informative introduction, the stories (with many annotations), nine appendices with excerpts from relevant authors such as Francis Galton, Jack London, Edgar Allan Poe, and Arthur Conan Doyle, and a good list of selected further reading. It's all useful and entertaining for both teach-ers and students. About the second Canonical connection for Rufus: it was the Red King (Will- iam Rufus) who granted the estate of Birlstone to Hugo de Capus. Google has added Mars to its web-site at , which serves as a reminder that they already show the Moon, at , where you can see Sherlock Crater (named during the Apollo 17 mission by geologist- astronaut Jack Schmitt in honor of Sherlock Holmes). Unfortunately, they don't identify which crater is Sherlock Crater. For that, try Mia Stampe's "The Universal Sherlock Holmes" at . Mar 06 #4 Further to the item (Feb 06 #5) about Vasiliy Livanov, the offi- cial word is that he received an honorary MBE (honorary because he's not a British subject). Formally, he's a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire; next step up is Officer (OBE), then Companion (CBE), and Knight or Dame (KBE or DBE). Dame Jean Conan Doyle was awarded an OBE in 1948, and a DBE in 1963. OBEs have been awarded in the past to Leslie Bricusse, Peter Cushing, and Penelope Keith (names that may be fami- liar to Sherlockians and Doyleans); CBEs have been given to Simon Callow, Michael Holroyd, Alan Howard, Deborah Kerr, Christopher Lee, Dudley Moore, and Ian Richardson; Michael Caine, Nigel Hawthorne, and John Mills received CBEs, and later knighthoods. Sherlock Holmes refused a knighthood, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle accepted one. Carolyn and Joel Senter (Classic Specialties) have published a new issue of their Sherlockian E-Times with news, and offers of new Sherlockiana, and links to their web-site, which has much more Sherlockiana; you can request an e-mail subscription at . James Taylor & Son note that "Conan Doyle practiced in rooms just a couple of hundred yards away from our shop," and that their "Sherlock Holmes coll- ection" is "true to the styles of the great detective." They are shoemak- ers ("quality shoemakers since 1857"); the shop is at 4 Paddington Street (London W1U 5QE, England), with a web-site at , where you will find the Watson Walker, the Sherlock Shoe, the Gloria Scott, the Baskerville Boot, the Lestrade, and the Hudson Hopper. You "could or- der something of the same quality as Sherlock Holmes would have worn," the company suggests. "It might cost a few guineas more, but you will detect the quality." Phil Attwell reports that the first two seasons of the Granada series (with Jeremy Brett and David Burke) are available on zone-2 DVDs with dialogue in French. You can see and hear excerpts at ; the sets cost E54.00 each per season, but they're discounted at . Roger Johnson has reviewed the first set in The District Messenger: you can watch the shows in French or in English (with or without French subtitles), and there's added-value material provided by The Jeremy Brett Society of France and La Societe Sherlock Holmes de France. The Practical, But Limited, Geologists will meet for drinks and dinner in Houston, to honor the world's first forensic geologist, at 7:00 pm on April 12, at Artista (800 Bagby Street at Rusk), during the annual meeting of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists. We traditionally discourage scholarly papers, quizzes, and slide shows, and our agenda consists entire- ly of toasts (some scholarly, but many not). Visitors and locals are wel- come, as always, to attend the festivities. Maureen Collins reports that the National Library of Medicine is screening a series of films having to do with forensic investigation, in conjunction with an exhibition "Visible Proofs: Forensic Views of the Body". The exhi- bition will be open through Feb. 16, 2008, and there's an informative web- site at ; the Library is at 8600 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, MD 20894. "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" (1939) was the first film (screened on Mar. 16) in the weekly series. Mar 06 #5 There aren't many authors who can maintain two successful ser- ies of mysteries (along with some stand-alone novels): Laurie R. King is one of them, and she has won many fans (and awards) for her ser- ies about Mary Russell and her series about Kate Martinelli. Martinelli is a contemporary lesbian San Francisco homicide inspector, and it can be in- teresting to imagine a Russell fan innocently picking up a Martinelli novel (and, needless to say, vice versa). THE ART OF DETECTION (New York: Bantam Books, 2006; 358 pp., $24.00) is the latest Martinelli mystery, and it's an intriguing cross-over: a compulsive collector who has turned his home into a Sherlockian museum is murdered, perhaps by a fellow-member of his S'ian society who covets a manuscript that, if it's authentic, is a first-person account of a case Sherlock Holmes solved in San Francisco in 1924 (when he was there with Mary Russell, as recorded in LOCKED ROOMS). The manuscript is part of THE ART OF DETECTION, so there are two murders in the novel, one solved by Holmes and the other by Martinelli. Michael Chabon's THE FINAL SOLUTION (set on the Sussex Downs and in London in the summer of 1944, and featuring an aged beekeeper detective) won the 2005 National Jewish Book Award in Fiction. Runners-up in the competition were Philip Roth's THE PLOT AGAINST AMERICA and Cynthia Ozick's HEIR TO THE GLIMMERING WORLD. The U.S. Postal Service has released a set of five "Crops of the Americas" stamps, in booklets and coils, showing squashes, corn, chili peppers, sunflowers, and beans. The famous Blue Carbuncle was described as a "brilliantly scintillating blue stone, rather smaller than a bean in size." Further to the earlier item (Mar 05 #3) about Nicholas Twit: The Schoolboy Sherlock Holmes, the fifth (and last) book in the series was published last year (the books are "for mystery readers from 8 to 80"), and author Cenarth Fox has reported that his play "The Real Sherlock Holmes" is in its third year on tour in Australia. There's a web-site at (copies of all the books are still available) and a preview copy of the script can be downloaded free at ; Classic Specialties (Box 19058, Cin- cinnati, OH 45219) (877-233-3823) offers a CD re- cording of the play ($12.95). It has been some years since there has been any Sherlockian cross-over into the science fiction magazines; Philip K. Jones reports "The Scarlet Band", by Harry Turtledove, in Analog Science Fiction and Fact (May 2006). It's set in the late 19th century and involves Athelstan Homes, Dr. John Walton, and Captain La Strada. Further to the item (Dec 05 #2) about "Springtime in Baker Street" (on Apr. 22-23 in Norwolk, Conn.), Bob Thomalen now has a detailed schedule; some of the events include talks by Gideon Hill on "The Lithium Link: Gout, Mania, and Sherlock Holmes", Charles Meyer on "The Magical Sherlock Holmes", Jim Cleary on "Sounds of Baker Street", Mike Berdan on "Connecticut's Canonical Connections", and Philip Shreffler on "Watson's Weird Tales: Horror in the Canon", plus a dinner performance by the Sherlettes and the Friends of Bog- ies on Baker Street. Additional details are available from Bob at 82 High- view Drive, Carmel, NY 10512 (845-225-2445) . Mar 06 #6 "My old friend Charlie Peace was a violin virtuoso," Sherlock Holmes said (in "The Illustrious Client"). Holmes was 25 years old when Peace was executed on Feb. 25, 1879; the executioner was hangman William Marwood, and a letter from Marwood confirming that Peace had been executed was sold at auction at Bonhams in Leeds on Feb. 28 for L520 (plus premium and tax). The Edinburgh Evening News has reported (Mar. 14) that "A decade-long cam- paign for the village where Arthur Conan Doyle grew up to be given special conservation status has failed due to a glut of home extensions." Planning chiefs have refused to give Nether Liberton special conservation status be- cause they say that residents' work on their homes has damaged the area's character. The decision does not affect restoration of Liberton Bank House (where Conan Doyle lived for four years during the 1860s); that work (Dec 05 #2) is about to begin. Don Izban reports that SBIOS (Sherlockians by Invitation Only) will be have their next meeting on Oct. 8 at the Ridgemoor Country Club in Chicago, fea- turing a gourmet dinner, open bar, prizes, and David Hammer's dissertation on why Sherlock Holmes birthday ought to be celebrated on the tenth day of the tenth month. And earlier that day Don will conduct a tour of Graceland Cemetery, where Vincent Starrett and others (both famous and infamous) are buried. Don's events sell out early, and he's accepting reservations now (the all-in cost is $77.50) at 1812 Rene Court, Park Ridge, IL 60068). There's no record in the Canon of Sherlock Holmes ever visiting the Sand- wich Islands (that's the name that Captain Cook gave to what are now known as the Hawaiian Islands), and the Andaman Islanders of Honolulu are at the moment dormant, but there are (of course) traces of Sherlock Holmes and Ar- thur Conan Doyle on Oahu, where you can visit the site of the house where Robert Louis Stevenson lived for a while on his way to Samoa (where he cor- responded with Conan Doyle about Sherlock Holmes), and on Hawai'i (known as the Big Island), where Mark Twain stayed at Volcano House and was amazed by the eruptions in the Kilauea Caldera (he wrote a Sherlockian parody). And Christopher Morley visited Honolulu in 1933 to lecture at the University of Hawaii; he gave three lectures, which you can read in his book SHAKESPEARE AND HAWAII (1933). There is a Canonical connection as well, since sandwiches are mentioned in four of the Sherlock Holmes stories; the sandwich was named after John Mon- tagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, and he was First Lord of the Admiralty in 1778, when Cook arrived in the islands and named them in honor of the Earl. All of which by way of explaining why this issue of my newsletter may be a bit late, and why there's no news from the last part of March, when I was in Hawaii (having decided it was embarrassing for a geologist never to have seen a working volcano); Hawaii is delightful, with far more to offer than just Waikiki. I also had a chance to see Pam Verrey, who sends regards to all her friends. My apologies to those who have sent material about which I won't report until the next issue. The Spermaceti Press: Peter E. Blau, 7103 Endicott Court, Bethesda, MD 20817-4401 (301-229-5669) Apr 06 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press Three Conan Doyle manuscripts owned by his daughter Dame Jean Conan Doyle went to auction at Bonhams in London on Mar. 28, for the benefit of chari- ties she supported during her life; the mss. were "Brigadier Gerard at Wat- erloo" (est. L15,000-20,000), "How Brigadier Gerard Lost His Ear" (L8,000- 12,000), and "Ypres: September 1915" (L800-1200), and descriptions and pho- tographs may still be available at . The "Ypres" ms. sold for L900 (add 20% for the buyer's premium), and the two Gerard stories went unsold. Sorry about that: is the correct URL for John Bergquist's useful web-site "Sherlockian Resources on the Internet: A Survey" (Mar 06 #3). "Professor Moriarty's is for sale," according to the Saratogian (Mar. 20). The Saratoga Springs (N.Y.) restaurant opened in 1984, and owner Dale East- er is ready to retire, and entertaining offers. The restaurant claims to be the only one with a library (actually a stuffed magazine rack, but there are a lot of Sherlock Holmes book around), the paper reported. "Celebrity Digs Fetch L700,000" is the headline on a story in the Sheffield Star (Mar. 29) about a pair of Sheffield townhouses, one of which was said to have a connection with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who "wrote about 6 Ash- gate Road, possibly while living there, in his story The Sheffield Banker." And which story was that? Apple has long included a "Sherlock" file-finding utility in the Macintosh operating system (Aug 98 #5), and of course the utility now does a lot more than that. And Laura Kuhn has reported that Mozilla (a free software/open- source software) project now offers a "Mycroft" collection of search plug- ins for browsers such as Mozilla and Firefox. You can read more about it at , and see artwork showing Mozilla (their version of Godzilla) with a Sherlockian cap and pipe. Further to the item (Dec 05 #4) on The Baker Street Irregulars Trust (which supports the BSI Archives at the Houghton Library at Harvard University), the Trust now has a web-site at with information about the Trust and the Archives, and photographs of letters written to Edgar W. Smith by Vincent Starrett and Christopher Morley. Videotaper alert: Jerry Margolin reports an interesting line of dialogue in "King of the Underworld" (1939) which starred Humphrey Bogart as an on-the- lam gangster, and James Stephenson as a writer who is kidnapped and ordered to write the gangster's biography. Bogart (Joe Gurney) suggests a title, and Stephenson (Bill Stevens) replies, "I have a better title to use. How about 'Joe Gurney, the Napoleon of Crime'?" Carolyn and Joel Senter (Classic Specialties) have published a new issue of their Sherlockian E-Times, with a report on a bottle of Gloria Scott black currant wine received from David Milner (unfortunately, it's not for sale); you can visit their web-site , and you can request an e-mail subscription to the newsletter at . Apr 06 #2 It was Ken Kenza who reported the "Sherlock Holmes Action Fig- ure" (Aug 04 #6), available from Archie McPhee & Co. (Box 3852, Seattle, WA 98113 (425-349-3009) ; they offer other action figures with Sherlockian and Doylean connections, including Houdini, Poe, Shakespeare, Wagner, and Wilde. And the "Marie Antoinette Action Fig- ure" may not be Canonical, but it's amusing. And which story was The Sheffield Banker? "The Adventure of the Sheffield Banker" was an alternate title for "The Case of the Man Who Was Wanted", at one time believed to have been written by Conan Doyle, but in fact written by Arthur Whitaker. Further to the item (Oct 05 #4) on "Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure" (adapted by Steven Dietz from Gillette's play), there are two additional productions scheduled: at the Actors Theatre in Louisville from Jan. 30 to Feb. 24, 2007 (316 West Main Street, Louisville, KY 40202 (502-584-1205) ; and at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park from Apr. 26 to May 25, 2007 (962 Mount Adams Circle, Cincinnati, OH 45202 (513- 421-3888) . An exhibition on "Conan Doyle and Joseph Bell: The Real Sherlock Holmes" is scheduled at the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh from July 1 to Oct. 29, according to the Sunday Times (Apr. 16), and one of the items on view will be the letter written to Bell in May 1892 in which Conan Doyle said: "It is certainly to you that I owe Sherlock Holmes and though in the stor- ies I have the advantage of being able to place him in all sorts of drama- tic positions I do not think that his analytical work is in the least an exaggeration of some effects which I have seen you produce in the out-pa- tient ward." The letter was held in a private collection by Bell's family and recently acquired by the RSCE. Conan Doyle also was dissatisfied with some of the reviews, and wrote: "I know the public, or the upper public, are much more intelligent than the newspaper editors who are in the position of a man who has to swallow an orange and then an anchovy and then ice and then a rump steak and yet is expected to have a sensitive and discriminating palate. It is disheart- ening however when you take pains over a work which is essentially one of character drawing and find it pretty generally taken to be a mere book of adventure." Dorothy Stix has kindly donated to the BSI Archives copies of photographs she has taken at many Sherlockian events over the years. The photographs include a few people who have not been identified, and the Archives would welcome any and all assistance in solving these mysteries; Scott Monty has made the photographs available at his blog at the Baker Street Journal web- site at . Laurie R. King will be on tour in June in California, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arizona and Washington promoting her new Kate Martinelli novel THE ART OF DETECTION (Mar 06 #5); it's a Sherlockian cross-over, and the list of her appearances is on-line at . Her Mary Russ- ell novel LOCKED ROOMS (May 05 #6) was published in a paperback edition in March (Bantam, $6.99). Apr 06 #3 Sherlock Holmes has solved the case of the missing Arctic Oz- one, Peter Calamai reported in the Toronto Star (Mar. 19). The Fourier Transform Spectrometer, nicknamed Sherlock Holmes (Jul 02 #1), is part of the Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment orbiting the Earth on Canada's science satellite SciSat. As it turns out, the problem of the missing Arc- tic ozone was that it didn't appear to be missing when it should have been, during the Arctic winter of 2005; the SciSat's instruments showed that vast amounts of Arctic ozone had indeed been destroyed, but had been replaced by ozone in masses of air blown in from outside the depletion zone. Reported: CONAN DOYLE AND THE PARSON'S SON: THE GEORGE EDALJI CASE, by Gor- don Weaver (Cambridge: Pegasus/Vanguard Press, 2006; 380 pp., L9.99); an account of the case based on contemporary documents. You can read more at . The U.S. Postal Service has finally issued a 24c stamp (that's the new cost for additional ounces, and it shows a butterfly: a common buckeye (*Junonia coenia*); butterflies are mentioned in four of the stories, including "The Three Gables" (Douglas Maberley was not "a society butterfly"). Christiane Maybach died on Apr. 12. She began her acting career on screen in Germany in 1951 and appeared on stage and on television until 1995; she played Polly Nichols in "A Study in Terror" (1965). I've mentioned the colorful Edinburgh policeman James McLevy before (Sep 03 #8); many of his cases were published in 1861 (in CURIOSITIES OF CRIME IN EDINBURGH and THE SLIDING SCALE OF LIFE), and it's intriguing to think that Conan Doyle read and enjoyed the stories. David Ashton encountered McLevy while researching a television play that was broadcast by BBC-2 in its "En- counters" series in 1992 (with Frank Finlay as Conan Doyle and Richard E. Grant as Holmes). Ashton has written four McLevy series for BBC Radio 4, and his first McLevy novel (SHADOW OF THE SERPENT) will be published this year by Polygon (L8.99). The radio series, with Brian Cox as McLevy (Cox played Joseph Bell in BBC-2's "The Strange Case of Sherlock Holmes and Ar- thur Conan Doyle" (2005). Recent programs in the radio series are avail- able on-line at . "I have a trade of my own," Sherlock Holmes said (in "A Study in Scarlet"). suppose I am the only one in the world, I'm a consulting detective, if you can understand what that is. Here in London we have lots of government de- tectives and lots of private ones. When these fellows are at fault, they come to me, and I manage to put them on the right scent." There were de- tectives before Holmes, of course, and the list extends back through Zadig to Daniel and includes one recently discovered by Joe Rainone in the pages of Saturday Night, a story paper published in Philadelphia in 1884. "Old Marvel" first appeared in the issue for Feb. 23, 1884, and Rainone suggests that it's possible that Conan Doyle read the story paper and that "Old Mar- vel" was an inspiration for Sherlock Holmes. Rainone's "The Amazing Adven- ture of Old Marvel; or A Baffling Mystery" is in the fall/winter 2006 issue (#12-13) of Blood 'n' Thunder ($12.00), published by Ed Hulse (2467 Route 10 East, Mountain Club, Building 15, Apt. 4B, Morris Plains, NJ 07950); the web-site is at . Apr 06 #4 There was nothing strictly Sherlockian at Malice Domestic this year, but the schedule included panels moderated by Dan Stash- ower ("Writing the Historical Mystery") and by yours truly ("Stalking Your Prey: How to Choose Your Victim"), and of course any panel with a Sherlock- ian on board involves some discussion of the Canon. The voting for the Ag- atha for best children/young adult fiction ended in a tie, and the winners were Carl Hiassen's FLUSH and Peter Abrahams' DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE, which has an eighth-grade Sherlock Holmes fan and amateur actress as the heroine (Apr 05 #1). And Douglas G. Greene won the Poirot Award for contributions to the genre as publisher (with his wife Sandi) of short-story collections from Crippen & Landru. Malice Domestic XIX will be held on May 4-6, 2007, at the Crystal City Marriott in Arlington, Va., featuring Rochelle Krich as guest of honor, Elaine Vietz as toastmaster, a lifetime achievement award for Carolyn Hart, and Georgette Heyer as ghost of honor; you can register at Box 8007, Gaithersburg, MD 20898 . The New Play House presented a reading of Lee Shackleford's play "Holmes & Watson" (1989) in Frederick, Md., last year (Nov 05 #2), and now they have scheduled a full production at the Cultural Arts Center in Frederick, June 15-25, 2006. The box office is at Box 601, Frederick, MD 21705 (301-668- 8019) . Felix Morley, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1936 for his editorial writ- ing for the Washington Post, is one of two Investitured members of The Bak- er Street Irregulars to have won a Pulitzer; Karen Murdock reports that one of his editorials is included in PULITZER PRIZE EDITORIALS: AMERICA'S BEST WRITING 1917-2003, edited by Wm. David Sloan and Laird B. Anderson (2003). The other Investitured Irregular who has won a Pulitzer is Michael Dirda, for criticism in 1993 (for his book reviews in The Washington Post). Stephen Vincent Benet won the Pulitzer twice, for poetry in 1929 (for JOHN BROWN'S BODY) and 1944 (for WESTERN STAR), and William Rose Benet won for poetry in 1942 (for THE DUST WHICH IS GOD). Both were friends of Christo- pher Morley, and mentioned often in Jon Lellenberg's IRREGULAR MEMORIES OF THE 'THIRTIES as involved in Sherlockian affairs before the era of Irregu- lar Investitures. Further to the item about the new butter- fly stamp, William R. Hanson, MD, chose a different mention for the cachet artwork on a first day cover that showing Beryl Stapleton in the room that held her hus- band's collection. $10.00 postpaid (in a signed and numbered edition of 100) from Dr. Hanson at 78 West Notre Dame Street, Glens Falls, NY 10801. "Case Closed" is the English-language version of "Meitantei Conan" [Detec- tive Conan], a Japanese animation about Shinichi Kudo, a 17-year-old master detective who is turned by villains into a child and assumes the name Conan Edogawa and pursues evil-doers. The 30-minute series aired in English on the Cartoon network (May 04 #6), and it's available here now on a series of DVDs from FUNimation Productions . Apr 06 #5 David Pirie has updated his web-site at , and he reports that on July 27 the BBC and MPI will release a two-DVD set ($39.98) with the four 90-minute programs in the "Murder Rooms" series that aired on BBC-1 in 2001 and on PBS-TV in 2002 (with Ian Richard- son as Joseph Bell and Charles Edwards as Arthur Conan Doyle). And Pegasus has succeeded St. Martin's Press as his American book publisher: THE DARK WATER (the third in the series) is scheduled for October, and there will be reprints of THE PATIENT'S EYES and THE DARK CALLS; Pirie has begun work on a fourth title THE DEAD TIME. Scott Monty spotted a list of the 50 best film adaptations of all time, as selected by a panel of experts organized by The Guardian; the list, which includes "The Hound of the Baskervilles", will be voted on by the public in May. The panel didn't identify a particular adaptation of the story. That's a photograph of Eleonora Suhoviy, who arrived in Britain from the Ukraine 11 years ago and taught herself English mainly by reading the Sherlock Holmes stories, according to a story in the Daily Telegraph (Apr. 19), kindly forwarded by Jay Hyde. Now 24 and an Oxford graduate, Eleonora made the news by winning an appeal against deportation; her mother's temporary permission to remain in Britain ran out in 1999, and the Home Office has spent six years trying to deport them. The Home Office has been turned down by a tri- bunal, and Eleonora said she was "very relieved" and that her ambition is to join the Royal Navy. "Sherlock Holmes and the Speckled Band" is a one-man play performed by Neill Hartley; he appears next at the Township of Washington Public Library in Bergen, N.J., on May 6 (201- 664-4586). He also will perform the show at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia on Sept. 14-17, and at the Atlantic Highlands Historical Soci- ety on Sept. 20; his two other one-man shows are "The Legend of Sleepy Hol- low" and "The Spirit of Lindburgh", and you can see photographs and a full schedule at his web-site at . Thanks to Ted Friedman for news of the show. Phil Attwell reports that the Granada television series is being released on DVDs in France: the first three seasons are available at and there are more to come (they're zone 2 DVD sets), and you get to hear Holmes and everyone else speaking French. Thomas A. Dunn died on Dec. 12. He worked in life insurance and human re- sources, and an enthusiastic hiker and mountain climber, but his real love was pipes, and he was best known as the founder and president of The Uni- versal Coterie of Pipe Smokers and as the editor and publisher of The Pipe Smoker's Ephemeris, launched in the spring of 1965 as an informal typed and mimeographed newsletter, sent free to anyone who requested it. The Ephem- eris was devoted to pipes, smoking, and tobacco, and packed with news from members of the Coterie, many of them Sherlockians who made sure there was S'ian content in each issue. Circulation eventually reached 3,000 copies, and the pages of the Ephemeris are a splendid monument to Tom. Apr 06 #6 Bill Griffith's "Zippy the Pinhead", a long-running comic strip with fervent admirers among readers of the Washington Post (and other newspapers), occasionally shows Gillette Castle; Mary Ellen Rich has reported that Bill Griffith, who lives in Hadlyme, Connecticut, often uses people and places he likes in his work. The strip for July 31, 2002, shows the Castle (Sep 02 #3), and so does the strip for Apr. 1, 2006. The strips (as well as those for June 25, 2000, and Oct. 18, 2002) can be seen at the strip's web-site , where you can also buy original artwork ($350.00), signed prints ($155.00 colored/$55.00 black and white), and annuals ($19.95). Further to the item (Mar 06 #5) about the new set of five "Crops of the Am- ericas" stamps, one of them showing beans (which seemed appropriate for the Blue Carbuncle, described as "rather smaller than a bean in size"), Scott Monty has noted another connection between the stamp and the story: the gem allegedly turned up in the goose's crop. It has been a while since I wondered about Investitured members of the Bak- er Street Irregulars who have appeared in movies as actors (Apr 01 #1), and at that time there were three: Elmer Davis, Bill Ward, and John E. Pforr. You can add Curtis Armstrong to the list; he received his Investiture last January, and has appeared on screen and television, most recently, as Jerry Margolin notes, in the film "Akeelah and the Bee", which opened on Apr. 28. People sometimes ask, "How many *other* Sherlock Holmes stories are there?" It's always been hard to quantify, but computers do make things easier: an answer can be found in Philip K. Jones' data-base "Beyond the Gaslight: The Non-Canonical Tales", a 2.6-MB Microsoft Excel file that can be downloaded at : Philip has identi- fied 5,520 different pastiches, parodies, and related fiction, and expects to increase the total to at least 6,000 with help from people who can add to the data-base. He includes scripts and storyboards for stage, screen, radio, and television, but not recordings, and his "Holmesian Universe" ex- tends to "any fiction that acknowledges the existence of Holmes as a real person, important to the tale being told." The Spermaceti Press: Peter E. Blau, 7103 Endicott Court, Bethesda, MD 20817-4401 (301-229-5669) May 06 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press Further to the mention (Apr 06 #3) of the new paperback edition of Laurie R. King's Mary Russell novel LOCKED ROOMS (Bantam, $6.99), this is an item for completists, since it contains at the end of the book an excerpt from THE ART OF DETECTION; it's now common for a paperback edition to have this sort of promotion for the next hardback edition. Laurie's next book will be a stand-alone (TOUCHSTONE), due this year, and the novel after that will be a new Mary Russell. Rebecca J. Bohner (listmom for RUSS-L) reported a delightfully imaginative pastiche at . If you don't have access to the Internet, go to a neighbor or local library; the pastiche is highly recommended. The Practical, But Limited, Geologists met for drinks and dinner at Artista in Houston on Apr. 12, at the end of the annual meeting of the American As- sociation of Petroleum Geologists, and we were welcomed by local members of the John Openshaw Society. We will dine next at McGillin's Old Ale House in Philadelphia on Oct. 25 during the annual meeting of the Geological So- ciety of America; our tradition is to discourage scholarly papers, quizzes, and slide shows, with the agenda consisting entirely of toasts (some schol- arly, but many not). The local societies will be announcing the event to their mailing lists, and others who might want to attend can let me know. Jay Pearlman reports that off- ers photographs of Nancy Garces-Saroli's miniature of the sitting room at 221B, as well as the full-scale sitting room at the Sherlock Holmes Museum in Lucens, after which the miniature is modeled. The fifth season of "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" has been issued as a set of seven DVDs ($89.99), and the first part of the season is available in Britain as a set of three DVDs (L39.99)); each set has the episode "Who Shot Sherlock?" (2005) and special features that include commentary by wri-ters Rich Catalani and David Rambo, who reveal that they named the Holmes-fanatic victim Dennis Kingsley in honor of Conan Doyle's sons. Noted by Mark Stratton: Dick Riley and Pam McAllister's THE BEDSIDE, BATH- TUB, AND ARMCHAIR COMPANION TO SHERLOCK HOLMES (1999) has been reprinted by Barnes & Noble as THE BEDSIDE COMPANION TO SHERLOCK HOLMES (2005, $7.98). Henry Zecher has spoken at many events about William Gillette, and his as- yet-unpublished biography THE MASQUE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE EXTRAORDINARY LIFE OF WILLIAM GILLETTE, and you can see excerpts from that and his other work at his web-site at . Further to the item (Jan 06 #3) on a ban on smoking by actors in film, tel- evision, and theaters, government ministers have announced that they plan to exempt live performances and film and television recordings where smok- ing is "integral to the plot or storyline" when the ban on smoking in pub- lic spaces comes into effect next summer. Actors had complained that it would be difficult to stage plays if "characters such as Sherlock Holmes or Winston Churchill had to stop smoking," the Evening Standard reported. May 06 #2 Further to the item (Apr 06 #6) about the Investitured members of the Baker Street Irregulars: who have appeared in movies as actors, the list now is a bit longer (thanks to Jon Lellenberg most of the additions): Curtis Armstrong, Elmer Davis, Al Gregory, John E. Pforr, Don- ald Pollock, H. C. Potter, Bill Ward, and (possibly) Julian Wolff. Elmer Davis played himself in "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951), Hank Pott- er played himself in the documentary "On Stage!" (1949); Al Gregory was an extra in "Diamonds" (1975), and Don Pollock an extra in "Dawn of the Dead" (1978). Julian Wolff is reported to have made a little money, when he was in medical school, as an extra in movies being filmed in New York. That's Sherlock Holmes, a beagle-border collie- cross, and his owner Blair Anderson; according to a story om the Christchurch Press (May 5), Holmes' barking alerted Anderson to a robbery in progress at the Wainoni Dairy, and the pol- ice were quick to respond. And the burglar has been sentenced to 18 months in prison, "a re- sult police say was largely due to Holmes' dog- ged detection." Frank Thomas died on May 11. He began acting on Broadway in 1932 (and in 1993 appeared in a dramatization of the Christopher Morley novel THUNDER ON THE LEFT) and he acted in his first Hollywood film in 1934; in 1950 Frank won the title role in the television series "Tom Cor- bett, Space Cadet" (beating out Jack Lemmon and other actors), and when the series ended he be- came a radio and television writer, bridge in- structor, and author. His Sherlockian bridge columns were published in Popular Bridge (and were collected in two books), his pastiche of August Derleth's "Solar Pons" pastiches appeared in Luther Norris' Pontine Dossier), and a series of Sherlockian novels. He was bur- ied, at his request, in his Tom Corbett costume. Carolyn and Joel Senter (Classic Specialties) have published the May issue of their Sherlockian E-Times, with (as usual) offers of interesting Sher- lockiana; the newsletter's URL is . You can also visit their web-site , and request an e-mail subscription. And they have a report from David Stuart Davies that he has returned as editor of SHERLOCK, and that after one general-interest issue without him (Jul 05 #6), the next (and much more Sherlockian) issue (#67) will be published in June. Further to the items about "The Adventure of the Sheffield Banker" (Apr 06 1 and 2), it would appear that Richard Lancelyn Green or someone at Penguin chose that title for "The Case of the Man Who Was Wanted" for the reprint in THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (1985); some of the other sto- ries in the collection were retitled so that all were "The Adventure of..." One can assume that the realtors did not carefully read Richard's introduc- tion, which notes the original title, nor for that matter the story, which while it does mention Ashgate Road, has nothing about 6 Ashgate Road. May 06 #3 Reported: THE RISE OF THE DETECTIVE IN EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY POPULAR FICTION, written by Heather Worthington (New York: Pal- grave Macmillan, 2005; 216 pp., $65.00); advertised as an academic study of early models that culminate in the figure of Sherlock Holmes and the estab- lishment of the crime genre. Jim Vogelsang spotted "Veggie Tales: Sheerluck Holmes and the Golden Ruler" on DVD from Big Idea ($9.95); it's a 20-minute kid-vid (there's another adventure on the DVD, as well as Sheerluckian special feature), and their web-site offers coloring pages, computer and buddy icons that show Larry the Cucumber as Holmes (Bob the Tomato plays Watson). HOLMES ON THE RANGE, by Steve Hockensmith (New York: St. Martin's Minotaur, 2006; 294 pp., $22.95), is an excellent Sherlockian mystery, set in Montana in 1893 and featuring two cowboys: Old Red Amlingmeyer (a de- voted admirer of the Sherlock Holmes stories) and his literate brother Big Red (who reads the stories for him); it's an interesting and amusing example of what can be done with the Canon other than trying to write a new Sherlock Holmes story. The Amlingmeyers have appeared in short stories in birthday-festiv- ites issues of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine (Feb. 2003, 2005, and 2006), and a second novel (with ON THE WRONG TRACK as a working title) is due next year. The author has a web-site at , where you can read the first of the stories published in EQMM, and more about Hocken- smith and his work. Marvin Lachman's THE HEIRS OF ANTHONY BOUCHER: A HISTORY OF MYSTERY FANDOM (Scottsdale: Poisoned Pen Press, 2005; 199 pp., $16.95) describes the re- sults of a chain reaction, from Boucher's mystery reviews in the N.Y. Times to the founding of The Armchair Detective to the creation of Bouchercon af- ter his death; Lachman calls this "the fan revolution," and he does a fine job of explaining what it was and is now. The book is up-to-date through 2004, with sections on "Sherlockian Fandom" and on "Mystery Fandom in Cyb- erspace", and the index includes the names of many Sherlockians and Sher- lockian societies. Bouchercon is a long-established world mystery convention, run by fans for fans, and named in honor of Anthony Boucher; Bouchercon 38 will be in An- chorage on Sept. 27-30, 2007 , and Bouchercon 39 in Baltimore on Oct. 9-11, 2008 . The Morgan Library & Museum in New York reopened on Apr. 29, after an ex- tensive expansion and renovation project, with an inaugural exhibition of "Masterworks from the Morgan" that includes an illustrated manuscript let- ter from Richard Doyle to his father John Doyle. Richard, a noted artist, was the brother of Sir Arthur's father Charles Doyle, and the Morgan owns 79 letters written by Richard and his brothers: 51 by Richard, 25 by Henry, and 3 by Charles, who once owned all the letters. You can see the letter at the Morgan's web-site at , and the exhibition is at 225 Madison Avenue (at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016 (212-685-3484). May 06 #4 Further to the item (Apr 06 #4) about Felix Morley, Karen Mur- dock has found the Felix Morley Journalism Competition, which awards $5,000 in prizes annually for "the best published newspaper or maga- zine articles inspired by liberty." It's administered by the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University (3300 North Fairfax Drive #440, Arlington, VA 22201) . This year's Canonical Convocation and Caper will take place in Door County, Wis., on Sept. 15-17; there's a web-site at , or you can request additional information from Jane Richardson, 3427 East Exchange Street, Crete, IL 60417. "Sherlock Holmes and the Saline Solution" is a new comedy presented by the Sound & Fury Fakespearean Players at the Cafe-Club Fais Do-Do dinner thea- ter in Los Angeles through June 17. The club is at 5257 West Adams Boule- vard, Los Angeles, CA 90016 (323-954-8080), and you can purchase tickets at the Sound & Fury web-site at . Plan ahead: the next Norwegian Explorers conference will be held in Minnea- polis on July 6-8, 2007, and the theme will be "Victorian Secrets and Ed- wardian Enigmas"; the contact is Julie McKuras (13512 Granada Avenue, Apple Valley, MN 55124 . "Japanese to Honour Briton Who Saved Them From Cholera" is the headline on a story in the Daily Telegraph (May 8) that begins, "If William Kinninmond Burton is remembered at all in Britain, it is as a childhood friend of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle." Conan Doyle lived for a time with the Burton family, and his book THE FIRM OF GIRDLESTONE is dedicated to "my old friend" Will- iam K. Burton. Burton became an engineer, and arrived in Japan in 1887 and over 12 years supervised the establishment of fresh-water and sewage sys- tems in most of the major cities in Japan. He died in 1899, and Japanese admirers are planning to erect a monument to him in Edinburgh to commemor- ate the 150th anniversary of his birth. Reported: MURDER IS NO MITZVAH: SHORT MYSTERIES ABOUT JEWISH OCCASIONS, ed- ited by Abigail Browning (New York: St. Martin's Minotaur, 2004; 304 pp., $23.95); an anthology of 12 stories, one of them Conan Doyle's "The Jew's Breastplate". The winter 2006 issue of Mystery Scene has a Sherlockian cover (Rupert Ev- erett), articles on "The Eternal Detective" (by Steve Hockensmith) and on "Sherlock Holmes on TV" (by Ron Miller), and lots of interesting non-Sher- lockian content. The magazine costs $7.50 in stores or $10.00 by mail, or $32.00 for a five-issue annual subscription; 331 West 57th Street #148, New York, NY 10019, and the web-site's at . Mike Barraclough has reported a new resource for research on British radio and television: the experimental prototype BBC Programme Catalogue avail- able at . There are details of 947,368 BBC radio and television programs, dating back 75 years; it doesn't offer any- thing to listen to or watch, and it isn't complete, but it's fascinating to explore, searching for titles and subjects and contributors (that includes actors, directors, producers, and scriptwriters). May 06 #5 Michael S. Greenbaum (Janus Books) has a new saleslist at his web-site at ; it's an "in- teresting, unusual, and scarce Sherlockiana," with one item qualifying for all three adjectives: Rosemary Herbert's A SECOND ADVENTURE OF THE SPECKLED BAND, OR ANOTHER CASE OF IDENTITY (her personal account of the first woman to infiltrate successfully an all-male scion-society meeting in the guise of a man). Sorry: it's no longer available, but you can read more about it at the web-site. "Private Eye Popeye" was a 7-minute animation produced by Famous Studios in 1954, with Popeye in Sherlockian costume, and it's one of eight shorts on a "Popeye the Sailor Man Volume Four" discovered by Jennie Paton, and it's in the $1.00 bin at stores such as Best Buy. Jennie also spotted a Dollar Tree audiobook-on-CD of "The Boscombe Valley Mystery", well read (by someone unidentified but with a good accent); the price (of course) is $1.00). Reported: Andrea Barham's THE PEDANT'S REVOLT: WHY MOST THINGS YOU THINK ARE RIGHT ARE WRONG (London: Michael O'Mara Books, 2005; 160 pp., L9.99) (New York: Delacorte Press, 2006; 160 pp., $15.00); the author exposes "a great many of the common myths and fallacies that have become entrenched in everyday thought," and among the myths exposed is that Sherlock Holmes says "Elementary, my dear Watson" in the stories, as well as that the deerstalk- er is mentioned. The March issue of the quarterly newsletter of The Friends of the Sherlock Holmes Collections at the University of Minnesota has Julie McKuras' "100 Years Ago" discussion of the June 1906 issue of The Strand Magazine (which was Sherlockian as well as Doylean), Randy Cox's "50 Years Ago" reminiscen- ces about his first appearance in a national publication (his article about "Mycroft Holmes, Private Detective" in the Baker Street Journal), and news from and about the Collections; copies of the newsletter are available from Richard J. Sveum, (111 Elmer L. Andersen Library, Univ. of Minnesota, Minn- eapolis, MN 55455) . The Sherlock Holmes Collections web-site at is well worth visiting, especially for its links to Tim Johnson's on-going "Supplement to the Uni- versal Sherlock Holmes". Christopher Morley and Franz Grillparzer appeared in the January issue of Oprah magazine, not for their connection at the time of the founding of The Baker Street Irregulars, but for quotes on the monthly calendar (reported by Francine Kitts): "There are no precendents: You are the first You that ever was." (Morley) and "I notice well that one stray step from the habit- ual path leads irresistibly into a new direction." "Dr. Arthur Conan Doyle and the Case of Congenital Syphilis", by Arthur M. Silverstein and Christine Ruggers (Perspectives in Biology, spring 2006), is an examination of "The Third Generation" based on what late nineteenth- century doctors believed about congenital and hereditary syphilis, rather than more modern beliefs on how the disease is passed from generation to generation; it's an interesting demonstration of why it's better to think late nineteenth-century when reading a story written then. May 06 #6 Further to the item (Jan 06 #5) about the new Decca original- cast CD of the musical "Baker Street" (1964), the accompanying booklet has an interesting article on "The Case of the Singing Detective" by Laurence Maslon, and the CD has some nice bonus tracks: "A Married Man" by Richard Burton with Richard Hayman & His Orchestra, and "Baker Street Mystery" by Kai Winding & His Orchestra. "Baker Street Mystery" was in the show (as "A Veritable Work of Art") in the Boston tryout, but never made it to Toronto or New York. Ales Kolodrubec notes that "Icons: A Portrait of England" offers people an opportunity to nominate and vote for aspects of British culture. Sherlock Holmes has already been nominated; people who want to vote for (or against) him, or see other icons, can visit the web-site at . Brian Pugh reports that the Portsmouth Museum will hold an exhibition from June 10 to Sept. 24, displaying about 150 items from the more than 16,000 that were bequeathed to Portsmouth by Richard Lancelyn Green; a permanent exhibition should be open next year. The first two issues of the City of Portsmouth's quarterly newsletter about the bequest, with information on on-going cataloguing and some attractive material shown in photographs can be seen at their web-site at ; to enroll on their mailing list, write to Mark Wright (ECCS 1st Floor, Civic Offices, Guildhall Square, Portsmouth PO1 2AD, England). Sale 5076 ("The Fine Art of Smoking") at Christie's on May 23 with material from the private collection of Alfred Dunhill (1872-1959) included an in- teresting carved-portrait meerschaum pipe in a silver-mounted leather case engraved "H. A. Saintsbury on His 500th Performance of Sherlock Holmes Dec. 21st 1903"; the pipe sold for L960 (including the buyer's premium). Their web-site is at , and the pipe is illustrated in Philip Weller's THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (1992, p. 15). The pipe was previously owned by Stanley Mackenzie, and was sold at auction at Sotheby's on July 24, 1995, along with a curved shell briar pipe also once owned by Saintsbury; the two pipes were sold as one lot for L2,990 (also including the buyer's premium). There are still a few spaces open for the next running of The Silver Blaze at Saragota Race Track in upstate New York (Feb 06 #3), with lunch at the track and the race on July 29 and brunch and a program on July 30; more in- formation is available from Lou Lewis (2 Lookerman Avenue, Poughkeepsie, NY 12603) and at . The BBC America Shop (Box 681, Holmes, PA 19043 (800-898-4921) continues to offer interesting new Sherlockian items, including a Sherlock Holmes Marble Coaster Set ($49.98) and a Sherlock Holmes Mug Set ($34.98); their web-site is at . SOME DANGER INVOLVED (Jul 04 #1) was the first of Will Thomas' mystery nov- els featuring Cyrus Barker (an homage to Holmes' rival in "The Retired Col- ourman") and with excellent Victorian atmosphere; the series continued with TO KINGDOM COME (2005), and now there's THE LIMEHOUSE TEXT (New York: Simon and Schuster/Touchstone, 2006; 352 pp., $24.00), reported to be as good as the earlier volumes in the series. May 05 #7 "On the one hand, we have a conspiracy that lasts 2,000 years and threatens the very foundations of Christianity, and on the other hand a network of rich dilettantes who resemble a theological branch of the Baker Street Irregulars," suggests Roger Ebert in his review of the film "The Da Vinci Code" in the Chicago Sun-Times (May 17), reported by Jon Lellenberg. One hears of the BSI everywhere . . . Empire Publishing Services (Box 1344, Studio City, CA 91614) (818-784-8918) offers a catalog of "novels, plays, television and film scripts, and factual books on Holmes and Conan Doyle" (including many books published by Jack Tracy's Gaslight Publications and by Ian Henry); a sales-list is available on request. The film archives of The Sherlock Holmes Society of London were auctioned by Christie's in London in a sale of "Cameras, Magic Lanterns, and Photo- graphs" on May 15. There were two lots of 35mm and 16mm films, sold for a total of L552 (including the buyer's premium). Google (the Internet search engine) often celebrates holiday and events with appro- priate logos on its opening page, and they celebrated Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's birth- day on Nay 22. They've been amusing their users with one-day-only logos since 1999, and your can visit their on-line museum at . Earl- ier this year they honored Spanish painter Joan Miro's birthday on Apr. 20 with a log in Miro's style, and removed it when they received a complaint from the painter's family that the logo was an infringement of the Miro copyright. Sherlockians are well aware that "A Study in Scarlet" was first published in Beeton's Christmas Annual; the periodical was named for Isabella Beeton, but it was her husband Samuel who published it, capitalizing on the fame of his late wife Isabella, who was renowned for her BOOK OF HOUSEHOLD MANAGE- MENT, first published in 1861. Conan Doyle titled a chapter in his A DUET: WITH AN OCCASIONAL CHORUS (1898) "Concerning Mrs. Beeton", and involves his newly-married couple involved in an amusing discussion of the book. Lytton Strachey planned to write a biography of Mrs. Beeton, but didn't, and there is a new biography: THE SHORT LIFE AND LONG TIMES OF MRS. BEETON: THE FIRST DOMESTIC GODDESS, by Kathryn Hughes (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006; 480 pp., $29.95); there was an enthusiastic review in the N.Y. Times on May 17 (spotted by Francine Kitts). THE BEST OF 'THE SHERLOCK HOLMES JOURNAL' (VOLUME ONE) has been published, edited by Nicholas Utechin from the first eight volumes of the SHJ, with a foreword by the late Anthony Howlett (his last piece of Sherlockian writing before his death). There are 25 "special" copies, numbered and signed by Freda Howlett, Nicholas Utechin, and Philip Porter (L40.00 postpaid to the UK, L41.00/E60.00 to Europe, $45.00/$90.00 elsewhere), and a regular edi- tion (L25.00 or L26.00/E40.00 or L30.00/$60.00); checks made payable to the The Sherlock Holmes Society of London can be sent to Judi Ellis (13 Crofton Avenue, Orpington, Kent BR6 8DU, England . May 06 #8 One of the many interesting aspects the Internet is the growing number of opportunities for those who wish to share their per- sonal information to do that. There are blogs, and Facebook, and MySpace, and (reported by Jon Lellenberg) LibraryThing : "an online service to help people catalog their books easily." You can enter 200 books free, or as many as you want for $10.00 (a year) or $25.00 (life- time), and you can make your information available to others (or not). THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES ($18.95 hardcover, $11.95 paperback) and THE MEMOIRS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES ($16.95/$9.95) are among the titles in the Book series . A Bed Book, according to the company pub- licity, is a book printed sideways, so that it can be read lying on one's side in bed. Sherlock Holmes said that he had paid 55 shillings for his Stradivarius vi- olin, and it would be worth more now. A Stradivarius (called "The Hammer" from its first recorded owner, the 19th century Swedish collector Christian Hammer) was sold at Christie's in New York on May 16, and set a record for the most valuable musical instrument: $3,544,000 (including the buyer's premium); the previous record-holder was the "Lady Tennant" Stradivarius that sold at Christie's for $2,032,000 in April 2005. The County Seat Theater Company will perform Bill Majeski's play "The Very Great Grandson of Sherlock Holmes" (1976) at the Old Country Church Theater in Atkinson, Minn. on July 27-30; 2185 County Road 61, Atkinson, MN 55718 (218-591-0049). "Best of Friends: R. Buckminster Fuller and Isamu Noguchi" is the title of an exhibition through Oct. 15 at the Noguchi Museum at 9-01 33rd Road (at Vernon Boulevard, Long Island City, NY 10016) ; they met in 1929 and were friends and collaborators for more than 50 years. Bucky Fuller also was a protege and good friend of Chistopher Morley, as well as a member of the Three Hours for Lunch Club, the Grillparzer Sittenpolizei- verein, and the Baker Street Irregulars. "The calabash pipe is made from a gourd," Gary B. Schrier notes in THE HIS- TORY OF THE CALABASH PIPE, but there's a lot more to be said about the cal- abash; the author does exactly that, and does it well, in his 222-page pri- vately printed (and well-illustrated) discussion of the pipe. The book is much more than a mere history of the calabash: there is discussion of the Boer War, manufacturers, collections and collectors (including Robert Storm Petersen, the noted Danish Sherlockian), and Sherlock Holmes in a chapter that includes a reprint of Robert S. Ennis' "The Great Calabash Question" from The Baker Street Journal. Schrier notes that the iconic Sherlockian calabash is non-Canonical, and quotes a report that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle owned one, which was shown to Robert Kagan by Anna Conan Doyle. There's a web-site at , and the book is available at a discount ($60.00 plus shipping) until Sept. 30 to readers of this newsletter (just say the magic word "Scuttlebutt"). The History of the Calabash Pipe, 14229 Bethel-Burley Road SE, Port Orchard, WA 98367 . The Spermaceti Press: Peter E. Blau, 7103 Endicott Court, Bethesda, MD 20817-4401 (301-229-5669) Jun 06 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press "My favorite authors included Conan Doyle, Dickens, Will James on cowboys, Joseph A. Altsheler on Indians, and Dr. Raymond L. Ditmars on reptiles. I read a lot of Conrad; I loved all that sea stuff, all the gloom. I've read everything." Roger Angell (in New York magazine, May 29) on what he read as a youth; his contributions to The New Yorker over many decades have in- cluded occasional allusions to the Canon. Julian Barnes' ARTHUR & GEORGE (Jan 06 #4) has a new British trade paper- back edition (London: Jonathan Cape, 2006; 368 pp., L10.99). The author's web-site is at . Tom Dunn, editor and publisher of The Pipe Smoker's Ephemeris, died last year (Apr 06 #5) and requested that there be no obituaries, but there are some heart-felt tributes to Tom, by Ben Rapaport and others, in the spring issue of Pipes and Tobaccos; $9.95 plus shipping from SpecComm Internation- al, 5808 Faringdon Place #200, Raleigh, NC 27609 . Wikipedia at is an interesting Internet encyclopedia, with some surprises in its entries. If you search for "a treatise on the binomial theorem" and then click on the link to "a review of a later jour- nal version of the paper", you'll find an imaginative review written by Ian Parberry, now a professor at the University of North Texas, and published in SIGACT News in 1994. The Camden House web-site at is one of the more interesting Sherlockian web-sites; Rachel Wilcox reports that there's a new "Agony Column" for those who have Sherlockian want-lists, or S'iana for sale or trade. Christopher Morley and Franz Grillparzer appeared in the January issue of Oprah magazine, not for their connection at the time of the founding of The Baker Street Irregulars, but for quotes on the monthly calendar (reported by Francine Kitts): "There are no precedents: You are the first You that ever was." (Morley) and "I notice well that one stray step from the habit- ual path leads irresistibly into a new direction." Arthur Porges died on May 12. He was a mathematics teacher before becoming a professional author, and his first published story appeared in 1950; best known for his science fiction and fantasy, he wrote in many other genres, and his series about Stately Homes began in EQMM in EQMM (Feb. 1957). Reported: MURDER IS NO MITZVAH: SHORT MYSTERIES ABOUT JEWISH OCCASIONS, ed- ited by Abigail Browning (New York: St. Martin's Minotaur, 2004; 304 pp., $23.95); an anthology of 12 stories, one of them Conan Doyle's "The Jew's Breastplate". Sherlockian fans of Wallace & Gromit will want to pursue WALLACE & GROMIT: THE WHIPPET VANISHES, by Simon Furman and Ian Rimmer (London: Titan Books, 2004; 48 pp., L8.99 hardcover, L5.99 paperback) ($12.95/$8.95); the graphic novel features the popular claymation characters, with Wallace and Gromit appearing in Sherlockian costume (discovered by Ev Herzog). Jun 06 #2 E. J. Wagner's THE SCIENCE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES: FROM BASKERVILLE HALL TO THE VALLEY OF FEAR: THE REAL FORENSICS BEHIND THE GREAT DETECTIVE'S GREATEST CASES (Hoboken: John Wiley, 2006; 244 pp., $24.95) is a fine demonstration of how the Canon can be used to make a technical sub- ject interesting, and it will be just as interesting to Sherlockians: Wag- ner tells stories of how science was and is used to solve crimes, and she uses the stories to show how forensics have expanded in scope since Sher- lock Holmes' time. Her web-site's at . Caleb Carr's THE ITALIAN SECRETARY: A FURTHER ADVENTURE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (Apr 05 #5) is out in paperback (New York: St. Martin's Paperbacks, 2006; 352 pp., $7.99); it brings Holmes and Watson to Edinburgh to help Mycroft defend Her Majesty against a plot that involves Holyrood and David Rizzio (who was Queen Mary's secretary and met his death at Holyrood). The Norwegian Explorers' "Christmas Annual 2005" offers Andrew Malec's re- port on "An Interesting William Gillette Letter", Pasquale Accardo's dis- cussion of "The Crooked Man", and other scholarship; copies of the 50-page booklet are available from its editor, John Bergquist (3665 Ashbury Road, Eagan, MN 55122) for $10.00 postpaid (checks payable to The Norwegian Ex- plorers, please). Robert W. Douty ("The Priory School") died on May 30. He was a teacher and then a pastor and chaplain, ordained in 1990. His middle name was Watson, and Bob was an early member of The Hudson Valley Sciontists and The Three Garridebs, and in 1980 co-authored (with Bruce Kennedy) a pamphlet on their explorations IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF BIRDY EDWARDS. He was awarded his Inves- titure in The Baker Street Irregulars in 1980. At hand from Will Thomas: a copy of Tony Wolf's article on "Bartitsu: The 'New Art of Self-Defence'" in Classical Fighting Arts #9 (2006); bartitsu. invented by E. W. Barton-Wright, is believed by many Sherlockian scholars to be the baritsu that Sherlock Holmes mentions in "The Empty House" (the conclusion of the article will appear in issue #10). $5.95 plus shipping from Dragon Associates (Box 6039, Thousand Oaks, CA 91359) (800-717-6288) . Reported: FACES OF THE LIVING DEAD: THE BELIEF IN SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPHY, by Martyn Jolly (London: British Library Publishing Division, 2006; 160 pp., L20.00) (West New York: Mark Batty, 2006; 160 pp., $39.95); "examines the evolution and photographic technique of spirit photography," with discuss- ion of Conan Doyle's involvement. Laura Kuhn reports that Stuart M. Kaminsky's Sherlockian pastiche "The Man from Capetown" (which was first published in Martin Greenberg's collection MURDER IN BAKER STREET in 2001) can now be read free at Kaminsky's web-site . Jens Byskov Jensen, founder of Le Cercle de Sherlock Holmes in New Orleans, published some of his Sherlockian scholarship for the birthday party that was held by Hugo's Companions in Chicago on May 27; a few copies of the 24- page pamphlet THREE STUDIES are available ($8.95 postpaid) from William E. Sawisch (149 Rockford Avenue, Forest Park, IL 60130). Jun 06 #3 Further to the item (Oct 05 #4) on "Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure" (adapted by Steven Dietz from Gillette's play), an- other production is scheduled next year, by the Kansas City Repertory The- atre, at the Spencer Theatre in the Performing Arts Center in Kansas City, Feb 23 through Mar. 18 (the theater's address is 4949 Cherry Street, Kansas City, MO 64110 (816-235-2700) . Congratulations to Peter Calamai, national science reporter for the Toronto Star, who has won a Canadian Science Writers' Association's 2005 Science in Society award ($1,000) for his ten-part series on Albert Einstein's legacy. The series is available on-line at : scroll down to "Fea- ture Sections" and click on "Ideas", scroll down to the picture of Albert Einstein, and click on "The miracle worker"; his stories (beginning Oct. 2) are in the links under "Einstein's Miracle Year". The Long Beach Playhouse is performing Ken Ludwig's "Postmortem" (a mystery featuring William Gillette and set at his home in Connecticut) through July 15 (562-494-1014) . The play also is being performed by the Old Lyric Repertory Company at the Caine Lyric Theatre in Logan, Utah, from July 6 through Aug. 8 (435-752-1500) . The Baker Street Dispatch, now in its 16th year, is an interesting six-page newsletter edited by Thomas and Janet Biblewski ($10.50 a year for six iss- ues; Box 5503, Toledo, OH 43613); the May issue includes a humorous report from Sam Stinson on the perils of being a collector. Emerson G. Wulling died on May 29. He taught English for 40 years, but his real calling was printing: he began at the age of 13, with rubber type on a toy press he received from his parents as a Christmas present in 1915, and he was still printing two years ago at the age of 100; his Sumac Press was famous for its interesting books, pamphlets, and ephemera, including many items published for The Norwegian Explorers. Something new for Sherlockians visiting Edinburgh: the Scottish Storytell- ing Centre has opened on the Royal Mile, with a storytelling wall that cel- ebrates famous stories, among them Tom O'Shanter, Greyfriars Bobby, Sher- lock Holmes, Inspector Rebus, Maisie from Morningside, and The Gruffalo. Simon Callow's ORSON WELLES: THE ROAD TO XANADU (Apr 96 #1) was the first installment of a three-volume biography, now followed by ORSON WELLES: HEL- LO AMERICANS (London: Jonathan Cape, 2006; 528 pp. L25.00); Welles is known best to many Sherlockians as the answer to a trivia-quiz question (name an actor who played both Sherlock Holmes and Prof. Moriarty), and Callow is an excellent writer (and actor and director). The new volume covers the years 1941 to 1947. Barry Day's SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE APOCALYPSE MURDERS (Sep 01 #1) is now available as an audiobook, well read by David Ian Davies, who does a fine job with voices and accents; Holmes (and Watson and Mycroft and Irene) are involved in a battle against a serial killer who intends to destroy London. The recording is offered at as a download to your comput- er ($16.07); the recording was produced by One Voice Recordings, who offer other S'ian recordings by Davies on CDs at . Jun 06 #4 offers a new feature to users: if the picture of the cover of a book shows "search inside" above it, you can click on the cover and get added-value features such as "Statistically Im- probable Phrases" and "Capitalized Phrases" that allow you to pursue phras- es into other books; you can find for example, how and where "Conan Doyle" is mentioned in Jeffrey C. Kinkley's CHINESE JUSTICE, THE FICTION: LAW AND LITERATURE IN MODERN CHINA. Carolyn and Joel Senter (Classic Specialties) have published the June issue of their Sherlockian E-Times, with their usual offers of interesting Sher- lockiana, including a new set of Sherlockian salt and pepper shakers, and the official Col. Sebastian Moran's Gun Club fanny pack. The newsletter's URL is , and you can request an e- mail subscription at their web-site . Jesse W. Thornton died on June 5. He acted at the Weston Playhouse in Ver- mont, and in 1990 played Billy (with Christopher Lloyd as Holmes) in their production of Gillette's "Sherlock Holmes". Provenance can be important: a copy of the first edition of THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, inscribed by the author, was auctioned at Christie's in London on June 6 (with an estimate of L3,000-5,000); it sold for L45,600. The reason for the high bidding? Inscribed on the title page "with Arth- ur's love, Nov 8th/92," the book was a gift to the vendor from a godchild of Conan Doyle. In other auction news, there was an interesting item at eBay this month: a lined notebook, bound in plum-colored polished leather, with a brass lock and key and gilt edges, inscribed on the first page "Kingsley Conan Doyle, with much love from his Dorothy" and dated June 4th, 1911; the notebook was never used (Kingsley, born in 1892, was Conan Doyle oldest son). The bidd- ing opened at L25 and closed at L609. Phil Attwell reports that the BBC has discounted its DVDs with five of the 1968 programs starring Peter Cushing as Holmes: "A Study in Scarlet & The Boscombe Valley Mystery" (L8.99), "The Sign of the Four & The Blue Carbun- cle" (L6.99), and "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (L8.99); a boxed set is discounted to L13.99 . Roger Johnson reports that the BBC plans to issue a larger boxed set with the three Cushing DVDs, Richard Rox- burgh's "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (2002), Rupert Everett's "Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking" (2004), and "The Strange Case of Sherlock Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle" (2005) with Douglas Henshall (Con- an Doyle) and Brian Cox (Joseph Bell); all for L39.99. The Sherlock Holmes Society of London and the Old Court Radio Theatre Com- pany have collaborated on a recording of "The Yellow Face" and "The Three Students" (among the more neglected of the stories); they're dramatized by M. J. Elliott, with Jim Crozier as Holmes and Dave Hawkes as Watson. The 30-minute recordings are excellent, and it's interesting to hear Canonical characters with new voices. Available from the Society (Mole End, Sandford Road, Chelmsford CM2 6DE, England); L5.00 postpaid to the U.K., L6.00/E9.00 to Europe, L9.00/$12.00 elsewhere (sterling checks payable to Roger Johnson and dollar checks payable to Jean Upton; euros in currency, please). Jun 06 #5 The spring issue of The Magic Door (the newsletter published by The Friends of the Arthur Conan Doyle Collection at the Toronto Reference Library) has Barbara Rusch's report on a Conan Doyle notebook re- cently acquired by the collection, an amusing Jabez Wilson pastiche by Mar- ilyn Penner, and other news. Copies of the newsletter are available from Doug Wrigglesworth (16 Sunset Street, Holland Landing, ON L9N 1H4, Canada) . Paul Martin reports a "super summer sale" at Signals (Box 2599, Hudson, OH 44236) (800-669-9696) , with the three volumes of THE NEW ANNOTATED SHERLOCK HOLMES discounted to $69.96; add shipping and it's still cheaper than Amazon's price. Further to the item (Mar 06 #4) about Vasiliy Livanov receiving an honorary MBE, the ITAR-TASS New Agency reported from Moscow on June 15 that Anthony Brenton, British Ambassador to Russia, presented the award to Livanov at a gala party at the embassy; Brenton said that Livanov received the award for producing an image of English tolerance and intellectualism in the Russian cinematic art." 500 guests were invited to the birthday party, and treated to "national British meals and drinks." Reported: A TREASURY OF DECEPTION: LIARS, MISLEADERS, HOODWINKERS, AND THE EXTRAORDINARY TRUE STORIES OF HISTORY'S GREATEST HOAXES, FAKES, AND FRAUDS, by Michael Farquhar (New York: Penguin Putnam, 2005; 320 pp., $14.00); in- cludes a discussion of Conan Doyle and the Cottingley fairies. A new catalog at hand from Audio Editions (Box 6930, Auburn, CA 95604 (800- 231-4261) serves as a reminder that many books now are published on CDs as well as ink-on-paper. Among them: Laurie R. King's LOCKED ROOMS, read by Jenny Sterlin, and THE ART OF DETECTION, read by Aly- ssa Bresnahan and Robert Ian MacKenzie (both from Recorded Books, $39.99), as well as three sets of THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, each with 12 of the Rathbone/Bruce radio shows that were packaged by Simon & Schuster some years ago (Solution Economy, $29.95). Add one more to the list of members of the Baker Street Irregulars who have appeared in movies: Jean Upton, who did voice-overs and dubbing in "Martha, Meet Frank, Daniel and Lawrence" (1998), released in the U.S. as "The Very Thought of You" (1999). Ken Lanza spotted the web-site for A Victorian Village Inn (Box 112, Clin- ton, CT 06413) (860-895-9588) ; there are "cott- age villas" available by the week (or longer), with different themes, and one of them is a three-story Sherlock Holmes Cottage ($750-1500 per week). Michael Gilbert died on Feb. 8. He was a lawyer as well as a prolific mys- tery writer, and a founding member of the Crime Writers Association; he was named a grandmaster by the Mystery Writers of American in 1988 and received the CWA's Diamond Dagger for lifetime achievement in 1994. He combined his interests in an article on "Sherlock Holmes and the Wombles" in the British magazine Author (summer 1977), discussing copyright and characters in lit- erature; the article was reprinted in Baker Street Miscell-anea (June 1979) with comments by Saul Cohen and Francis M. Nevins, Jr. Jun 06 #6 Alan Rettig has reported that Turner Classic Movies cable will feature Dick Cavett as their "guest programmer" on July 24; his four favorite films, all to be broadcast that evening, are "The Third Man", "A Strange Affair", "To Be or Not to Be", "Sherlock Holmes and the Woman in Green"; Cavett says that he saw "The Woman in Green" while in high school, and it was his first Sherlock Holmes movie and the one during which, figur- atively speaking, "I fell in love with Basil Rathbone." SHERLOCK has returned, as SHERLOCK MAGAZINE, with David Stuart Davies again as editor, and many of the traditional contributors on hand for issue #67, which offers Paul M. Chapman's interesting article on "The Heart of Holmes" (Love, Sex and the Great Detective), M. J. Elliott's examination of "A Tar- dis on Baker Street" (about Doctor Who and Sherlock Holmes), a "preposter- ous conclusion" about "Sherlock Holmes & The Da Vinci Code", and much more. SHERLOCK is published six times a year and subscriptions cost L23.70 a year (U.K.) L30.00 (other Europe) L46.00/$70.00 (rest of the world); Atlas Pub- lishing, Jordan House, Old Milton Green, New Milton, Hants. BH24 6QJ, Eng- land . Their American agent is Classic Specialties (Box 19058, Cincinnati, OH 45219) (877-233-3823); credit-card orders are welcome at both addresses, and there are back issues available. Forge/Tom Doherty Associates are continuing their reissues of Carole Nelson Douglas' series about Irene Adler in paperback, with uniform cover artwork by Glenn Harrington and minor revisions and a reader's guide. The fourth reissue is A SOUL OF STEEL, due in December ($7.99); it's the third volume in the original series (published as IRENE AT LARGE). Carole's web-site is at . The June 26 issue of The New Yorker has eight amusing Sherlockian "spots" drawn by Benoit Jacques, who had a different (single) Sherlockian spot in The New Yorker on Aug. 7, 2000 (reprinted on Nov. 2, 2002). Eric Quayle died in Nov. 2001. He was an energetic collector and a prolif- ic author of books about books; his THE COLLECTOR'S BOOK OF DETECTIVE FIC- TION (1972) is packed with splendid color photographs of first editions in the genre, including splendid copies of the "Adventures" and the "Memoirs". Many of the books in his collection were sold at auction by Bonhams in Lon- don on Mar. 14 and Apr. 11. Mitch Cullin's A SLIGHT TRICK OF THE MIND (Apr 05 #2) now has a trade pap- erback edition (New York: Knopf Publishing Group, 2006; 272 pp., $13.95). ELEMENTARY, MY DEAR GROUCHO, by Ron Goulart (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 1999; $23.95); features Groucho Marx as a detective. In a Hollywood movie studio where Valley of Fear is being filmed in the '30's, the body of the director has been found murdered. The actor portraying Holmes in the film vies with Groucho to see which one can find the murderer first. The dust- jacket features a superb caricature of Groucho as Holmes (this is the third book by this author featuring Groucho as a detective). The Spermaceti Press: Peter E. Blau, 7103 Endicott Court, Bethesda, MD 20817-4401 (301-229-5669) Jul 06 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press A Sherlock Holmes/Arthur Conan Doyle Colloquium will be held at the Newber- ry Library in Chicago on Oct. 7 (9:30 am to noon) to highlight the C. Fred Kittle Collection of Doyleana at the Library; the speakers will be Dan Pos- nansky, Paul Martin, and Glen Miranker. The colloquium is open to the pub- lic, and the Newberry is at 60 West Walton Street in Chicago. Further to the item (Apr 06 #5) on the "Murder Rooms: The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes" two-DVD set ($39.98): it's been released, with the four 90-minute programs broadcast on BBC-2 in 2001 and on PBS-TV in 2002 (with Ian Richardson as Joseph Bell and Charles Edwards as Arthur Conan Doyle). "The Complete Sherlock Holmes Collection" has been released by MPI on five DVDs ($129.98), with the 14 Rathbone/Holmes movies, and interesting added features: an interview with Robert Gitt (UCLA Film and TV Archive), audio commentaries (including a new discussion of "Dressed to Kill" by Patricia Morrison), footage of Conan Doyle, theatrical trailers, production notes, and photo galleries. Ken Lanza discovered an interesting web-site at ; the Daily Script is a collection of movie scripts and screenplays intended "to serve as resource for writers and actors and those who simply enjoy reading movie scripts." One of them is a script for "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes" (1970), and you can find other scripts in which Sherlock Holmes is mentioned. The Barnes & Noble reprint (1992) of THE COMPLETE SHERLOCK HOLMES (with the introduction by Christopher Morley) is now available in an edition suitable for gifts: in "genuine bonded leather with ribbon marker," with gilt edges ($19.98). Reported: HIDE-AND-SEEK WITH ANGELS: A LIFE OF J. M. BARRIE, by Lisa Chaney (New York: St. Martin's, 2006; 432 pp., $27.95); a new biography of the au- thor of the parodies "The Late Sherlock Holmes" and "The Adventure of the Two Collaborators". And THE MOST FAMOUS MAN IN AMERICA: THE BIOGRAPHY OF HENRY WARD BEECHER, by Debby Applegate (New York: Doubleday, 2006; 527 pp. $27.95); a new biography of the man whose unframed portrait stood upon the top of Watson's books. MISSIVES FROM THE MIRE (Jan 04 #3) is still available for $27.50 postpaid from Bill Sawisch (418 Gallahad Road, Bolingbrook, IL 60440) ($27.50 post- paid) (checks payable to Hugo's Companions, please); it's a CD-ROM with the "collected newsletters and other scribblings" covering the 55-year history of Hugo's Companions of Chicago. The "Sherlock Holmes Festival" held in Tryon, N.C., last year (Aug 05 #1) included performances of Ike Wilson's 45-minute adaptations of "The Second Stain" and "The Six Napoleons" by the Blue Ridge Radio Players. They are nicely done, and recordings (and five other Sherlockian dramatizations by Hendrik Booraem) are available on cassettes and CDs ($7.00 each postpaid) (sorry: no credit-card orders) from the National Audio Theater (Box 1197, Tryon, NC 28782) . Jul 06 #2 Lyle Stuart died on June 24. He was a journalist (who feuded with Walter Winchell and sued him and won) and a publisher who was best known for the literary hoax NAKED CAME THE STRANGER (1969) and for THE ANARCHIST COOKBOOK (1971), and a book distributor whose titles included Chris Steinbrunner's classic THE FILMS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, Terrance Dicks' DOCTOR WHO AND THE TALONS OF WENG-CHIANG, and Peter Haining's THE TELEVI- SION SHERLOCK HOLMES. "Our country cottage" is what Conan Doyle once called Bignell Wood (in OUR AFRICAN WINTER); he purchased the house in 1926, and it's now for sale (for L1,450,000). It's far grander than a mere cottage: the main house has two stories and 5,568 square feet, with eight reception rooms, eight bedrooms, and three bathrooms; a detached garage has two stories and 676 square feet; and there are five acres of grounds and private-gate access to the New For- est. You can see photographs, a floor plan, and a downloadable brochure at : search "so43" in the "area" block, and scroll down to the description of the house. "Holmes Found Watson, Thanks to a Lakhnavi" was the headline on a story in the Hindustan Times (on May 22) about Conan Doyle's close friend Dr. Mohammed Ebrahim Sufi of Lucknow having suggested that Sher- lock Holmes should have a friend and assistant (Co- nan Doyle relished the idea and instantly created the character of Dr. Watson). It's not known where Joyjit Ghosh, author of the story, got the informa- tion: perhaps from Wikipedia, the Internet encyclo- pedia, where the entry for Conan Doyle was "vandal- ized" on Dec. 26, 2005, by someone who inserted a paragraph about Sufi (and a photograph); both were removed on Jan. 3, 2006 (previous versions of en- tries are preserved at the web-site, whence comes the photograph). There's another possible (though less likely) source for the information about Sufi: an article "About the author" in the Sherlock Holmes stories offered on a CD from the Coradella Collegiate Bookshelf . Ac- cording to the company, the article is based on [now corrected] information from Wikipedia; one might suspect that the Indian writer relied directly on Wikipedia. Wikipedia exists in other languages, and there are links from ; the Finnish version of the entry at has not yet been corrected. There are 299 books (including six of the nine volumes of the Canon, each with the "About the author" article) on the CD, which costs $29.95 from Oberon/The Write Direction, 6346 Rygate Drive, Rey- noldsburg, OH 43068) (866-397-2424). "Just look up the trains in Bradshaw," said Sherlock Holmes (in "The Copper Beeches). George Bradshaw published the first official railway timetable in 1838, and Bradshaw's Guide became indispensable for those who traveled by train. But now the publisher has announced the end of Bradshaw's, ac- cording to a story in the Daily Telegraph (July 18), spotted by Catherine Cooke; the Guide's demise is blamed on the Internet, which makes informa- tion available without requiring a 2,500-page book that costs L12.00 (amd that has sales of only 12,000 copies). Jul 06 #3 Nice news for those who already own the "Crowborough Edition" of Conan Doyle's works, published in 1930 in 24 volumes, with his signature in the first volume: listings at show an asking price of $15,000