Jan 93 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press There have been many truly unusual Sherlockian productions in the perform- ing arts, including a presentation of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" in dance, mime, and music by the National Tap Dance Company of Canada in 1987. It is perhaps only appropriate that the same story, adapted into Cantonese, was presented by the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts at the Academy Studio Theatre in Hong Kong in December, when by pleasant coincidence Mike and Mary Ann Whelan were in Hong Kong and attended one of the seven per- formances of the play. Mike reports that they were able to follow most of the plot, and that in this production the Hound was actually seen on stage, and performed well. Pierre Culliford died on Dec. 24. He was a Belgian cartoonist who used the pen name "Peyo" and was best known as the inventor of the Smurfs, the small blue creatures who have starred in more than 250 animations and who at one time were getting better Nielsen ratings on Saturday mornings than "Dallas" did in prime time. The animations are produced by Hanna-Barbera, and in an 11-minute segment titled "The Village Vandal" you will find Brainy Smurf in appropriate costume as Sherlock Smurf. Our new "Happy New Year!" stamp honors the oriental year of the rooster (that's the lunar year 4691), and it is unfortunately true that the Canon contains no mention of a rooster. But perhaps we can stretch things a bit to include: "'It is Lestrade's little cock-a-doodle of vic- tory,' Holmes answered, with a bitter smile." (Norw) It appears that no one has attempted to find Ray Hendrickson's translation of the Musgrave Ritual into Greek in the Sept. 1966 issue of the BSJ (Apr 92 #8). Well, at least no one has pointed out that it isn't to be found in that issue. But it *will* be found on p. 183 of the July 1958 issue. Sorry about that: Sterling Holloway did die on Nov. 22 (Dec 92 #2), and he did indeed play all those fine roles in all those fine Disney films, but he was not easily recognizable as the 1st Gravedigger in "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes" (1970). That actor, as Jon Lellenberg has observed, was Stanley Holloway. Recommended by Vivian Heisler: VALLEY OF FEAR, read by Christopher Lee on a two-audiocassette set from Listen for Pleasure. "Lee makes it sound like an entire cast!" Remsen Ten Eyck Schenck ("The Tarleton Murders") died in Mar. 1992. He was an expert chemist by profession, and his avocations included beekeeping and cryptanalysis, and his contributions to our literature reflected all three interests. He received his Investiture in 1954, and his most widely-known work was his completion of the alphabet of the dancing men, first published in the Apr. 1955 issue of the BSJ, and still used by many Sherlockians. He also was responsible for a delightful bibliohoax: THE PRACTICAL HANDBOOK OF BEE CULTURE, dated 1911 and published in an edition so limited that the few fortunate recipients were warned not to reveal the source of what still is one of the rarest and most imaginative Sherlockian books. Jan 93 #2 The birthday festivities in New York were (as usual) enjoyable, and entertaining. The informal events on Thursday included the Annual Christopher Morley Walk, a meeting of The Pawky Humorists, and the traditional (it only takes two) Aunt Clara Sing at O'Lunney,s Steak House. Friday started with the Mrs. Hudson Breakfast at the Hotel Algonquin and continued with the William Gillette Luncheon at the Old Homestead, where Mr. Gillette (impersonated by Tyke Niver) offered a warm welcome, and Paul Singleton and Andrew and Sarah Montague Joffe performed an excerpt from the Gillette play "Clarice". And Otto Penzler offered hospitality (and S'ian books) at his open house at the Mysterious Bookshop. The Baker Street Irregulars gathered at 24 Fifth Avenue, where *The* Woman was Mary Ann Bradley Whelan, who was toasted by Al Rosenblatt during the pre-dinner cocktail party and then departed to dine at the National Arts Club with other ladies who have received that honor. And there were other ladies on hand, of course, and one member of the BSI who didn't attend last year, and who obviously doesn't read either the BSJ or this newsletter, and who quietly asked me whether "something had changed." The agenda included the usual toasts and other traditions (with one signal departure, when Steve Rothman toasted the second coming of Watson's first wife, followed by Bob Katz's promise of a rebuttal next year), Ralph Hall's detailed and expert discussion of Canonical insects, Joe Fink's account of the rise and fall of Prof. James Moriarty, and a tribute by Bob Mangler and Bob Hahn to Vincent Starrett. And Irregular Shillings and Investitures were awarded to Jean-Pierre Cagnat ("The Bank of France"), Fred Levin ("Abe Slaney"), Eve Titus ("Young Master Rucastle"), Shirley Dickensheet ("Ivy Douglas"), Joe Eckrich ("The Stock- broker's Clerk"), and Yuichi Hirayama ("The Japanese Vase"). And the Queen Victoria Medal was presented to Philip Shreffler, in recognition of all his hard work as editor of The Baker Street Journal. The Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes also dined on Friday evening, at Le Max, where the agenda included Karen Johnson's explanation of the language of the fan, Francine and Wayne Swift's joint presentation on how Sherlock Holmes' attitude toward the fair sex changed as he grew older, and Susan Diamond's revelation that the Master sired the King (in close association with Wallis Simpson, their issue being Elvis Presley). ASH investitures, accompanied by newly-created and highly artistic certificates decorated by Linda Crane, were awarded to Susan Diamond ("Lone Star"), Marilynne McKay ("The Great Dermatologist"), Cate Pfeifer ("Mary Morstan"), Maryellen Utecht ("The Countess of Morcar"), and Dorothy Stix (to be announced). On Saturday morning the huckster room at the Algonquin was well attended, and all of the participants in the Rache Subway Rally survived the event (according to its organizer Don Izban). The Saturday-afternoon cocktail party at 24 Fifth Avenue also was well attended, and the agenda included poetic reports by Al Rosenblatt and Ev Herzog on the Friday-night dinners, an auction on behalf of the Dr. John H. Watson Fund, and a spirited reading by Philip Brogdon of one of the fine Sherlockian poems written by the late J. W. Sovine. And the Chisholm Gallery stayed open after the party, so that visitors could view Steven Emmons' attractive Sherlockian posters. Jan 93 #3 The Dr. John H. Watson Fund offers financial assistance to all Sherlockians (membership in the BSI or the ASH is not required) who might otherwise be unable to participate in the weekend's festivities. A carefully anonymous John H. Watson presides over the fund and welcomes contributions, which can be made by check payable to John H. Watson and mailed (without return address on the envelope) to Dr. Watson, c/o Thomas L. Stix, Jr., who will happily forward the checks unopened. Dr. Watson will acknowledge your generosity, and Tom's address is 34 Pierson Avenue, Norwood, NJ 07648. Some interesting material was on display and on offer in the hucksters' room on Saturday morning, as always, including "antique character photo- artifacts" created by Kevin Gordon; they are Sherlockian, imaginative, decorative, and difficult to describe (such as the King of Bohemia's note to Holmes mounted and framed with a photograph of someone who might well have been the King of Bohemia). Mr. Gordon offers an illustrated flier, and his address is 340 West 89th Street, New York, NY 10024-2144). Jon Lellenberg has forwarded a copy of a letter to the Edinburgh Evening News from Edinburgh district councillor James S. Tait, whose complaint in 1987 that the city had been derelict in failing to honor one of her famous sons led eventually to the installation of a statue of Sherlock Holmes in Edinburgh. Mr. Tait's new campaign seeks public support for his proposal to the district council for a permanent exhibition/museum devoted to the life and work of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Also an item from the [London] Sunday Mirror with the headline "Sherlock reaches sexy new peaks" and a lead that states that "Sherlock Holmes is in for a raunchy image change." Sherlock Holmes is described as "a dark and sexy secret service agent serving Her Majesty the Queen" in a new novel by "Twin Peaks" co-creator Mark Frost, and LIST OF SEVEN has been snapped up for a film. The book is reported to center on how Arthur Conan Doyle met the man who inspired him to write the Victorian classic. The new movie "Chaplin" (directed by Richard Attenborough and with Robert Downey, Jr., as Charlie Chaplin) is an excellent film, but it skips from Chaplin's childhood to his going to work for Fred Karno, and thus has no mention of Chaplin's acting with William Gillette in "Sherlock Holmes". Further to the videotaper alert (Nov 92 #4) about "In Search of...Sherlock Holmes" on A&E cable on Dec. 31: it didn't air here, or anywhere else. But it may, some day, somewhere... In the meantime, Richard Wein reports that it can be found at Blockbuster video shops (in the documentary section) as one of three programs on a cassette called "In Search of Jack the Ripper". Three collections of Sherlockiana written by members of The Speckled Band of Boston are still available, from J. Devereux deGozzaldi, Graystone Farm, 79 Frankland Road, Hopkinton, MA 01748 (all prices postpaid): THE FOURTH CAB (1976) and THE BEST OF THE CABS (1980) in paper ($8.00 each), and THE FIFTH CAB (1988) in paper ($15.00). Also available are Mark Faverman's handsome full-color poster honoring the 50th anniversary of the Band in 1990 ($12.50), the society's gold-washed sterling pin (#$35.00), and the society's silk necktie in maroon or navy blue ($20.00 or two for $35.00). Jan 93 #4 Tyke Niver reports that L. L. Bean (800-221-4221) advertises a "Classic Bread Mix and Baker" kit (item F376KL) for $26.50, and that the loaf pan is made by the Henry Watson Pottery in England (founded 1800). Tyke suggests that Henry certainly might be related to John H., and having tried the kit, attests that the bread is delicious. CASES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE ADVENTURE OF THE COPPER BEECHES ($2.50) is in the comic-book shops; it's the fourth issue in the series from Tome Press (a division of Caliber Press), with a reprint of Daniel Day's artwork from 1987. Tome's address is 621-B South Main Street, Plymouth, MI 48170. The Simon & Schuster audiocassette THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES #19 ($11.00) has two more of the Rathbone/Bruce radio shows ("The Book of Tobit" and "Murder Beyond the Mountains"), with scripts by Denis Green and Anthony Boucher ("The Book of Tobit" was Boucher's first contribution to the series). Series announcer Harry Bartell provides new introductions, and two interviews with Mycroft Holmes (played by Elliott Reid). The twelfth annual Sherlock Holmes/Conan Doyle Symposium at Wright State University in Dayton will be held on Mar. 13-14, 1993. Contact: Alvin E. Rodin, 3041 Maginn Drive, Beavercreek, OH 45385. The Serpentine Muse is the quarterly journal published by The Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes, and always of interest. Joe Fink's inspired report on "The Pregnancy of Irene Adler" will be found in the current issue (winter 1992), and subscriptions cost $10.00 a year, from Evelyn A. Herzog, 360 West 21st Street #5-A, New York, NY 10011-3310. And there's a report from Image Entertainment that "The Baskerville Curse" (the animation with the voice of Peter O'Toole as Holmes) is now available on laserdisc (suggested retail $24.95). The seventh volume of Beeman's Christmas Annual is available (the cost is $10.00 postpaid, and you can order from The Occupants of the Empty House, 105 Wilcox, Zeigler, IL 62999); published as a well-deserved tribute to Bartlett D. Simms, the 30-page booklet has reminiscences about Bart from some of his friends, reprints of some of his own scholarship, and a short pastiche by Sundar Narayan. "The Master Blackmailer" (Granada's two-hour version of "Charles Augustus Milverton") may not be broadcast on "Mystery!" on PBS-TV on Mar. 25, if it turns out to be more than a mere rumor that six new "Inspector Morse" shows will air starting on that date. The rest of the rumor is that "The Master Blackmailer" will be broadcast in two parts in May. AMUSING, HOLMES! is a collection of Sherlockian humor perpetrated by Norman M. Davis, and unfortunately there are only 123 pages in the book. One can judge how good it is by the fact that John Bennett Shaw, in his Foreword, readily admits that he has read the book twice (and anyone who has visited John's library knows that he doesn't have time to read many books more than once). Or you can try to read aloud "Introducing Sherlock Holmes?" without laughing. Recommended. $14.95 postpaid (or $18.00 outside the U.S.) from the Grosvenor Square Press, 2215 Davis Street, Blue Island, IL 60406. Jan 93 #5 Pat Ward has sent an article from The Economist (Jan. 16) with more news on a government proposal to close St. Bartholomew's Hospital (Nov 92 #6). It appears that Bart's is the hospital-of-choice of the upper classes, and that Prime Minister Major is wavering on the issue, "worried by criticism from loyal Tories and stung by the 1.5 million signa- tures which have arrived in Downing Street." Pat also reports that John Thaw is now a C.B.E. (Commander of the British Empire. He played Jonathan Small in Granada's "The Sign of Four" and the title role in "Inspector Morse" (and insists that the series now on the air in Britain will be his last as Morse). Roy Marsden also is insisting that he has filmed his last show as Adam Dalgliesh. Joseph J. Eckrich (7793 Keswick Place, St. Louis, MO 63119) is continuing to send monthly price lists of offers from his Sherlockian collection; if you would like to receive the lists, you need only write to Joe. Sorry about that: the name of the artist who designed the imaginative two- color poster (11 x 17") for the Gasfitters Ball in Pasadena (Dec 92 #2) is Todd V. Titterud. But I got the price and the address right: copies of the poster, numbered and signed by the artist, are available from Jerry Kegley, 110 El Nido #41, Pasadena, CA 91107 ($10.00 postpaid). Parodies of the Rathbone/Bruce films aren't seen all that often, but the 30-minute ABC-TV series "Doogie Howser, M.D." offered one on Jan. 20, with Neil Patrick Harris (Doogie) and Max Casella (Vinnie) Holmes and Watson in a black-and-white echo of "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" (1939). It will surely repeat later in the season, and is worth watching for (Holmes and Watson are mentioned in the TV Guide listing). "In any case, at least in fiction, some collectors may not necessarily be of the finest moral character: the more villainous of both Sherlock Holmes' and Father Brown's adversaries tended to be avid collectors." Spotted by Al Rosenblatt in a "Special Report on Fine Arts and Specie Insurance: Care- ful Handling Required for Intriguing 'Collectibles'" in Lloyds List (Aug. 18, 1992). Another plug for the facsimile of the manuscript of "The Adventure of the Lion's Mane" published by the City of Westminster and The Sherlock Holmes Society of London (Sep 92 #6). This story offers more opportunities than most to see an author change his mind, and some unpublished clues as to the location of Holmes' retirement villa, and the afterword by Richard Lancelyn Green's is a helpful guide to this sort of research. Available in a deluxe edition ($200) and a standard edition ($60) from Sherlock Holmes Facsimile, Marylebone Library, Marylebone Road, London NW1 5PS, England (checks should be payable to City of Westminster). The New York bookshop Books of Wonder is continuing its series of classics for children in well-illustrated editions (in 1988 they reissued THE WHITE COMPANY with splendid artwork by N. C. Wyeth), and their latest title is THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, with twelve new full-color illustrations by the famous artist Barry Moser and an afterword by Peter Glassman (New York: Books of Wonder/William Morrow, 1992; 342 pp., $20.00). Jan 93 #6 One of the nicest features of Chris Steinbrunner's THE FILMS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (Dec 91 #5) is his enthusiasm for and enjoyment of the films he wrote about, and the splendid way in which he shared that enthusiasm and enjoyment. And Roger Johnson's new 'READY WHEN YOU ARE, MR. RATHBONE' is a similar appreciation of the Universal series. Subtitled as a review of those films, it is far more than that, offering a splendid look at the grand fun the series has given many generations of Sherlockians. It is a nicely-illustrated 48-page pamphlet, and costs L6.00 or $12.00 (dollar payments in cash, please) postpaid from David Stuart Davies, Overdale, 69 Greenhead Road, Huddersfield, W. Yorks. HD1 3ER, England. David L. Hammer's THE WORTH OF THE GAME: BEING A FINAL TRAVEL GUIDE TO THE ENGLAND OF SHERLOCK HOLMES is, one hopes, mistitled. Not that the game is not worth this sort of enthusiastic pursuit, but rather because his books are so much fun to read. He has led us through England thrice, now, and through North America once, and it will be a pity if his readers now must wait until he tours the rest of the world. Or changes his mind about some of the identifications he has made in England. THE WORTH OF THE GAME is written with style, humor, and erudition, and is a grand example of how one can be a Sherlockian traveler, either on the ground or through the eyes of an author who long ago learned to observe what's important. The book has 371 pp. in paper covers, and costs $21.70 postpaid from the Gasogene Press, Box 1041, Dubuque, IA 52001-1041. Schlosser's (attn: John Hickman, 4833 Bethesda Avenue, Bethesda, MD 20814) offers an illustrated sales list of Sherlockiana: statues, canes, teapots, steins, chess sets, ceramic wall masks, tankards, Royal Doulton jugs, and much more. Fred Fondren's play "Sherlock Holmes and the Warburton Conspiracy" is being performed off-off-Broadway through Feb. 27 at the Prometheus Theatre (239 East 5th Street in New York) (212-477-8689); TH-SA 8:00 pm and SU 7:00 pm. You might ask your doctor to give you the Jan. 1993 issue of MD magazine, spotted by Gideon Hill, which has a long essay by editor-in-chief Gerald Weissmann on Conan Doyle and Holmes, and a reprint of Joseph Bell's review of THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES in The Bookman. According to my records, you all now should have my seasonal souvenir for 1993 (WHERE DID HE LIVE, THEN?), received during the birthday festivities in New York, or since, or with this mailing. If I missed someone, please let me know. And a few commercials: the revised 15-page list of Investitured Irregulars, Two-Shilling Awards, *The* Women, and the Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes costs $1.10 postpaid. The 67-page list of 610 Sherlockian societies, with names and addresses for contacts for the 375 active societies, costs $3.55 postpaid. A run of address labels for 323 individual contacts (recommended if you wish to avoid making duplicate mailings to people who are contacts for more than one society) costs $10.25 postpaid. Checks payable to Peter E. Blau, please. The Spermaceti Press, 3900 Tunlaw Road NW #119, Washington, DC 20007-4830 Feb 93 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press David Stuart Davies reports, via Roger Johnson, that Theme Publications, in financial difficulties last year, have found a buyer and expect to publish the next issue of The Sherlock Holmes Gazette this spring, with Elizabeth Wiggins continuing as editor. If you would like to have even more gossip from Britain, Roger Johnson does an excellent job in The District Messenger, publishing two or four pages at approximately monthly intervals. The cost is $10.00 for twelve issues sent by airmail, and you can send dollar checks (payable to Jean Upton) to Roger Johnson, Mole End, 41 Sandford Road, Chelmsford, Essex CM2 6DE, England. Andy Peck reports a new addition to the list of non-Sherlockian books with Sherlockian titles: THE EMPTY HOUSE, by Rosamunde Pilcher. According to a book-club's newsletter blurb, "A young widow returns to Cornwall to rent a battered seaside cottage for her children and herself...and to discover if she can fill an empty house with love." The Sherlock Holmes Memorabilia Company (230 Baker Street, London NW1 5RT, England) has a new flier, illustrated in full color, showing their S'ian teapots, jugs, Zippo lighters, pocket cups, card cases, playing cards, etc. A new commemorative in our Black Heritage series honors Percy Lavon Julian, industrial chemist who developed a successful treatment for glaucoma in 1935. And his extensive research on the soybean yielded a weatherproof covering for battleships, a male sex hormone, and Aero-Foam (used in fire extinguishers). His glaucoma treatment utilized the synthesis of physostigmine (which in its natural form has been suggested by George Koelle Ruthann Stetak as a candidate for the poison used by Jefferson Hope in "A Study in Scarlet"). Tom Kowols reports that the Chicago Tribune reports that Paramount plans to issue "The Hound of the Baskervilles" and "The Sign of Four" on videocass- ettes in 1993, at $60.00 each. No details available, but it might be safe to assume that these will be the Ian Richardson television films that ran on HBO in 1983. "Sherlock Holmes: Victorian Sleuth to Modern Hero" is the title of the con- ference that will be held at Bennington College in Vermont on June 23-26, 1994, under the sponsorship of The Baker Street Breakfast Club, Bennington College, and the Vermont Council on the Humanities. Copies of the call for papers, which also serves as a preliminary announcement, are available from Joseph A. Cutshall King, Box 304, North Bennington, VT 05257. Sorry about that: the item (Dec 92 #4) about the 54-mm full-color Sherlock Holmes figurines from Little Lead Soldiers in England should have said that there are two sets: one with Holmes and five other nice people, and another with Moriarty and five other not-so-nice people. The sets cost $58.00 each (postpaid), from Jim Hillestad (The Toy Soldier, Paradise Falls, RR #1, Box 379, Cresco, PA 19326); if you would like to see high-quality photographs of the figurines, just send a self-addressed stamped envelope to Jim. Feb 93 #2 At hand from Jon Lellenberg is an article from the [Edinburgh] Scotsman (Dec. 29, 1992), in which Victor Price reported on his discovery, while attending a small music festival in Feldkirch, that Arthur Conan Doyle studied for a year at the Stella Matutina when he was 16 years old. The school is now a music conservatory, and local Holmes enthusiasts are planning to install a plaque honoring Conan Doyle, hoping "to lure to their town members of the Sherlock Holmes Society visiting the nearly Fall of Reichenbach." And a note from the Reading Evening Post (Jan. 6) about a visit by a party of Holmesians led by Philip Weller to Reading to visit the city's historic sites, such as the Forbury Gardens Lion, which commemorates the 1880 battle of Maiwand, in which Dr. Watson was wounded. And according to the Evening Post, "the stories say he was then flown back to Britain, where he teamed up with Holmes to form the famous detective duo." And an article from The Guardian (Jan. 7) about the annual report from the Public Lending Right Office, which keeps track of payments due to authors whose books are borrowed from public libraries (authors now receive 1.86p for each library loan up to a maximum of L6,000). The five most-borrowed authors last year were: Catherine Cookson, Agatha Christie, Danielle Steel, Dick Francis, and Ruth Rendell. The list of "classic authors" (presumably those dead long enough not to collect payments) is headed by Thomas Hardy, followed by Tolkien, Dickens, Milne, Austen, Lawrence, Trollope, Kipling, Orwell, and Conan Doyle. And who is Catherine Cookson? And what sort of books does she write, to be the most-borrowed author in Britain? She writes romantic novels, nearly a hundred of them since 1955. In other news from Britain, reports of an outbreak of horse mutilations in Hampshire and Buckinghamshire have appeared in the American press as well: at least 30 horses have been slashed and sexually abused in the past year, and British papers have noted the case of George Edalji, and the part that Conan Doyle played in helping to exonerate Edalji. Reported by John Baesch: the latest mail-order catalog from the BBC offers THE MODERN SHERLOCK HOLMES (London: Broadside Books, 1991; 96 pp. L14.95). The book is based on a two part series that was broadcast by the BBC World Service in 1991, and discusses the advances made in modern forensic science (with illustrations by Sidney Paget and modern artists). Their address is: BBC World Service Mail Order, Box 76, Bush House, London WC2B 4PH, England; shipping costs extra, and they take plastic. "Ship in a Bottle" aired on "Star Trek: The Next Generation" almost every- where at the end of January, and if you didn't see it, it's worth watching for when it repeats. The program opened with Data as Holmes and Geordi as Watson on the holodeck, and brought Moriarty (again played by Daniel Davis) back from computer memory in an imaginative script by Rene Echevarria. If holodeck-engineer Lt. Barclay seemed familiar, that was Dwight Schultz, who was Maj. Alistair Ross on stage in "The Crucifer of Blood" (1978), and then played Bassick in Langella's "Sherlock Holmes" on HBO (1981) and "Howling Mad" Murdoch in "The A Team" on NBC. Feb 93 #3 Bruce B. Newhall's three-act musical comedy "Sheerluck" had its premiere in Apr. 1980 at the Pleasant Ridge Presbyterian Youth Church in Cincinnati, and it's a pleasant vehicle for youthful Sherlockian actors. It has been updated twice, most recently in 1991 when it was pub- lished. The script costs $4.25 and the music $10.00 (both prices include shipping), and the performance royalty is $25.00. Mr. Newhall's address is 8470 Denallen Drive, Cincinnati, OH 45255-2601. The fifth annual Canonical Convocation and Caper in Door County, Wis., will be held on Sept. 17-19, 1993. If you would like to be on the mailing list, write to Jane Richardson, 3456 Exchange Road, Crete, IL 60417. Plan ahead: the third annual Mid-Atlantic Mystery Book Fair and Convention will be held in Philadelphia on Nov. 12-14, 1993. Membership is limited to 350, full registration costs $40.00, and you can contact Deen and Jay Kogan at Detecto-Mysterioso Books, 507 South 8th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19147. Paul H. Brundage (2632 Central Court, Union City, CA 94587-3128) publishes an occasional newsletter called The Appledore Tower, available in return for your name and address and a first-class-postage stamp. Bouchercon XXIII in Toronto in Oct. 1992 had a Sherlockian event: "Holmage to Sherlock" was a one-hour session featuring L. B. Greenwood discussing Holmes, Conan Doyle, and her own novel-length pastiches. An audiocassette of the session (#45) is available for $8.75 postpaid from On Site Taping, 29318 Quail Run, Agoura Hills, CA 91301. Richard Tuttle has supplied names and addresses of some companies that sell movie posters and stills (originals or reproductions): Film Favorites, Box 133, Canton, OK 73724; Jerry Ohlinger Movie Materials Store, 242 West 14th Street, New York, NY 10011; Theater Poster Exchange, Box 27621, Memphis, TN 38127; and Movie Star News, 134 West 18th Street, New York, NY 10011. The Sherlock Holmes Society of London offers copies of the guidebooks for its weekend excursions in 1991 (THE TRI-METALLIC QUESTION) and 1992 (HOUND AND HORSE) for $33.00 each (checks payable to The Sherlock Holmes Society of London); the books are fine collections of essays and articles related to the areas toured (Winchester and Dartmoor). And Prudence Moran Swift's pamphlet THE HOUND'S TALE is a more light-hearted souvenir of the Dartmoor excursion, and costs $7.00 (checks payable to Francine Swift). All prices postpaid, and orders can be sent to Francine and Wayne Swift, 4622 Morgan Drive, Chevy Chase, MD 20815-5315. Peter J. Crupe (1533 64th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11219-5709) offers the lapel pin for The Montague Street Lodgers (black and red on white, with gold trim) for $7.00 postpaid. Peter also reports that Conan Doyle's story "The New Catacomb" is included in HIGH ADVENTURE, edited by Cynthia Manson and Charles Ardai (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1992; $9.98). Also that Movieline (1141 South Beverly Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90035) offers a set of twelve 11 x 14" color prints from "Star Trek: The Next Generation" with one showing Data in Sherlockian costume; $14.45 postpaid, and their toll-free number is 800-521-1951. Feb 93 #4 Barbara and Christopher Roden are considering the possibility of establishing an Amateur Publishing Association (APA) devoted to informal discussion of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's writings, both Sherlockian and non-Sherlockian, with six mailings a year and a limit of 25 members in the Conan Doyle APA. Additional information is available from the Rodens at (Ashcroft, 2 Abbottsford Drive, Penyffordd, Chester CH4 0JG, England). William PŠne du Bois died on Feb. 5. He was a well-known author and illustrator of children's books, winning a New- berry Award for THE TWENTY-ONE BALLOONS in 1948, and the impressive strength and delightful humor of his artwork were an important part of the new edition of Conan Doyle's THE POISON BELT published by Macmillan in 1964. Reported by Dick Lesh: Conan Doyle's short story "How It Happened" is reprinted in CAR TALES, edited by Jane Gott- lieb (New York: Viking, 1991; 102 pp.) item #900893 in the mail-order catalog from Edward Hamilton, Falls Village, CT 06031-5000; $3.95 plus shipping. Another laserdisc reported: "Chip 'n' Dale: Danger Rangers /Super Sleuths" from Walt Disney Home Video, with the 1989 television animation "Pound of the Baskervilles". David R. McCallister, who founded The Baker Street Bar Association in 1991, prepared a key-chain fob as a souvenir for the birthday weekend this year, and offers them to souvenir-hunters; just send $0.25 and an SASE to David at 8142 Quail Hollow Boulevard, Wesley Chapel, FL 33544. Granada's two-hour "The Last Vampyre" aired in Britain on Jan. 27, and the two-hour "The Mistress of Glaven" (based on "The Noble Bachelor") on Feb. 3. According to one of our distant correspondents, the two shows "are, in a word, garbage. In two words, complete trash. In three words, waste of time." But there was some praise for Edward Hardwicke, who in the first broadcast "seemed to be the only person who remembered he was in a Holmes story, and at times it was as if he was acting in a completely different show. I wish Granada had shown more of whatever it was he was in." C. Bryan Gassner, who presides over The Shadows of the Elm at the Arroyo del Oso Elementary School in Albuquerque, N.M., assisted her students in presenting half-hour adaptations of "The Norwood Builder" (in 1991) and "Charles Augustus Milverton" (in 1992). The plays were nicely done, and are available on videocassettes ($7.50 each or $12.00 for both shows on one cassette, postpaid), with an assembly of out-takes from both shows included at no additional charge. And The Shadows of the Elm are now hard at work on this year's play ("The Red-Headed League"). Mrs. Gassner's address is: 922 Washington Street SE, Albuquerque, NM 87108). The Arthur Conan Doyle Society is planning a Doylean weekend in Toronto in 1994; if you want additional details, please contact the Society (Ashcroft, 2 Abbottsford Drive, Penyffordd, Chester CH4 0JG, England). Also available from the Society are back issues of their journal A.C.D. ($10.00 each for the first five issues, and $15.00 for the sixth, postpaid by surface mail). Feb 93 #5 Philip Weller, managing director of The Franco-Midland Hardware Company, reports in the latest issue of The Baker Street Pillar Box that the owner of Groombridge Place will open its gardens to the public this year. Groombridge, acknowledged by Conan Doyle to have inspired the moated manor house of Birlstone (Sir Arthur not only visited Groombridge, but was accused of stealing its ghost), can also be seen to good advantage in the Peter Greenaway film "The Draughtsman's Contract" (1983). And George Welch reports, via Roger Johnson, that the British post office plans to issue a set of stamps honoring Sherlock Holmes in 1994. Check your local comic-book shops for SHERLOCK HOLMES IN THE CURIOUS CASE OF THE VANISHING VILLAIN, discovered by Tim O'Connor, with story by Gordon Rennie and colorful artwork by Woodrow Phoenix. The cover price is $4.50, and the publisher is Tundra (The Flag Store, Jubilee Yard, Queen Elizabeth Street, London SE1 2LP, England). Part of the story was published earlier in the Dec. 1991 issue of Blast! (a rather short-lived British comic book), and the new comic book is well worth some searching: the imaginative story begins with Dr. Henry Jekyll asking Sherlock Holmes' help in finding Edward Hyde, who has vanished from the pages of Robert Louis Stevenson's book. In 1991 Canada issued a set of four stamps honoring doctors, and one of them was Dr. Harold R. Griffith (1894-1985), who is noted for being the first to use curare as an anesthetic during surgery. And thanks to Patrick Campbell, here's what the stamp looked like; this may be as close as we ever get to a stamp showing curare ("If the child were pricked with one of those arrows dipped in curare or some other devilish drug, it would mean death if the venom were not sucked out."). Paul C. Merz (Sandpiper Books, Box 1273, Long Beach, WA 98631) has issued a new catalog with a fine section of Sherlockiana, including thoroughly rare items such as four issues of Maximilian Lucke's parodies about HERR LOCK SHOLMES DER AMATEUR DETECTIV (published in German in Oregon in 1917//1921) and a copy of the G. Washington Coffee edition of THE HOUND OF THE BASKER- VILLES in the company's original cardboard mailer. Many items will surely have been sold by the time you read this, but you might want to ask for a copy of Paul's next catalog. Carolyn and Joel Senter (Classic Specialties, Box 19058, Cincinnati, OH 45219) offer a new catalog of Sherlockiana (in-print books and scripts, audiocassettes, bookmarks, photographs of Rathbone and Brett). Edward C. Rochette (Sherlock, Stock & Barrel, Box 8261, Colorado Springs, CO 80933- 8261) also has a new catalog of S'ian collectibles (bookends, sculpture, lapel pins, etc.). Videotaper alert: "The Lost World" (1925) will air on cable on AMC on Mar. 13 at 5:00 am. This is the version that stars Wallace Beery as Challenger, with grand stop-motion dinosaurs by Willis H. O'Brien (who went on to much bigger things in "King Kong"). It's listed at 56 minutes, which means that it's even shorter than the 71-minute version available on cassette, but AMC generally has interesting forewords and afterwords. And perhaps some day someone will discover a negative or print of the uncut 106-minute version. Feb 93 #6 A catalog from Ralph Spurrier, at Post Mortem Books in England, offers an interesting copy of the Catalogue of the Collection at The Sherlock Holmes, with a note on the half title page in D. Martin Dakin's hand stating: "Copies withdrawn. This is an original copy, before infringement of copywrite [sic] rules were discovered." I know that there were at least six stated printings of the catalogue, but was unaware of a suppressed issue; does anyone have details on what was suppressed? Bouchercon XXIV will be in Omaha on Oct. 1-3, 1993 (Box 540516, Omaha, NE 68154-0516), and Bouchercon XXV will be in Seattle on Oct. 6-9, 1994 (Box 1095, Renton, WA 98057). The competition for Bouchercon XXVI was won by Nottingham, in England (the other competitors were Miami and Washington). A new postal card in the Historic Pres- ervation Series shows the Wren Building at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, where The Cremona Fiddlers held S'ian workshops in 1987 and 1991. John Bennett Shaw led the 1987 event; the sites of three Shaw workshops have now been honored by postal cards (Notre Dame and Stanford are the others). And, to fill some space, here's an opportunity to test your logical powers. Holmes, Watson, and Moriarty have been playing cards. Each of them now has a different number of cards, and together the three of them have a total of twenty cards. Watson has the most cards, and Holmes has the fewest cards. Moriarty asks Watson if he can deduce how many cards each of the three has, and Watson replies that he cannot do so. Holmes then announces the correct answer. Can you deduce what the correct answer is? Spotted by Jennie Paton in Christopher Morley's "Trade Winds" column in the Saturday Review of Literature (May 2, 1936): a report that James F. Drake, Inc., celebrated the Fishing Season by offering ($250) a 20-page manuscript by Conan Doyle, that had an excellent fish story. "Doyle, meeting a brag- gart angler, wagered that his own last catch was the bigger. The weight of Doyle's take was 200 tons. They were whales." ACD told the story in print in "Some Recollections of Sport" in the Strand (Sept. 1909), and again in MEMORIES AND ADVENTURES (1924), and the manuscript likely is the one titled "Some Reminiscences of Sport" (owned by the Free Library of Philadelphia). This is, of course, a world where it is always 1886, at least during 1993, in case you didn't notice that fact when you examined the calendar enclosed with last month's newsletter. I still have a few copies of Andrew Fusco's imaginative seasonal souvenir, in case anyone needs one. Al and Julie Rosenblatt's splendid 20-page souvenir menu for "An Evening in Scarlet" at the Culinary Institute of America on May 16, 1987, handsomely devised, designed, and produced, with many illustrations, annotations, and explanations, is still available for $18.00 postpaid (with checks payable to Peter E. Blau, please). The Spermaceti Press, 3900 Tunlaw Road NW #119, Washington, DC 20007-4830 Mar 93 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press No, it wasn't "The Mistress of Glaven" (a title picked up from a photograph caption, and one that seemed a bit more sensible than the one that Granada actually used for its version of "The Noble Bachelor"). The Granada title was "The Eligible Bachelor" (but at least I got "The Last Vampyre" right). The two television programs, preceded by a full-scale press campaign that included a suggestion that there might be a new program in the works as a Christmas special. Press reviews were mixed, and many reviewers noted the problems involved in expanding stories into a two-hour format (Nancy Banks- Smith suggested in the Guardian that "a decent dairymaid of a story was tarted up as a painted hussy of a film, trolloping about with shrieks and gibbering and sexual innuendo"). The reviews also indicate that Jeremy Brett has not achieved ownership of the role of Sherlock Holmes in Britain in the same way that he appears to here, possibly because the two new shows aired in the slot just vacated by "Inspector Morse" (the series has ended and was widely mourned, with much credit given to John Thaw for his fine acting). Sean Day-Lewis suggested in the Sunday Telegraph that "the strength of Sherlock Holmes is that his unique stature makes him actor proof," and predicted that screen variations of Sherlock Holmes "will continue to multiply as the risibly melodramatic detective created by Jeremy Brett is set aside as an eccentric footnote." Well, you can't please everyone, as someone once said. The on-going BBC Radio 4 series starring Clive Merrison and Michael Williams, warmly praised by Sherlockians, was recently savaged in the Manchester Evening News by a reviewer who argued that "Doyle's original dialogue is so pompous, circum- locutory, and stilted that after five minutes of it one doesn't give a damn which one of the duo is mouthing," and demanded a moratorium on Sherlock Holmes dramatizations for the next 20 years. All those clippings were kindly provided by Jon Lellenberg, along with news that Stonyhurst College is celebrating its 400th anniversary. Stonyhurst is the oldest Jesuit college in the English-speaking world, founded in 1593 at St. Omer in France, and having been relocated in Bruges and Liege before arriving at its present site in 1794, and its anniversary fund-raising cam- paign has raised more than L2 million. Stonyhurst's students have included 22 saints and martyrs, seven winners of the Victoria Cross, actor Charles Laughton, Gen. Vernon Walters (who has served as American ambassador under seven different presidents), and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Not all of the British reviewers are unkind to Sherlockian dramatizations. Russell Twisk, in a review from the Observer at hand from Malcolm Payne, gives high marks to the ongoing Merrison/Williams radio series, and to a new series of six programs on BBC Radio 5 called "The Unopened Casebook of Sherlock Holmes" (written by John Taylor, with Simon Callow as Holmes and Nicky Henson as Watson). These are new stories, "more vivid and horrific," and "not carrying the baggage of shadowing any original, they are freer to use the opportunities radio offers." Twisk also devotes a short paragraph an independent production of "The Valley of Fear" being broadcast by local commercial and BBC radio stations ("the less said about it the better," but he does say a bit more than that). Mar 93 #2 And if that's not enough news from Britain, here's some more. BBC Radio 4 broadcast Denny Martin Flinn's 90-minute adaptation of "The Seven-Per-Cent Solution" on Jan. 9 (with Simon Callow as Holmes and Ian Hogg as Watson). And the BBC offered a grand dialogue with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle on "The Miles Kington Interview" on Jan. 26. Kington was for many years a contributor to Punch, and his imaginative script gave Edward Hardwicke a splendid opportunity to perform, and well, as Conan Doyle. That independent production of "The Valley of Fear" that was panned by the British reviewer almost certainly was a new dramatization starring Edward Petherbridge and David Peart, whose first series ("The Cases of Sherlock Holmes") was broadcast here by National Public Radio on "NPR Playhouse" last year (with "A Study in Scarlet", "A Scandal in Bohemia", and "The Speckled Band"). Their second series began on "NPR Playhouse" on Mar. 7 (with "The Valley of Fear", "The Five Orange Pips", and "The Man with the Twisted Lip"). And NPR is now negotiating with Independent Radio Drama Productions for a third series (with "The Hound of the Baskervilles" and two short stories). The first series was excellent, with splendid actors and imaginative dramatizations, and I wish there were a better market here for radio drama. National Public Radio offers two hours of radio drama a week, but relatively few local NPR stations put any of it on the air. And Roger Johnson reports that THE UNOPENED CASEBOOK OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, by John Taylor, is a BBC paperback tie-in (L3.99) to the current radio series. And that The Drama Collection has issued audiocassettes of the Petherbridge radio versions of A STUDY IN SCARLET and THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES. And that M. J. Trow's LESTRADE AND THE SAWDUST RING is due from Constable in May (L13.99). The Spence Munro Society have a new badge, in blue on white, and 2.25 inches in diameter. The cost is $2.00 postpaid (in currency, please) from Mark Alberstat, at 6258 Payzant Avenue, Halifax, NS B3H 2B1, Canada. THE WHITECHAPEL HORRORS: A SHERLOCK HOLMES NOVEL, by Edward B. Hanna (New York: Carroll & Graf, 1992; 395 pp., $19.95), uses Holmes and Watson in a third-person account of the investigation of the Jack the Ripper murders. There are 119 footnotes, which probably shouldn't be needed in a pastiche (and that's certainly far more than will be found in any Canonical story), and the dust jacket quotes enthusiastic recommendations by Philip A. Shreffler and John Bennett Shaw. Discovered by Ralph Hall: I THINK THAT IT IS WONDERFUL AND OTHER POEMS FROM SESAME STREET, written by David Korr and illustrated by A. Delany (Racine: Western Publishing Co., 1992); a Sesame Street/Golden Book, with Sherlock Hemlock in a one-page poem ("A Silly Mystery"). The latest issue of The Camden House Journal (published by The Occupants of the Empty House) includes an announcement of a Sherlockian London tour from St. Louis on June 11-20 (the itinerary also features a bus tour of Norwood, Crowborough, Forest Row, and the South Downs). Details are available from Ed Moorman, 2045 Nettlewood Court, Maryland Heights, MO 63043. Mar 93 #3 Peter Ackroyd's ENGLISH MUSIC, published last year by Hamish Hamilton in London, has an American edition (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992; 400 pp., $23.00); it's an intriguing and imaginative book, in which young Timothy Harcombe's spiritual and visionary powers carry him into dream-worlds of English literature, art, and music. And one of those dream-worlds is (for twenty pages) more-or-less Sherlockian. SAC Ltd. (Studio Anne Carlton, Flinton Street, Hull, HU3 4NB, England) offers letter-openers (L15.70) and magnifiers (L22.70), with handle cameos showing Holmes or Watson (your choice), and a boxed set (L38.50) that also includes a Holmes figurine. A 32-piece Sherlock Holmes chess set also is available (L106.00). Prices postpaid to the U.S.; payment in sterling only, please. Harvey Kurtzman died on Feb. 21. Sometimes de- scribed as the spiritual god-father of under- ground comics, he was the first editor of Mad magazine, the author of its parodies "Shermlock Sholmes!" (1953) and "Shermlock Shomes in The Hound of the Basketballs!" (1954), the creator of "Little Annie Fanny" for Playboy, and a fine historian (his last book was FROM AARGH! TO ZAP!: HARVEY KURTZMAN'S VISUAL HISTORY OF THE COMICS). It was nice to see the two repeats from the Granada series, as part of the PBS-TV pledge drive. It is likely that the new series of "Inspector Morse" programs (which will end on Apr. 29) will be followed by "The Master Black- mailer" in two one-hour episodes (and that will be followed by six new one- hour "Rumpole of the Bailey" shows). Further to the earlier report (Feb 93 #1) about Paramount's plans to issue "The Hound of the Baskervilles" and "The Sign of Four" on videocassettes: yes, they are the Ian Richardson television films that ran on HBO in 1983; $59.95 each. And Fox Video is now discounting "The Sherlock Holmes Collec- tion" (the 14 Rathbone/Bruce films) at $14.98 each. Reported by Ralph Hall: Bob Terrio's LOOK & FIND WITCHES, GHOSTS & GOBLINS (Lincolnwood: Publications International, 1992); a children's book similar to the "Where's Waldo" series, with a Sherlockian skeleton in a cemetery on one of the pages. "Holmes's smarter brother joins police" was the headline on an article from The Times (Mar. 2), kindly forwarded by Barbara Roden. This is MYCROFT, a new artificial-intelligence computer system that was developed by a team at Portsmouth University and engineers at McDonnell Douglas, and tested by the police in Sussex, and it will complement the present HOLMES system. HOLMES is an acronym (for Home Office Large Major Enquiry System), but when plans for the new computer were first announced (Dec 87 #4), there was no mention of whether MYCROFT might be an acronym. Nor has there been since. But Jim Cleary proposed (Jan 88 #2) that MYCROFT might be a Major Yard Computer for Recovery, Organization, Filing, and Tabulation. Mar 93 #4 DETECTIVE STORIES FROM THE STRAND MAGAZINE and STRANGE TALES FROM THE STRAND MAGAZINE, edited by Jack Adrian, with forewords by Julian Symons (Oxford University Press, 1991; 374 pp., L15.95 each) are now being discounted here at $14.99 each (in a catalog at hand from Cahill & Co., Box 64554, St. Paul, MN 55114-0554). Honoring the centenary of the founding of The Strand Magazine, the anthologies offer six stories by Conan Doyle (three Canonical tales in the first volume, and three non-Sherlockian in the second). The first volume also has Ronald Knox's fine pastiche "The Apocryphal Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of the First Class Carriage". Further to the item (Feb 93 #2) about the most-borrowed authors from public libraries in Britain in 1992 -- the winner was romantic-novelist Catherine Cookson -- a dramatization of one of her novels ("The Black Velvet Gown") will be broadcast by PBS-TV on "Masterpiece Theatre" on Apr. 4 and 11. Reported by John Taylor: BLOODY BUSINESS: AN ANECDOTAL HISTORY OF SCOTLAND YARD, by H. Paul Jeffers (New York: Pharos Books, 1992; 278 pp., $19.95). Author of THE ADVENTURE OF THE STALWART COMPANIONS (1978) and MURDER MOST IRREGULAR (1983), Jeffers has turned from fiction to non-fiction, and now offers a fine history of the Yard, and neglects neither Sherlock Holmes nor Conan Doyle (who has his own chapter in the book). At one point in BLOODY BUSINESS, Jeffers notes that Holmes encounters a score of "official" policemen and one policewoman but none more often than "friend Lestrade." Try your hand at identifying that policewoman (don't wait too long, since I'll give the answer this month). C. Northcote Parkinson died on Mar. 10. He was the inventor of Parkinson's Law ("work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion") as well as important corollaries that include "work expands to occupy all the people available" and "expenditure rises to meet income." His obituary in The Times noted that he considered most Americans to be illiterate, except for Walt Disney, whom Parkinson believed to be a genius ("not a very well educated genius, but a genius all the same"). It was in MRS. PARKINSON'S LAW (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1968) that Parkinson noted (in the chapter on "Romance") that "had Sherlock Holmes married, he would have proved an irritating husband in most ways if not in all. Considered as a conversa- tionalist, however, he would have been at least potentially entertaining at breakfast." And he continued with an example: "You recall, Watson--I mean, dear--the League of Redheaded Men?" "But, of course, Sherlock. A mysterious affair indeed. Have you finished with the marmalade?" "Perhaps I might swap it for the toast? Thank you.... Well, I solved that case yesterday. Nothing to it, mind you, but memorable, nev- ertheless, for one or two unusual features." And the solution to the problem of the twenty cards (Feb 93 #6) is: nine (Watson), six (Moriarty), and five (Holmes). Watson must have from eight to seventeen cards. And if Watson has seventeen or sixteen or eight cards, there is only one possible distribution, which he could have deduced. And if Holmes has from one to four cards, there are multiple possibilities for Watson and Moriarty. So Holmes must have five cards, in which case Watson must have nine, and Moriarty six. [solution from Pollock, Ballew, Preece] Mar 93 #5 "For more than a hundred years, it has been one of the world's greatest literary secrets," Steve Walker reported in The Mail on Sunday (Mar. 7). The secret, according to a long article at hand from John Hogan, is that Sherlock Holmes was based on Dr. Joseph Bell. And the proof was found in a letter "hidden for decades in a tin box" at the Edin- burgh home of Bell's great-grandson, Brigadier Nigel Stisted. The letter, written by Conan Doyle to Bell on May 4, 1892, states firmly that "it is most certainly to you that I owe Sherlock Holmes," and that "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-patient ward." Well, the letter wasn't *that* well hidden: many will already have read the text (and that of a second letter written on June 16, 1892) in Ely Liebow's fine biography DR. JOE BELL: MODEL FOR SHERLOCK HOLMES (1982). The Men on the Tor offer their lapel pin; $10.00 postpaid, and you can send orders to: Harold E. Niver, Baskerville Hall, 29 Woodhaven Road, Rocky Hill, CT 06067. THE MAXIMORTAL is a comic-book series written by Rick Veitch for King Hell Press, and issue #3 (Dec. 1992) has a Sherlockian cover showing an elderly Holmes, and six pages set in Sussex in 1924, all in color ($3.95). If you can't find the book in your neighborhood shops, the distributor is Tundra Publishing (320 Riverside Drive, Northampton, MA 01060), and they offer a catalog with lots of other strange things as well. And if you haven't been able to find SHERLOCK HOLMES IN THE CURIOUS CASE OF THE VANISHING VILLAIN (Feb 93 #5) in a your neighborhood comic-book shop, a few copies are available from Tim O'Connor (6015 West Route 115, Herscher, IL 60941); $5.00 postpaid. John MacGowan reports that the 18 videocassettes, each with two of the old (1954) Ronald Howard television shows, are now available at WalMart stores at $2.96 each. A while back (Mar 91 #6) the cassettes cost $3.95 each at K-Mart stores. One might, however, be at least a bit suspicious about the tape quality in cassettes priced this low. Thorarinn Gunnarsson's DRAGONS ON THE TOWN (New York: Ace Books, 1992; 295 pp., $4.99) is a sequel to two earlier fantasy novels, which makes things a bit confusing for people who haven't read the first two. Sherlock Holmes is both on the cover and in the book, but actually he's an elf who stopped counting birthdays at 25,000, and everyone calls him Holmes because that's who he looks like (usually) and because he's logical (which isn't all that useful in a world of magic). Troy Taylor (805 West North, Decatur, IL 62522), who edited and published The Peruvian Bird-Bow for Ferguson's Vampires, reports that he is planning a new Sherlockian magazine called The Whitechapel Gazette, priced at $6.00 an issue postpaid. If you'd like Troy to let you know when the first issue is ready, send him an SASE or PC. And who was the one policewoman in the Canon? Jeffers doesn't say, but a likely candidate appears in "The Naval Treaty" ("When we reached Scotland Yard she was handed over at once to the female searcher"). Mar 93 #6 Helen Hayes died on Mar. 17. For many years the First Lady of the American theater, she began her acting career as a 5-year- old at the National Theatre in Washington, and made her New York debut in 1909. Her first major role came in 1918, with William Gillette in J. M. Barrie's "Dear Brutus" (Heywood Broun said she was "as eager as a Christmas morning and as dazzling as a Christmas night"). And, needless to say, she saw Gillette in "Sherlock Holmes". In her interview for the documentary "William Gillette: A Connecticut Yankee and the American Stage" (1986), she said: "I've admired other people in the role because it's such a good play, but William Gillette is the only real Sherlock Holmes for me, or for anyone else who ever saw him, I'm sure." Carole Nelson Douglas reports that IRENE AT LARGE is due in paperback in June, and that she has finished work on the fourth book in her series (the title will be BACK TO BOHEMIA). Jerry Margolin, who is trying to assemble a set of all five printings of THE MISADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, needs a copy of the fourth printing. If you have one you'd like to sell, his address is 10007 S.W. Quail Post Road, Portland, OR 97219-6368. Vinnie Brosnan (Sherlock in L.A., 1741 Via Allena, Oceanside, CA 92056) has a new catalog 9, with 80 pages of offers of out-of-print Sherlockiana. Q: if a Scottish weightlifter married a green-faced woman from outer space, what would he become? Tim O'Connor spotted SHERLOCK Q. JONES'S CASEBOOK OF PUZZLES, RIDDLES & MUDDLES and MORE PUZZLES, RIDDLES & MUDDLES FROM SHER- LOCK Q. JONES'S CASEBOOK, written by John Pinkney and illustrated by Gail Brailsford (Mahway: Watermill Press, 1992; 24 pp., $3.95 each). These are children's books, with Jones in deerstalker and accompanied by Watson (his dog). A: her husband, of course. SHERLOCK HOLMES CASEBOOK is a boxed set of two audiocassettes, with "The Priory School" and "The Man with the Twisted Lip" (both unabridged) read by John Barnes with fine accent and expression, issued in 1991 by Buckingham Classics, Box 597441, Chicago, IL 60659 ($12.95). Buckingham also offers SHORT STORIES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES ($7.95), with "The Red-Headed League" and "A Scandal in Bohemia" read by Brian Parry. There's an addition to the list of non-Sherlockian books with Sherlockian titles: Robert Barnard's A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA (New York: Scribner's, 1992). Benjamin S. Clark ("The Retired Colourman") died on Mar. 18. Ben was for many years the leader of The Five Orange Pips of Westchester County (the oldest scion society of the BSI), and it was always a delight to hear him reminisce about the early days when the scion actually met in Westchester County, in members' homes, then as now for a formal dinner and scholarly papers from each member. And this year, after many annual dinners in clubs in New York City, the Pips were invited to meet once again at Ben's home in Pound Ridge, with the baying of a hound echoing through the woods outside the house, and grand entertainment within. He received his Investiture in 1951, and the BSI's Two-Shilling Award in 1984, and some of his grand tales of distant days will be found in the Sept. 1987 issue of the BSJ. Mar 93 #7 Donald Girard Jewell's "Sherlock Holmes Natural History Series" now includes four titles, the latest being CANONICAL CATS: A MONOGRAPH ON FELINES IN THE TIME OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (1992) and BUTTERFILES AND BLIND BEETLES: A MONOGRAPH ON INSECTS AND INSECT COLLECTING IN THE TIME OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (1993). The monographs are 36-page pamphlets, carefully researched, attractively illustrated, and well-produced, and cost $9.95 each postpaid from the author (4685 Geeting Road, Westminster, MD 21158). Cynthia Wein prepared screened black-on-blue T-shirts for the 10th anniversary last year of "Autumn in Baker Street" and a dozen are still available (three are large and nine extra large). $11.00 postpaid, and Cynthia's address is 65 Briarwood Lane, Plainview, NY 11803. Comic-book alert: Bill Barton reports in The Illustrious Clients News that the DC comic ECLIPSO will have appear- ances by Sherlock Holmes in issues #7 (due in mid-March) and #8 (due in mid-April). Lincoln Enterprises (Box 691370, Los Angeles, CA 90069) offers scripts for the first five seasons of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" at $11.95 each; scripts with Sherlockian dialogue include "Lonely Among Us" (1987), "Ele- mentary, Dear Data" (1988), and "Data's Day" (1991). The shooting script for the film "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country" (1991), which also has Sherlockian dialogue, costs $16.95. Shipping extra, and they accept credit-card orders. Bill Walston (3763 East Deshler Avenue, Columbus, OH 43227) will send his 8-page sales list of Sherlockiana (mostly books) in return for a #10 SASE. The Poet of the Pequod Press, having exhausted the long stories but still pursued by the muse (and unwilling to make a Lavinia-like exit) announces a collection of 37 quartets. SCANDALS & VANDALS: 'ADVENTURES' IN VERSE is available from John Ruyle (521 Vincente Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94707-1521); $35.00 (cloth) or $15.00 (paper). Videotaper alert: Ray Rawlings, a Canadian Sherlockian, will be one of the contestants on Bill Cosby's "You Bet Your Life" on NBC-TV on April 20. William R. Smith ("The Red Circle") died on March 24. Bill was a devoted musician, and associate conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and he was a devoted Sherlockian as well. An enthusiastic member of The Sons of the Copper Beeches, he liked to reminisce about the early days when the scion met at Carl Anderson's copper-beech-shaded home. Bill received his inves- titure in 1964, and he was the proud owner of the William S. Hall copy of Beeton's Christmas Annual, which includes Conan Doyle's autograph note that it is "the very first independent book of mine that ever was published." If you don't want to wait for the "Mystery!" broadcast of Jeremy Brett's latest shows ("The Last Vampyre" and "The Eligible Bachelor"), they are now available from Jennie C. Paton's video lending-library. There's a charge of $5.00 per cassette, borrowers pay return postage, and there's likely to be a waiting list; her address is 206 Loblolly Lane, Statesboro, GA 30458. Mar 93 #8 Jon Lellenberg reports an enthusiastic review in The Observer for a new printing of THE UNCOLLECTED SHERLOCK HOLMES, edited by Richard Lancelyn Green (London: Penguin, 1993; 400 pp., L4.99). First published in 1983, assembling a wide variety of Conan Doyle's non-Canonical writings about Sherlock Holmes (pastiches, parodies, prefaces, articles, plays, and interviews), with Green's own 138-page introduction in which he provides excellent comment on Conan Doyle's life, writings, and career. Recommended in 1983, and recommended now. Further to the report (Mar 93 #2) on the Edward Petherbridge radio series, Richard Wein reports that the programs will air on WNYC-FM (New York) on Sundays, beginning Apr. 11. Public radio stations don't need to follow the NPR schedule, so it's worth checking your local schedules. Brian MacDonald reports two items that can be ordered through religious bookstores: Barbara Duvoll's THE GYPSIE'S SECRET (Moody Press, $5.99); the third volume in the "Molehole Mysteries" series with Sherlockian artwork. And THE BIBLE WORD SEARCH BOOK (Warner Press, $4.00); with caricatures of Holmes and Watson on the cover. Julie Rosenblatt, who is teaching a course on Sherlock Holmes at Vassar, credits one of her students with observing a nice touch by the production crew at Granada: the cover of Baron Gruner's diary (clearly seen behind the closing credits of "The Illustrious Client") displays the coat of arms of the Moriarty family. Discovered by Harlan Umansky in THE LETTERS OF T. S. ELIOT, VOL. I, 1898- 1922 (page xxxi), in a footnote to a letter to Eliot from his older sister Ada Eliot Sheffield (1869-1943): "Intellectually close, he described her as the Mycroft to his Sherlock Holmes." There's a new "Sherlock Holmes" daily comic strip, produced by Tom Alvarez and launched in February, and Jon Lellenberg reports that it's running in five newspapers: the Wilkes-Barre (Pa.) Times-Leader, the Lakeland (Fla.) Ledger, the Middletown (N.Y.) Times Herald Record, the Provo (Utah) Daily Herald), and the Racine (Wis.) Journal Times. If you would like to urge your local papers to carry the strip, editors should write to Magic Comics, 50 Morris Drive, East Meadow, NY 11554. The Spermaceti Press, 3900 Tunlaw Road NW #119, Washington, DC 20007-4830 Apr 93 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press Film fans have pointed out that Clint Eastwood, who won Oscars last month for Best Director and Best Picture ("Unforgiven") has appeared in a Sher- lockian film. Remotely Sherlockian, to be sure. The film is "The Dead Pool" (1988), one of the "Dirty Harry" series, and one scene shows a framed portrait of Holmes on the wall of the office of Harry Callahan's boss Capt. Donnelly. Even more remotely, Callahan kills the villain by pinning him to a wall with a harpoon through his chest. The third volume in the BSI's archival-history series is still available: IRREGULAR RECORDS OF THE EARLY 'FORTIES, edited by Jon L. Lellenberg takes the history of the early days into the somewhat more organized years that preceded the Trilogy Dinner in March 1944, and offers a grand reminder of the Sherlockian scene half a century ago. You can order from the Fordham University Press, Box 6525, Ithaca, NY 14805 (800-666-2211); $18.95 (plus $2.00 for shipping), and they take plastic. One of the more interesting souvenirs of the 1992 Bouchercon was COLD BLOOD IV, a collection of Canadian (and non-Sherlockian) short stories edited by Peter Sellers, bound in cloth and with Sherlockian artwork by Henry van der Linde on the jacket. And it's now available in a trade edition (Oakville: Mosaic Press, 1992; 242 pp., $19.95). Peter A. Spina died on Mar. 24. He was vice president of public affairs for the Mobil Corp. and his projects included Mobil-underwritten public- television projects such as "Masterpiece Theatre" and "Mystery!" Jeremy Brett reported during his tour of the U.S. in 1991 that Spina had endorsed Brett's suggestion that Granada do the entire Canon. The Second Annual Watsonian Weekend has been announced for July 23-25 in and around Chicago, featuring the "Great Agra Treasure Hunt" on July 23, "The Canonical Collegium" and "The Regimental Dinner" on July 24, and a running of "The Silver Blaze" on July 25. More information is available from Robert W. Hahn, 2707 South 7th Street, Sheboygan, WI 53081. Les Quincailliers de la Franco-Midland (aka the Societe Sherlock Holmes de France) was founded earlier this year in Paris, and continues to win great publicity, possibly because of their proposed activities. According to an article in the Mar. 18 issue of The European, at hand from Andy Fusco, the society intends to picket the Elysee Palace in full Sherlockian costume to demand that the Legion d'Honneur given to Holmes in "The Golden Pince-Nez" be presented to him in real life. Then the society will march to the Gare du Nord, hoping to repossess the luggage that Holmes left there en route to the Reichenbach. And on the 200th anniversary of the Musee du Louvre, the society will demonstrate to protest the fact that the Louvre displays too few paintings by Holmes' great-uncle, Horace Vernet. Penguin Books issued the Canon in 1981 and 1982 in a matching set of nine paperbacks with orange spines and colorful covers (at prices ranging from 80p to L1.25). The set is now being reissued in facsimile, starting with THE ADVENTURES, THE RETURN, THE CASEBOOK, and THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES (but with more than ten years of inflation, each volume now costs L3.99). Apr 93 #2 A GUIDE TO THE VICTORIAN LONDON OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, by Tsukasa Kobayashi and Akane Higashiyama (Tokyo: Shinchosha Publishing Co., 1993), is a 120-page collection of the splendid photographs they have taken over the last ten years, with captions and text in Japanese but with numbered keys tied to carefully drawn maps that allow readers to identify the locations and views. The book's subtitle is SHERLOCK HOLMES VIVU POR ETERNE (in Esperanto, carefully designed not to require translation), and they offer copies of the book for $15.00 or L12.00 postpaid (currency only, please); their address is Ohizumi-machi 2-55-8, Nerima, Tokyo 178, Japan. "'She might almost personify Britannia,' said he, 'with her complete self-absorption and general air of comfortable somnolence.'" Britannia was first shown on a British postage stamp in 1913, not long before "His Last Bow" took place, and her latest appearance is on the new L10 stamp, which has more security features than most banknotes: they include (to list only a few) metallic-silver die-stamping, embossing in braille, microprinting, and a grayish- green ink that is quite difficult to photocopy (which helps to explain why the reduced illustration shown here is so poor). Excellence at chess is one mark of a scheming mind, according to Sherlock Holmes (in "The Retired Colourman"), and Holmes and Watson are occasionally honored in chess magazines and books. Stan Hill reports that Andy Soltis' pastiche chess-problem "The Case of the Mate by 90 Degrees" is in the May 1993 issue of Chess Life (186 Route 9W, New Windsor, NY 19553; $2.95). The spring 1993 issue of Scarlet Street is due soon, and the winter 1993 issue has David Stuart Davies' usual fine coverage of work on the Granada series, an interview with Peter Cushing, and a comic-book forecast: Martin Powell, author of three mini-series for Eternity, has adapted "The Hound of the Baskervilles" as a graphic novel for Innovation (tentatively set for 1993 with a cover by Steranko). Scarlet Street costs $18.00 a year (four issues) from R. H. Enterprises, 271 Farrant Terrace, Teaneck, NJ 07666. And Powell said that his graphic novel will be the "definitive version" of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (although "I did have to change the ending to make it more dynamic"). Tom and Ruthann Stetak report a new series of collectibles from John Hine Studios (they distributed Malcolm Cooper's miniature reproduction of "The Sherlock Holmes" in 1988). "London by Gaslight" (designed by Bob Russell and Andrew C. Stadden) includes 14 different buildings and 15 sets of ac- cessories, and one set of accessories consists of Jack the Ripper, Ripper's Victim, and Holmes & Watson, but I have no idea what their prices might be. In 1988 they did not sell at retail, but would identify your nearest dealer (John Hine Studios' address is Box 801207, Houston, TX 77280-1207). Paula Brown reports that a new catalog from What on Earth (2451 Enterprise East Parkway, Twinsburg, OH 44087) has new Sherlockian merchandise: Holmes on the handle of a walking stick ($79.95) or umbrella ($69.95), and magnets with five-inch wooden portraits of Holmes and Watson ($7.95 each). Apr 93 #3 Moore Fantoni (5112 West Strong, Chicago, IL 60630) is offering a list of books available on floppy disks, one of them being THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES with text from The Strand Magazine. THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES, A STUDY IN SCARLET, and THE SIGN OF FOUR also are available, with text from THE COMPLETE SHERLOCK HOLMES. You can write for a price list, since prices vary depending on the size of the disk (THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES costs $13.00 postpaid on three DSDD disks or $5.00 postpaid on one DSHD disk). Holmes for the Holidays continues to offer splendid fun for young mystery fans, and value-for-money as well; it costs $7.50 a year for five issues, with a color cover, and games and puzzles and cartoons, and in the latest issue a pleasant interview with Henry Mancini (who wrote the music for the films "The Great Mouse Detective" and "Without a Clue"). It's published by Michael W. McClure (1415 Swanwick Street, Chester, IL 62333). The Baker Street Pages have a new lapel pin, in red and blue enamel on brass, and far more colorful than the artwork shown here. $9.00 postpaid from Tim O'Connor, 6015 West Route 115, Herscher, IL 60941. Sherlock of the West Country (Box 30521, Stockton, CA 95213) offers a sales list of Sherlockian and Doylean books. Victoria Robinson reports that Jeremy Brett's "The Master Blackmailer" will air on PBS-TV on "Mystery!" on May 6 and 13. For those who have forgotten, this is Granada's two-hour version of "Charles Augustus Milverton" (which was broadcast in Britain in Jan. 1992). Sorry about that. Helen Hayes did not, as reported here (Mar 93 #6) and in her obituary in the Washington Post, begin her acting career at the age of 5 at the National Theatre in Washington. Donn B. Murphy, president of the theater, has noted that while she frequently recalled seeing her first per- formances from the balcony of the National, she first appeared on stage at the age of 5 in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at Holy Cross Academy. Sorry about that (again). And this is the first time that two such items have appeared in one issue of this newsletter. Ambassador Ralph Earle II, who ought to know, suggests that Gen. Vernon Walters (like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, an alumnus of Stonyhurst College) was an Ambassador under only two different presidents. Last month's clipping (Mar 93 #1) did note that Gen. Walters served as (lower case) ambassador under seven different presidents, but lower-case ambassadorhood covers a multitude of sins. Leslie Charteris died on Apr. 15. There are millions of readers who will always remember Patricia Holm and Claud Eustace Teal and Hoppy Uniatz, and Simon Templar, who first appeared in 1928 in ENTER THE TIGER and continued for decades to delight fans of the Saint in a long series of short stories and books and in films and on television. There were Sherlockian allusions in many of those stories and books, and in 1944 and 1945 Charteris worked with Denis Green on scripts for the Rathbone radio series (their script for "The Case of the Dead Adventuress" was published in the March 1986 issue of the BSJ); Charteris used the pseudonym "Bruce Taylor" for the radio series. Apr 93 #4 A detailed schedule is available for the fifth annual Canonical Convocation and Caper in Door County, Wis., Sept. 17-19, 1993. This year's theme is the Victorian era, and there will be presentations on Victorian romance and courtship, medicine, architecture, religion, horse- racing, bookshelves, bathrooms, and other aspects of that now-vanished age. Write to Jane Richardson, 3456 Exchange Road, Crete, IL 60417. The U.S. Postal Service celebrated the 200th anniversary of the first circus performance in this country with a set of four handsome stamps, some of which were cancelled at the first day ceremony in Washington by an inked foot belonging to circus star King Tusk (yes indeed, an elephant). We've had a clown on a stamp before (in 1966, honoring the 100th anniversary of John Ringling's birth), and a circus wagon (on a coil stamp in 1990). The clown would be Griggs, and the circus belle either Eugenia Ronder or Vittoria. And who was it who went to the circus? A couple of months ago I mentioned plans by Barbara and Christopher Roden to start an Amateur Press Association) for discussion of the writings of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The Dangling Prussian APA already exists, and is an essentially Sherlockian gathering place (the Dangling Prussian being an extremely peculiar pub with some extremely peculiar patrons), and there are a few vacancies. The rules are simple: you write something (at least two pages would be nice) and send twenty copies to Brad A. Keefauver (the part- time bartender), and he sorts them out and sends them back. You can write fiction about doings at the pub (guidelines available from Brad on request) or non-fiction, and if you don't contribute you don't get the mailing. The DPAPA is published six times a year; the deadline for the next issue is in mid-May, and details are available from Brad at 1421 West Shenandoah Drive, Peoria, IL 61614. Further to earlier reports on the government proposal to close St. Barthol- omew's Hospital (Jan 93 #5), the April issue of The Petrel Flyer (the news- letter of The Stormy Petrels of British Columbia) reprints news from London (Feb. 12): the British cabinet has given St. Bart's a reprieve. It was one of 15 hospitals in London recommended for closure, but a campaign to save it, supported by many celebrities, did the trick. Roger Johnson reports in the April issue of The District Messenger that the spring issue of The Sherlock Holmes Gazette has appeared, still edited by Elizabeth Wiggins but now published by Baker Street Productions (P.O. Box 221, Alderney, Channel Islands, Great Britain). And that the Gazette has a report that Edward Hardwicke plans to revive Martyn Read's play "221B" (in which Nigel Stock toured to fine reviews in Britain in 1983). And the High Moorlands Visitors' Centre in Princeton will be opened later this year by Prince Charles, and will have a Conan Doyle/Sherlock Holmes exhibition. Apr 93 #5 Jon Lellenberg has forwarded an article from the Mar. 22 issue of the London Evening Standard that may mark the setting of an important precedent: the Canon has been cited in a historical-preservation campaign. The Department of the Environment has required an investigation that will delay (and perhaps prevent) approval by Wandsworth Council of a proposal to demolish the historic board school at Lavender Hill. English Heritage, the Victorian Society, and the local conversation advisory comm- ittee have recommended that the brick-built structure, with its prominent turrets, be included in a nearby conservation area. The article notes that in "The Naval Treaty" Sherlock Holmes described the board school as a brick island in a lead-coloured sea, and states that the school now is "virtually the only building of any interest in the area." And an interesting report in the Apr. 2 issue of the Daily Telegraph: "A three-pipe problem for the Arthur Conan Doyle Society: its founder, Chris Roden of Chester, has discovered that his British members care more for slap-up dinners than debating the great man's *oeuvre*. The most recent Conan Doyle weekend--a L165 bash in Edinburgh--drew almost no Brits at all, leading Roden to threaten to hold future conventions in the United States. Roden claims he cannot put together a meeting here 'unless there is a bar and meal-table involved.' Americans apparently need only a cup of coffee." Tom Stix has reported a limited-edition print of John Lennon's caricature "Sherlock Lennon", first published in A SPANIARD IN THE WORKS (1965); the print image is 6 x 10 in. and each print has John Lennon's "chop" in red and is signed by Yoko Ono Lennon. The print is priced at $400 (plus $10 shipping) from Bag One Arts (110 West 79th Street, New York, NY 10024). Or at $300 (plus $10 shipping) from Burd House Frame Shop, 102 Main Street, Nyack, NY 10960); they take plastic, and will be happy to mat and frame the print for another $100. And Bruce Southworth has discovered a cute one-inch-high plastic duck with magnifying glass and deerstalker, from Hallmark at $3.00. Who went to the circus? Sally Dennis, in "A Study in Scarlet". Well yes, Sally Dennis didn't exist, but her mother said that she did. And yes, the mother really was a young man. Well, Holmes does say so, and Jefferson Hope confirms that she was a man. One wonders how Jefferson Hope so easily found a friend so skilled with disguise as to be able to deceive Sherlock Holmes, even that early in his career. It's not all that easy for a man to disguise himself as a woman, let alone an old woman, with enough expertise to get away with it at close range, but of course Holmes eventually gained that expertise himself, and as an elderly woman managed thoroughly to deceive Count Negretto Sylvius. The Mysterious Bookshop (192 West 56th Street, New York, NY 10019) has sent its new spring-summer catalog, with two pages of Sherlockiana (in and out of print), and a clearance sale of Mysterious Press paperbacks at five for $10.00 (such as Gahan Wilson's EVERYBODY'S FAVORITE DUCK, with parodies of Holmes and Watson and Moriarty and other heroes and villians). Apr 93 #6 Cantinflas died on Apr. 20. He was a splendid actor (Charlie Chaplin called him "the world's greatest comedian"), and he was best known here for his appearance as Phileas Fogg's valet Passepartout in the film "Around the World in 80 Days" (1956). The late Morris Rosenblum, who insisted on including Sherlockian references in every one of his books, suggested in HEROES OF MEXICO (1969) that Cantinflas was "so talented that he could play either a comic Sherlock Holmes or Dr. Watson, either Don Qui- xote or Sancho Panza." There's no mention of the Cherokee Strip Land Run in the Canon, nor any mention of Oklahoma, and we can't even be sure that any Canonical character actually set foot in that part of the west, but our new centennial commemora- tive has a nice design, and does serve as a reminder of "the canvas-covered tilts of wagons" (found in "A Study in Scarlet") or perhaps even the same story's "tall, savage-looking young fellow, mounted on a powerful roan horse." Robert C. Hess (559 Potter Boulevard, Brightwaters, NY 11718) offers a new sales list of Sherlockiana (statues, postage stamps, magazines, autographed material, cigar-box labels, coins, etc.). Paul H. Brundage (2632 Central Court, Union City, CA 94587-3128) offers a 18-page print-out of the more than 600 people on his Sherlockian address list, with names, addresses, and telephone numbers (if available), sorted alphabetically or geographically, for $2.50 postpaid. The Jan. 26, 1927, issue of the Harvard Lampoon offered readers Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Affair at Hampton Widgets" (not recorded by the biblio- graphers, but now rescued from obscurity by Dana Richards). The story was not by Conan Doyle, of course, and at this late date the author cannot be identified, but the parody has been reprinted in a 20-page pamphlet, with a new introduction, and is available from Dana at 10814 Rippon Lodge Drive, Fairfax, VA 22032 ($4.00 postpaid). The seventh and eighth volumes in Murray Shaw's MATCH WITS WITH SHERLOCK HOLMES series are now available, with his adaptations of "The Dancing Men" and "The Three Garridebs" in one, and of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" in the other. The stories are nicely adapted for children aged 8-11, and have attractive illustrations by George Overlie; you can order from Carolrhoda Books, 241 First Avenue North, Minneapolis, MN 55401 (800-328-4929); $14.95 (cloth) or $4.95 (paper). A new subscriber has asked about ordering in-print books from Britain. And since it has been a while since the last explanation, here are the details: two companies can supply just about anything in print, and they offer two ways to pay without incurring bank surcharges (you can open an account and pay by check in your own currency, sent to a bank in your country, or you can authorize a charge against a credit card such as Visa or Mastercard). They are W. & G. Foyle (119-125 Charing Cross Road, London W.C.2, England) and Blackwell's (Broad Street, Oxford, Oxon. OX1 3BQ, England). The Spermaceti Press, 3900 Tunlaw Road NW #119, Washington, DC 20007-4830 May 93 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press Bruce Southworth reports that there's still room for last-minute decisions to attend the Norwegian Explorers' workshop on "Sherlock Holmes's Victorian Criminal Classes" on June 11-13. Lots of papers, a Saturday evening dinner speech on "Conan Doyle's Sense of Justice" by Prof. Harold Orel, and longer hours at the Special Collections Library on all three days. Registration costs $110.00, and you should write to the society at: Wilson Library #466, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455. If you wondered why last month's issue was a few days late, it was because the entire staff spent the last week of April in New Orleans, Philadelphia, and New York, attending meetings of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists and of various Sherlockian societies, the most elegant being the spring dinner of The Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes, at which Marilynne McKay delivered an excellent toast to spring, beginning with an old school poem: "Hooray! Hooray! The first of May! Outdoor f***ing starts today!" The complete text of Marilynne's toast (which did draw more directly from the Canon), as well as other adventuress and adventurous scholarship, will likely appear in The Serpentine Muse, the quarterly journal of the ASH; the subscription price is $10.00 a year, from Evelyn A. Herzog, 360 West 21st Street #5-A, New York, NY 10011-3310. Reported by Thomas G. Kowols in the latest issue of The Police Gazette (the newsletter of The Scotland Yarders): Starlog (May 1993) offers an interview with Daniel Davis (who played Moriarty in the two Sherlockian episodes of "Star Trek: The Next Generation"); their address is 475 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10016. The Apr. 1993 of Boys' Life has a comic-strip version of "The Blue Carbuncle" (as "The Mystery of the Blue Diamond"); Box 152079, Irving, TX 75015-2079. A new mail-order catalog from Prime Time Nostalgia (MMP International, 261 Van Buren Avenue, Teaneck, NJ 07666) has a set of five CD recordings, four with two each of the Rathbone/Bruce radio shows, and one with the Orson Welles version of the Gillette play (about $20.00 for the set). And "Doctor Who: The Tom Baker Years" (a videocassette from CBS/Fox) has Baker watching a clip from each of his shows and reminiscing about them; when he reaches "The Talons of Weng Chiang" (1977), he recalls that making the story served as preparation for his "absolute failure" in the BBC-TV version of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (1982). And now for something *really* trivial: the Duke of Holdernesse and Sherlock Holmes were first cousins. Thanks to the Howards. In Granada's version of "The Priory School", the Duke of Holdernesse was Alan Howard, whose father was Arthur Howard, whose brother was Leslie Howard, whose son was Ronald Howard, who was Sherlock Holmes in the 1954 television series. Barbara Alder Roden reports that the Royal Mail has set Oct. 12 as the day of issue of a set of postage stamps honoring Holmes and Conan Doyle, with a commemorative booklet as a souvenir collectible. The original plans were to honor the opening of the Channel Tunnel, but continuing delays with that grand opening have created an opening in the schedule that will undoubtedly be much more welcome to Sherlockians and Doyleans. Conan Doyle, it should be noted, was an enthusiastic supporter of the Channel Tunnel. May 93 #2 The first issue of The Whitechapel Gazette has appeared, edited by Troy Taylor, with 36 pages of nicely illustrated Sherlockian and Doylean articles (and one pastiche). $6.00 postpaid, from Troy Taylor at 805 West North, Decatur, IL 62522. Our new block of four stamps honoring sporting horses includes two stamps with Canonical connections (polo is mentioned in "The Illustrious Client" and "His Last Bow"). Can anyone make Canonical connections for harness and steeplechase racing? The colors worn by the jockey on the horse going over the fence are red and black, but the Wessex Cup wasn't a steeplechase. Dick Warner (who holds the office of Head Sherpa of The Holmes Peak Pres- ervation Society) has noted that the Tulsa Historical Society has added Holmes Peak to the list of 76 "Tulsa Historical Sites" in their new guide to the city. Holmes Peak is still the only officially-approved landform in the United States named in honor of Sherlock Holmes. DC Comics' ECLIPSO #8 is now in the shops with "an untold adventure of the world's greatest detective" (issue #7 had a brief introduction, and future issues presumably have relevant letters to the editor). The story's titled "Good Night, Mr. Holmes!" and it's gory and weird and macabre (not all that unusual for a lot of modern comic books). Charles Stumpp died on Apr. 15. A member of the Giants Rats of Massillon (on detached duty in Roanoke, Va., as he liked to say) and an enthusiastic Sherlockian, he also was a member of the Baker Street Irregulars. In his article "Those Were the Golden Years" (in TALES OF THE GIANT RATS, 1990) he told of reading about the BSI in 1947, and attending the annual dinner in 1952, and receiving a copy of THE NAPOLEON OF CRIME in 1953, inscribed by Edgar W. Smith to "Charles Stumpp BSI" (thus becoming the last person known to have received membership in the BSI unaccompanied by an Investiture and an Irregular Shilling). Baker Street Associates, producers of the continuing series of reissues of the Rathbone/Bruce radio shows, now have a newsletter: the first issue of The Dispatch Box is at hand from Ken Greenwald, who offers a history of the company's work on the series, and discussion of Sherlockian actors, and of Sherlockian books. P.O. Box 351453, Los Angeles, CA 90035-998. Lynn Redgrave's "Shakespeare for My Father" (at the Helen Hayes Theatre in New York) is a one-woman show in which she reminisces about life with her father, and reads from Shakespeare's plays. Harlan Umansky reports that at one point she tells of going to Australia with her husband, hoping to find the grave of her grandfather Rory Redgrave, and finding it in a cemetery near Sydney: the grave was situated between the graves of men named Doyle and Watson. Harlan has asked The Sydney Passengers to investigate. May 93 #3 Harvey Kurtzman's colorful Sherlockian cover for the Oct.-Nov. 1953 issue of Mad (which included his fine parody "Shermlock Shomes!") has been reprinted by Lime Rock International and E.C. Publica- tions on one of a series of trading cards showing covers from the magazine, according to Tim O'Connor. The Sherlockian card apparently is part of the second set in the series, and you should try to find a trading-card shop or dealer who opens packets to put complete sets together (and winds up with left-over cards which usually are available for a dime or a quarter each). Carol-Lynn Rossel Waugh makes an attractive teddy- bear "Sherlock Holmes at Home" (15 in. tall, fully jointed, free-standing, in two-tone German mohair) available for $500. A similar "William Jefferson Bear" also costs $500 (regardless of whether your vote was for or against Clinton). Her address is: 5 Morrill Street, Winthrop, ME 04364. Further to the report (Apr 93 #2) on the "London by Gaslight" collectibles from John Hine Studios, the accessory set that includes Jack the Ripper, Holmes, and Watson retails for $15.00. And they do have a computerized file of dealers who carry their material. Their address: P.O. Box 801207, Houston, TX 77280-1207. Sherlock Holmes' secretary is giving up answering tourist inquiries about the great man to become a detective," according to a report in the Brighton Evening Argus (Apr. 30), sent by Malcolm Payne via David Rush. Erica Harper, who has been answering Sherlock Holmes' mail for three years, will move into Abbey National's security department, where she will investigate frauds and robberies. Plan well ahead. Scott Bond and Sherry Rose-Bond report that "Harry and Arthur" is scheduled at the Bucks County Playhouse in New Hope, Pa., on Dec. 8-19, 1993. The play is to star William Shatner (as Houdini) and Leonard Nimoy (as Conan Doyle), and is based on the novel BELIEVE., written by Shatner and Michael Tobias and published last year by Berkley (Jul 92 #2). Tickets are on sale now (performances Wednesday through Sunday), and their box-office telephone number is 215-862-2041 (Box 313, New Hope, PA 18938). Henry Brandon died on Apr. 20. He was one of Britain's best journalists, arriving in Washington in 1949 as correspondent for The Sunday Times. He was promoted to associate editor, and then chief American correspondent, and retired in 1983. He was proud and delighted to learn that his phone was tapped by the Nixon administration in 1969 and 1971, and in a column headlined "Elementary, my dear Brandon" (Oct. 15, 1972) he reported in an interview with Sherlock Holmes on the detective's thoughts about Watergate. May 93 #4 The spring 1993 issue of Scarlet Street has arrived, with David Stuart Davies' illustrated article about "Sherlock Holmes Meets The Twilight Zone" (that's his report on Granada's "The Last Vampyre" and "The Eligible Bachelor"), and news of a new book: PETER CUSHING: THE GENTLE MAN OF HORROR AND HIS 91 FILMS, by Deborah Del Vecchio and Tom Johnson (465 pp., $45.00, from McFarland & Co., Box 611, Jefferson, NC 28640). Scarlet Street costs $18.00 a year (four issues) and it's published by R. H. Enter- prises, 271 Farrant Terrace, Teaneck, NJ 07666. The Folio Society has sent information about SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE COMPLETE STORIES, with an introduction by Peter Cushing and illustrations by Francis Mosley. This is a five-volume boxed set with all of the short stories in a uniform cloth binding blocked with a design by David Eccles that displays a silhouette of Sherlock Holmes across the spines of the five volumes. The set will be published in June at $149.00, but the Society offers a pre-pub- lication price of $124.00 postpaid to their members and to readers of this newsletter if you order before June 30. They take plastic, and their toll- free number is 800-688-6247, or you can order by mail from Folio Books at 2323 Randolph Avenue, Avenel, NJ 07001; to qualify for the discount price, you mention "Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press" and pay them $124.00. The Society plans to issue a companion set of the long stories next year with a binding design that shows Watson on the spines, so that the entire set will present a complete picture on the shelf. "We're both failed doctors who found storytelling more congenial than heal- ing. Sometimes I think I've devoted my life to rewriting Conan Doyle in different ways." Michael Crichton, interviewed in the N.Y. Times (May 11) about the soon-to-open film based on his book JURASSIC PARK. May 93 #5 The Hubble Space Telescope will be used for an experiment that follows the trail blazed by Prof. Moriarty. Three young scien- tists led by Amherst College sophomore Benjamin Weiss will use the Hubble for a study of "The Dynamics of Binary Asteroids" in an attempt to discover binary asteroids, which are suspected to exist but are as yet unconfirmed (the Hubble is the only optical telescope capable of providing a definite answer). A binary asteroid actually would be two asteroids in orbit around each other; likely candidates are only 200 or 300 kilometers in diameter, and twice as far from the Earth as the Sun is. New theatrical trivia: name the actor who has played both Watson (on stage) and Moriarty (on television). Richard Wein reports that TNT cable will honor Sherlock Holmes on June 24, showing Christopher Plummer's "Murder by Decree" (1979), Peter Cushing's "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (1959), and Charlton Heston's "The Crucifer of Blood" (1991). Starting at 8:00 pm EDT. A new stop for Sherlockians touring in Britain: the Moon Under Water, a new pub in Norbury, southwest of London. According to an article at hand from Jon Lellenberg, the pub honors local history by displaying a painting that shows a scene from "The Yellow Face". The Northeast Victorian Studies Association plans to hold its 28th annual meeting at New York University on Apr. 15-17, 1994, exploring the topic of "Victorian Interiors: Domestic, Metaphorical, Narrative, and Psychological" (if you want to deliver a paper, the deadline for abstracts is Oct. 19, and you can contact Prof. Casey Finch, English Department, New York University, New York, NY 10003). The new musical "Ain't Broadway Grand" (which opened at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre in New York on Apr. 18) is based on the life of Mike Todd, with a cast that has two Sherlockian connections: Richard B. Shull is a member of the BSI ("An Actor and a Rare One"), and Mitchell Greenberg played Sherlock Holmes in Suzan L. Zeder's "The Death and Life of Sherlock Holmes" at the Open Eye Theater in New York in 1991. Television ratings. The final episode of "Cheers" on NBC on May 20 had a Nielsen rating of 45.5 (that's 42.4 million of the nation's 93.1 million television households), making it the 20th highest-rated program ever. The shows that have had better ratings include the final episode of "M*A*S*H", nine Super Bowls, and Nicholas Meyer's television film "The Day After". The actor who has played both Watson and Moriarty is Daniel Davis, who was Watson in Peter Donat's production of "The Crucifer of Blood" in San Fran- cisco in 1980, and Moriarty in the two Sherlockian episodes of "Star Trek: The Next Generation". Further to the report (Feb 91 #4) that filming was to begin in Apr. 1991 in Estonia on a movie that may or may not have been based on Loren Estleman's book, Andy Peck has forwarded a report that "Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula" was being promoted (in "presales") at Cannes this month. Jeffrey Sneller is the producer, with Christopher Walken and Timothy Dalton as the stars. May 93 #6 Further to the report (Apr 93 #4) about the campaign to save St. Bartholomew's Hospital, the latest news from Barbara Roden, in the May issue of The Petrel Flyer (the newsletter of The Stormy Petrels of British Columbia), is that Bart's survives only through merger with the Royal London Hospital. "I have to think of patients, not buildings," said health secretary Virginia Bottomley. "It is not my job to run a department of heritage." Steve Robinson offers two of the teaspoons that portray Charlie McCarthy in Sherlockian costume, offered by Chase & Sanborn as premiums tied to the old radio show. $70.00 each, but Steve would prefer to trade for S'ian books or ephemera; his new address is: 6980 South Bannock Street #3, Littleton, CO 80120 (303-794-9709). Dick Rutter reports that Steve Szilagyi's PHOTOGRAPHING FAIRIES (Aug 92 #6) is now available in a trade paperback edition (New York: Ballantine Books, 1993; 321 pp., $10.00). The books is an imaginative and well-written novel that was inspired by the Cottingley fairies and the two young girls whose photographs were earnestly defended by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in the 1920s. Sir Arthur and his daughter Mary are only incidental characters in a work of fantasy, but the fantasy is neatly contrived and well-executed. "Mrs. Parker and the Round Table" will go into production this summer, and Jennifer Jason Leigh has been "soaking up the vibes" at the Hotel Algonquin in preparation for the title role, according to Liz Smith's gossip column, at hand from Ross Kinnee. The film will be produced by Robert Altman and directed by Alan Rudolph, and will co-star Matthew Broderick as Charles MacArthur and Campbell Scott as Robert Benchley There's no suggestion that the company will actually film at the Algonquin, which reportedly has been working hard to win back some of the literati who have found other lobbies and restaurants in which to congregate in recent years. Dorothy Parker was once quoted as saying that the Round Table was full of people looking for a free lunch and asking, "Did you hear the funny thing I said yesterday?" A new sales list of Sherlockian books and magazines at hand from Jennifer Steen (Sherlock and Co., 695 35th Avenue #204, San Francisco, CA 94121. And Joseph J. Eckrich (7793 Keswick Place, St. Louis, MO 63119) offers a merged list of the material remaining from the first four lists of material from his collection (the remaining material has been discounted). The latest issue of The Parish Magazine has arrived from Christopher and Barbara Roden, reporting on past activities and future plans for the Arthur Conan Doyle Society (their meeting in Toronto has tentatively been set for May 6-8, 1994). Membership in the society includes an annual journal and a semi-annual newsletter, and costs L14.00 (or $27.00) to U.S. addresses (or L19.00/$35.00 to receive the publications by airmail); the Rodens' address is: Ashcroft, 2 Abbottsford Drive, Penyffordd, Chester CH4 0JG, England. And, to fill a bit of space: there are now 616 Sherlockian societies in our computer file, with 375 of them listed as active. 315 in the United States and 60 in other countries. 248 geographical, 18 professional, 109 other. The Spermaceti Press, 3900 Tunlaw Road NW #119, Washington, DC 20007-4830 Jun 93 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press More news on the set of British postage stamps that will be issued on Oct. 12 honoring Holmes and Conan Doyle. According to Christopher Roden, there will be five 24p stamps, designed by Andrew Davidson, with artwork for "The Reigate Squire", "The Hound of the Baskervilles", "The Six Napoleons", "The Greek Interpreter", and "The Final Problem". And there will be two sets of first day covers issued by The Arthur Conan Doyle Society. An illustrated information leaflet will be available in August from the Society (Ashcroft, 2 Abbottsford Drive, Penyffordd, Chester CH4 0JG, England). Malcolm Payne reports that The Conan Doyle (Crowborough) Establishment also will issue a first day cover, with a cachet and handstamps, posted from Windlesham; the cost is $15.00 (currency only) from Richard Greep, The Limes, Eridge Road, Crowborough, East Sussex, England. Videotaper alert (for those who didn't buy the cassette): "The Great Mouse Detective" will be broadcast on the Disney channel in August. Warren Randall (Prescott's Press, Box 610, Levittown, NY 11756) offers a T-shirt and badge that display Scott Bond's "Sherlock Holmes' Rogues, Rascals, and Ruffians" emblem for the June 11- 13 conference in Minneapolis. The T-shirt (S/M/L) and badge are in scion [cyan] blue on white, and the price for the set is $15.00 postpaid. Badges also are available in other colors at $3.00 postpaid. The weekend was grand fun, with excellent facilities and papers (the paper that received the most applause was an illustrated discussion of opium dens in turn-of-the-century London, presented by John Pforr in owner- operator costume, mustache, and accent, but it was only one item on a fine agenda). And Austin McLean had mounted a splendid exhibition in honor of Howard Haycraft at the Wilson Library at the University of Minnesota, which was accompanied by a display of some of their many Sherlockian treasures. The most interesting news in Minneapolis, certainly, was the report that Al Navis, who was in charge of Bouchercon XXIII in Toronto last year, and who had told me and others that he expected to net an estimated $30,000 to pass on to future Bouchercons, has refused to account for the money, let alone pass any on, and has even refused to pass on his mailing list. So: if you have been thinking about attending Bouchercon in Omaha on Oct. 1-3, and you have not already received a mailing from Charles Levitt, you should write to Bouchercon XXIV, Box 540516, Omaha, NE 68154-0516. Further to the report (Jan 93 #3) that "Twin Peaks" co-creator Mark Frost has written a book called THE LIST OF SEVEN, about how Arthur Conan Doyle met the man who inspired him to write the Sherlock Holmes stories, Frost (spotted by a Washington Post reporter at one of the publishers' parties at this year's American Booksellers Association convention in Miami Beach) has already started work on a sequel. Plan ahead. 1993's "Autumn in Baker Street" will be held at the Tarrytown Hilton in Tarrytown, N.Y., on Nov. 6-7. Additional details are available from Robert E. Thomalen, 69 Glen Road, Eastchester, NY 10709. Jun 93 #2 Jessie Lilley (editor of Scarlet Street) reports that David Stuart Davies reports that ITV has changed its mind about the importance of the two-hour format, and that Granada is now dusting off the old-but-not-yet-filmed one-hour scripts for the Jeremy Brett series, and hopes to continue the series with a one-hour version of "The Red Circle". Michael Senuta (881 Columbine Drive, Barberton, OH 44203) offers copies of two of his chapbooks: PUZZLING OVER SHERLOCK (1978) is a 32-page collection of 23 crossword puzzles based on stories in THE ADVENTURES and THE MEMOIRS ($8.00 postpaid), and SECOND THOUGHTS ABOUT SHERLOCK HOLMES (1991) is a 30- page pamphlet with two new pastiches and an analysis of the stories in the CASEBOOK ($9.00 postpaid). Harry Sayen's newspaper review of some recent mysteries, at hand from Delia Vargas, notes that Colin Dexter's THE WAY THROUGH THE WOODS is a fine book, but includes lots of look-'em-up-in-the-dictionary words like spondylosis, cruciverbalist, and funambulist. So: which funambulist is named in one of the Sherlock Holmes stories? The Simon and Schuster audiocassette THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES #20 ($11.00) has two more of the fine old radio shows from scripts by Denis Green and Anthony Boucher, with new introductions by Harry Bartell. "The Manor House Case" (15 Oct 45), starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, has long been available on phonograph records and cassettes, but Larry Nepodahl reports that earlier issues all have the east-coast broadcast of the show, while the new cassette offers the west-coast version; in the old days the broadcasts were live, and were performed twice so that west-coast audiences could hear the shows at a reasonable hour (so it now is possible to compare the two versions of this program). "The Stuttering Ghost" (12 Oct 46) is of particular interest, since it is the first program broadcast after Rath- bone refused to continue in the series, and was succeeded in the title role by Tom Conway. There was a new sponsor (Kreml hair tonic and shampoo), and a new announcer (Joseph Bell), and the same stalwart Watson (Nigel Bruce). Marjorie H. Buell died on May 30. As Marge Henderson, she created "Little Lulu" for the Saturday Evening Post in 1934, and her cartoon character was widely popular. Little Lulu and her friend Tubby were still seen in comic books well into the 1980s, though no longer drawn by Mrs. Buell; this strip is from the comic book LITTLE LULU #233 (July 1976). Jun 93 #3 If any Sherlockians were at the Belmont Stakes, they could have been big winners. Not this year, when Colonial Affair won and paid $13.90, but rather in 1961, when Sherluck won and paid $132.10 (that's the highest payoff in the race since 1940). And $132.10 was serious money, back in 1961, when the BSI annual dinner cost $16.00 (it would take $454.10 to be that serious in 1993, when the BSI annual dinner cost $55.00). The postal service continues to issue annual souvenir sheets commemorating the 50th anniversary of World War II, and this year's sheet includes a stamp that shows Willie and Joe, the classic cartoon characters created by Bill Mauldin. Some of Mauldin's editorial cartoons have used a Sherlockian theme (this one is from 1987). The Oxford University Press has sent information on their nine-volume THE OXFORD SHERLOCK HOLMES, tentatively scheduled for Sept. 1993 at $100. The set will come in a display box, and each volume will have an introduction (Owen Dudley Edwards, Richard Lancelyn Green, Christopher Roden, and W. W. Robson are editors of individual volumes), a chronology, selected biblio- graphy, notes, and a silk-screened cover embossed with a wood-etching. "Sherlock Holmes: Alive and Well in the Hearts of Readers Everywhere!" is the title of the weekend conference at Santa Fe Community College on Aug. 6-7, 1993. Speakers will include John Bennett Shaw, Ely Liebow, Richard H. Miller, Jennie C. Paton, David Skene-Melvin, and Graham Sudbury, and there will be tours of John's library, plus "a highly personal overview of the American Sherlockian experience, with emphasis on seminal contributions by John Bennett Shaw" presented by Evelyn Herzog, Patricia Moran, Mary Ellen Rich, and Linda Patterson. Registration costs $78.00 through July 14 (and $88.00 thereafter), and the address is: Community Services Office, Santa Fe Community College, Box 4187, Santa Fe, NM 87502 (505-438-1251). Jun 93 #4 For the completists: Andrew Jay Peck reports that the Quality Paperback Book Club is offering an exclusive paperback edition Carole Nelson Douglas' IRENE AT LARGE at $11.95. The club usually offers trade paperback editions (in the same size as, and printed from the plates of, the hardcover editions, but with paper covers), and they differ from the mass paperback editions (of which there will soon be one for IRENE AT LARGE). The Quality Paperback Book Club is for members only, but it's easy to join: the address is: Camp Hill, PA 17011-9902. At hand from Ted Friedman is a report by Jill Brooke in the N.Y. Post (May 28) about an announcement by CBS-TV of production plans for a made-for-TV movie starring Anthony Higgins as Sherlock Holmes. "In this new version, Holmes--who miraculously hasn't aged in 94 years thanks to a self-induced sleep--will have to outwit the evil offspring of his arch enemy Moriarty. The movie will air some time next season." Production is underway in Van- couver (substituting for San Francisco), according to Fran Martin, and a local paper reports that the title of the show is "Sherlock Holmes Returns in the Adventure of the Tiger's Revenge". Anthony Higgins was in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (as Gobler, presumably one of the Nazis), and his co-star is Debrah Farentino (she was in the Warren Beatty film "Bugsy"), as his sceptical new friend, Dr. Amy Winslow. Another report from Vancouver is that the production company was unaware of "The Return of Sherlock Holmes" (the title of the thawed-out-Holmes film broadcast by CBS-TV in 1987). Further to the report (Apr 93 #4) that The Sherlock Holmes Gazette is now publishing again, Carolyn and Joel Senter (Classic Specialties, Box 19058, Cincinnati, OH 45219) distribute the magazine in the U.S. The newest issue (#6) and all earlier issues are available for $8.00 each postpaid, issue #7 is due this month, and the Senters will accept subscriptions (four issues for $32.00 postpaid) beginning with issue #8. Issue #6 (spring 1993) has an attractive color cover, and 32 pages of news about a wide range of S'ian events, including a visit by Ronald and Nancy Reagan to The Sherlock Holmes in Northumberland Street (as well as the usual in-depth coverage of stage, radio, and television dramatizations of Sherlock Holmes). "Look out for Blondin," Sherlock Holmes exclaims, in "The Sign of the Four" (and Blondin was a funambulist). See Jun 93 #2, if you've forgotten. Jennie Paton has spotted GHOSTS OF DRACULA, a five-issue comic-book mini- series published by Eternity (Sept. 1991-Jan. 1992), with story by Martin Powell and artwork by Seppo Makinen. Harry Houdini is in London in 1925, joining Dr. Van Helsing in pursuit of Dracula, and Sherlock Holmes makes a brief appearance in issue #2. The Bowling Green State University Popular Press (Bowling Green, OH 43403) is having a summer sale, offering a 60% discount on their mystery-related backlist. The sale runs through July 3l, and you can write them for their flier, which includes marginally-Sherlockian books such as Earl F. Bargain- nier's COMIC CRIME (1987), Ray B. Browne's HEROES AND HUMANITIES: DETECTIVE FICTION AND CULTURE (1987), Michael L. Cook's MYSTERY FANFARE (1983); Will- iam B. Hunt's FRONT-PAGE DETECTIVE: WILLIAM BURNS AND THE DETECTIVE PROFES- SION, 1880-1930 (1990); S. T. Joshi's JOHN DICKSON CARR: A CRITICAL STUDY (1990), and LeRoy L. Panek's AN INTRODUCTION TO THE DETECTIVE STORY (1987). Jun 93 #5 The Poet of the Pequod Press, thundering in hot pursuit of THE MEMOIRS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (Mar 93 #7), now offers 29 quartets, collected in THE HORSE IN THE GORSE, and finely-printed (as always) at The Pequod Press. Available from John Ruyle, 521 Vincente Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94707-1521; $35.00 (cloth) or $15.00 (paper). Further to the report (Jun 92 #3) on filming of a television adaptation of Craig Bowlsby's play "The Hound of London" (1987) with Patrick Macnee as Sherlock Holmes, Craig reports that the 90-minute special has been sold to (but not yet broadcast by) stations in British Columbia, Ireland, and Bot- swana. The special is being marketed to independent stations, and you can suggest that your local stations write to Intrepid Productions (2130 West 3rd Avenue #203, Vancouver, BC V6K 1L1, Canada) for more information. Sherlockians in or visiting southern California may wish to visit the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to see the retrospective exhibition of paintings by Mark Tansey that opened in June. But check first to make certain that the exhibit includes Tansey's painting "Derrida Queries De Man" (1990), which is described by many critics as derived from Sidney Paget's famous illustration, and which also generates comments such as "they are locked in eternal combat over the mean- ing De Man gave to the meaning that Derrida gave to Rousseau." There also have been reports that there are lots of words on the rocks on the left side of the painting, but so far no one has explained what they are, or say (the painting is almost seven feet in height, and someone ought to be able to get close enough to it in Los Angeles to find out). Cameron Hollyer retired from the Metropolitan Toronto Reference Library in 1991, after more than twenty years as curator of the library's Arthur Conan Doyle Collection, but he definitely has not retired from the Sherlockian world. Quite the contrary: he now has found the time for the research that was needed for his landmark paper "E=M3 squared or: How Many Moriartys Can Park on the Edge of a Quark?" Cam's imaginative conclusions were unveiled at the annual dinner of The Bimetallic Question in Montreal in January, and they have now been published, in the spring 1993 issue of Canadian Holmes, which is the quarterly journal of The Bootmakers of Toronto; the cost is $15.00 a year, and checks can be sent to Nancy Thorpe, 47 Manor Road West, Toronto, Ont. M5P 1E6, Canada. Al Hirschfeld turned 90 this month, and was honored at a birthday party at the Hotel Algonquin (where his artistic caricatures of Broadway's famous personalities were on display). He has drawn more than one actor in the role of Sherlock Holmes over the years, and he's still at work. THE PRIVATE NOSE, by Andrew Taylor, with illustrations by Emanuel Schongut (Cambridge: Candlewick Press, 1993; 90 pp., $13.95), was published in 1989 in Britain and now has an American edition; young Jack Watson's new neigh- bor Saturday Holmes (who has inherited her ancestor's nose for detection) involves them both in an amusing series of short mysteries for children. Jun 93 #6 PETER CUSHING: THE GENTLE MAN OF HORROR AND HIS 91 FILMS, by Deborah Del Vecchio and Tom Johnson (Jefferson: McFarland & Co., 1992; 465 pp., $45.00), offers excellent coverage of a career that started with his appearance as a King's Messenger in "The Man in the Iron Mask" (1939) and included much more than the horror films for which he is best known. The filmography is carefully researched, with comments by the authors (and by Cushing himself), and lots of anecdotes. The book offers eight pages on "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (1959), with minor discus- sion of his Sherlockian television series (1968) and "The Masks of Death" (1984), and an intriguing mention of Paul Giovanni's play "The Crucifer of Blood" (Cushing told the authors in 1975 that "the part of Sherlock Holmes was originally offered to me, but I'm afraid the theatre is a thing of the past as far as I'm concerned"). The address for the publisher is: Box 611, Jefferson, NC 28640. David Rush reports that the June 1993 issue of Reader's Digest has "The Greatest Quotes Never Said" (condensed from "NICE GUYS FINISH SEVENTH": FALSE PHRASES, SPURI- OUS SAYINGS AND FAMILIAR MISQUOTATIONS, by Ralph Keyes, published by Harpercollins in 1992). Keyes notes that "Elementary, my dear Watson" is not in the Canon, and there is nice accompanying artwork by Michael Witte. S. Tupper Bigelow ("The Five Orange Pips") died on June 13. He was one of Canada's best-known magistrates (and widely known as the "hanging judge of Toronto" although he really wanted only an end to the ban on flogging), and chairman of the Ontario Racing Commission (and an early promoter of various runnings of The Silver Blaze on both sides of the border), and he once told Bill Rabe that "I have been trying to con my brother-in-law, who is a local Alderman, into changing the name of our local street (in his ward, too), to Lauriston Gar- dens and renumbering us '3', but the silly bastard wants to know why." He received his Investiture and Irregular Shilling in 1959, and the BSI's Two- Shilling Award in 1969. And Tupper never objected when he was described as the only man I ever knew who had been born in the 19th century but who had been born a century too late (I was off only by a year). A new catalog at hand from Brian and Charlotte Erickson (Sherlock's Corner, 1029 Judson Drive, Mountain View, CA 94040) offering large and small Sher- lockian shadow boxes, jigsaw puzzles, needlepoint and clay ornaments, note cards, and much more. Tina Rhea reports that a book dealer in Wiltshire is offering some books by Michael Harrison (Sherlockian and non-Sherlockian) that she doesn't need. If you have a Harrison want-list, you can write (and send an SASE) to Tina at 3-E Ridge Road, Greenbelt, MD 20770. THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, by Philip Weller (with Christopher Roden), was published last year in England by Studio Editions at L12.95, and there also is an American edition (New York: Crescent Books, 1992; 144 pp., $15.00). The text is for non-Sherlockians, but any Sherlockian ought to enjoy the many splendid full-color illustrations from material in the collections of Richard Lancelyn Green and Stanley MacKenzie. Jun 93 #7 "Sherlock Bloodhound" was one of the "country companions" that were available earlier from Wild Wings (Mar 92 #5): an attract- ive six-inch-high figurine by artist Robert Harrop in handcrafted cold-cast resin. And if you missed it, Paula Brown has reported it offered again, in the Father's Day catalog from House of Tyrol, Box 451, Lake City, MN 55041 (800-445-4833). It's item 16433, and the cost is $49.95 plus shipping. LESTRADE AND THE SAWDUST RING, by M. J. Trow (London: Constable, 1992, 235 pp., L13.99), is the thirteenth in his fine series about Sholto Lestrade, who in this book is a young detective-sergeant in 1879, pursued by a priv- ate detective hired by Prime Minister Disraeli and touring the provinces in "Lord" George Sanger's circus, investigating (as usual) a series of rather bizarre murders. Trow continues his excellent work in presenting a clumsy- but-intelligent Lestrade, with plenty of action, much humor, occasionally- atrocious puns, and bravura style. Bantam Audio (as in Bantam Doubleday Dell) is the American distributor of the BBC Radio audiocassette version of THE MEMOIRS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (vol. 1 has four stories on two cassettes, at $15.99); it's the Merrison/Williams series, and the stories are Silv/Yell/Stoc/Glor. Jennie Paton spotted a new Sherlockian troll: a plastic doll, five inches high, with purple hair, distributed by Russ Berrie and Co., Oakland, N.J. (item 18515). Not as authentic as the ten-inch-high white-haired Norfin Troll marketed in 1990 (Oct 90 #3), but just as silly. C. Bryan Gassner, who presides over The Shadows of the Elm at the Arroyo del Oso Elementary School in Albuquerque, N.M., assisted her students in presenting a half-hour adaptation of "The Red-Headed League" last month, and as usual it was nicely done, and videotaped. A videocassette (with an extra 17 minutes of out-takes titled "Rejects from the Artificial Kneecap Factory") is available for $8.00 postpaid from Mrs. Gassner at 922 Washing- ton Street SE, Albuquerque, NM 87108. Sherlock Holmes will battle the Phantom of the Opera. Twice. Jon Lellen- berg has reported that Nicholas Meyer has written a new novel called THE CANARY TRAINER, and that an auction among publishers was delayed when Meyer learned that Sam Siciliano's novel THE ANGEL OF THE OPERA, with a similar theme, was already on offer with use of the characters authorized by Dame Jean Conan Doyle. Meyer quickly received authorization for his book, too, and Norton has announced that Meyer's THE CANARY TRAINER will be published on Sept. 20. And Siciliano's THE ANGEL OF THE OPERA will be published by Macmillan, who have not yet announced a date. "Three men in a deerstalker" was the headline on Judith Cook's report in the Guardian Weekend (May 22), kindly sent by Malcolm Payne, with details on a joint meeting of The Sherlock Holmes Society and The Jerome K. Jerome Society hosted by Philip and Rose Porter at their home in Worcestershire. "The Holmes Society runs heavily to barristers and solicitors and account- ants," according to Miss Cook's account, "though also among its number was an aerial archaeologist who wore shorts and a pith helmet, and remained silent throughout." There was lunch, croquet, rain, Victorian music hall, and a balloon ascent, and the heavily outnumbered Jeromeians all survived. Jun 93 #8 The Parallelogram is the newsletter published five times a year by and for The Parallel Case of St. Louis, and the June issue has Michael Harrison's hitherto unpublished essay on "The Unsung Virtues of Dr. Watson" (and it is nice indeed to be reminded of how easy it was for Michael to shed new light on the Canon). Subscriptions cost $6.00 a year, to Joseph J. Eckrich, 2757 Baccara Drive, Arnold, MO 63010 (and yes, that's his new address). There's still time for a trip to Washing- ton, to visit the National Gallery of Art to see the fine exhibition of "The Great Age of British Watercolors 1750-1880" be- fore it closes on July 25. Twenty-seven splendid watercolors by Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851), are featured in the show, and one of them is his fine painting "The Great Falls of the Reichen- bach" (1804). And if you don't see the painting in Washington, you can visit it later at the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery in Bedford, from which it was loaned to the exhibition. "Poirot Battles Reilly: Ace of Spies on PBS-TV" isn't the name of the series, but if your local station repeats "Reilly" in July you will be able to see David Suchet in the second episode, as the policeman who pursues Reilly in Port Arthur. Richard Wein notes that Al Greengold (who has been a speaker at "Autumn on Baker Street") will lecture on Sherlock Holmes at the monthly meeting of Greater New York Mensa at 7:00 pm on July 8, at the Workmen's Circle (45 East 33rd Street in New York City); you need not be a member of Mensa to attend, and the cost is $5.00 (members) or $7.50 (guests) (and you can be Al's guest). Videotaper alert: the restored laserdisc version of "The Lost World" (1925) will air on AMC cable on July 1, 13, and 29. And "The Deadly Bees" (1967) will air on USA cable on July 22; the film is based on H. F. Heard's novel A TASTE FOR HONEY, and was scripted by Robert Bloch, but Anthony Marriott's revision of Bloch's script "took some vast liberties" (according to Bloch), and Mr. Mycroft vanished from the show. Erik Beckman ("Stapleton") was found dead on June 5. He was a Professor of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University, with particular interest and expertise in the legal aspects of high-speed police pursuits, and a member of The Greek Interpreters of East Lansing, and received his Investiture in the BSI in 1986. After his retirement in 1988 he moved to California and joined The Napa Valley Napoleons, but lived alone. The Spermaceti Press, 3900 Tunlaw Road NW #119, Washington, DC 20007-4830 Jul 93 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press IL RITORNO DELLE FATE (Carnago: SugarCo Edizioni, 1992; 219 pp., 22,000 lire) is an Italian translation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's THE COMING OF THE FAIRIES (1922), with his article from The Strand Magazine (Feb. 1923) and material from the second edition of the book (1928), and a transcript of the interview filmed by Fox Movietone in 1929 (reprinted from the N.Y. Times), and with an interesting new introduction by Michael W. Homer and Massimo Introvigne that brings the story of the Cottingley fairies up to date through the exposure of the hoax in the 1980s. All in Italian, and the publisher's address is: Via Enrico Fermi 9, 21040 Carnago (VA), Italy. The just-issued THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES offers two audiocassettes with three stories ("The Empty House", "The Devil's Foot", and "The Abbey Grange") read by Edward Hardwicke, who as might be expected does a fine job indeed with Watson's prose and with other voices such as Holmes, and Holmes as the old bookseller. The cost is L9.00 postpaid, from CSA Telltapes, 101 Chamberlayne Road, London NW10 3ND, England; payment in sterling only, but they take plastic (Visa/Mastercard/Eurocard). CSA also reports that Edward Hardwicke will be seen in the film "Shadowlands" (with Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger). Christopher and Barbara Roden now have a firm date for next year's meeting of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society in Toronto: Apr. 29-May 1, at the Hotel Plaza II. Their tentative list of speakers includes the Rodens, Michael Coren, Michael W. Homer, Roy E. Pilot, Chris Redmond, Alvin E. Rodin, R. Dixon Smith, and Philip K. Wilson, and additional information is available from the society, at Ashcroft, 2 Abbottsford Drive, Penyffordd, Chester CH4 0JG, England. The summer 1993 issue of The Sherlock Holmes Gazette has arrived, with a color cover and 48 pages of news about the touring production of "Sherlock Holmes: The Musical" and the new Sherlockian society in France and other areas of interest, and more than three pages of comments on comment in the spring issue on how scholarly or social or bibulous many Sherlockians and Holmesians are or ought to be. And a report that Granada's recreation of Baker Street (the exterior set) has been enclosed in an enormous warehouse so that hourly Victorian shows can be presented in the street for visitors to the Granada Studios Tours; it thus becomes more and more difficult for the television series to use the set. Four-issue subscriptions cost $32.00 from Carolyn and Joel Senter at Classic Specialties, Box 19058, Cincinnati, OH 45219 (credit cards welcome). The Senters' last catalog also is avail- able, offering an assortment of attractive Sherlockiana. Sherry Rose-Bond reports an interesting discovery in the July 1993 issue of Vanity Fair, in an article about Francesca Thyssen, daughter of Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza, wife of the Archduke Karl von Habsburg. The Archduke Karl is both an imperial and a royal highness who inherited more than 40 titles, including: Emperor of Austria, Apostolic King of Hungary, King of Jerusalem, King of Bohemia, King of Dalmatia, King of Transylvania, King of Croatia and Slovenia, King of Galicia and Illyria, Grand Duke of Tuscany, Margrave of Moravia, Duke of Salzburg, and Duke of Modena. Thus it would appear that there still is a hereditary King of Bohemia. Jul 93 #2 Granada Television, earlier criticized in the press for a lack of high-grade programming (May 92 #2 and Dec 92 #2) has more recently been under attack by MP Ann Clwyd, spokesperson for Her Majesty's Opposition, according to an article from The Times (Mar. 17) at hand from Chris Redmond. She has demanded that the Independent Television Commission revoke Granada's broadcasting license, or that the ITC should be arraigned for dereliction of duty. Stephen Morrison, the Granada managing director with prime responsibility for broadcasting policy and production, was con- fident that the company would be vindicated (and it still has its license). The Gleniffer Press microbook (one inch high) edition of THE THREE STUDENTS in 1992 was nicely done and they now have announced a miniature (7/8" high) edition of SILVER BLAZE, with 100 pages set in 2-point type and illustrated with line drawings. $25.00 postpaid (U.S. dollar checks and credit cards are welcome), and the address is 11 Low Road, Castlehead, Paisley, Scotland PA2 6AQ, United Kingdom. "Six foot three in height, active as a squirrel, dexterous with his fingers," Sherlock Holmes suggested, describing the suspect in "The Abbey Grange" (and our latest self-adhesive issue shows a red squirrel). Tim O'Connor (6015 West Route 115, Herscher, IL 60941) has reported a new play by Mike C. Philipson: "Doctor Watson Investigates" will be performed in small theaters in England from Aug. 26, 1993, to Jan. 20, 1994; if you plan to be in England during that period, Tim can provide a detailed sched- ule and complimentary tickets. Roger Johnson reports in The District Messenger that Ian Henry Publications (20 Park Drive, Romford, Essex RM1 4LH, England) plan to publish the script of "The Return of Sherlock Holmes" (the play written by Terry and Rose, and starring Eille Norwood) later this year at L25.00 later this year. Also I REMEMBER THE DATE VERY WELL, a new chronology by John Hall. The July issue of Smithsonian has a splendid article by David Roberts about Sabine Baring-Gould, who is best-known today for writing the hymn "Onward Christian Soldiers" (he claimed he had dashed off the words in ten minutes as an occasional piece for a procession of schoolchildren). He also was a prolific writer, and one of the best historians of the West Country and its folksongs and tales of dangerous mires and spectral hounds, and the grand- father of William S. Baring-Gould, whose ANNOTATED SHERLOCK HOLMES is one of the Sherlockian classics. Sandra Dare Lubinsky has original 16mm films of two of the 1954 television shows that starred Ronald Howard and H. Marion Crawford ("The Baker Street Nursemaids" and "The Christmas Pudding"), and will be happy to accept bids for one or both until the end of August. Her address is Box 249, Clifton, VA 22024-0249. Further to the earlier mention of a funambulist (Jun 93 #2), there was a cruciverablist at the Sherlockian workshop in Minneapolis. Russell Sparks (6545 90th Street South, Cottage Grove, MN 55016) is selling a book with 67 S'ian puzzles (word squares, acrostics, and crosswords); $6.75 postpaid. Jul 93 #3 Prince Charles, who also is the Duke of Cornwall, paid a three- hour visit to Princetown on Dartmoor on June 9, and was greeted by Sherlock Holmes enthusiasts at the Duchy Hotel, according to an article in the [Plymouth] Western Morning News, kindly forwarded by Jon Lellenberg. Said to have been used by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle when he wrote "The Hound of the Baskervilles", the hotel now houses the newly-opened High Moorland Visitor Centre. The article made no mention of whether Prince Charles made any reference to his having played Sir Cummerbund Overspill in "The Hound of the Overspills" in 1969, when he was at Trinity College, Cambridge. Tom Kowols reports in the June issue of The Police Gazette (published by The Scotland Yarders) that WFMT-FM (Chicago) broadcast the first six shows from the BBC's "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" (with Clive Merrison as Holmes) in June, with the remaining six promised in the near future. You might want to check with your local NPR and APR stations to see if they are planning to air the series. Tom also reports that United Airlines is providing a new audience for the Jeremy Brett series by showing at least one of the shows ("Silver Blaze") in-flight on international flights. Creation Entertainment (530 Riverdale Drive, Glendale, CA 91204) arrange for Star Trek conventions here and there (practically everywhere, it might seem), and they merchandise interesting things such as thermal "Holodeck Mugs" (you put hot liquid in the mugs and characters beam into the Holodeck doors which disappear and then the Holodeck characters appear), and (as you may have guessed by now) one mug shows Data changing into Sherlock Holmes. It's item T80 and it costs $12.00; shipping extra, and they take plastic, but they won't ship outside the United States. Carolyn Gassner reports that Marilee Woodrow (1016 Espejo Street NE, Albuquerque, NM 87112) has designed a nicely Sherlockian silhouette available as wooden jewelry. The silhouette is black, and seven cm. high, and available as a necklace (on black cord) or a pin at $5.50 postpaid, or as a set of earrings at $10.50 postpaid. The 1993 running of The Silver Blaze at Belmont Park (in New York) will be held on Sept. 11. If you would like to attend, and have not yet received the formal announcement, you can write to Stephen L. Stix, 203 East Chelly Street, Warsaw, NC 28398. It was, as I recall, in 1980 that the Abbey National Building Society began work on its new headquarters building, and donated the bricks from the old building to charities that sold the bricks, suitably stenciled and boxed, at L2.00 each (or thereabouts). But I don't remember which Sherlockian it was who came back from a vacation in Britain with an extra suitcase full of the bricks, bewildering a customs official or two. And I believe there's at least one Sherlockian who had at least one of the authentic 221-B bricks built into a living-room fireplace. And one of the bricks has finally been offered by a Sherlockian brick-dealer -- well, book-dealer (Pepper & Stern, 1980 Cliff Drive #224, Santa Barbara, CA 93109) -- at $250.00. Jul 93 #4 The Knights of the Gnomon have revived their journal after an eleven-year hiatus. The third issue of Shadows of the Gnomon, with 32 pages of contributions by members, is available for $8.00 postpaid from Richard R. Rutter, 1620 Granada Drive, Burlingame, CA 94010-5862. Chris Steinbrunner ("The Tankerville Club Scandal") died on July 7. He was in many ways thoroughly typical of a younger generation who discovered how much fun there was to be had in the Sherlockian world in the 1950s, when he was a student at Fordham University, and wrote a series of radio pastiches which he directed for broadcast by WFUV-FM. He received his investiture in 1957, and was the founder of The Priory Scholars, which was first based at Fordham, where the society broadcast several radio adaptations of Canonical stories, and then wherever Chris happened to be at the moment, sharing the pleasure he found in radio and films and books. He received the BSI's Two- Shilling Award in 1986, and many honors in worlds other than Sherlockian. He loved to act, preferably as Watson on stage and on radio, but surely his most astounding performance was as Charlie Chan at one of the grand gourmet off-year dinners at the Culinary Institute of America. And he was proud to have been the focal point for The Cheap Thrills Club, in which membership required only that one have been a passenger in a car driven by Chris. He had friends everywhere, and we all will miss him. The Curious Collectors of Baker Street, enthusiastically keeping green the memory in Los Angeles, offer their new pin, 1.5 inches high, in white and red on gold, available from Chrys Kegley, 110 El Nido #41, Pasadena, CA 91107 ($10.00 postpaid). Can you identify an Oscar-winning actor or actress who played a Canonical role? Try naming more than one. There are at least seven, in fact, and I will name them, next month, perhaps. Lola Troy Fiur has an imaginative series of mystery-theme photograph note- cards (one of them Sherlockian); for an illustrated sales-list flier, send an SASE to LTF Studios, 360 East 65th Street #17-A, New York, NY 10021. Spotted by eagle-eyed Tim O'Connor: RIPLEY'S BELIEVE IT OR NOT! FAIRY TALES & LITERATURE #1 (May 1993; $2.50), a comic-book reprint of the old Ripley panels, with five items about Holmes or Conan Doyle. Tim also reports that Sherlock Holmes appears very briefly in a television commercial for AT&T's "I Plan", and that in the new movie "Last Action Hero" the nemesis quotes a variation of "whenever you have eliminated the impossible ..." Michael McClure reports that Jeremy Brett reported (in a telephone call to wish young Michael a happy birthday) that Granada is now in rehearsal for a one-hour version of "The Red Circle", and that their plans call for a total of six new shows (the other five not yet selected). The Royal Navy has long honored a tradition of exchanging Biblical signals, such as the one sent during WW2 by a submarine returning from a war patrol: "Psalm 17:4" (which is "Concerning the works of men by the word of thy lips I have kept me from the paths of the destroyers"). Of course one can also find Biblical verses that are appropriate to the Canon, and Jack Koelle has suggested that Stapleton surely would have appreciated "Psalm 69:10". Jul 93 #5 Further to the report (Jun 93 #5) on the retrospective exhibit of paintings by Mark Tansey at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Bruce Parker reports that "Derrida Queries De Man" is in the show, and that the two figures seem to be dancing rather than fighting, and that the writing on the rocks consists of phrases and clauses from deconstructionist critical works by Derrida and De Man. More from Tom Kowols: the film "Aliens" had two sequels, plus a series of spin-off comic books (published by Dark Horse Comics), and now a series of paperback novels adapted from the comic books by Steve Perry (published by Bantam Books). And in the second book (NIGHTMARE ASYLUM) a character says, "Back on Earth, long time ago, there was a famous investigator working on a crime," and goes on to paraphrase the exchange about the non-barking dog. Ben Wood has spotted a new space-program appearance by Sherlock, in the crew of space shuttle mission STS-57. Mission specialist Nancy Jane Sherlock, an Army captain and a senior aviator, was named an astronaut in 1990. STS-57, launched on June 18 and returned on July 1, was her first shuttle flight. The mission patch is a lot larger, and a lot more colorful, than shown here. Donald Girard Jewell has announced the fifth volume in his Sherlock Holmes Natural History Series: A CANONICAL DOG'S LIFE: A MONOGRAPH ON CANINES IN THE TIME OF SHERLOCK HOLMES; the 38- page monograph is illustrated with contemporary artwork and costs $9.95 postpaid (Pinchin Lane Press, 4685 Geeting Road, Westminster, MD 21158). Syd Goldberg reports that the film "The Name of the Rose" (1986, with Sean Connery as William of Baskerville) is now available on laserdisc. Syd also notes that Anthony Higgins, who is to play Sherlock Holmes in the upcoming CBS-TV television movie (Jun 93 #4), can be seen as one of the Cheka agents in the last five of the twelve episodes of "Reilly: Ace of Spies" (in case your local PBS-TV station is rerunning the series). Check your local supermarkets: Jerry Margolin reports that "Sherlock Sprink and the Mystery of the Missing Sprinkles" can be found inside the cardboard wrapper of some six-packs of Dannon Sprinklins yogurt (strawberry, banana, and cherry vanilla lowfat yogurt with rainbow sprinkles). Christopher Roden reports that Richard Dalby is planning to reprint Hesketh Prichard's stories about the psychic detective Flaxman Low, from Pearson's Magazine (1898-1899), and that Flaxman Low seems to have been modelled on Sherlock Holmes, and that Prichard was a friend of Conan Doyle. Additional details are available from Richard Dalby (4 Westbourne Park, Scarborough, North Yorkshire YO12 4AT, England). Christopher also notes that the diaries of the late Kenneth Williams have been edited by Russell Davies and published as THE KENNETH WILLIAMS DIARIES (London: HarperCollins, 1993; 827 pp., L20.00); Williams played Sir Henry Baskerville in the Cook/Moore film, and began the project with enthusiasm, but became more and more despondent as work continued (Williams could make no sense of Cook's Holmes-with-a-Jewish-accent, nor Moore's Welsh Watson). Jul 93 #6 The Dispatch Box is a two-page newsletter published quarterly (in English) by The Japanese Cabinet, a newly-founded Sherlock- ian society, and edited by Keith Webb, 1297-10 Aobadai, Tokorozawa, Saitama 359, Japan; membership costs $10.00 a year (North America) or $15.00/L10.00 (Europe); currency or postal reply coupons only, please. Dick and Nancy Albright report that The Fifth Northum- berland Fusiliers of Pittsburgh are offering Sherlock- ian T-shirts ($12.00 postpaid) and sweatshirts ($19.00 postpaid) in red-on-white, in sizes S/M/L/XL; you can order from GCS IPS Printers at 125 South Broad Street, Grove City, PA 16127. Tim O'Connor has good news for those who have been in hot pursuit of Larry Townsend's THE SEXUAL ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, published by the Olympia Press in 1971 and long out of print: it's back in print (without any indication that it's a reprint), from Masquerade Books (800-458-9640), priced at $4.95 (plus $1.00 shipping). You are unlikely to find it at your local bookstore, unless your local bookstore deals in hardcore homosexual pornography (the book was far more shocking in 1971 than it is in 1993, but it still isn't something for the easily shocked or annoyed). Tim also reports that the current catalog from the Players Press (Box 1132, Studio City, CA 91614) offers a long list of Sherlockiana published by Ian Henry in England and by Simon & Pierre in Toronto. Further to the report on Sherlock Holmes and the Phantom of the Opera (Jun 93 #7), Otto Penzler notes that Sam Siciliano's THE ANGEL OF THE OPERA will be published by Otto Penzler Books (in association with Macmillan), with a May 1994 publication date scheduled. A new sales-list at hand from Jennifer Steen (Sherlock and Co., 695 35th Avenue #204, San Francisco, CA 94121); Sherlockian books, other mysteries, and an imaginative S'ian T-shirt. SHERLOCK REDIVIVUS displays John Ruyle's poetic investigation of THE RETURN OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, with an impressive total of 45 quartets, finely-printed as usual by The Pequod Press (521 Vincente Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94707-1521) and offered at $35.00 (cloth) or $15.00 (paper). The summer 1993 issue of Scarlet Street has arrived, with Boze Hadleigh's fine interview with Gale Sondergaard (the last she granted), David Stuart Davies' review of the touring production of "Sherlock Holmes: The Musical", and a bit of additional news from David about the Granada series (the new programs may include "The Golden Pince-Nez", "The Three Gables", and a com- bination of "The Three Garridebs" and "The Mazarin Stone"). Well, someone may be confused about Garridebs and Gables, because there also were reports that Jeremy Paul had done a one-hour Garridebs script before Granada went to the two-hour format. Scarlet Street costs $18.00 a year (four issues) from R. H. Enterprises, 271 Farrant Terrace, Teaneck, NJ 07666. The Spermaceti Press, 3900 Tunlaw Road NW #119, Washington, DC 20007-4830 Aug 93 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press Nicholas Meyer's THE CANARY TRAINER (New York: W. W. Norton, 1993; 225 pp., $21.00) is his third Sherlockian novel, setting Sherlock Holmes in pursuit of the Phantom of the Opera in a pastiche that is a tribute more to Gaston Leroux's story than to the films and the Broadway musical based on it. The story is another long-lost and neglected manuscript, recently discovered at the Beinecke Library ("I urge people to write to the folks at Yale and tell them to get their act together," Meyer suggests in his foreword) [his own papers are at the University of Iowa]; it's a story nicely-told, with some surprises in store even for those who know the Phantom's story well. Norton is widely distributing Nicholas Meyer's THE CANARY TRAINER in paper covers to reviewers and others as an "advance reader's copy not for resale" (as Dutton did with THE SEVEN-PER-CENT SOLUTION in 1974; 1,000 copies were distributed in paper covers at the American Booksellers Association conven- tion, and Ron De Waal records the total issue at 1,500). MEMOIRS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES: VOLUME 1 is a welcome addition to the list of Canonical radio on audiocassettes. The two-cassette set has four stories (Silv/Yell/Stoc/Glor) from the BBC Radio series starring Clive Merrison and Michael Williams, and it's distributed here by BDD (as in Bantam Doubleday Dell) Audio at $15.99. The dramatizations and voices are splendid, and the 45-minute format allows plenty of time for good radio theater. The challenge (Jul 93 #3) involved Oscar-winning actors and actresses who played Canonical roles. Note that it did not ask for actors and actresses who won Oscars for playing Canonical roles, which isn't quite the same (and in any case, there aren't any). And note that it specified Canonical roles (which excludes eight Oscar-winners: Ethel Barrymore, Michael Caine, Joel Grey, Ray Milland, Vanessa Redgrave, George C. Scott, Gale Sondergaard, and Joanne Woodward, who played roles that were Sherlockian but not Canonical). And yes, there are indeed at least seven people who do qualify. Nor does the list include Jack Francis, who played Watson in the film "A Study in Scarlet" (1914), since I've not been able to confirm Ron Haydock's suggestion that Jack Francis actually was John Ford, the younger brother of Francis Ford, who both directed and played Holmes in the film. John Ford won four Oscars. So who are the seven? In alphabetical order: Anne Baxter, Charles Chaplin, Donald Crisp, Robert Duvall, John Gielgud, Charlton Heston, John Huston, Ben Kingsley, John Mills, Laurence Olivier, and Orson Welles. Please note that the challenge didn't specify that the actors and actresses had to have played Canonical roles in films; in some cases they didn't. Welles played both Holmes and Moriarty; Heston and Gielgud played Holmes; Mills, Duvall, and Kingsley played Watson; Baxter played Irene Adler; Olivier and Huston played Prof. Moriarty; Crisp played Col. Moran; and Chaplin played Billy. And yes, there are eleven names, in case someone wishes to quibble about Charlie Chaplin, who was awarded an honorary Oscar in 1971, and thus tech- nically didn't win one, or about Ben Kingsley, who won an Oscar but played a Watson that wasn't strictly Canonical -- and thanks to Lawrence Nepodahl, who reported two winners that I had overlooked. Aug 93 #2 Reported by John Pforr: Suncoast Pictures (a widespread video- store chain) is discounting the Key Video (CBS/Fox) series of Rathbone/Bruce cassettes (all 14 films) at $14.98 each (they were issued at $19.98 in 1988), and the cassettes carry special stickers that allow you to send get a $5.00 rebate if you buy two cassettes. These cassettes likely are the best versions: in 1988 I was told that they had been made from the masters assembled by Leo Gutman when he controlled the films. John Nassivera's play "Sherlock Holmes and the Unseen Hand" (which had its world premiere at the Dorset Theatre in Dorset, Vermont, on July 22, with Time Winters as Holmes, Davis Hall as Watson, and Russell Goldberg as Conan Doyle) is a revision of his earlier "The Penultimate Problem of Sherlock Holmes" (1978), which was first produced in Dorset and then off-Broadway in New York in 1980 (with Keith Baxter as Holmes). It's an interesting view of the conflict between the creator and his creation; the first version was published by Samuel French and was produced at (at least) a dozen regional theaters, so the second version also is likely to be available eventually. Six of the Canonical stories dramatized by Grant Eustace and produced by Daedalus Productions for British Airways (for in-flight entertainment for passengers beginning in Apr. 1987), with Roy Marsden as Holmes and John Moffatt as Watson, were broadcast weekly by the BBC World Service beginning June 24. The 30-minute series could continue into August and beyond, and each show has repeats, so short-wavers should check their BBC schedules. And if you're not a short-waver, the series was issued on cassettes by The Talking Tape Company (Unit 11, Shaftesbury Industrial Centre, The Runnings, Cheltenham GL51 9NH, England); in 1990, the cost was L7.00 per set of four shows. Ken Greenwald has sent the second issue of his newsletter The Dispatch Box, with six pages of news about the Rathbone/Bruce audiocassette series (which will end with volume 26), a revised edition of his THE LOST ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES to be published by B. Dalton for Christmas (and available only in B. Dalton stores), and a report from Glenhall Taylor that the Jimmy Durante closing line ("Good Night, Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are") does indeed have a Sherlockian source. You can send a #10 SASE to Ken at Box 351453, Los Angeles, CA 90035-998. Ken also reports the death of Mary Green in Nov. 1992. She was the widow of Denis Green, and worked with him, although uncredited, on the scripts for the Sherlock Holmes series, and told some nice tales about those early days in an introduction to the third volume in the audiocassette series. It has been widely reported that Bill Clinton likes to read mysteries, but so far there has been no confirmation that he likes to read mysteries about Sherlock Holmes. The closest connection so far has been in a report in the July 12 issue of Newsweek on seven days in the White House: the evening of June 24 extended well past midnight as the president waited for news of a long-delayed Senate vote, in the solarium on the second floor of the White House. "Some presidents in crisis drink or talk to the paintings. Clinton channel-surfed, flicking back and forth among three movies: 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid', 'Zorba the Greek', a Sherlock Holmes feature called 'The Crucifer of Blood', and whatever else was on at 3 a.m." Aug 93 #3 Avram Davidson died on May 19. He was a well-known author and editor in science-fiction and fantasy, but he did not neglect Sherlock Holmes: "The Case of the Doped-Up Doctor", first published in the fanzine Cry (Apr. 1961) and reprinted in the BSJ (Sept. 1961), offered his proposal that it was Watson rather than Holmes who was the cocaine addict. Prof. B. J. Rahn has launched a newsletter called "Murder Is Academic" for people interested in the teaching and criticism of crime fiction on campus, and has compiled a 134-page COLLECTION OF CRIME FICTION COURSE SYLLABI that is available for $20.00 postpaid. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle led the list of authors the teachers used (cited by 20 of the 28 teachers who contributed). If you are, or know of, someone who works in this area, teaching Sherlock- ian or any other mystery fiction, or wish to order the COLLECTION or a copy of the newsletter, her address is: Hunter College (English Dept.), 695 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10021. Dennis France has reported that Richard J. Moore died on July 17. He was a retired school-teacher, and particularly interested in the fatal battle of Maiwand, making a specialty of delivering toasts to the gallant Murray at Sherlockian gatherings in the Chicago area. Von Herder Airguns Ltd. plan to celebrate the centenary of the first German translation of a Sherlock Holmes story (in 1894) by publishing A CENTENARY BIBLIOGRAPHY OF GERMAN SHERLOCKIANA 1894-1994, with text in both German and English, and with some 400 entries about translations, parodies, pastiches, and dramatizations for stage, screen, radio, and television. You can order a copy now (but you need not send payment until delivery), and the postpaid price is DM 25.00 until Oct. 31, and DM 30.00 thereafter (dollar checks are welcome, at $16.00/$19.00). You can order from Michael Ross, Bendheide 65, 47906 Kempen 1, Germany. Malcolm Payne reports that The Conan Doyle (Crowborough) Establishment now has an illustrated flier giving details about their first day cover for the upcoming British set of stamps honoring Sherlock Holmes. You can send an international reply coupon to Richard Greep, The Limes, Eridge Road, Crow- borough, East Sussex, England. John Murray VI died on July 22. Born Arnaud Robin Grey, he was part of the family that has been in the publishing business since 1768 (when the first John Murray set up shop in London), and changed his name when he joined the firm. He was a teen-ager when he first met Conan Doyle, and once recalled that meeting ("'If this is an author,' I said to myself, 'what fun to be a publisher'"). His son John Murray VII now heads the company, which is the oldest family-run publisher in Britain. MALICE DOMESTIC 2: AN ANTHOLOGY OF ORIGINAL TRADITION MYSTERY STORIES, with an introduction by Mary Higgins Clark (New York: Pocket Books, 1993; 255 pp., $4.99), includes Carole Nelson Douglas' "Parris Green" (in which Irene Adler and Penelope Huxleigh meet Oscar Wilde in 1886). You should look for the book under "C" on the bookstore shelves, since it's "presented by" Mary Higgins Clark, whose name the publisher has likely assumed will attract far more purchasers than the name of Martin Greenberg, who presumably actually edited the anthology, from the copyright credit on the title-page verso. Aug 93 #4 Richard Wein recommends John English Gifts (6 Princes Arcade, Piccadilly, London SW1Y 6DS, England) as a reliable source for statues and such: their stock includes Kevin Francis' Sherlock Holmes Toby jug at L169.36; Richard Harrop's "country companions" of Holmes and Watson at L21.92 each; Malcolm Cooper's Sherlock Holmes Pub at L16.98; the Bossons heads of Holmes, Watson, and Moriarty at L17.83 each; and more. They offer an illustrated flier, shipping is extra, and they take plastic. Richard also reports that A&E cable will extend its series of reruns of the Granada "Sherlock Holmes" programs: "Wisteria Lodge" will debut on Sept. 6. And there has been a report quoted from the Los Angeles Times that PBS-TV will broadcast "The Last Vampyre" in the spring of 1994. Tom Biblewski notes in The Baker Street Dispatch that Suzan L. Zeder's play "The Death and Life of Sherlock Holmes" (1987) will be performed at Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio, from Sept. 29 to Oct. 3; the box-office telephone number is 419-372-2719. The Northern Musgraves have gradually turned their newsletter into a full- fledged journal: the spring issue of The Ritual has 52 pages of interesting articles and in-depth reviews of Great Britain's current Sherlockian stage, radio, and television. Membership costs $32.00 a year (with airmail to the United States) and includes two issues of The Ritual and an annual issue of The Musgrave Papers; write to David Stuart Davies, Overdale, 69 Greenhead Road, Huddersfield, W. Yorks. HD1 4ER, England. Reported: THE DEFECTIVE DETECTIVE: MYSTERY PARODIES BY THE GREAT HUMORISTS, edited by Steve Carper (Citadel/Carol, 1992); with reprints of Sherlockian parodies by Stephen Leacock, Bret Harte, and Fran Lebowitz. RADIO MYSTERY AND ADVENTURE AND ITS APPEARANCES IN FILM, TELEVISION OTHER MEDIA, by Jim Harmon (McFarland, 1992); with coverage of Sherlock Holmes. "The Game's Afloat" in the midwest on Oct. 9-10. Yes, at the moment a lot of things are afloat there, but The Harpooners of the Sea Unicorn hope that everything will be high and dry in October, except for the Goldenrod, which is the Victorian riverboat on which they intend to hold their Sherlockian symposium. Additional information is available from Len Cleavelin, 35 St. Lawrence Drive, St. Peters, MO 63376. The Sherlock Holmes Conference at Santa Fe Community College was thoroughly successful, winning good reviews from attendees and from John Bennett Shaw, who gave guided tours of his library to more than fifty people, and praised all the nice people who performed, and the facilities, and the cuisine (the community college has a resident chef). Sorry about that: the cryptic biblical-message story (Jul 93 #4) wound up with an inherited typo, quickly spotted by Wayne Swift. We'll try again. The Royal Navy has long honored a tradition of exchanging Biblical signals, such as the one sent during WW2 by a submarine returning from a war patrol: "Psalm 17:4" (which is "Concerning the works of men by the word of thy lips I have kept me from the paths of the destroyers"). Of course one can also find Biblical verses that are appropriate to the Canon, and Jack Koelle has suggested that Stapleton surely would have appreciated "Psalm 69:2". Aug 93 #5 Robert C. Hess (559 Potter Boulevard, Brightwaters, NY 11718) offers a new sales-list, with Sherlockian statues, dolls, mugs, postage stamps, plates, and artwork (including an opportunity to commission original S'ian art from M. J. Trow, author of the series of amusing mystery novels about Sholto Lestrade). And Michel Lanteigne (5468 St. Urbain #4, Montreal, PQ H2T 2X1, Canada) offers a new S'ian sales-list (mostly books and pamphlets, with many older items, and reasonable prices. The Practical, But Limited, Geologists will meet for dinner on Oct. 26, at Jimmy's Harborside Restaurant on the Fish Pier in Boston, during the annual convention of the Geological Society of America. Geologists and Sherlock- ians (and visitors of either persuasion) are welcome to join us in honoring the world's first forensic geologist; the dinner will cost $38.00, and you can make reservations with (and obtain additional information from) John F. Baesch, 1836 Columbia Road, South Boston, MA 02127. A revival of "Sherlock Holmes: The Musical" (with Robert Powell as Holmes and Roy Barraclough as Watson) began a seven-month tour in Britain on Mar. 11, to good reviews (and praise from some Sherlockians who saw the show), but poor box-office response forced a cancellation of the tour after only three months. "It's one of those unfathomables that it didn't manage to grab the public's attention despite the fact it is a very good production," a spokesman for the producer said. Holmes for the Holidays has been recommended in the past for young mystery fans, but older Sherlockians should not neglect it: Jeff Decker's cartoons are delightful, and appropriate for children of all ages. Available from Michael W. McClure (1415 Swanwick Street, Chester, IL 62333); $7.50 a year for five issues. Stewart Granger died on Aug. 16. He started his acting career on stage in Britain in the 1930s, and made his film debut in 1939 in the first of more than 60 movies. He came to the U.S. to star in "King Solomon's Mines" in 1950, and was then cast as a romantic swashbuckler in many more films. And he was Sherlock Holmes in a 90-minute television film of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" that was broadcast by ABC-TV in 1972 in what was planned as a weekly series, alternating with Robert Conrad as Nick Carter, and Eve Arden as Hildegarde Withers. Universal produced the series and thought it worked well, but ABC-TV didn't. Rodney Staab's article on "Sherlock Holmes and Geology" is a discussion of his achievements as the world's first practicing pedologist, presented to The Great Alkali Plainsmen earlier this year and now published in Mystery Forum Magazine #7. $5.00 postpaid, and a six-issue subscription is $18.00; 16503 3rd Street North, Independence, MO 64056. Reported: "THE LOST WORLD" OF WILLIS O'BRIEN, edited by Roy Kinnard (Jeff- erson: McFarland, 1993; 176 pp., $29.95); the original shooting script for the complete film released in 1925, with stills and background information. Also: WILLIS O'BRIEN: SPECIAL EFFECTS GENIUS, by Steve Archer (Jefferson: McFarland, 1993, 149 pp., $28.50); discussion of his most important films, and career, and his collaborators and proteges. The publisher's address is Box 611, Jefferson, NC 29640; shipping extra, and they take plastic. Aug 93 #6 George Armstrong ("John o' Groat's") died on July 12. He was a fine folk singer, artist, and illustrator, and was described by his longtime friend Studs Terkel as "one of the unsung musicologists of our time." George was the host of a long-running one-hour radio series on "The Wandering Folksong" for WFMT in Chicago, turning his attention to "The Case of Sherlock Holmes as a Folklore Hero" in a fine show that was broadcast in 1980. He received his Investiture in the BSI in 1984. Taelen Thomas, an actor who has portrayed Jack London in one-man shows on the Monterey Peninsula, brought a special presentation of "Jack London on Conan Doyle" to a meeting of The Diogenes Club this year, and the text has been published by the society as an 18-page pamphlet, available for $6.00 postpaid (or $8.00 foreign). It's Jack London on Sherlock Holmes, too, and Jack London on Jack London, and the text makes one wish one could have been at the meeting. Checks payable to The Diogenes Club can be sent to Michael H. Kean, 3040 Sloat Road, Pebble Beach, CA 93953. Further to the report on Mike C. Philipson's new play "Dr. Watson Investi- gates" (Jul 93 #2), one performances will be given at the Two Bridges Hotel in Dartmoor during a "Sherlock Holmes Returns to Dartmoor" weekend on Nov. 12-14, 1993. The weekend begins with a reception hosted by Shirley Purves and Clare Taylor, and also features a Dartmoor Treasure Hunt; additional information is available from Philip Davies, Two Bridges Hotel, Dartmoor, Devon PL20 6SW, England. Geoffrey Stavert has passed on an advertisement for a facsimile reprint of the 1888 Ward Lock edition of A STUDY IN SCARLET (reproduced from an origi- nal at the Bodleian Library at Oxford); a presentation edition costs L150/ $225, and a special edition costs L38/$53. A flier with more information is available from Dr. Watson Books, P.O. Box 1888, London E3 5PJ, England. Paul Singleton's "newsletter for thespian pursuits in Sherlockiana" has now reached 16 issues, and the latest offers interesting items such as news of Edith Meiser's appearance on "I Love Lucy" and the script for a Holmes-and- Watson scene that was omitted from "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (1939). The Third Pillar costs $5.00 a year (four issues), from Paul Singleton, Box 2882, New York, NY 10185-0025. The annual dinner of The Dedicated Associates of Lomax (active in support of the Sherlock Holmes Collection at the Chicago Public Library) will hold their annual dinner on October 23. Additional details are available from Richard A. Myhre, 1319 Poplar Court, Homewood, IL 60430. The Dundurn Press has announced Chris Redmond's A SHERLOCK HOLMES HANDBOOK ("here in one convenient book by a noted Sherlockian scholar, is everything needed for the study and enjoyment of the Holmes canon"); 250 pp., US$26.50 (plus $3.00 shipping), and they take plastic (2181 Queen Street East #301, Toronto, Ont. M4E 1E5, Canada). Dundurn also has the backlist from Simon & Pierre, and offers Chris' excellent IN BED WITH SHERLOCK HOLMES (1984) and WELCOME TO AMERICA, MR. SHERLOCK HOLMES (1987), Andy and Bill Paton's THE SHERLOCK HOLMES ABC BOOK (1985), and two pastiches by Ronald C. Weyman). The Spermaceti Press, 3900 Tunlaw Road NW #119, Washington, DC 20007-4830 Sep 93 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press Further to the earlier report on how Vincent Price was selected to supply the voice for Ratigan in "The Great Mouse Detective" (May 92 #6), there's a bit more to the story, revealed in publicity for the laserdisc. Voices are used to help create the animated characters, and the first plan was to use Ronald Coleman as a model, so the Disney staff screened the Ronald Coleman film "Champagne for Caesar" (1950), and as soon as they saw Vincent Price in the film, they realized they had the perfect actor for the role. And it was important to make Basil appealing, so they considered using the voice of Bing Crosby as a model for Basil, but when they set the voice to artwork the character "came out too mellow." It was Leslie Howard's performance in "Pygmalion" that sparked the final design of Basil. 1994 has arrived, at least on the calendar shelves in bookstores. The STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION calendar (New York: Pocket Books, 1993; $10.00) shows Brent Spiner as Data as Sherlock Holmes for January, and a scene with Daniel Davis as Moriarty for August (both from "Ship in a Bottle"). Charles O. Merriman ("Colonel Hayter") died on Aug. 28. He was one of the first to join The Sherlock Holmes Society of London after it was founded in 1951, and as a chartered accountant he was of valuable service as its hon. treasurer from 1959 to 1971. He also served as the society's chairman, and received his Investiture in the BSI in 1963. He enjoyed identifying sites of Sherlockian interest such as Holmes' retirement-years bee farm, and his fine six-part "Tourist Guide to the London of Sherlock Holmes" was first published in The Sherlock Holmes Journal in the 1970s and reprinted by the London Tourist Board as a *vade mecum* for visitors. "Rose is a rose is a rose," as Gertrude Stein once said. And a rose is shown on our latest self-adhesive issue, which offers a nice illustration for one of the Canonical roses. Raymond Burr died on Sept. 12. He acted in films such as "Rear Window" and "A Place in the Sun" and "Godzilla, King of the Monsters", but it was television that made him truly famous, first as Perry Mason and then as Ironside and again as Perry Mason in two-hour television films. It was the end of "The Case of the Reckless Romeo" (1992) that Perry Mason, having solved his latest case, proudly asked Della Street, "Who's the greatest de- tective in the world?" And Della replied, "Sherlock Holmes." Roger Johnson has reported that the six programs in Granada's new one-hour series (to be called "The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes") will be "The Golden Pince-Nez" (in which Mycroft rather than Watson assists Holmes), "The Red Circle", "The Three Gables", "The Cardboard Box", "The Mazarin Stone", and "The Dying Detective". The series may be broadcast in Britain as early as Jan. 1994. Completists may wish to pursue the most recent paperback reprint of Michael Dibdin's THE LAST SHERLOCK HOLMES STORY (London: Faber & Faber, 1990; 190 pp., L3.99); it's stated to be a corrected reprint of Faber & Faber's first reprint in 1989. It seems to be identical to earlier editions except for a new dedication "To Benita" and a now-missing two-page "Afterword". Sep 93 #2 The new issue of Steven T. Doyle's The Sherlock Holmes Review has 64 pages with good graphics and excellent articles, includ- ing an interview with Mark McPherson (about his "Evening with Arthur Conan Doyle") and Pat Ward's warm tribute to Peter Cushing on the occasion of his 80th birthday. Box 583, Zionsville, IN 46077; $6.00 (postpaid) or $20.00 for a four-issue subscription. Michael Ricker Pewter now have a photograph of the prototype of his pewter sculpture of Dr. Watson (the first of the six elements in the subscription series showing the sitting-room); the deadline for ordering is Dec. 31, and a brochure with more information is available (5433 West 88th Avenue #132, Westminster, CO 80030) (800-554-1571). The STUD Sherlockian Society intends to celebrate Sherlock Holmes' birthday in October, with events that will include a traditional Anglican holiday at the American Club in Koehler, Wis., on Oct. 7-9; a ceremony in honor of Vincent Starrett at Graceland Cemetery in Chicago on Oct. 10, followed by a low tea (also described as an eat-a-rama) at the Ridgemoor Country Club; and a meeting of The Solar Pons Breakfast Club in Oak Park, Ill., on Oct. 30. Additional information is available from Donald B. Izban, 5334 Wrightwood Avenue, Chicago, IL 60639-1524. Howard Waldrop's NIGHT OF THE COOTERS (New York: Ace Books, 1993; 253 pp., $4.99) is a collection of imaginative and fantastic short stories that show real expertise, including one that was written for an unpublished anthology of tales written by fictional authors who were inspired by Kilgore Trout's VENUS ON THE HALF-SHELL (1975) and the subsequent Sherlockian pastiches by Jonathan Swift Somers III and Harry Manders. Kurt Vonnegut created Kilgore Trout but did not write VENUS ON THE HALF-SHELL, and he blocked publication of the anthology; Waldrop's "The Adventure of the Grinder's Whistle" even- tually appeared in a fanzine in 1977. The story is by Edward Malone, best known for his reporting on the exploits of George Edward Challenger; at the age of seven, however, he was a lad of the London streets, and in 1888 was of some assistance to Sherlock Holmes. [Sep 93 #2] Joe Eckrich reports that "Star Trek: The Next Generation: Elementary, Dear Data" (the 1988 television program with Brent Spiner as Data as Holmes) is available on a commercial videocassette (with Data in Sherlockian costume on the box) from Paramount Home Video ($14.95). And that Suncoast Pictures (a widespread video-store chain) is discounting the Jeremy Brett videos at $14.95 each. And that The Mind's Eye (4 Commercial Boulevard, Novato, CA 94949) (800-227-2020) offers three audiocassette volumes (each with four of the Clive Merrison/Michael Williams radio programs from "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes") discounted to $20.00 for the lot. Thanks to all those who have reported the quotation from "The Naval Treaty" in the "Points to Ponder" in the Sept. 1993 issue of the Reader's Digest. So far no one has reported noticing that the magazine edited the quote (not that that's all that unusual for the Reader's Digest). Sep 93 #3 The 1993 "Victorian Holmes Weekend" in Cape May, N.J., will be held on Nov. 5-7. The weekend will include a search for clues in the city's Victorian homes, and Paul Singleton's performance as Sherlock Holmes. More information is available from the Mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts, Box 340, Cape May, NJ 08204-0340 (609-884-5404). Ralph Hall reports that Dennis Rosa's adaptation of Gillette's "Sherlock Holmes" (1972) will be produced at the Actors Theatre of Louisville from Dec. 30 through Jan. 29, with performances Tuesdays through Sundays. The address is 316 West Main Street, Louisville, KY 40202 (502-584-1205). Ralph also reports "Sherlock Bones and the Great Riddle Caper" on p. 55 of the Aug. 1993 issue of Cricket: The Magazine for Children. And some "Lost World" coverage in the summer issue of Dinosaur Times. And some Sherlock- ian illustrations in "Grateful Gregory Discovers the Carnival" in Daniel J. Hochstatter's SAMMY'S EXCELLENT REAL-LIFE ADVENTURES: A SEEKING SAMMY BOOK (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1993) and at the Royal Wedding and on the back cover of Jim Becker's WHERE'S CHARLES & DI? (a "Where's Waldo?" take-off from Ten Speed Press, 1992). Sherlock Holmes (and Ed Hoch and John Lutz) assisted the participants in a solve-the-mystery cruise through the Caribbean last spring, and a similar cruise ("The Game's Afoot, Senor") is scheduled on the Regal Princess from Acapulco to Los Angeles on Apr. 27-May 4, 1994. Additional information is available from Omni Group Cruises, 7033 Sunset Boulevard #214, Hollywood, CA 90028 (800-876-6664). Save your receipt when you buy your copy of THE OXFORD SHERLOCK HOLMES (the nine-volume set due in October, with introductions by Owen Dudley Edwards, Richard Lancelyn Green, W. W. Robson, and Christopher Roden): if you mail a proof-of-purchase (for any volume or for the whole set) to "Elementary, My Dear Watson", Oxford University Press, 200 Madison Avenue (9th floor), New York, NY 10016, they will send you a set of nine colorful postcards showing the silk-screen cover artwork. And Barbara Roden has reported that the set will offer "the best texts possible, eliminating the errors and discrepan- cies that have crept in over the years," and that the set will be reissued by OUP in paperback at the end of 1994 in their "World's Classics" series. Kim Newman's ANNO DRACULA, published last year in Britain (Dec 92 #3), now has an American edition (New York: Carroll & Graf, 1993; 359 pp., $21.00), and it took longer than it should have. Sherlock Holmes is in detention in a concentration camp (and stays there), Mycroft Holmes and other members of the Diogenes Club are working to overthrow Vlad Tepes (who has married the Widow of Windsor and is ruling as Prince Consort and Lord Protector), and Lestrade (who has willingly become a vampire) is pursuing a serial murderer who is threatening Whitechapel and its vampire prostitutes with a silver- plated scalpel. Debbie Clark reports and recommends the two-audiocassette boxed set CLASSIC DETECTIVE STORIES, read by Edward Hardwicke for CSA Telltapes, and found in an American bookshop, so CSA now has a distributor in the U.S. One of the stories in this set is "The Dying Detective", which is not in the CSA Tell- tapes set THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (Jul 93 #1). Sep 93 #4 It's interesting to speculate whether Nicholas Meyer eventually will receive credit, in a future edition of THE OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY, for making the phrase "the seven-per-cent solution" so recogni- zable and so widely used in contexts that have nothing to do with Sherlock Holmes. And the "seven" is not all that necessary: many variants have been seen over the years (including a recent magazine page of "sales & bargains" that used the subhead "The 10 Percent-Off Solution"). Ronald B. De Waal's THE UNIVERSAL SHERLOCK HOLMES (the long-awaited revised bibliography that will offer information from the two previously-published volumes and from at least 12,000 additional file cards prepared by Ron, who expects a total of 25,000 major entries) has been scheduled for publication by George Vanderburgh in Jan. 1994, with a price estimated at no more than US$100, and with a firm deadline for orders of Dec. 1. Additional informa- tion is available from (please choose one): Richard A. Wein (65 Briarwood Lane, Plainview, NY 11803); Alfred A. Levin (8242 Ridgeway Avenue, Skokie, IL 60076); Philip Weller (6 Bramham Moor, Hill Head, Fareham, Hants. PO14 3RU, England); J.D. Singh (The Sleuth of Baker Street, 1595 Bayview Avenue, Toronto, Ont. M4G 3B5, Canada); or George Vanderburgh, Box 204, Shelburne, Ont. L0N 1S0, Canada. George Vanderburgh also can supply (at US$14.95 postpaid) INTRODUCING JOHN KENDRICK BANGS, a newly-computerized edition of Bang's splendid Sherlockian parodies, with an introduction by Jon L. Lellenberg, in Hypertext format on a 3.5-inch DS-HD (1.44-MB) MS-DOS floppy disk. The new catalog from Signals (Box 64428, St. Paul, MN 55164) (800-669-9696) offers four "Sherlock Holmes Nesting Dolls" (Holmes, Watson, Moriarty, and the Hound) at $16.95 plus shipping; they take plastic. THE LIST OF SEVEN, by Mark Frost (New York: William Morrow, 1993; 368 pp., $20.00) (London: Hutchinson, 1993; 377 pp., L9.99) is alternate-universe fantasy (from the co-creator of the mini-series "Twin Peaks"); the novel opens in 1884 with young Dr. Arthur Conan Doyle in practice in London and hoping to find a publisher for his book-length story about the mysterious Dark Brotherhood, which to his dismay and peril he discovers is not at all fictional, and in fact seriously supernatural and malevolent. The story is told with style and verve, and smash and bang, and buckle and swash, and is full of echoes from the real world in which the real Conan Doyle lived, and there are some surprises. And the book will be widely read: Morrow reports that book-club rights have been sold to the Science Fiction Book Club, the Doubleday Book Club, the Mystery Guild, and the Literary Guild. Warning: the book may well seriously offend readers who do not understand or agree with the basic premise of alternate-universe fantasy (a genre in which the fact that Conan Doyle wasn't really in practice as a doctor in London in 1884, and didn't really do all the things he does in this story, isn't all that important). At hand from John Farrell is a note that Leslie Bricusse's SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE MUSICAL, published this year by Cherry Lane (a division of Hal Leonard) as a 100-page paperback with color illustrations, is available from Holly- wood Sheet Music, 7777 Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90046, for $19.95 plus $5.00 shipping; they take plastic. Sep 93 #5 A dozen audiocassettes with Charles Fuller reading the "twelve best" tales selected by Conan Doyle for The Strand Magazine in 1927 ("The Gloria Scott" has been substituted for "The Dancing Men") were first issued in 1990, and are now available from Radio Spirits (Box 2141, Schiller Park, IL 60176-0141) (800-729-4587); Fuller is a Sherlockian and an actor, and reads the stories well. There are two volumes (each with six cassettes) priced at $29.95 each, and they accept credit-card orders (their catalog also offers a wide variety of vintage radio programs). "1994 Baker Street: Sherlock Holmes Returns" (which was the title when the two-hour television aired on CBS-TV on Sept. 12) was announced too late for a videotaper alert in the previous issue, but I trust that most of you were warned by friends or television listings or advertisements. But it likely will air again, even though it's not likely to lead to the sequels that the ending optimistically hints at. For those who didn't see the show, it was a cryogenic Holmes (again), with Anthony Higgins defrosted in San Francisco and assisted by Debrah Farentino (as doctor Amy Winslow) in pursuit of Ken Pogue (as evil grand-nephew James Moriarty Booth); the show was written and directed by Kenneth Johnson, who has a sense of humor and doesn't take the story or himself too seriously. Roger Johnson notes that Anthony Higgins played Sherlock Holmes on stage in "The White Glove" in England in 1983, as well as Rathe in the film "Young Sherlock Holmes" (1985), so we should add Higgins to the list of actors who have played both Holmes and Moriarty. Reported: LOST WORLD II, THE END OF THE THIRD WORLD, by Marcio Souza (New York: Avon, 1993; 362 pp., $12.00), is a Brazilian novel, translated into English, that has nothing to do with dinosaurs or South American plateaus, but rather about a search for the fictional daughter of Prof. Challenger, and how the author finally manages to meet her. Tony Britton's excellent audiocassette readings of THE SIGN OF FOUR and A STUDY IN SCARLET (issued some years ago by Listen for Pleasure) have been followed by his version of THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES, done with style and fine attention to voices; HarperCollins AudioBooks has just issued the two-cassette set (HCA 124) at L6.99. This year's summer excursion by The Sherlock Holmes Society of London was to the South Downs (in pursuit of the Lion's Mane), with a stop at Forest Row (to visit Birlstone Manor), and the 42-page excursion handbook edited by Pamela Bruxner was as usual a fine production, and so well-received that it went quickly out of print. But SUNDAY IN SUSSEX has now been reprinted, and it is available for L7.00 (or $10.50) postpaid (checks payable to the Society, please) from Pamela Bruxner at St. Cuthbert's Cottage, 23 North Street, Barming, Maidstone, Kent ME16 9HE, England. The handbooks from earlier Society excursions in 1989, 1991, and 1992, and other items such as Christmas cards issued in past years by the Society and by Lord Donegall, are among the many offers in a sales-list available from Mrs. E. M. Godden, Apple Tree Cottage, Smarden, Ashford, Kent, TN27 98QE, England. And the Society's 1993 Christmas card, with a two-color sketch of New Scotland Yard, costs $12.00 postpaid (to North America) for a packet of ten, from Capt. W. R. Michell, 5 Old Farm Place, Hinton St. George, Somer- set TA17 8TW, England (again, checks payable to the Society, please). Sep 93 #6 Marina Stajic has forwarded an article from the N.Y. Daily News (Aug. 23) about a shop run by the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office to raise funds for their local Youthful Drunk Driving Program. The shop offers toe-tag key chains from the morgue, beach towels with a chalk body outline, and "Sherlock Bones" (a skeleton in appropriate costume) on T-shirts, tote bags, and mugs. An illustrated sales list is available from Skeletons in the Closet, 1104 N. Mission Road, Los Angeles, CA 90033. SHERLOCK IN LOVE, by Sena Jeter Naslund (Boston: David R. Godine, 1993; 236 pp., $21.95), opens in 1922 with Watson having decided to write a biography of Sherlock Holmes, and quickly encountering a series of mysteries, current and past, that involve a mysterious violinist named Sigerson, an attempt to rescue Mad King Ludwig of Bavaria, and much more. The style and voice are consistent with the Canon, and the narrative is cinematic, as is often the case with modern pastiches. The Franco-Midland Hardware Company is offering some intriguing Sherlockian collectibles, including a 69 x 33 x 43 mm reproduction of the company's own Model T Ford van (L9.00/$18.00 postpaid to the United States, with payment requested by sterling check or in U.S. currency), Christmas cards, company sweaters, and first day postcards for the forthcoming set of British stamps honoring Sherlock Holmes. Detailed information on all these and more, and on membership in the society, is available in return for a U.S. dollar bill sent to Philip Weller (6 Bramham Moor, Hill Head, Fareham, Hampshire PO14 3RU, England). The society also is planning a one-day trip from London on Jan. 16, 1994, to "Undershaw" (Conan Doyle's home), Portsmouth, Netley, and other Sherlockian and Doylean sites; details are available from Philip. Bill Nadel reports that this year's "Friends of Old Time Radio Convention" will be held at the Holiday Inn North in Newark, N.J., on Oct. 21-23; the unofficial "Sherlock Holmes" night will be Oct. 22, when Bill direct a re- creation of one of Edith Meiser's scripts, with Frank Thomas as Holmes and Earl George as Watson. Convention information is available from Jay Hick- erson, Box 4321, Hamden, CT 06514 (203-248-2887). MYTH AND MODERN MAN IN SHERLOCK HOLMES: SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE AND THE USES OF NOSTALGIA, by David S. Payne (Bloomington: Gaslight Publications, 1992; 311 pp., $24.95), is a scholarly approach to the Canon and its author, and remarkably free from the academic jargon that often makes so many books in this genre so impenetrable. Payne suggests that the almost instant success of the Sherlock Holmes stories was aided by their reflection of the truly modern aspects of the 1890s, and he gives thoughtful examples both of this and of the ways in which the stories demonstrate the assumptions, precon- ceptions, and prejudices of their author and of his readers. Available for $26.95 postpaid from the publisher at a new address (402 West Wilson Drive, Bloomington, IN 47403); credit-card orders welcome. Paula Brown reports that the new catalog from Potpourri (120 North Meadows Road, Medfield, MA 02052) (800-338-7798) offers a Durastone sculpture by Alexsander Danel of a "Gentleman Angler" wearing a deerstalker and period clothes, who might be Sherlock Holmes disguised with a mustache ($59.95); and Levenger: Tools for Serious Readers (Box 1256, Delray Beach, FL 33447) (800-544-0880) offers Peterson's "Sherlock Holmes" pipe ($189.00.). Sep 93 #7 Herve Villechaize died on Sept. 4. He was best known as Tattoo in the ABC television series "Fantasy Island" (and his cry "The plane! The plane" was a catch-phrase in the 1980s). An episode that aired in 1979 opened with Tattoo dressed in Sherlockian costume, announcing that he had just finished reading a Sherlock Holmes story. Cathy Childs (1510 Lake Drive, Grand Island, FL 32735) offers a sales-list of her Sherlockian artwork, with realistic-style portraits of Jeremy Brett and other actors in the Granada series, and cartoon material as well. She also does Hercule Parrot (a crime-cracking polly from the Belgian Congo), and is happy to accept commissions. Contrary to the earlier report (May 93 #3) that William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy will star in "Harry and Arthur" at the Bucks County Playhouse in New Hope, Pa., on Dec. 8-19, 1993: they won't. And for those who arrived late, that's Harry (Houdini) and Arthur (Conan Doyle), and the play is based on the novel BELIEVE., written by Shatner and Michael Tobias and published by Berkley last year (Jul 92 #2). The play will be rescheduled whenever there is room in the stars' busy agenda, possibly in the spring of 1994. MYSTERIES SUSPENDED: MORE EARLY CASES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, by Richard Stone (Luton: Turnstone Press, 1993; 251 pp., L12.95), offers ten pastiches from the years between 1881 and 1888, sometimes involving a bit of science fic- tion and even fantasy, and the author has more stories to tell, so readers needn't worry about the last tale in this collection, which concludes with Sherlock Holmes lying exhausted on the dusty plains of Texas in 1883, "a white, barely living speck in a sea of inhospitable, unforgiving terrain." The British Philatelic Bulletin has published Andrew Davidson's designs for the set of five stamps to be issued on Oct. 12 in honor of Sherlock Holmes. The Royal Mail will issue first day covers (with an appropriate pictorial postmark) cancelled at Baker Street and in Edinburgh, a presentation pack, and a set of stamp cards, and there will be first day covers issued by The Conan Doyle (Crowborough) Establishment (Richard Greep, The Limes, Eridge Road, Crowborough, East Sussex, England), by The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (Christopher Roden, Ashcroft, 2 Abbottsford Drive, Penyffordd, Chester, CH4 0JG, England), and by The Sherlock Holmes Society of London (whose covers, as well as the presentation packs and stamp cards, will be marketed here by Ben Wood on behalf of The Baker Street Irregulars, and more information on Ben's material will be available next month). Sep 93 #8 Lillian de la Torre died on Sept. 13. She was a fine mystery writer, and called herself a "histo-detector" (describing her calling as the craft of solving mysteries of the long-ago). Best known for her series of short stories about Dr. Sam: Johnson, Detector, she also was skilled as a playwright and as a historical novelist, and her Sherlockian pastiche ("The Adventure of the Persistent Marksman") was published in the anthology THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (1987). Chris Caswell has announced a 1994 Sherlock Holmes Calendar, with dates of Sherlockian significance and black-and-white photographs from classic S'ian films. The cost is $11.95 postpaid, if you say the secret word ("Scuttle- butt") and your order is received by Oct. 23; otherwise the cost is $15.95 postpaid. You can send your orders to The Baker Street Emporium, Box 2324, Seal Beach, CA 90740; credit-card orders welcome. Mark Alberstat's 1994 Sherlockian Calendar will have illustrations from The Strand Magazine, with William S. Baring-Gould's dates for the cases; Mark's address is 6258 Payzant Avenue, Halifax, NS B3H 2B1, Canada, and the cost (postpaid) is US$12.00. Forecast: THE BEEKEEPER'S APPRENTICE: ON THE SEGREGATION OF THE QUEEN, by Laurie R. King, from St. Martin's Press, Feb. 1994 ("in his retirement, the great detective Sherlock Holmes grooms a young woman to follow in his foot- steps"). Also: THE GAME IS AFOOT; PARODIES, PASTICHES, AND PONDERINGS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, edited by Marvin Kaye, from St. Martin's Press, Apr. 1994 ("the most comprehensive volume of classic writings on or about the world's greatest consulting detective"). Edith Meiser ("A Fascinating and Beautiful Woman") died on Sept. 26. She was a fine actress (beginning her career with a stock company in 1921), as well as a director and writer, and her greatest gift to Sherlockians came soon after (as she once recalled) "my career as a Keith Orpheum headliner ended with the demise of vaudeville, killed by talking pictures." That was when she and her husband Tom McKnight decided to enter the world of radio, and to launch a "Sherlock Holmes" series, which began in 1930 with William Gillette in the title role in the first program (and "when Doubleday heard there would be a radio series they got out the Omnibus Edition in time for Christmas"). She wrote the scripts for the series through 1944, and again in 1947-48, and in 1954-55 she wrote the stories for the cartoon strip that Frank Giacoia drew for the N.Y. Herald Tribune. She was honored by the BSI as *The* Woman in 1987, and awarded the Queen Victoria Medal in 1989, and her Investiture in 1991. "Sherlock Holmes Star Brett in a Wheelchair" was the headline in the Sunday Mirror on Sept. 12, with an "exclusive" story reporting that Jeremy Brett has been struck down by a crippling illness, forcing him to halt filming on the series, and that he was so ill on Sept. 9 that he had to miss recording an episode of "This Is Your Life" featuring his co-star Edward Hardwicke. A Granada spokeswoman confirmed that Brett was suffering from pleurisy, and that filming had been halted until Sept. 27 to allow him to rest and recup- erate. The Sunday Mirror is one of London's "shock" tabloids. The Spermaceti Press, 3900 Tunlaw Road NW #119, Washington, DC 20007-4830 Oct 93 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press Those who feel that they aren't getting enough Sherlockian gossip in these monthly mailings may wish to subscribe to The District Messenger, which is edited by Roger Johnson for the Sherlock Holmes Society of London, and does a better job of covering what's happening in Great Britain (and sometimes elsewhere). He has been newslettering for almost eleven years, and is up to issue 134, and publishes approximately monthly with no guarantee of how many pages or how often. Twelve issues to North America cost L5.00 or US $10.00 (dollar checks should be payable to Jean Upton, please), and Roger's address is Mole End, 41 Sandford Road, Chelmsford, Essex CM2 6DE, England. The Simon & Schuster audiocassette THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES #21 ($11.00) has two more of the fine old radio shows from scripts by Denis Green and Anthony Boucher, with new introductions by Harry Bartell (Peggy Webber, who worked on the original series, plays Mrs. Hudson in the intro- ductions). "The Great Gandolfo" (22 Oct 45), starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, has long been available on phonograph records and cassettes, but the new-to-audio "The Original Hamlet" (2 Nov 46) stars Nigel Bruce and Tom Conway (as Watson and Holmes, with top billing going to Bruce); Joseph Bell, the announcer, performed the same service for the pre-Rathbone series from 1930 to 1936. "The Original Hamlet" is a new script, rather than an adaptation of Vincent Starrett's pastiche. Leslie Bricusse's "Sherlock Holmes: The Musical" played 4 weeks in Exeter in 1988 and 11 weeks in London in 1989, with Ron Moody in the title role, and was revived this year for 14 weeks on tour with Robert Powell, and it is a lively show. It's not yet available for production in the U.S. and Canada, but until it we can see it on this side of the Atlantic, the script (London: Samuel French, 1992; 100 pp., $11.95) will serve as a reasonable substitute; it is also available direct from Samuel French here (45 West 25th Street, New York, NY 10010) for $13.95 postpaid; they take plastic. Edward B. Hanna's THE WHITECHAPEL HORRORS: A SHERLOCK HOLMES NOVEL was pub- lished last year (Mar 93 #2) and is now available as a trade paperback (New York: Carroll & Graf, 1993; 395 pp., $10.95); Holmes and Watson appear in a third-person account of the investigation of the Jack the Ripper murders. Also out in trade paperback is THE D. CASE: THE TRUTH ABOUT THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD, by Charles Dickens, Carlo Fruttero, and Franco Lucentini (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1993; 587 pp., $12.95); first published in Italian in 1989 and then in English (May 92 #5), the book is an account of the events at a Forum on the Completion of Unfinished or Fragmentary Works in Music and Literature, and of the deliberations of the participants, who include Lew Archer, Father Brown, Hercule Poirot, Nero Wolfe, and Sherlock Holmes. Further to the earlier reports of Lumivision's laserdisc of the 1925 film of "The Lost World" (Apr 92 #4) and the more recent books about Willis H. O'Brien (Aug 93 #5), Ted Friedman reports that LSVideo (Box 415, Carmel, IN 46032) offers a video of "Rare Willis O'Brien Films (1915-1930)". O'Brien created ingenious and imaginative special effects for many films (including "King Kong"), and his shorter films also are interesting. Oct 93 #2 The third volume of "Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective" is now available on CD-ROM disc for IBM-compatible and Macintosh computers, with three new cases with live-action digitized video engineered by ICOM Simulations. See your neighborhood software shop: the shelf price should be $69.95 or less. And an article in Forbes FYI (Sept. 27), at hand from Vinnie Brosnan, reports that ICOM has been bought by the media-giant Viacom, and that with 250,000 discs sold, the Sherlock Holmes discs are the third-best-selling discs in CD-ROM history. Donald M. Grant (Box 187, Hampton Falls, NH 03844) can still supply copies of Sterling Lanier's THE CURIOUS QUESTS OF BRIGADIER FFELLOWES (Jan 87 #2), with his giant-rat pastiche "A Father's Tale" (D5042b), nicely illustrated by Ned Damerson and signed by author and artist ($30.00); and Joseph Payne Brennan's THE ADVENTURES OF LUCIUS LEFFING (May 90 #1), with stories about a psychic detective who owes much to H. P. Lovecraft as well as to Sherlock Holmes (although the stories are not S'ian pastiches), illustrated by Luis Ferreira and signed by author and artist ($30.00); and the now-out-of-print St. Martin's Press "Night Lights" edition of THE SPECKLED BAND (Dec 87 #3) with glow-in-the-dark illustrations by Dean Morrissey ($8.95). Shipping is extra, and there is lots of other well-illustrated science fiction, horror, and fantasy in his catalog. African violets are featured on the stamps in a booklet issued this month, and of course there are many Violets in the Canon. And there is one lower-case violet (in "The Valley of Fear"): "A lovely violet growing upon one of those black slag-heaps of the mines would not have seemed more surprising." MAAJABU YA UTEPE WENYE MADOADOA is Leonard Lisanza Muaka's translation into Swahili of "The Speckled Band" (and it is the first known translation of a Sherlock Holmes story into that language). The translation was proposed by George A. Vanderburgh during a visit to Kenya earlier this year, and is now available as a 24-page pamphlet. The postpaid cost is US$7.95 or CA$9.95 or L4.00, and George's address is Box 204, Shelburne, Ont. L0N 1S0, Canada. George will also be glad to send you a long list of Sherlockian and Doylean material available MS-DOS floppy disks, and he is preparing to publish THE BAKER STREET BRIEFS, a collection of S'ian essays by S. Tupper Bigelow. Sorry about that: the Sherlock Holmes Society of London's reprint of SUNDAY IN SUSSEX (the excellent 42-page handbook for this year's summer excursion) costs $12.00 (postpaid to the United States). Also available is FRANCE IN THE BLOOD: A PRACTICAL HANDBOOK OF FRENCH HOLMESIAN CULTURE, WITH SOME OB- SERVATIONS, edited by Philip Porter and Catherine Cooke and prepared as a souvenir for the Society's autumn trip to Cognac, Bordeaux, and Montpelier, with 98 pages of fine scholarship; $18.50 postpaid (or $28.50 for numbered and signed copies). You can order from Mrs. E. M. Godden, Apple Tree Cott- age, Smarden, Ashford, Kent TN27 8QE, England; checks should be payable to the Society, please. And for those who like to plan ahead, the Society also plans to celebrate the centenary of Sherlock Holmes' return to London in 1894 with a "Festival of Holmes" from May 21 to May 30, 1994, with at least one event scheduled each day, and overseas visitors will be welcome to join the festivities. Oct 93 #3 Some years ago, the Land Press in London issued a new edition of THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, with all the Sidney Paget illustrations from The Strand Magazine, a previously unpublished full-page frontispiece of Holmes by Paget, and custom leather binding with four diff- erent designs available, at $2,000 a copy (Sep 89 #6). Copies of all four variants are still available, and enquiries will be welcomed by Priscilla Juvelis, 150 Huntington Avenue #SD-L, Boston, MA 02115. Charles Scholefield died on Sept. 23. He was long a member of The Sherlock Holmes Society of London, as well as an excellent barrister, and an expert on public health and on local government, but he became most famous, as his obituary in The Times noted, for impersonating Prof. Moriarty in 1968, when the Society mounted its first invasion of Switzerland. Photos of Moriarty and Holmes (aka Paul Gore-Booth) grappling at the brink of the Reichenbach were published world-wide and are still remembered (one of those pictures was reprinted in the current issue of the British magazine Private Eye). A new catalog from Sound Exchange (45 North Industry Court, Deer Park, NY 11729) (800-521-0042) offers RADIO'S GREATEST DETECTIVES: SHERLOCK HOLMES on a set of five audiocassettes ($19.98) or five CDs ($24.98), with eight of the Rathbone/Bruce shows and Orson Welles' broadcast of his adaptation of William Gillette's play. Rathbone shows also are included in other an- thology sets on audiocassettes. William D. Jenkins ("Sahara King") died on Oct. 4. Bill had a fine career in public relations, and then as a science writer and editor, but his great love was literature. He delighted in the associations he found between the Canon and the works of writers such as T. S. Eliot and Vladimir Nabokov and especially James Joyce, and he wrote and talked about the associations with great style and humor. He received his Investiture in the BSI in 1963, and the Two-Shilling Award in 1985. A new catalog at hand from Brian and Charlotte Erickson (Sherlock's Corner, 1029 Judson Drive, Mountain View, CA 94040) offers handmade clay caricature mugs of Holmes and Watson, plastic mugs customized with needlework inserts, puzzles, ornaments, note cards, and much more. Dennis Rosa's 1972 adaptation of William Gillette's play "Sherlock Holmes" is scheduled at the Actors Theatre (316 West Main Street, Louisville, KY 40202) from Dec. 30, 1993, to Jan. 29, 1994. And Charles Marowitz's play "Sherlock's Last Case" is scheduled at the Kavinoky Theatre (320 Porter Avenue, Buffalo, NY 14201) from Feb. 17 to Mar. 27, 1994; the box-office telephone number is 716-881-7668. Malcolm Payne, curator of the Conan Doyle (Crowborough) Establishment, has close associations with Windlesham (his father, aunt, and uncle worked for Sir Arthur), and he has collected some splendid reminiscences by his rela- tives and by others who were employed by the family. RECOLLECTIONS OF SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE BY RESIDENTS OF CROWBOROUGH has many warm and personal views of Sir Arthur, Lady Conan Doyle, and their children, and is available as a 26-page booklet from Malcolm Payne, 4 Wealden Close, Crowborough, East Sussex, TN6 2ST, England; L6.00 (sterling checks made payable to the Arthur Conan Doyle Memorial Fund) or $12.00 (currency only) postpaid to the U.S. Oct 93 #4 The Trifling Monographers, a professional scion for those who labor in the vineyards of public relations, will be meeting on Nov. 15 in Orlando, Fla., during an annual convention. Anyone who plans to be in the vicinity is welcome to attend the festivities (and you can spread the word to friends and acquaintances in public relations), and additional information is available from Graham Sudbury (Box 52062, Tulsa, OK 74152). Troy Taylor (805 West North, Decatur, IL 62522) has published the second issue of The Whitechapel Gazette: $6.00 postpaid for 40 pages of articles about Jack the Ripper, Conan Doyle's home at Crowborough, Conan Doyle and Charles Fort, and more, all nicely illustrated by Troy. New philatelic items: the St. Vincent Grenadines (an island nation in the West Indies) recently issued a set of one sheetlet and two souvenir sheets honoring Disney's animated film "The Great Mouse Detective" (1986). They are quite colorful, with nice Disney art, and the set is available from Ben Wood, who also offers the Britain's recent "Sherlock Holmes" set (the Royal Mail presentation packs and stamp cards, and The Sherlock Holmes Society of London's first day covers). You can send a #10 SASE to Ben to receive his illustrated flier (Box 740, Ellenton, FL 34222). The British stamps also are available with first-day postmarks on a set of five postcards, with a black-and-white portrait of Conan Doyle and differ- ent color portraits of Holmes (taken from Abbey's dust jackets for the John Murray series); L8.37 postpaid (Maurice Tanner, 80 Whitehorse Road, West Croydon, Surrey CR0 2LA, England; credit-card orders are welcome (otherwise please send payment by sterling check or in U.S. currency). Henry Murray (Box 1102, Barnet, Herts. EN5 5AF, England) is offering sets of postcards with 10 different first-day postmarks ($30.00), or 15 different ($45.00), and a first day cover signed by Dame Jean Conan Doyle ($19.00). And: there was a contest involving the British set, according to stories in the Independent. The design of each of the five stamps includes one letter (more-or-less hidden), and the five letters can be arranged to form a word with strong Holmesian connections. Chris Redmond's A SHERLOCK HOLMES HANDBOOK (Toronto: Simon & Pierre, 1993) has much to recommend it (and I do recommend it): the book offers detailed exploration of the Canon and of Conan Doyle and his other works, and a fine overview of the Victorian world reflected in the Canon, and a graceful tour of pastiches and parodies and media portrayals and of Sherlockian fans and followers, and a discussion of academic scholarship and why so many people have so much fun in the world of Sherlock Holmes in 250 well-written pages. And it really is what the title promises: a handbook, and one that can be used and enjoyed both by Sherlockians and by those who are wondering just what it is that Sherlockians do, and why. You can order from the Dundurn Press (Box 1000, Niagara Falls, NY 14302); the book costs US$26.50 (plus $3.00 shipping), and they take plastic. There's lots of Sherlockian audio and video and other material in the new catalog from The Mind's Eye (Box 1060, Petaluma, CA 94953) (800-227-2020); nothing new, but it's all convenient, and Bruce Wolfe's colorful portrait of Holmes is still available on sweatshirts and T-shirts. Oct 93 #5 "Dr. Watson is the principal protagonist and he's very action- oriented, rather than the quizzical sidekick," is the way Craig Baumgarten described Brian Helgeland's script for "Elementary", which has been bought by Warner Bros. Pictures, according to a report spotted by Andy Peck in the Hollywood Reporter. Insiders estimated that Warner Bros. paid $400,000 for the script; and if anyone has seen the film "The Ticking Man", Helgeland wrote that one, too. "60 Minutes" (on CBS-TV on Oct. 10) had a segment ("Jack the Ripper?") on the recently-discovered diary that is believed by some to prove that James Maybrick committed all those murders. The segment included black-and-white clips from old films, and if you thought you recognized Mary Kelly, it was indeed Edina Ronay, who played the role in "A Study in Terror" (1965). And yes, that film was made in color, but "60 Minutes" cheated. Richard Carleton Hacker, author of THE ULTIMATE PIPE BOOK, has now turned his attention to cigars: THE ULTIMATE CIGAR BOOK has more than 300 pages and 130 photographs, with eight pages in color and, as might be expected, discussion of cigar ash and of Sherlock Holmes' smoking habits. The book retails for $34.95 at tobacconists, and can be purchased (autographed) for $38.50 postpaid from the author (Box 634, Beverly Hills, CA 90213). THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES (New York: Children's Classics, 992; 249 pp., $12.99) is a reprint of the Portland House edition (Oct 88 #3), which was essentially a reprint of the first American edition, with eight additional (and well-executed) color illustrations by Sergio Martinez. The following story is quoted (in full) from the Washington Post's "Around the Nation" section (Sept. 25): "Exotic dancer Michele Roger, 27, stabbed, burned, and mulched her rock band drummer boyfriend, David Alexander Rich- mond, 28, before mixing his remains in cement and scattering cement chips down Interstate 95 in central Florida, according to police in Sanford, Fla. Richmond had been missing for more than a year; Roger was charged with sec- ond-degree murder." Jim Weiss told four Canonical stories (Maza/Spec/Musg/Blue) on his award- winning audiocassette SHERLOCK HOLMES FOR CHILDREN (Apr 92 #8), and he has now recorded his storyteller's adaptation of "The Red-Headed League" (with Poe's "The Purloined Letter" and Chesterton's "The Blue Cross") on MYSTERY! MYSTERY! The cassette costs $11.95 postpaid, from Greathall Productions, Box 813, Benicia, CA 94510. Stephen King's pastiche "The Doctor's Case" (which was first published in 1987 in the anthology THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES) is reprinted in King's collection NIGHTMARES AND DREAMSCAPES (New York: Viking, 1993; 816 pp., $27.50). The new catalog from Barnes & Noble (126 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10011) has a new edition of THE FINAL ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, compiled by Peter Haining from material by Conan Doyle and others and first published in 1981, now with an added (five-sentence) foreword by Jeremy Brett; $6.98 (item 1884097). And (announced as "new!") a reprint of Alan K. Russell's 1978 anthology RIVALS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (D5152b); $9.98 (item 1949296). Oct 93 #6 The fall 1993 issue of Scarlet Street has arrived, with Jessie Lilley's excellent interview with Granada producer June Wyndham Davies (with production stills from "The Golden Pince-Nez"), and with other Sherlockian news, and as always lots of illustrated articles about mystery and horror films. And the next issue will have interviews with Ida Lupino and Terry Kilburn, with discussion of their work in Basil Rathbone's "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" (1939). $18.00 a year (four issues), from R. H. Enterprises, 271 Farrant Terrace, Teaneck, NJ 07666. Ray Betzner will present a program on "Sherlock Holmes: Fact or Fiction?" to the Friends of the Library of the College of William and Mary, at 7:30 pm on Dec. 2 at the Botetourt Theater in Williamsburg, Va. (in case anyone is planning to be in the vicinity then). And Robert F. Fleissner's paper "On the Pedigree of the Name of Holmes: Apropos of the First English Detec- tive Work" is scheduled by the Modern Language Association on the afternoon of Dec. 30 in the Varley Room of the Toronto Hilton in Toronto. Sherry Rose-Bond reports two new Sherlockian chess sets: one costs $450.00 (with board) in a catalog from Norm Thompson, Box 3999, Portland, OR 97208 (800-547-1160), and the other costs $368.00 (with board) or $245.00 (with- out) in a catalog from Museum Collections, 586 Higgins Crowell Road, West Yarmouth, MA 02673 (800-442-2460). Spotted by Tom Stix in the Sept. 1993 issue of Investment Advisor: a nice two-page color view of Holmes and Watson in the railway carriage, as part of an advertisement by Seligman Financial Services. To get a copy of the advertisement, call 800-221-2783 and ask for "the Sherlock Holmes piece". Tim Kline reports an interesting interview with Nicholas Meyer in Mystery Scene #40 (Box 669, Cedar Rapids, IA 52406; $5.25), with discussion of THE CANARY TRAINER and his earlier pastiches, and with an account of his being asked to direct "Young Sherlock Holmes" (he declined). But Meyer did not mention plans for a new project, reported elsewhere to be a film based on Conan Doyle's THE WHITE COMPANY, scripted and directed by Meyer. Tim also notes that a new catalog from What on Earth (2451 Enterprise East Parkway, Twinsburg, OH 44087) has a new "Many Faces of Sherlock" design on T-shirts ($12.95) and sweatshirts ($22.95). And that the current catalog from Mysteries by Mail (Box 679, Boonville, CA 95415) (800-722-0726) has a S'ian word-puzzle (and offers of in-print S'ian books, audio, and video). The Nov. 1993 issue of Architectural Digest (6300 Willshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90048) has Brendan Gill's fine four-page article on "Gillette Castle: An Actor's Folly on a Connecticut Hilltop" (with grand color photo- graphs). Gill has been there before: his "A Reporter at Large: Castle for Sale" was published in the Nov. 26, 1938, issue of The New Yorker. Reported from Britain: Keith Oatley's THE CASE OF EMILY V (London: Secker & Warburg, L9.99) is a dual pastiche: the book offers the journal of Emily (a young girl who has suffered a nervous breakdown after being seduced by her guardian), Dr. Sigmund Freud's notes on her case (she is his patient), and Dr. John H. Watson's account of Sherlock Holmes' investigation of a murder to which she is linked. Oct 93 #7 Sherlock Holmes' 140th birthday will be celebrated on Friday, Jan. 7, with the traditional festivities in New York. But the festivities actually will begin on Thursday at 9:00 am at the Hotel Algon- quin (59 West 44th Street), whence Allen Mackler and Charlie Shields will lead participants in the annual Christopher Morley Walk, which ends with luncheon at McSorley's. Allen's address is 324 2nd Street NE, Osseo, MN 55369, and from Jan. 3 he will be at the Iroquois Hotel (212-840-3080). Bob Hahn (who claims to be known as the Booming Bittern of Baskerville Bog) will preside over the Aunt Clara Sing (off-hand, off-the-wall, and largely off-key) beginning some time after 8:00 pm at O'Lunney,s Steak House. You can reserve a seat by sending a check for $10.00 a person to Hugh O'Lunney (12 West 44th Street, New York, NY 10036); your $10.00 will be applied to your tab for the evening. Friday's agenda begins with the Martha Hudson Breakfast from 8:30 to 10:30 am at the Hotel Algonquin at 59 West 44th Street; $18.95 (checks *payable to The Baker Street Irregulars* can be sent to Tom and Ruthann Stetak, 15529 Diagonal Road, LaGrange, OH 44050). The William Gillette Luncheon will start at noon, and (a new location) at: Moran's Chelsea at 146 Tenth Avenue at 19th Street (Susan Rice, 125 Wash- ington Place #2-E, New York, NY 10014; $30.00). Otto Penzler's open house at The Mysterious Bookshop (129 West 56th Street) also is on Friday, from 11:00 am to 6:00 pm; it is quite possible that Sherlockian authors will be on hand to sign their books. The Baker Street Irregulars will gather at 6:00 pm at 24 Fifth Avenue (at 9th Street), and The Fortescue Symposium (sponsored by The Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes and two local societies) will convene at 6:30 pm at the St. Moritz Hotel at 50 Central Park South at 6th Avenue (Katherine Karlson, 1259 Fowler Place, Binghamton, NY 13903; $55.00). Early reservations are recommended for the breakfast, the luncheon, and the Fortescue festivities. On Saturday a posse of purveyors will offer a wide variety of S'iana at the Algonquin (aka Covent Garden West) from 9:30 am to noon. Vendor tables are available (contact Ray Betzner, 107 Tendril Court, Williamsburg, VA 23188). The Baker Street Irregulars will hold their annual reception, open to all Sherlockians and their friends, on Saturday afternoon from 2:30 to 5:00 pm at 24 Fifth Avenue (at 9th Street). There will be an open bar, and hot and cold hors d'oeuvres, and the cost is $35.00 a person (checks *payable to The Baker Street Irregulars* should be sent to Donald E. Novorsky, 5182 Mahoning Avenue NW, Warren, OH 44483). The Baker Street Irregulars are now a tax-exempt organization, and Tom has arranged with the Hotel Algonquin for rooms (single or double) at $145.00 a night (Wednesday through Saturday); this is the total cost, since no tax is due for reservations made via the BSI. Please note that all other charges (room service, telephone calls, meals, drinks, etc.) are not covered. The offer is available to all Sherlockians: your reservations, with full names of all occupants, accompanied by payment (checks payable to the BSI), can be sent to Thomas L. Stix, Jr. (34 Pierson Avenue, Norwood, NJ 07648) and are to be received no later than Dec. 16. And there's more . . . Oct 93 #8 Note: payments to The Baker Street Irregulars for more than one event and for reservations at the Algonquin can be combined and made with one check (in U.S. funds, please) or by international money order to be sent to the BSI, c/o Thomas L. Stix, Jr., 34 Pierson Avenue, Norwood, NJ 07648. Mary Ellen Rich has once again kindly provided a list of hotels that offer reasonable (as defined by New York landlords) rates, along with a warning about non-optional extras: $2.00 a day occupancy tax, 8.25% state tax, 5% city tax, and 5% state tax on rooms costing more than $99.99. If you plan to arrive on Thursday, it is important to confirm that the weekend-package rates include Thursday. St. Moritz (50 Central Park South): $109 (per inside room) or $139 (with a view of the park) if you mention the Adventuresses, who are dining there on Friday (800-221-4774). Roosevelt (45 East 45th Street): $99 (single SU-TH) $109 (double SU-TH) $89 (per room FR-SA) (800-223-1870). Jolly Madison (22 East 38th Street): $99 (per room MO-TH) $89 (FR-SU) (800-225-4340). Omni Park Central (7th Avenue at 55th Street): $99 (promotional rate per room) $165 (family rate for 2 connecting rooms and 3 double beds) (800-843-6664). Gramercy Park (Lexington Avenue at 21st Street): $95 (per room) (800-221- 4083). Journey's End (3 East 40th Street): $94.99 (per room FR-SU) (800- 668-4200). Iroquois (49 West 44th Street): $75 (single) $85 (double) (800- 332-7220). Rosoff's (147 West 43rd Street): $55 (single) $65 (double) $75 (triple) (212-869-1212). Vincent Price died on Oct. 25. He was a fine actor, and once played Prince Albert to Helen Hayes' "Victoria Regina", but he was far better known as a villain. He was flattered and amused by his reputation as "the prince of menace," and he was for many years the genially sinister host of "Mystery!" on PBS-TV (winning an Edgar from the Mystery Writers of America in 1988 for his "contributions to the world of mystery"). And he was the model for and supplied the voice of the thoroughly villainous Prof. Ratigan in the Disney film "The Great Mouse Detective" (1986). "First Couple's Intimate Talk: Surgery" was the headline on this story, by Al Kamen, in the Oct. 1 issue of the Washington Post: The Spermaceti Press, 3900 Tunlaw Road NW #119, Washington, DC 20007-4830 Telephone: 202-338-1808 Internet: pblau@cap.gwu.edu Nov 93 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press The Dr. John H. Watson Fund provides financial assistance to Sherlockians (membership in The Baker Street Irregulars or The Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes is not required) who might otherwise be unable to participate in the birthday-weekend festivities in New York in January. A carefully anonymous John H. Watson presides over the Fund and welcomes contributions, which are needed each year, because the Fund is self-liquidating. Contributions can be made by checks payable to John H. Watson and can be sent (without return address on the envelope) to Dr. Watson, c/o The Baker Street Irregulars, 34 Pierson Avenue, Norwood, NJ 07648; letters are forwarded unopened, and Dr. Watson will acknowledge your generosity. The number of different first day covers for the British stamps honoring Sherlock Holmes doesn't really approach infinity, but it might seem that way. The British Philatelic Bureau (acting for the Royal Mail) offered a cacheted cover postmarked in Edinburgh or London, and other cacheted covers were prepared by The Conan Doyle (Crowborough) Establishment, The Arthur Conan Doyle Society, and The Sherlock Holmes Society of London (all noted in previous issues of this newsletter). And reports have been received of cacheted covers issued by St. Bart's (the hospital) and The Sherlock Holmes Museum (at 239 Baker Street); sorry: no information on how to order these. And all sorts of people and societies and companies arranged for all sorts of postmarks on the five stamp cards issued by the Royal Mail (there are no "official" first day cancellations in Britain). Reported by Tim O'Connor: a new graphic novel from DC Comics called BATMAN/HOUDINI: THE DEVIL'S WORK- SHOP, written by Howard Victor Chaykin and John Francis Moore (and illustrated by Mark Chiarello); $5.95 in the comic-book shops. Bruce Wayne (as a young man) meets Harry Houdini, who says, "As my dear English friend Conan Doyle says--endlessly-- eliminate the impossible and you are left with the improbable." Otherwise non-Sherlockian. Tim also reports a rubber stamp with Sherlockian artwork by John Brousch, shown here actual size; $6.00 postpaid from Tim O'Connor, 6015 West Route 115, Herscher, IL 60941. The fall 1993 issue of The Armchair Detective has a new "Report from 221B Baker Street" by Sherry Rose-Bond and Scott Bond (about the Sherlockian contributions to the Jack the Ripper genre), and an interesting article by William S. Cramer on "The Enigmatic B. Fletcher Robinson and the Writing of The Hound of the Baskervilles". Quarterly at $26.00 a year (129 West 56th Street, New York, NY 10019). Reported by Gayle Harris: the new film "Malice" (described by one critic as "a highly implausible thriller about sex, money, and surgery," was directed by Harold Becker and stars Nicole Kidman, Alec Baldwin, Bill Pullman, and (in a cameo role) Anne Bancroft, who says in one of her scenes, "Now you've proved you're Sherlock Holmes." Nov 93 #2 SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE MAJOR STORIES WITH CONTEMPORARY CRITICAL ESSAYS, edited by John A. Hodgson (New York: Bedford Books of St. Martin's Press, 1994; 452 pp., $35.00 cloth, $8.50 paper), is designed as a textbook for literature classes, and offers an excerpt from "A Study in Scarlet" and fourteen of the short stories, and nine essays by modern literary critics, reprinted from journals and books published in the 1980s and 1990s. Hodgson easily supports his suggestion that critical attention to the Canon "has developed into a rich and sustained dialogue." The Maiwand Jezails celebrated their 30th anniversary in high style, and with a necktie commemorating the event, and a few neckties are still available (in gold-red-and-black on navy blue) from Robert F. Cryne, 6407 South 106 Circle, Omaha, NE 68127; $30.00 postpaid. Sorry about that: the wrong mailing address in last month's reports on the new Sherlock Holmes stamps. The new British stamps also are available with first-day postmarks on a set of five post- cards, with a black-and-white portrait of Conan Doyle and different color portraits of Holmes (from Abbey's dust jackets for the John Murray series); the set costs L8.37 postpaid from Maurice Tanner, 180 Whitehorse Road, West Croydon, Surrey CR0 2LA, England; credit-card orders are welcome (otherwise please send payment by sterling check or in U.S. currency). The latest issue of Anglofile is at hand, after a year-long hiatus, and the newsletter is now published monthly, as always focusing on news of British television and film (on both sides of the Atlantic). A new James Bond film is in the works (to star Timothy Dalton), "Masterpiece Theatre" will broad- cast Ian Richardson's "To Play the King" (a sequel to his excellent "House of Cards"), and the new "Poirot" series on "Mystery!" will be followed by Roy Marsden and Mel Martin in a new "Dalgliesh" mini-series. $12.00 a year (Box 33514, Decatur, GA 30033). The Simon & Schuster audiocassette THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES #22 ($12.00) has two more of the fine old radio shows from scripts by Denis Green and Anthony Boucher, with new introductions by Harry Bartell (and Lou Krugman as Inspector Lestrade). "Murder by Moonlight" (29 Oct 45), stars Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce and has long been available on phonograph records and cassettes (with lower fidelity), but the new-to-audio "The Coptic Compass" (7 Dec 46) stars Nigel Bruce and Tom Conway (as Watson and Holmes, with top billing going to Bruce). The Simon & Schuster audiocassette series has been produced from original transcription disks by Ken Greenwald and his partners at 221A Baker Street Associates, and the third issue of Ken's newsletter The Dispatch Box is now available, offering an excerpt from series director Glenhall Taylor's auto- biography, and article by Desmond Tyler, and much more. You can send a #10 SASE to Ken at Box 351453, Los Angeles, CA 90035. For the completists: yet another variant edition of THE COMPLETE SHERLOCK HOLMES, published in 1992 from the standard Doubleday plates and sold for $14.98 at Barnes & Noble stores. "New York: Barnes & Noble" on the title page and "Published by arrangement with Doubleday" on the title-page verso. Nov 93 #3 WETA-TV (Washington) is rebroadcasting the 1978 British mini- series of "Rebecca" (with Jeremy Brett as Maxim de Winter), and Rosemary Michaud reports in Craig Moore's The Brett Gazette that videocass- ettes of Jeremy Brett's "Macbeth" and of Laurence Olivier's "The Merchant of Venice" (with Brett as Bassanio) are available from Fusion Video, 17311 Fusion Way, Country Club Hills, IL 60478 (800-959-0061). Mary Blount Christian's SHERLOCK STREET DETECTIVE SERIES now runs to ten titles, nicely illustrated by Joe Boddy. The stories are cheerful tales about four modern kids who live on Sherlock Street and have fun solving mysteries (aided by a friendly dog named Watson); grades 1-3, 32 pp. in paper covers, $4.95 each from the Milliken Publishing Co., 1100 Research Boulevard, St. Louis, MO 63132 (800-325-4136). The Occupants of the Empty House have a new issue of lapel pins, available for $11.00 postpaid from Debbie Tinsley, 105 Wilcox, Zeigler, IL 62999. Tom Biblewski reports that the 13th Sherlock Holmes/Conan Doyle Symposium at Wright State University in Dayton will be held on Mar 18-20, 1994. Contact Greg Sullivan (2800 North River Road, Yellow Springs, OH 45387) for details. Tom Kowols reports in The Police Gazette that "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes" (1970) is scheduled for release on laserdisc this month by MGM/UA, in letterbox format (widescreen, avoiding the pan-and-scan so often used in converting theatrical films to video). And "Elementary, Dear Data" (1988) from "Star Trek: The Next Generation" is out on laserdisc from Paramount. And Skybox has issued a set of "Star Trek" trading cards in which one card is "The Case of the Errant Holodeck" with artist Sonia B. Hillios' version of Data, Geordi, and Moriarty. And that there's a CD of the soundtrack of the film "My Fair Lady" (with Jeremy Brett as Freddie Eynsford-Hill). The Actors Theatre of Louisville will be performing Dennis Rosa's 1975 play "Sherlock Holmes and the Curse of the Sign of Four" (rather than his adap- tation of the Gillette play) from Dec. 30 to Jan. 29. Their address is 316 West Main Street, Louisville, KY 40202 (502-585-1205). Some legal news, from Andy Peck: the N.Y. Law Journal has reported that Justice Albert M. Rosenblatt, who now serves in the Appellate Division in New York state, has been selected by the Commission on Judicial Nomination as one of seven candidates from which Governor Cuomo will choose the next judge of the N.Y. Court of Appeals (the state's highest court). Cinemonde (1932 Polk Street, San Francisco, CA 94109) offers a sales list of original posters and lobby cards for Sherlockian films, from a French poster for "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" (1939) at $7,000, to a one- sheet for "Young Sherlock Holmes" (1985) at $25. Reported: reprints of the third (and expanded) edition of Julian Symons' BLOODY MURDER: FROM THE DETECTIVE STORY TO THE CRIME NOVEL (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1992) (New York: Mysterious Press, 1993), first published in Britain in 1992 (Jun 92 #2); with an enthusiastic chapter on the Canon. Nov 93 #4 There have been no reports of anything particularly Sherlockian at Bouchercon XXIV in Omaha, but everyone appears to have had a fine time regardless. Bouchercon XXV convenes in Seattle on Oct. 6-9, 1994 (Box 1095, Renton, WA 98057) and Bouchercon XXVI in Nottingham on Sept. 28- Oct. 1, 1995 (Broadway, 14 Broad Street, Nottingham NG1 3AL, England). Reported by Melanie Hughes from the Press Association Newsfile (Sept. 25): "A thief dubbed the 'Sherlock Holmes Raider' has been jailed for 11 years at Chester Crown Court. Patrick Neal, 23, from Anfield, Liverpool, wore a deerstalker hat to avoid being identified on cameras. In 26 robberies he stole over L40,000. After his arrest for one robbery, Det. Sgt. Tony Jop- son spotted the connection between the different incidents." Spotted by Gertrude Mahoney: pewter Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson thimbles sculpted by Cheryl Harness, priced at $13.95 each in a catalog from Gimbel & Sons Country Store, Box 57, Boothbay Harbor, ME 04538; they take plastic. And you can still get their Sherlockian handpainted bone-china thimble modeled after the pipe-in-the-ear Toby Mug, at $14.95. Thanks to Dick Rutter for spotting Richard Roberts' THE WIND & THE WIZARD (San Anselmo: Vernal Equinox Press, 1990; 239+177 pp. in two vols., $15.95 each). It's a remarkable story: a blend of fantasy and fiction, in which a young boy and his stuffed-monkey companion are transported from WW2 London into the worlds of THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS, WATER BABIES, PETER PAN, ROBIN HOOD, SHERLOCK HOLMES, and THE WIZARD OF OZ. And each of those worlds has some surprises in store, and not only because the presence of the young boy changes them (in the S'ian chapter he meets Holmes and Watson, of course, and James Barrie and Kenneth Grahame and Arthur Conan Doyle). The stories are told well, in styles that match the authors of the originals, and they are not "just" for children, but rather for any adult or younger reader who knows the originals. The publisher's address is: Box 581, San Anselmo, CA 94979. Michael Ricker Pewter have sent a reminder that Dec. 31 is the deadline for orders for their subscription series of sculptures showing the sitting-room at 221B Baker Street (Sep 93 #2). They will be happy to send you a copy of their illustrated flier (5433 West 88th Avenue #132, Westminster, CO 80030) (800-554-1571). The Mysterious Bookshop (129 West 56th Street, New York, NY 10019) offers a new mail-order catalog, with two pages of in-print Sherlockiana, including (hitherto unreported): Lord Donegall's BAKER STREET AND BEYOND (Westminster City Libraries, $29.95; the first book edition of his articles in The New Strand Magazine in the 1960s) and T. S. Blakeney's SHERLOCK HOLMES: FACT OR FICTION? (Otto Penzler Books, $7.95; out-of-print since the reprint by the Baker Street Irregulars in 1954). Mike Philipson, author of the play "Doctor Watson Investigates" now on tour in the provinces, has been bitten by the lapel-pin bug and notes that there aren't all that many Sherlockian lapel pins available in Britain. He would be glad to hear from people or societies who offer pins; and his address is Portway News, 13-15 Portway, Frome, Somerset BA11 1QP, England. Nov 93 #5 Further to the report (Sep 93 #3) that you can receive a set of nine colorful postcards if you send a proof-of-purchase for THE OXFORD SHERLOCK HOLMES to "Elementary, My Dear Watson", Oxford University Press, 200 Madison Avenue (9th floor), New York, NY 10016, Frank Darlington now reports that that also enters you in a drawing for a set signed by the editors, and that the deadline of the drawing has been extended to Jan. 30. MEANWHILE BACK IN LONDON.... is a 41-page chapbook with new articles about how various people spent The Great Hiatus, by six authors who were among the contributors to The QuarterLy $tatement, and with illustrations by Troy Taylor; $6.00 postpaid from James O. Duval, 72 Merrimack Street, Penacook, NH 03303. Keith Oatley's THE CASE OF EMILY V. (London: Secker & Warburg, L9.99) is an interesting psychological pastiche, presenting the journal of a young woman who may or may not have murdered the man who seduced her, the lecture-notes of Dr. Sigmund Freud (whose patient she is), and the account of Dr. Watson (after Sherlock Holmes is retained by the British government to investigate the death of the man who may or may not have been murdered). The principal focus of the book is on Emily, but the development of the plot provides an out-of-the-ordinary view of a consistent Holmes and Watson. Stillman Drake ("Porlock") died on Oct. 6. He was an investment banker and for many years a stalwart member of The Scowrers and Mollie Maguires (serv- ing as the society's Bodymaster in the 1950s). He received his Investiture (reflecting his long-standing interest in "The Valley of Fear") in the BSI in 1963. Tim O'Connor reports: two volumes of a "Sherlock Holmes Collectors Edition" each with eight one-hour audiocassettes, in bookstores at $29.95 each, and offered at the same price by Radio Classics (Great American Audio Corp.), 33 Portman Road, New Rochelle, NY 10801); the first volume with radio shows starring Gielgud/Richardson, and the second with radio shows starring Rath- bone/Bruce, Stanley/Shirley, and Langford/Baker (all available elsewhere). And Tim reports that twelve in-print Sherlockian playscripts (published by Samuel French, Baker's Plays, and others) are offered in a sales-list from Act I, 2632 North Lincoln, Chicago, IL 60614) (800-557-5297). British bookdealer Robert Temple (65 Mildmay Road, London N1 4PU, England) is offering an interesting Sherlockian item with significant association: a copy of the Baskerrette Press edition of THE CROWN DIAMOND (D813a) that was owned by Charles Farrell, who played the role of Sam Merton in London and on tour in 1921 and 1922. The play is accompanied by related material, and the lot is priced at L1,200. Television numbers: according to a report in the N.Y. Times (Oct. 3, 1993), about 20 million people in Britain pay the required license fee (now $125 a year for color television; less for black-and-white television and radio). BBC-1 and BBC-2 have a combined audience share of 43 percent (down from 51 percent in 1981), facing competition from ITV, Channel 4, and a growing number of cable and satellite channels. The BBC employes 23,000 people, and has an annual budget of $2.1 billion Nov 93 #6 Robert N. Brodie ("The *Gloria Scott*") died on Nov. 15. He was the head of an advertising agency, and a member of MENSA (and with other members of the organization's New York chapter founded The Deal- Top Monographers in the 1970s). His BSI Investiture was awarded in 1971, and he was a valued member of The Three Garridebs, fondly remembered by Bob Thomalen as "the last of our courtly gentlemen." Susan E. Dahlinger has announced that Varieties of Ash will resume publica- tion in Jan. 1994; the winter issue will be available at Covent Garden West (also known as the huckster's room at the Algonquin) on Jan. 8, and you can subscribe to the journal for $12.00 a year (two issues). Susan's address: 758 Third Street, Secaucus, NJ 07094. The Sherlock Holmes Gazette (autumn 1993) is at hand, with a colorful cover portrait of Eric Porter as Moriarty (by Cathy Childs); an article about the opening of the High Moorland Visitor Centre at Princtown on Dartmoor, where Prince Charles met Sherlock Holmes (impersonated by Philip Weller); news of work at Granada (Jeremy Brett's tabloid-trumpeted illness turns out to have been an asthma attack that delayed their shooting of "The Dying Detective" for two weeks); and much more in the now-standard 48 pages. A subscription costs $32.00 a year (for four issues) from Carolyn and Joel Senter (Classic Specialties, Box 19058, Cincinnati, OH 45219); credit cards can be used for payment. The Senters' latest mail-order catalog also is available, with an excellent assortment of attractive Sherlockiana. Reported by Ralph Hall: "The Strange Case of the Missing Mermaid Costume" in Muppet Babies, Dec. 1993 (v. 2, n. 3), a comic book published by Harvey Classics ($1.50). This probably is a reprint from Muppet Babies, May 87, from Marvel. Troy Taylor is the author and illustrator of THE ADVENTURE OF THE PARADOL CHAMBER, a new pastiche involving time travel and a bit of romance, avail- able as a 16-page pamphlet, from the author (805 West North, Decatur, IL 62522); $5.00 postpaid. Paulette Greene (7152 Via Palomar, Boca Raton, FL 33433) offers a new sales list of Sherlockian books and pamphlets. And having returned from Santa Fe, I can report that John Bennett Shaw says he breathed a sigh of relief when the moving van drove off with all of the books and other things that were in his library and storeroom, and that he has carefully kept a copy of the shipping papers so that he can prove that by nice coincidence the movers used exactly 221 shipping cartons. I wasn't quite the first visiting Sherlockian to see the library naked (the shelves have been removed, and sooner rather than later there will be a new carpet, and pictures on the walls), and John hopes to have his new desk and chair, as well as his old typewriter, reinstalled quickly, so that he can get back to answering all of the mail, because he hopes that his nice friends will continue to send him all the nice things that they've been sending to him in the past. The Spermaceti Press, 3900 Tunlaw Road NW #119, Washington, DC 20007-4830 Telephone: 202-338-1808 Internet: pblau@cap.gwu.edu Dec 93 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press A gift for the Sherlockian who has everything: the door to Selden's cell at Dartmoor Prison. Well, we can't be sure which cell was Selden's, but some of the doors, torn off their hinges during a prison riot in 1990, were sold by the prison governor to benefit a local charity. Tobys (an architectural salvage firm in nearby Newton Abbot) bought 275 doors, and now is marketing them as conversation pieces, priced at about $370. According to the Wash- ington Post (Nov. 25), Tobys' telephone number is 011-44-626-5167. British postage rates have risen: a first-class letter now costs 25p (about 38c), and an airmail letter costs 41p (about 62c). For the benefit of our readers in countries other than the United States, our rates still are 29c and 50c. Bill Bixby died on Nov. 21. His television career started in "My Favorite Martian" in 1963, but he was better-known for his work in "The Courtship of Eddie's Father" and "The Incredible Hulk. He played the Rev. Arthur Ford, with Peter Cushing as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in the television film "The Great Houdinis" broadcast by ABC-TV in 1976. Anthony Burgess died on Nov. 25. Best known for his 1962 novel A CLOCKWORK ORANGE and the film made from the book in 1971, he was also a fine literary critic and journalist. He was script consultant for the television series produced by Sheldon Reynolds in 1981 (with Geoffrey Whitehead as Holmes and Donald Pickering as Watson), and in his review of Owen Dudley Edwards' THE QUEST FOR SHERLOCK HOLMES in 1982, he honored Conan Doyle as "the greatest historical novelist after Walter Scott." Burgess celebrated the centenary with a long feature essay on "The Sainted Sleuth, Still on the Case" in the N.Y. Times Book Review in 1987, and included a Sherlockian pastiche "Murder to Music" in THE DEVIL'S MODE in 1989. Chess sets, chess sets, everywhere a chess set. Playboy (Dec. 1993) has a report ("Potpourri: The Game Is Still Afoot") on yet another Canonical set: $430 postpaid (but not including a $170 maple board) from British Exports, Box 11240, Merrillville, IN 46411. But one doesn't find Pagets everywhere. The original wash drawing for one of Sidney Paget's illustrations ("With his neck craned, he looked into the room," in "The Three Students"), which was sold at auction at Sotheby's in London in 1980 for L950, is now offered by Pepper & Stern (1980 Cliff Drive #224, Santa Barbara, CA 93109) for $22,500. The Edgar Wallace Society has published the 100th issue of its newsletter The Crimson Circle, with a tribute to John Hogan, who led the society from 1985 until his death this year, Penelope Wallace's memories of her father (first published by Luther Norris in The Pontine Dossier in 1970), and much more. Wallace was one of the most prolific authors in modern literature (and he wrote the dialogue for the 1932 film version of "The Hound of the Baskervilles"), and members of the society are as devoted to their hero as we are to ours; membership, including the newsletter, is L9.00 a year (in sterling checks or U.S. currency), and the society's new organizer is Neil Clark, 9 Hurst Rise Road, North Hinksey, Oxford OX2 9HE, England. Dec 93 #2 The deadline for orders for Ronald B. De Waal's THE UNIVERSAL SHERLOCK HOLMES (three volumes with more than 1,500 pages and more than 24,600 entries) has been extended to Mar. 15, 1994, and delivery will be made by mail after May 22, 1994. The price remains at US$100 (or CA$130), but since the set will not be available for delivery in New York in January, there also will be a charge for shipping; details are available from George A. Vanderburgh (Box 204, Shelburne, Ont. L0N 1S0, Canada). Bouchercon XXV is now Bouchercon 25, with a new address (Box 75684, Seattle, WA 98125-0684) and the same dates (Oct. 6-9, 1994), and some fine progress-report artwork by Stu Shiffman. Thom Walls reports that you can expect to see Marcia Muller (guest of honor), Tony Hillerman (lifetime achievement award), Art Scott (fan guest of honor), George Chesbro (toastmaster), and (of course) many other authors and fans. And since Seattle also is known as "The Emerald City" it is not at all surprising to see references to "The Gumshoe of Oz" in the progress report. "The Game Is Afoot: Holiday Season Tributes to Sherlock Holmes" is an 11-page article by John C. Tibbetts about Sherlock Holmes, Sherlockians, and the birthday festi- vities in New York in 1993 (with many color photos) in the Dec. 1993 issue of The World & I. The magazine is published by the Washington Times Corp., 2800 New York Avenue NE, Washington, DC 20002, and costs $10.00 (that's for the 448-page issue). Video-taper alert: Granada's two-hour shows "The Last Vampyre" and "The Eligible Bachelor" will be broadcast by PBS on "Mystery!" in four one-hour episodes beginning on Jan. 27. The new "British Video Collection" catalog from Fusion Video (17311 Fusion Way, Country Club Hills, IL 60478) (800-959-0061) offers a video two-pack of the 1992 television films ("The Leading Lady" and "Incident at Victoria Falls") that starred Christopher Lee and Patrick Macnee, for $29.98. Note: these are the edited two-hour versions. "Sherlock Holmes Chemist" is the name of a shop at 82a Baker Street, Cathy Childs reports. This is not the one chemist's shop mentioned in the Canon: who stood in that chemist's shop's doorway? "Otto Penzler's Sherlock Holmes Library" is the overall title for the new bi-monthly paperback series of reprints published by Otto Penzler Books, distributed by Macmillan, and priced at $7.95 each. The first two titles are Vincent Starrett's THE PRIVATE LIFE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (1933) and T. S. Blakeney's SHERLOCK HOLMES: FACT OR FICTION? (1932), and Vincent Starrett's anthology 221B: STUDIES IN SHERLOCK HOLMES (1940) is due soon. It is nice indeed to see excellent Sherlockian scholarship from the early days back in print, and the color covers with artwork by Frederic Dorr Steele will help catch the eye when non-Sherlockians browse book-shop shelves. Dec 93 #3 The Curious Collectors of Baker Street held their second annual Gasfitters Ball in South Pasadena on Nov. 6, publicized with an attractive multi-color poster (11" x 17") designed by Chuck Kovacik; copies of the poster are available from Jerry and Chrys Kegley, 110 El Nido #41, Pasadena, CA 91107 ($12.00 postpaid). Bill Brown's one-act radio plays have long bedevilled and bewildered The Hansom Wheels of Columbia, S.C., and his first collection (Feb 91 #2) has now been joined by THE UNKNOWN SHERLOCK HOLMES, VOLUME II, which has five new scripts filled with puns and shaggy bull-pup jokes. $15.00 postpaid from Lloyd W. Brown, Jr. (103 Snow Court, Lexington, SC 29073), and both volumes are offered for $25.00 postpaid. Who stood in the doorway of a chemist's shop? Watson (in "The Illustrious Client"): "I have a confused recollection of snatching at a paper, of the remonstrance of the man, whom I had not paid, and, finally, of standing in the doorway of a chemist's shop while I turned up the fateful paragraph." But that shop wasn't in Baker Street. The Sherlock Holmes Memorabilia Company (230 Baker Street, London NW1 5RT, England) has a new and well-illustrated mail-order catalog, offering a wide range of S'iana, including T-shirts, teddy bears, statues, figurines, chess sets, playing cards, plaques, pipes, their own first day cover for the new British stamps, and much more. A late addition to the birthday festivities: artist Steven Emmons, whose attractive full-color "posters that might have been" were on display last year, will exhibit (and sell) new work at the Chisholm Gallery, on the 9th floor at 89 Fifth Avenue (between 16th and 17th Streets) from 3:00 to 8:00 pm on Jan. 8 (in case you're still wondering what to do after the cocktail party on Saturday afternoon). Mark Frost's alternate-universe Conan Doyle fantasy THE LIST OF 7 (Sep 93 #4) also is available an audio book, abridged (to three hours) and nicely read by Rene Auberjonois (who stars in the television series "Deep Space Nine"). The two-cassette set is issued by Dove Audio at $16.95, and if it isn't available in a local shop, you can order direct: 800-328-3683 or (in California) 800-345-9945. Canonical chronology is an arcane art that offers one of the most intricate examples of how people play our grand game, in this case trying to explain and solve the mysterious contradictions and omissions that so often prevent readers from being at all certain about exactly when things happened in the stories written and edited by people who were not meticulously careful. It probably was Arthur Conan Doyle who first noticed such a contradiction, in "The Sign of the Four" in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine; he mentioned it in a letter written in Mar. 1890 to J. M. Stoddart (his editor at Lippincott), but the mistake was not corrected in the first (or any other later) edition of the story. John Hall's "I REMEMBER THE DATE VERY WELL" is a new attempt to reconcile many of the contradictions, and offers a excellent look at how the game is played, in a 78-page monograph from Ian Henry Publications, 20 Park Drive, Romford, Essex RM1 4LH, England (L6.50/$12.00 postpaid); their U.S. agent is the Players Press, Box 1132, Studio City, CA 91614-0132. Dec 93 #4 "I would be risking my heart, my head, and my neck if I was to stick it on the block again playing Holmes," Jeremy Brett told the Daily Mail (Nov. 20) in a story at hand from Mel Hughes. After he was hospitalized while working on the new Granada series, doctors diagnosed a heart problem, thought to be a legacy of rheumatic fever when he was 16. Granada producer June Wyndham Davies was more optimistic: "The doctors have assured us that in the next three weeks he should be recovered. He should be returning to us to finish the series at the beginning of the year." And for those who neglected to tape "The Master Blackmailer" off the air, the latest issue of Anglofile reports that the show is available from MPI Home Video (15825 Rob Roy Drive, Oak Forest, IL 60452) and from video shops at $24.98. The winners of this year's Kennedy Center Honors, which were presented on Dec. 5, included lyricist-composer Stephen Sondheim, who began his career as a lyricist for "West Side Story" (1957) and "Gypsy" (1959). Among his many fine contributions to musical theater and film was the song "I Never Do Anything Twice" in the film "The-Seven-Per-Cent Solution" (1976). It is frustrating to consider how many really grand shows were broadcast on television in the days before videocassettes. Among them were the programs in the series "The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes" (with 26 shows broadcast by ITV in Britain in 1971 and 1973). Some of them were aired here in 1972 and they were delightful. The series was triggered by the anthologies edited by Hugh Greene, of course, and offered (to name only a few) Derek Jacobi as Duckworth Drew, John Neville as Dr. John Thorndyke, Robert Stephens as Max Carrados, Roy Dotrice as Simon Carne, Donald Pleasance as Carnacki, Douglas Wilmer as Prof. S.F.X. Van Dusen, and Charles Gray as Eugene Valmont. And I'm sure they'll never be rebroadcast by PBS-TV on "Mystery!" But there is another possibility: Arts & Entertainment cable carries all sorts of grand mystery programming, old and new, and it might not be at all amiss to write to A&E (555 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10017) to suggest that they consider broadcasting this fine series. "Movie Mystery Madness: The Woman in Green" aired on A&E cable in November, without enough notice for a video-taper alert, but it probably will repeat eventually. The L.A. Connection performed in black tie for a live theater audience, providing irreverent dialogue and sound effects to create a new version of the Basil Rathbone film. Durkin Hayes have taken over the Listen for Pleasure line of audiocassettes and are adding new titles. Currently available, in two-cassette sets, are: THE SPECKLED BAND, read by Donald Pickering (who played Watson in the 1981 Sheldon Reynolds television series) in a set with H. G. Wells' "The Invisi- ble Man" read by Gerald Harper; THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES, read by Tony Britton; and VALLEY OF FEAR, read by Christopher Lee (who needs no intro- duction to Sherlockians). Vivian Heisler recommended VALLEY OF FEAR (Jan 93 #1) by suggesting that "Lee makes it sound like an entire cast!" And he does indeed: his reading is splendid. The sets cost $15.95 each in stores, or you can order direct: 800-962-5200 (U.S.) or 800-263-5224 (Canada). THE SPECKLED BAND (read by Pickering) also is packaged as one "Paperback Audio" cassette at $4.99, but only at chains such as Walmart and Waldenbooks. Dec 93 #5 The good news is that there are indeed surviving prints of some long-lost British television shows: "The Man with the Twisted Lip" and "The Illustrious Client" with Douglas Wilmer (1965), "The Hound of the Baskervilles" with Peter Cushing (1968), "Elementary My Dear Watson" with John Cleese (1973), and "Dr. Watson and the Darkwater Hall Mystery" with Edward Fox as Watson (1974). The bad news is that it may well be that the only way to see them is to visit the British Film Institute in London. All five titles were included (along with Jeremy Brett's not-yet-broadcast "The Three Gables") in a long series that focussed on "The Strange Cases of Sherlock Holmes" at the National Film Theatre in November and December. Mike Philipson reports that Brett was unable to attend the showing of "The Three Gables" due to ill health, and that during discussion after the film there was some talk of "His Last Bow" being turned into a two-hour special to mark the end of the Brett/Hardwick series. Sorry about that: the correct telephone number for the Actors Theatre of Louisville is 502-584-1205. Dennis Rosa's "Sherlock Holmes and the Curse of the Sign of Four" (1975) will be performed from Dec. 30 to Jan. 29, and the theater's address is 316 West Main Street, Louisville, KY 40202. Sophisticated Shirts (6321 East 30th Street, Indianapolis, IN 46219) (800-844-4801 and ask for Jackie or Buzz) offer a wide variety of T-shirts ($22.00) and sweatshirts ($35.00), including one with a design that honors Sherlock Holmes (on the (front) and Dr. Watson (on the back). The fine print states that Holmes "became an international celebrity and even today many people think he was a real person." Tim O'Connor reports that Peter Costello's THE REAL WORLD OF SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE TRUE CRIMES INVESTIGATED BY ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE, published two years ago (Oct 91 #1), has been reprinted as a trade paperback (New York: Carroll & Graf, 1993; 235 pp., $10.95); the book offers a wide-ranging examination of ACD's involvement with the official police (from the time he was interviewed by a politely-suspicious detective in Southsea in 1885), and of his interest in the crimes and criminals of his day. Ted Friedman has an illustrated article on "Jujitsu and Sherlock Holmes" in the Dec. 6 issue of Linn's Stamp News (Box 29, Sidney, OH 45365). Ted also notes that MURDER UNDER THE MISTLETOE AND OTHER STORIES, edited by Cynthia Manson (Signet, $4.99) includes "The Blue Carbuncle". Reported by Ralph Hall: a STICKER DETECTIVE STICKER-SAVER ALBUM featuring a deerstalkered elephant (for kids who collect stickers), published by Trend Enterprises in 1991. And THE CASE OF THE EMERALD EARRINGS and five other titles by Sharon Cadwallader in a juvenile series about young detective Cookie McCorkle, who worships Sherlock Holmes and has named her wirehaired terrier Moriarty (paperbacks from Avon Books priced from $2.95 to $3.50). And a 300-piece jigsaw puzzle for "The Great Mouse Detective" (from the Western Publishing Co. at $5.99). And Kremer's Smoke Shoppe (333 South Preston Street, Louisville, KY 40202) offers Comoy's new Sherlock Holmes humidor ($85.00) and some Sherlockian pipes ($70.00 to $1,560.00); Gayle C. Sallee is the shop's owner, and he will be happy to send more information. Dec 93 #6 The U.S. Postal Service has announced plans for 102 new stamps next year, including a set of ten stamps with caricatures by Al Hirschfeld honoring silent-movie stars, among whom will be Charlie Chaplin (who portrayed Billy on stage with William Gillette) and Buster Keaton (who appeared in the film "Sherlock Jr." in 1924). And there will be a stamp in honor of humorist James Thurber, who included some Canonical echoes in "The Gloucester Sympathizer" [D5212b]. The Mini-Tonga Scion Society, founded by the late Dee Snyder for collectors of Sherlockian miniatures, has been reactivated by Carol Wenk (Box 770554, Lakewood, OH 44107). If you were or would like to be a member, Carol will be happy to hear from you. Jennie Paton reports that "The Strange Case of the End of Civilization As We Know It" (1977) is now available on videocassette from Facets Video, at 1517 West Fullerton