Jan 02 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press The birthday festivities in New York began midweek with an ASH Wednesday supper at O'Casey's for dedicated enthusiasts seeking a truly long weekend, and continued on Thursday morning with the Christopher Morley Walk led by Jim Cox, and a rendezvous with other Morley enthusiasts at McSorley's for lunch. Thursday evening's main event was at the Williams Club, where Bert Coules was the Baker Street Irregulars' Distinguished Speaker, and he told grand tales about his work on the BBC Radio 4 series featuring Clive Merri- son and Michael Williams, and provided the world premiere of excerpts from the soon-to-be-aired pastiches starring Merrison and Andrew Sachs. The Hotel Algonquin was a nice venue for an informal Mrs. Hudson Breakfast on Friday morning, and more than 140 people were on hand for the William Gillette Luncheon at Moran's Chelsea Seafood Restaurant, where Andrew Joffe and Paul Singleton offered their version of Bravo's "Inside the Actors Stu- dio" (with James Lipton interviewing Sherlock Holmes). And Otto Penzler's traditional open house at the Mysterious Bookshop provided the usual oppor- tunities to browse and buy. There were more than 170 present for the annual dinner of The Baker Street Irregulars at the Union League Club, where George McCormack toasted Joyce Saunders as *the* Woman during the pre-prandial cocktail party (Joyce then went on to dine at the Algonquin with others who have received that honor). The dinner agenda was thoroughly international, with toasts and reports by Sherlockians from Denmark, Canada, Japan, England, Italy, and Germany. To detail only a few: Jean Upton toasted Dr. Watson's Second Wife (explaining that standing next to Mike Whelan at the lectern she felt like Harry Potter standing next to Hagrid); Enrico Solito was an enthusiastic leader of a re- sponsive reading of the Musgrave Ritual (in Italian); and Catherine Cooke offered a delightful toast to old Irregular Lord Donegall. Mike Whelan (the BSI's "Wiggins") announced the Birthday Honours: the Two- Shilling Award ("for extraordinary devotion to the cause beyond the call of duty") to Susan Rice, and Irregular Shillings and Investitures to Henry W. Boote ("Meyers, Toronto"), Marilynne McKay ("Violet de Merville"), Enrico Solito ("Gennaro Lucca"), Christopher Roden ("Sir Henry Baskerville"), Mi- chael Dirda ("Langdale Pike"), Mark Gagen ("Sir James Damery"), Bob Schultz ("The *Gloria Scott*"), Mary Campbell ("Brenda Tregennis"), Pasquale Accardo ("Gorgiano of the Red Circle"), and Richard J. Sveum ("Dr. Hill Barton"). And Jon L. Lellenberg received The Silver Penguin Award (a 1930s cocktail shaker) in appreciation of his peerless history of the BSI. The Baskerville Bash also took place Friday evening, at the Manhattan Club and with more than 90 people on hand, and with entertainment that included a "Bash-In" tribute to Rowan and Martin's beloved television series, with Queen Victoria (aka Maribeau Briggs) saying "Sock it to me!" and receiving a whipped-cream pie in the face from Dr. Watson (aka Andrew Joffe); a ren- dition of "Tip-Toe Through the Grimpen" by Tiny Tim (aka Howard Einbinder), and the park-bench skit performed by Ruth Buzzi (aka Catalina Hannan) and Artie Johnson (aka Warren Randall). It would appear that no one performed in a bikini as Goldie Hawn ("we couldn't find anyone to do the body-paint- ing," someone explained). Jan 02 #2 On Saturday morning the dealers room at the Algonquin was as usual crowded with sellers and buyers, and shortly after noon The Clients of Adrian Mulliner (devotees of the works of both Watson and Wodehouse) commandeered the lobby for their now-traditional Junior Blood- stain, which featured a reading of A. B. Cox's "Holmes and the Dasher". The BSI's Saturday-afternoon cocktail party attracted more than 230 people to the National Arts Club, where Mary Ann Bradley introduced ladies who have been honored as *the* Woman over the years, and Al Rosenblatt reported in verse on the events of the previous evening and the previous year. Tom Cynkin was applauded as the winner of the Morley-Montgomery Award (an at- tractive certificate and a check for $500) for the best contribution to The Baker Street Journal last year (his article on "James Watson, M.D." in the winter issue), and the Dr. John H. Watson Fund benefited from June Kinnee's energetic sales of raffle tickets for Jeff Decker's portrait of the winner (Michael Dirda), and from enthusiastic bidders in the traditional auction. On Sunday more than 70 locals and visiting long-weekenders gathered at the Baker Street Pub and Restaurant for a convivial brunch arranged by the (Ad- venturesses of Sherlock Holmes. And (for those who wish to plan ahead) the next birthday dinners will be held on Friday, Jan. 10, 2003. I've not reported on everything, I hasten to add; if you want more details than fit into print here, it is quite likely that there will be much longer reports in The Baker Street Journal, which is published quarterly and costs $22.50 a year ($25.00 outside the U.S.), and checks (credit-card payments accepted from foreign subscribers) can be sent to the BSJ at Box 465, Hano- ver, PA 17331 there's a web-site at . The multicolor BASH 2002 lapel pin, with the same psyche- delic design featured on publicity for this year's Basker- ville Bash during the birthday festivities in New York, is available for $9.00 postpaid from Warren Randall, 15 Fawn Lane West South Setauket, NY 11720. This year's Christopher Morley Walk was the occasion for the publication of MORLEY IN MANHATTAN 2002, an attractive guidebook to some of the sites and sights and participants sauntered by. The 38-page booklet is attractively illustrated, and also contains some of Morley's own thoughts about Manhat- tan, and copies are available from James D. Cox, 452 Ivy Street, San Fran- cisco, CA 94102; $15.00 postpaid. Sorry about that: Alan Rickman (Dec 01 #3) has played Sherlock Holmes on stage, but he hasn't played Prof. Moriarty on screen (and thanks to Chris- topher Roden, who was the first to spot my mistake). I was thinking of An- thony Higgins (who played Moriarty in "Young Sherlock Holmes"). Ted Friedman's interesting series about Sherlockian philately for Topical Times continues with his two-page article "The Great Hiatus" in the Janu- ary-February issue; it's illustrated with stamps from Saudia Arabia, Per- sia, and the Sudan, and a cover mailed from Tibet (the magazine costs $5.00 postpaid from the American Topical Association, Box 50820, Albuquerque, NM 87181) (credit-card orders welcome). Jan 02 #3 Douglas Brinkley, director of the Eisenhower Center for Ameri- can Studies at the University of New Orleans, was interviewed on National Public Radio's "Weekend Edition" on Dec. 23, 2001, in a segment about the World War I battlefield truce between the Germans and the British on Christmas Eve in 1914, and he noted that "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, best known for Sherlock Holmes whodunits, deemed a Christmas truce an amazing spectacle, believing history would honor it as one human episode amid all the atrocities which have stained the memory of the war." Paul Landres died on Dec. 26. He began his career in motion pictures as an assistant editor at Universal Studios in 1931, becoming an editor and even- tually a director on film and television. He was the editor of Basil Rath- bone's "The Scarlet Claw" (1944). The winter 2001 issue of The Serpentine Muse offers news from, about, and by The Adventuress of Sherlock Holmes; Marilynne McKay's scrapbook on The Sherlock Holmes Society of London's cruise through the Baltic (replete with hats, and a few wigs); and an Internet discussion-group cast list for "The Crooked Man" (winners of the voting ranged from Jeremy Irons as Holmes to Helena Bonham Carter as Teddy the Mongoose). The Muse is published quar- terly and costs $10.00 a year (checks payable to the Adventuresses, please) from Evelyn A. Herzog (360 West 21st Street #5-A, New York, NY 10011). There's a cuddly plush Sherlock Holmes pooch, timely for Val- entine's Day ("Our love is no mystery" is embroidered on his paw) in the spring mail-order catalog from What on Earth (2451 Enterprise East Parkway, Twinsburg, OH 44087) (800-945-2552) ; he has the traditional magni- fying glass and pipe and deerstalker, and is 7.5" high (item AK9212) and costs $16.95 plus shipping. Gary Lovisi reports that Ralph Vaughan's SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE TERROR OUT OF TIME (New York: Gryphon Books, 2002; 121 pp., $15.00) is now available; "Holmes and Challenger battle the minions of Cthulthu in London."Shipping extra, and the publisher's address is Box 209, Brooklyn, NY 11228; there's a web-site at . Philip Attwell has reported that Hugh Laurie is reading "The Hound of the Baskervilles" on BBC Radio 2 on Fridays at 21:15 GMT; the eight-part, 15- minute, weekly series began on Jan. 18. And Bert Coules' "The Further Ad- ventures of Sherlock Holmes" began airing on BBC Radio 4 on Wednesdays at 14:15 GMT on Jan. 30; this is a series of five 45-minute pastiches starring Clive Merrison as Holmes and Andrew Sachs as Watson (four of the shows will be released by the BBC as a two-cassette set on Feb. 4 priced at L9.99. If you can listen to radio on the Internet, you can hear BBC Radio shows live at . The Queen's New Year's honours list included a knighthood for Ben Kingsley, who played Dr. Watson in "Without a Clue" (1988). And Denis Quilley, who was awarded an OBE [Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Em- pire], played Dr. Leon Sterndale in the Granada television version of "The Devil's Foot" (1988) and Bob Carruthers in the BBC Radio 4 dramatization of "The Solitary Cyclist" (1993); thanks to Scott Monty for this news. Jan 02 #4 One of the nicer things about the World Wide Web is that it's getting easier and easier for people to do interesting things: The Sherlock Holmes Society of France offers a "Worldwide Holmesian Photo Gallery" displaying photographs of Sherlockians, organized by individuals and by societies. The URL is . Edward Gorey, who died last year (Apr 00 #4) first drew Holmes and Watson in 1967, and contributed Canonical artwork to various books into the 1990s; his fans, Sherlockian and otherwise, will surely welcome ASCENDING PECULI- ARITY: EDWARD GOREY ON EDWARD GOREY, selected and edited by Karen Wilkin (New York: Harcourt, 2001; 292 pp., $35.00). It's S'ian only in passing (he told an interviewer in 1998 that "at the moment I'm re-reading all of Sherlock Holmes, for no particular reason"), but it offers a splendid look at what it was like listening to him talk about himself, and his many en- thusiasms. Nabisco is celebrating the 100th anniversary of Barnum's Animal Crackers, a story in the Washington Post noted (Dec. 28), by adding a new animal to the box (and fans can vote on whether it will be a koala, a walrus, a penguin, or a cobra). More important to Sherlockians, perhaps, is that Christopher Morley, founder of The Baker Street Irregulars, was recalled by journalist Jennifer Frey for his couplet: "Animal crackers, and cocoa to drink,/That is the finest of suppers, I think..." It's from his poem "Animal Crackers" (first published in 1917 in his book SONGS FOR A LITTLE HOUSE). Ruse #2 (Dec. 2001) is in the comic-book shops ($2.95); it's part of a con- tinuing mini-series that offers nice Victorian (but non-Sherlockian) atmo- sphere and artwork. There's a web-site at . The November issue of Brad Keefauver's The Holmes & Watson Report arrived on Jan. 7, and it was of course enjoyable, and it was easy enough to read the contents, after I got through opening the pages carefully, since they were slightly stuck together, as if the ink had been a bit sticky. And I wondered when it had been mailed, and looked at the cancellation, which was November just-one-digit, and it finally dawned on me that there might be an interesting explanation of the seemingly sticky ink and the late delivery: the envelope and its contents might have been in one of the suspect batches of mail that were shipped from the anthrax-infested Brentwood sorting sta- tion in the Washington suburbs off to Ohio (I think) to be decontaminated. I like to think that I now have a journal that has been rendered officially non-threatening. The latest bargain-books catalog from Edward R. Hamilton (Falls Village, CT 06031) offers Loren D. Estleman's SHERLOCK HOLMES VS. DRACULA in paper covers ($14.00 discounted to $9.95) and Jamyang Norbu's SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE MISSING YEARS ($23.95 discounted to $16.95). "Sherlock Holmes and the Eye of Venus" is the mystery that Holmes and Wat- son and participants in a "Sherlock Holmes Weekend" will attempt to solve this year, on Mar. 8-10 and Nov. 1-3 in Cape May. The weekend includes a tour of the town's Victorian homes, and additional information is offered by the Mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts, Box 340, Cape May, NJ 08204 (609- 884-5404) (800-275-4278) . Jan 02 #5 The winter issue of Friends of the Library (the newsletter pub- lished by the University of Minnesota Libraries) includes Julie McKuras' warm tribute to the late E. W. McDiarmid, who was one of the foun- ders of The Norwegian Explorers and who devoted many years to assisting the Sherlock Holmes Collections at the Wilson Library. Copies of the newslet- ter are available from Lanaya Stangret (499 Wilson Library, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455) . Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine celebrated the birthday festivities in the Feb. 2002 issue, with an attractive Sherlockian cover by John Bowdren show- ing "The Long Shadow of Holmes", a cartoon by Bob Meyer, a crossword puzzle by Robert Kesling, and amusing poems by Cynthia Rufty and Donald A. Yates. It's nice to see some of the older Sherlockian books back in print, includ- ing THE DREAMERS: A CLUB, by John Kendrick Bangs (Holicong: Wildside Press, 2001; 246 pp., $15.95); a trade paperback with Edward Penfield's illustra- tions, and Bangs' parody "The Mystery of Pinkham's Diamond Stud". There's also Maurice Leblanc's ARSENE LUPIN VERSUS HERLOCK SHOLMES (Holicong: Wild- side Press, 2001; 282 pp., $17.50); also a trade paperback ("a classic tale of the world's greatest thief and the world's greatest detective"). Wild- side also has reprinted David Dvorkin's TIME FOR SHERLOCK HOLMES and Bang's R. HOLMES & COMPANY. The Wildside address is: Box 301, Holicong, PA 18928 . Reported by Stu Shiffman: Avram Davidson's THE OTHER NINETEENTH CENTURY: A COLLECTION, by Avram Davidson (New York: Tor Books, 2001; 327 pp., $27.95); contents include "The Singular Incident of the Dog on the Beach" (reprinted from Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, Dec. 1986). Noted by Jack Koelle: TEACHING LITERATURE AND MEDICINE, edited by Anne Hun- saker Hawkins and Marilyn Chandler McEntyre (New York: Modern Language As- sociation, 2000; 406 pp., $27.00), with Kathryn Mongomery's seven-page ar- ticle "Sherlock Holmes and Clinical Reasoning" about a five-week seminar at Northwestern University Medical School that pairs the Canon with analytic studies of diagnostic reasoning. Writers such as Twain and Arthur Conan Doyle described the Mormons in terms similar to those the press uses to describe the Taliban today," Lawrence Wright notes in a long and interesting article about the Mormon in The New Yorker (Jan. 21). That was in Victorian times, of course; when Conan Doyle finally visited Salt Lake City in 1923, he was warmly received, and it was in the Mormon Tabernacle that he lectured on Spiritualism. The same issue of The New Yorker has John Lahr's excellent profile of Judy Dench. "She has clowned with the comedians Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise," Lahr reports. "She has locked herself in a bathroom with Maggie Smith to escape the advances of the English comic character actor Miles Malleson." Malleson played Thaddeus Sholto in Arthur Wontner's film "The Sign of Four" (1932), and Bishop Frankland in Peter Cushing's "The Hound of the Basker- villes" (1959). And Dench played Mrs. Hudson, with Clive Merrison as Sher- lock Holmes and her husband Michael Williams as Dr. Watson, in the BBC Ra- dio 4 broadcast of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (1998). That's the end of this month's theatrical trivia. Jan 02 #6 Reported: Dana M. Batory's THE FEDERATION HOLMES: CASEBOOK NUM- BER ONE has been published by George A. Vanderburgh (174 pp., $33.00 postpaid); it has twelve of his Sherlock Holmes/Star Trek parodies first published in The Holmesian Federation from 1978 to 1991, and one new story. The publisher's address is Box 204, Shelburne, ON L0N 1S0, Canada; autographed copies are available from the author (402 East Bucyrus Street, Crestline, OH 44827) for $35.00 postpaid. The latest catalog from Peter L. Stern (55 Temple Place, Boston, MA 02111) includes some nice Doyleana and Sherlockiana, including a two-page holograph letter from Conan Doyle to his publisher George Newnes, dated Nov. 19, 1893 ($8,500); a copy of Beeton's Christmas Annual for 1887, bound without wrappers, advertisements, or contents page ($37,500); a copy of the Collier's Once a Week Library first (and pirated) separate American edition of "The Sign of Four" ($12,500). The 2001 issue of Beeman's Christmas Annual, published by The Occupants of the Empty House and edited by Janet Bensley, has "Geography in the Canon" as its theme, with a report by Doris and Richard Dale on last year's excur- sion through the Baltic, and a detailed discussion by David Bensley of the Battle of Maiwand, both with excellent illustrations in color. The 48-page booklet costs $15.50 postpaid; checks (payable to the society) can be sent to Stan Tinsley (Box 21, Zeigler, IL 62999). The Conan Doyle material at auction at Sotheby's in London in December (Nov 01 #5) now has new owners: the most expensive item (sold at L19,800 includ- ing the buyer's premium) was a copy of Bram Stoker's THE MYSTERY OF THE SEA (1902) inscribed by the author to Conan Doyle. A copy of the first Ameri- can edition of the ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES that Conan Doyle inscribed to his wife Louise in 1893 sold for L8,225, and a copy of the first British edition of THE POISON BELT inscribed to his wife Jean sold for L4,112. Theatrical news: Ev Herzog reports that "Murder in Baker Street" (described in an announcement as a "deadly comedy" by Judd Woldin) will be presented by Theater by the Blind at The Mint Space in New York from Feb. 22 through Mar. 10. The theater is at 311 West 43rd Street (5th floor) (212-206-1515) . And a few commercials: a 16-page list of the Investitured Irregulars, the Two-Shilling Awards, *the* Women, and the Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes costs $1.20 postpaid. An 80-page list of 790 Sherlockian societies, with names and addresses for contacts for 424 active societies, is $4.60 post- paid. A run of address labels for 352 individual contacts (recommended to avoid duplicate mailings to those who are contacts for more than one soci- ety) costs $10.50 postpaid (checks payable to Peter E. Blau, please). The list of irregulars and others also is available from me by e-mail (no charge), and both lists are available at Willis G. Frick's "Sherlocktron" home page at . Please note that "Sherlocktron" has a new URL. The Spermaceti Press: Peter E. Blau, 3900 Tunlaw Road NW #119, Washington, DC 20007-4830 (telephone: 202-338-1808) Feb 02 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press The birthday festivities in January saw the launch of The Baker Street Ir- regulars Manuscript Series, which makes available to the public "facsimile editions of manuscripts and other documents relating to Sherlock Holmes and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, with insightful commentary by talented Sherlockian and Doylean writers," as general editor Leslie S. Klinger notes on the dust jackets. And work is underway on the next volume in the series. For now: ANGELS OF DARKNESS: A DRAMA IN THREE ACTS, begun by Arthur Conan Doyle in the 1880s and never finished, now published for the first time, with a fac- simile of the first scene and a transcription of the complete manuscript (now owned by the Toronto Public Library), with scholarly commentary on the play and its theatrical context, and on the Mormon subplot and the absence of Sherlock Holmes, and on the manuscript's history (New York: The Baker Street Irregulars, 2001; 191 pp., $35.00). And yes: Sherlock Holmes is in- deed absent, but many others from "A Study in Scarlet" (including John Wat- son, MD) are active participants. THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES (CHAPTER XI) offers a facsimile and a tran- scription of the only complete chapter surviving (and now in the Berg Col- lection at the N.Y. Public Library), with commentary on the story by ten Sherlockian and Doylean scholars (New York: The Baker Street Irregulars, 2001; 109 pp., $35.00). It's always a pleasure to be able to see an author at work, and manuscripts are a delightful way to do just that, watching the author change his mind, and speculating as to the reasons. As noted, $35.00 each, plus shipping ($8.00 each or $9.50 for both; $9.50 each or $12.00 for both outside North America), and the books are available from The Baker Street Irregulars, Box 1360, Ashcroft, BC V0K 1A0, Canada . The fourth volume of Leslie S. Klinger's SHERLOCK HOLMES REFERENCE LIBRARY is THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES, with a thoughtful introduction by Nicho- las Meyer (Indianapolis: Gasogene Books, 2002; 150 pp., $22.95); as with previous volumes in the series, the annotations draw upon old and new Sher- lockian scholarship, and on the manuscript for Chapter XI, and there's dis- cussion of the many candidates for Baskerville Hall. $25.70 postpaid from the publisher (Box 68308, Indianapolis, IN 46260). Stratford Johns died on Jan. 29. His acting career began on stage in 1948, and he was one of the biggest stars on British television in the 1960s and 1970s as police officer Charlie Barlow in the series "Z Cars" and "Softly Softly" and "Barlow at Large". And he played the Chief Commissioner, with John Cleese and Arthur Lowe, in the television film "The Strange Case of the End of Civilization as We Know It" (1977). The 2002 edition of Ron Fish's THE COMMONPLACE BOOK: A DIRECTORY OF SHER- LOCKIANS AND SHERLOCKIAN SOCIETIES has names, addresses, and telephone num- bers for 163 Sherlockians, and contact information and (when available) the meeting dates for 174 Sherlockian societies; $7.00 postpaid ($9.00 outside North America). A new edition is due next January, and Ron will be happy to make additions; Box 4, Circleville, NY 10919 . Feb 02 #2 Like William Gillette, David L. Hammer has proclaimed more than one farewell tour, suggesting that his current venture surely is his last, but (fortunately for the Sherlockian traveler) he continues to find new stories to tell about places to visit. And A DEEP GAME: THE TRAV- ELERS' COMPANION TO THE LONDON OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (Indianapolis: Gasogene Books, 2002; 178 pp., $22.95) is a delight: he has collected and rewritten material from his earlier guidebooks, and he has added new sites and sights and stories. If you're not able to arrange for David to be your personal tour guide, you'll do almost as well with his books. $25.70 postpaid from Gasogene (Box 68303, Indianapolis, IN 46268). And David is far more than a travel writer: he's a grand story-teller, and some of his best stories are about (and on) himself, and the people he has known. THE GAME IS UNDERFOOT! THE MEMOIR OF A SHERLOCKIAN PUBLISHER (Shel- burne: The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2001; 142 pp., $15.00) is a fine collection of stories about Jack Tracy, and Michael Harrison (who included a chapter about "The Night I Raped the Succubus" in his unfinished sexual biography), and Sam Gringras, and Michael and Mollie Hardwick, and Tom Stix (his "only known joke" noted in the index), and others; David has a splen- did gift with language, and it's nice to be able to read stories well told. Available from the publisher (Box 204, Shelburne, ON L0N 1S0, Canada) for $18.00 postpaid. The Clients of Adrian Mulliner (the society for devotees of the stories written by both P. G. Wodehouse and Dr. Watson) have an new and attractive lapel pin, which is available ($11.80 post- paid from Anne Cotton (at 12 Hollywood Street, South Hadley, MA 01075). There's still time to see the major exhibition of "Pearls" at American Mu- seum of Natural History in New York (through Apr. 14); there are all sorts of pearls, natural and cultured, and in all colors including black (no men- tion of the Borgias, however). John Thaw died on Feb. 21. He began his acting career on stage in 1960 in Liverpool, and made his television debut in 1961 with Granada in the antho- logy series "The Younger Generation"; his first film was "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner" (1962). He starred in television series such as "Redcap" and "The Sweeney" and "Kavanagh QC" in the 1960s and 1970s, and in the long-running series "Inspector Morse" (1987-2000). And he was a splen- did Jonathan Small in Granada's dramatization of "The Sign of Four" (1987). Further to the mention of Dame Judi Dench having played Mrs. Hudson in the BBC Radio 4 series, Lenny Picker has noted that she has also appeared in a Sherlockian film: "A Study in Terror" (1965); she played Dr. Murray's niece Sally Young, who worked at the mission in Whitechapel. The winter 2002 issue of the Tonga Times offers news of the world of Sher- lockian miniatures, with lots of color photographs of the work of members of The Mini-Tonga Scion Society); membership (including three issues of the newsletter) costs $10.00 a year ($11.00 to Canada, $13.00 elsewhere) from Trish and Jay Pearlman (1656 East 19th Street #2-E, Brooklyn, NY 11229, and there's a web-site at . Feb 02 #3 Eve Titus ("Young Master Rucastle") died on Feb. 4. She was a excellent pianist and a truly talented author, well-known for her children's books, especially her series BASIL OF BAKER STREET (1958), BASIL AND THE LOST COLONY (1964), BASIL AND THE PYGMY CATS (1971), BASIL IN MEXICO (1976), and BASIL IN THE WILD WEST (1982); Basil and Dr. Dawson also starred in Disney's animated film "The Great Mouse Detective" (1986). Her imaginative "Message from the Mouster" was published in the Apr. 1960 issue of The Baker Street Journal, and she enjoyed meeting with The Praed Street Irregulars when she lived in Los Angeles in the 1970s; she received her In- vestiture from The Baker Street Irregulars in 1993. Spotted by Francine Kitts in a new mail-order catalog from Signals (Box 159, Cedar Rapids, IA 52405) (800-669-9696) : a Paddington Station Clock imported from English (9" in diameter). According to the catalog, Paddington is "where Holmes met Watson at the start of 'The Boscombe Valley Mystery,'" and "the London terminal of the Great Western Railway is more than a train station; it's a literary landmark." $79.00 plus shipping. QUOTABLE SHERLOCK, compiled and edited by David W. Barber (Westport: Quot- able Books, 2001; 118 pp., $14.95), collects (and categorizes) hundreds of quotations from the Canon. The categories allow the reader to note some of Holmes' occasional contradictions, such as "I have no time for trifles" (A Study in Scarlet) and "there is nothing so important as trifles" (The Man with the Twisted Lip). It's distributed in the United States by Firefly Books . THE BAKER STREET DOZEN: SHERLOCKIAN EXERCISES, by Donald B. Izban, is a 42- page booklet offering Dr. Watson's advice on "how to be and stay fit at any age" (actually, it's Sherlock Holmes' advice, since it's obvious from Paul Churchill's illustrations that it's Watson who needs the advice). The pam- phlet can be ordered from The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box (Box 204, Shel- burne, ON L0N 1S0, Canada); $11.00 postpaid. "Great Books" is a one-hour series broadcast by The Learning Channel (up to now the only Canonical connection has been a mention of Sherlock Holmes in their 1996 show on "Plato's Republic"), and a program on "The Hound of the Baskervilles" is now in development, targeted to air this fall. The 21st annual Sherlock Holmes/Arthur Conan Doyle Symposium will be held on Mar. 8-10 at the Holiday Inn in Fairborn, Ohio, with a schedule that in- cludes speakers, theatrics and other fun and games. Additional details are available from Cathy Gill, 4661 Hamilton Avenue, Cincinnati, OH 45223 (513- 681-5507) . Radio Times had a tie-in offer when the BBC's new television mini-series of "The Lost World" was broadcast in December: the story read (unabridged) by Matthew Rhys on six audiocassettes from BBC Cover to Cover (2001); L21.95. Rhys was Edward Malone in the television mini-series, and he does very well with the reading. It's available from The Audio Book Collection, Ashmans Court, Locksbrook Trading Estate, Bath, BA1 3EH, England; their web-site is at . Feb 02 #4 Chuck Jones died on Feb. 22. His first work in films was as a child extra in Mack Sennett comedies, and he began his career as an animator working for Ub Iwerks in 1932. He helped to create classic Warner Bros. characters such as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, and the Road Runner, and he won four Oscars for his work, including a special Oscar for lifetime achievement in 1996, when the Academy Awards tribute included a clip from his Sherlockian "Deduce, You Say!" (1956). "Any resemblance between the characters of this story and those of history is a mistake!" according to the opening credits of the film "The Adventures of Gerard" (1970); the film was directed by Jerzy Skolimowski and the stars included Peter McEnery (Colonel Gerard), Eli Wallach (Napoleon Bonaparte), Claudia Cardinale (Countess of Morales), and John Neville (Duke of Welling- ton). The film was never formally released (the studio decided that prof- its wouldn't cover the distribution costs); it was broadcast in Britain by BBC-2 in 1994, and if you'd like to see it in a theater, come to Washington on Aug. 30, when it will be shown at the Mary Pickford Theater in the Madi- son Building at the Library of Congress at 7:00 pm. There's no charge, and there are only 64 seats in the theater, and you can reserve by phone (202- 707-5677) one week before the screening. Markus Geisser, now in Thailand working for the International Committee of the Red Cross, hopes to start a Sherlockian society there, and would appre- ciate hearing from anyone who has correspondents in Thailand, and from any- one who has information on translations of the Canon into Thai; his address is ICRC, 36 Sirimangkalajarn Road, Soi 11, Tambon Suthep, Muang District, Chiang Mai 50200, Kingdom of Thailand . JUSTICE HALL (New York: Bantam Books, 2002; 331 pp., $23.95) is Laurie R. King's sixth novel about Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes, set in 1923 in Berkshire (and in Paris and London) after their visit to Dartmoor in THE MOOR, and it's well up to her high standards, with interesting characters and an intriguing mystery, and the reappearance of old friends. Laurie will be writer in residence at Hanover College (Hanover, IN) on Mar. 4-8, with a public lecture on Mar. 7 at 7:30 on "The Mystery of Theology: Using Crime Fiction as a Platform for Theological Inquiry"; and on Mar. 21- 24 she will be appearing at Left Coast Crime (Portland, OR). And she will be on tour reading and signing JUSTICE HALL; here's the tenta- tive schedule: Mar. 27 at Annie's Bloom at 7:30 (Portland, OR); Mar. 28 at Seattle Mystery Books at 12:00, and Third Place Books at 7:00 (Seattle, WA); Apr. 2 at the Capitola Book Cafe at 7:30 (Capitola, CA); Apr. 5 at Bay Book & Tobacco at 7:00 (Half Moon Bay, CA); Apr. 7 at M Is for Mystery at 3:30 (San Mateo, CA), and Book Passage at 7:30 (Corte Madera, CA); Apr. 10 at Books Inc. at 7:00 (Carmel, CA); Apr. 11 at Diesel Books at 7:30 (Oak- land, CA); Apr. 14 at High Crimes at 3:00 (Denver, CO); Apr. 15 at Poisoned Pen at 7:00 (Scottsdale, AZ); Apr. 16 at Vroman's at 7:00 (Los Angeles, CA); Apr. 18 at Cody's at 7:30 (Berkeley, CA); Apr. 24 at Bookshop Santa Cruz at 7:00 (Santa Cruz, CA); Apr. 27 at the Los Angeles Times Book Festi- val; May 1-3 in New York; July 17 at the Book Passage Mystery Writer's Con- ference (Corte Madera, CA). You can check for updates and details at her web-site at . Feb 02 #5 John McAleer's REX STOUT, first published in 1977, was a splen- did biography of a fine writer and a fascinating men (and Stout was an important figure in the early years of The Baker Street Irregulars); the book won an Edgar from the Mystery Writers of America in 1978, and it's to be reprinted (Rockville: James Rock Publishing, 2002; 608 pp., $44.95 in cloth, $26.95 in paper) with a new introduction by John McAleer, an after- word by John's son Andrew S. McAleer, additional photographs, an expanded index, and a revised title: REX STOUT: A MAJESTY'S LIFE (which is what John wanted for the first edition). And the publisher offers a $5.00 discount on orders received by Apr. 1 (113 North Washington Street, Rockville, MD 20850) (800-411-2230) . The Occupants of the Empty House will celebrate their 25th anniversary at a weekend gathering on Apr. 12-13 in Carbondale, Ill. Details are available from Debbie Tinsley (Box 21, Zeigler, IL 62999) . The Rev. Sherlock S. Holmes, D.D., runs "The Baker Street Marketplace" on- line at , where he offers all sorts of Sher- lockian merchandise. And he offers a 10% discount on books if you mention the magic word ("Scuttlebutt"); enter the word in the "coupon" section. Stam and Pilou are found in a series of comic books launched last year by the Belgian post office, and they play detective in the first issue: Droles de Detectives [in French] or De Super Speurneuzen [in Flemish]. E13.88 euros] each, plus shipping, from The Post Philately, Egide Walschaertsstraat 1, 2800 Mechelen, Belgium . Barry Foster died on Feb. 11. He began his acting career in the film "The Battle of the River Plate" (1956), and also appeared on stage and televis- ion; he was best known as the star of the television series "Van der Valk" in the 1970s, and once said that "the trouble is that people often mistake me for someone else. They think I'm Inspector Morse, or else John Pertwee from Doctor Who, or Keith Barron. In fact I attribute a good deal of my success to being confused with these people." And he was a fine Sherlock Holmes in a 13-episode "Sherlock Holmes" series on BBC Radio 4 in 1978. News for Gertrude Mahoney's friends: she has moved to the Sunrise Assisted Living facility at 2863 Hunter Mill Road, Oakton, VA 22124-1006 (703-319- 7176), and has a nice room with sunshine and a view, and is settling in and looking forward to celebrating her 96th birthday. SHERLOCKIANS ABROAD: THEIR ADVENTURES ON AND MEMOIRS OF THE SHERLOCK HOLMES SOCIETY OF LONDON GOLDEN JUBILEE CRUISE 2001, collected and edited by Susan E. B. Vizoskie, has interesting and amusing reminiscences and photographs by participants; 60 pp., $5.00 postpaid. And there's TEAS AND TOASTS WITH THE THREE GARRIDEBS, collected and edited by Susan, with 65 pages of toasts and recipes, all nicely done, by members of The Three Garridebs, celebrat- ing last years' 10th anniversary of the society's annual picnic and after- noon tea; $5.00 postpaid. Or $8.50 postpaid for both volumes; the postpaid costs are higher outside the U.S., and details are available from Susan (90 (90 Ralph Avenue, White Plains, NY 10606) . Feb 02 #6 THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES is a new British CD, with words and music by Clive Nolan and Oliver Wakeman, with 14 tracks (and about 100 minutes) of narration, instrumentals, and vocals, and it's an interesting performance. It's VGCD022 from Verglas Music, P.O. Box 19, Virginia Water, Surrey GU25 4YE, England ; and the cost is L14.00 postpaid anywhere in the world. The cast includes Robert Powell as the narrator and Dr. Watson; he played Sherlock Holmes in a BBC radio broadcast of "A Study in Scarlet" in 1974, and on stage in a touring production of "Sherlock Holmes: The Musical" in 1993. Noted by Bruce Southworth: Conan Doyle's OUR AFRICAN WINTER, reprinted last year by Duckworth in London at L14.99 (Feb 01 #3); discounted at $14.98 at Half Price Books in New York (and presumably available elsewhere). It's an interesting account of the family's tour of eastern and southern Africa in 1928-1929. The seventh issue of the new Strand Magazine is an expanded holiday issue, revising a tradition often followed by the original Strand Magazine; many of the stories are Christmas stories, by authors such as H. R. F. Keating, John Mortimer, and Edward D. Hoch, and including a Sherlockian pastiche by Barrie Roberts, and there's an interesting interview with Peter Lovesey by editor Andrew F. Gulli, and reviews and articles. Subscriptions (four iss- ues) cost $24.95 (U.S. and Canada) or $35.95 (elsewhere), and the magazine address is Box 1418, Birmingham, MI 48012 (800-300-6652) (UK: 800-961-280) . Great-Scot, 278 Holburn Street, Aberdeen AB10 6DD, Scotland, Great Britain is offering attractive and colorful prints from a new painting of Arthur Conan Doyle, by Ian R. Thomson ($64.00 or L45.00 or E73.00 postpaid); payment by check or in currency, please, and the company kindly offers a 15% discount if you mention the magic word ("Scuttlebutt"). You can see the print at their web-site, and you can request an illustrated flier. Jane Hinckley (4 Crown Street Hicksville, NY 11801) is selling her collec- tion of Sherlockiana (books, pins, videocassettes, audiocassettes); there are 120 items on the list, individually priced, and copies are available on request (please send Jane a 34c self-addressed stamped envelope). It's the Year of the Horse, and the U.S. Postal Service has continued its "Chinese New Year" series. There are so many horses mentioned in the Canon that it's hard to select one, but we can consider one of the horses Sher- lock Holmes helped the ostlers rub down in the Serpen- tine Mews (in "A Scandal in Bohemia"). Details and a registration form for the eleventh annual Watsonian weekend (now a joint event with The STUD Sherlockian Society) on May 3-5, are now available Susan Diamond and Allan Devitt (16W603 3rd Avenue, Bensenville, IL 60106) . The Spermaceti Press: Peter E. Blau, 3900 Tunlaw Road NW #119, Washington, DC 20007-4830 (telephone: 202-338-1808) Mar 02 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press There will be a Victorian Festival in Staunton, Va., on Apr. 19-21, and the events will include a Victorian mystery game throughout the festival, and (on Apr. 20) a Victorian boxing exhibition, a lecture on "Sherlock Holmes in America", and a Sherlock Holmes Look-Alike Contest. There's lots more on the schedule, and I won't be the only Sherlockian on hand; more informa- tion is available from the Staunton Downtown Development Association, 116 West Beverley Street, Staunton, VA 24401 (540-332-3867); and at a web-site at . Spike Milligan died on Feb. 27. In 1951 he joined Peter Sellers, Harry Se- combe, and Michael Bentine to create a BBC radio series called "Crazy Peo- ple" (soon retitled "The Goon Show"), and their antic genius was credited as highly influential by the new generation of comedy stars that included Robin Williams and members of Monty Python and The Firesign Theatre. "The Goon Show" often featured skits sketches about a defective detective called Ned Seagoon, with Milligan as the perpetual villain Jim Moriarty; Milligan also played a policemen in the Peter Cook/Dudley Moore film version of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (1978), and he celebrated his 80th birthday with a special edition of THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES ACCORDING TO SPIKE MILL- IGAN published by Virgin Books in 1998. Richard M. Lackritz's splendid collection of detective fiction is going to auction at Christie's in New York, in three parts: from Voltaire's "Zadig" (1747) to 1920 on Apr. 17, followed by material from 1920 to 1945 on Sept. 24, and post-war literature on Dec. 19. The first part has some interest- ing Sherlockian and Doylean material, of course, including some manuscripts (but not the manuscript of "The Three Garridebs"). One additional item to be offered on Apr. 17 (from another owner) is the original typed manuscript of Bram Stoker's "Dracula" (estimated at $1,000,000 to $1,500,000). All of the items will be on view Apr. 11-16 at Christie's at 20 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY 10020 (212-636-2010) . THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN (a six-issue comic-book mini-series, published by America's Best Comics in 1999-2000, with a story by Alan Moore and powerful artwork by Kevin O'Neill) seems likely to be a movie, accord- ing to reports noted by Stu Shiffman. Twentieth Century-Fox was in Prague scouting locations, according to a story in Variety (Feb. 5), and Sean Con- nery was in final negotiations to play Allan Quatermain, Variety reported on Feb. 20. Holmes and Moriarty appeared in the comic-book story, but may or may not be seen in the movie; fan web-sites report that Tom Sawyer has been added to the cast of characters (as an American detective) in response to studio demands for a younger character in the mix. The world premiere of the new play "The West End Horror (dramatized by An- thony Dodge and Marcia Milgrom Dodge from the novel by Nicholas Meyer) has a new venue, and new dates, Paul Singleton reports: the play will open at the Bay Street Theatre (Bay & Main Street, Sag Harbor, NY 11963) on June 18, and close on July 7, 2002. Sag Harbor is near the eastern end of Long Island, decidedly off-off-Broadway; there's no word yet of arrangements for a theater party. The box-office telephone number is 631-725-9500, and the play's web-site URL is . Mar 02 #2 "The 100 Best Characters in Fiction: From Sherlock to Scarlett to Harry Potter" is the cover blurb on the Mar.-Apr. issue of Book magazine, but (alas) Sherlock isn't ranked first. The magazine asked writers, journalists, professors, actors, and directors to select and rank the 100 best characters since 1900, and Sherlock Holmes came in sixth, pre- ceded by Jay Gatsby, Holden Caulfield, Humbert Humbert, Leopold Bloom, and Rabbit Angstrom. And ahead of Atticus Finch, Molly Bloom, Stephen Dedalus, Lily Bart, Holly Golightly, and Gregor Samsa. I was asked: in which Sherlock Holmes story does he receive a letter writ- ten in lemon juice? I can't recall any such story (in print or on film or television) -- if you know the answer, please let me know. Ray Betzner spotted a new comic-book series FANTASTIC STORIES, created by Don Marquez and published by Amryl : the first issue (Dec. 2001; $2.95) includes a 10-page adaptation of "The Disintegration Ma- chine". A three-part adaptation of "When the World Screamed" will appear in future issues, and then he plans a Challenger pastiche in the form of an old-fashioned serial. Don Marquez also did "The Lost World" in two parts for Millennium in 1996, and a one-issue adaptation of "The Poison Belt" for Tome in 1997, and he offers the earlier comic books for $3.00 each (plus $3.50 shipping per order); his address is 1313 Young Wo Circle, Folsom, CA 95630 . The April-May issue of British Heritage has a nice (and nicely illustrated) seven-page article by Tom Huntington about "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Edin- burgh". The issue costs $6.00; the magazine address is 6405 Flank Drive, Harrisburg, PA 17112 (800-358-6327); and British Heritage has a web-site at that has other Sherlockian articles such as "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the Case of George Edalji" and "Baker Streets Around the World" (about various reproductions of "the most famous room that never existed"). Irene Worth died on Mar. 10. Born in Lincoln, Neb., she began her acting career on tour in 1942 and made her Broadway debut in 1943; she then stud- ied acting in London, and learned stage English so well that audiences of- ten assumed she was British. Irene Worth was her stage name (and Sherlock- ians should note that she used the pronunciation eye-ree-nee); she was an honorary Commander of the British Empire, and won many other honors for her acting. In 1983 she recorded T. S. Eliot's "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats" with Sir John Gielgud for Caedmon; it's still available, and you can hear her perform "Macavity: The Mystery Cat". There's no word on whether or when we will get to see the film "O Xango de Baker Street" (based on Jo Soares' pastiche, which was called A SAMBA FOR SHERLOCK when it was published in an English translation in 1997); the film stars Joaquim de Almeida as Sherlock Holmes, and it was released in Portu- gal in Sept. 1999, and in Brazil in Oct. 2001. Alan Ryan, in his "Letter from Rio" in the Washington Post (Book World) on Mar. 17, notes that Soares often has writers as guests on his five-nights-a-week television program. "Short, fat and round, in a world of slim, body-conscious Brazilians ('Bei- jo do gordo!' he calls out every night--'A kiss from the fat man!', he's an engaging personality who enjoys both popularity and respect." Mar 02 #3 The March issue of Firsts: The Book Collector's Magazine has an interesting article on "Collecting Stephen Leacock" by John Conrad, who quotes Leacock: "Indeed the first edition hobby is one of the minor forms of mental derangement, seldom ending in homicide and outside the scope of the law." Conrad also notes that "in the aftermath of World War One, Stephen Leacock was the most famous humorist in the English lan- guage," and reports that his NONSENSE NOVELS received a promotional boost when President Theodore Roosevelt quoted one of the most popular sentences in the book, in a spoof of Victorian novels in which one of the love-smit- ten principal characters "flung himself from the room, flung himself on his horse and rode madly off in all directions." NONSENSE NOVELS also has Lea- cock's first Sherlockian parody ("Maddened by Mystery; or The Defective De- tective"), and he wrote others; it is a mark of his skill that he and John Kendrick Bangs were the only authors to have more than one piece selected for Ellery Queen's landmark anthology THE MISADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES. First costs $4.95 in bookstores; $40.00 a year for ten issues (4493 North Camino Gacela, Tucson, AZ 85718). The Raymond F. Neuzil Memorial Sherlock Holmes Collection, created at Illi- nois Benedictine College in Lisle, Ill., in 1983, was discontinued in 1994, John Brousch has learned; all of the books were integrated into their gen- eral collection, and other items (artifacts, periodicals, clippings, etc.) were placed in storage, and recently recovered. Anyone who donated items other than books can ask for their return, describing the material to John (16727 Olcott Avenue, Tinley Park, IL 60477) . A committee of Chicago-area Sherlockians will eventually decide what to do with what's left. John also reports that the Sherlock Holmes Center (in the Harold Washington Library Center), created when the new downtown library opened to the public in 1991, was discontinued about five years ago and placed in storage; John has not been able to recover that material. This is the sort of thing that underscores the important of having an ener- getic and enthusiastic group of locals providing both support and oversight for a special collection. That's available in Minneapolis and Toronto and Boston and London, where libraries are kept aware of the importance of the Sherlockian and Doylean material. When it's not available, terrible things can happen: the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library once had a copy of the Baker Street Irregulars special edition of THE BLUE CARBUNCLE, inscribed to Truman by Edgar W. Smith. But it's not there now, thanks to a curator who decided that the book (and all of the other fiction owned by Truman) wasn't important to the library. Fortunately, the inscribed copy of THE BLUE CAR- BUNCLE is now in the hands of a collector, who acquired it from the dealer who acquired it from the presidential library. Collectors can also provide support for special collections, of course, by donating or bequeathing material from their own collections. It's also al- ways nice to donate or bequeath money that special collections can use to maintain and expand their holdings; special collections can also generate funding by disposing of duplicate material, and that's indeed what they do, since there's no sense in keeping half a dozen identical copies of the same book, absent inscriptions or other things that might make a copy unique. Mar 02 #4 "Holmes!" is a work-in-progress musical with book and lyrics by Brett Nicholson and music by Hans Vollrath, first performed in concert at the Disney Institute in Orlando in Sept. 1997. There have been other concert readings since then, and there were "producers readings" in New York on Mar. 25-26 for invited theatrical professionals and producers. There's much more at their web-site at , and that's where to order the CD ($15.99 postpaid, with a 16-page booklet, and signed by Nicholson and Vollrath on request); those who don't have ac- cess to the Internet can order from Holmes!, Box 2242, Windermere, FL 34786 (credit-card orders welcome). It's nicely done, and it will be fun to see a full-scale production. Watch for a repeat of the "Saturday Night Live" program that aired on Mar. 16 on NBC-TV, with Sir Ian McKellen as guest host, and in Sherlockian cos- tume in a hot-air-balloon murder-mystery skit. Jeremy Irons was guest host on "Saturday Night Live" on Mar. 23, 1991, and appeared as Sherlock Holmes in one of the skits, and that same month won an Oscar for his performance (as Claus von Bulow in "Reversal of Fortune"), but McKellen was not as for- tunate: he was nominated but didn't win the this year's Oscar for best sup- porting actor (as Gandalf in "The Lord of the Rings"). Tony Harries, who was Sherlock Holmes' secretary at Abbey House in London in 1990 and then toured the United States, speaking to Sherlockian socie- ties and appearing on television (on "To Tell the Truth" and "Good Morning America") now is a writer, and he has his own web-site, which the electron- ically-enabled can visit at . Forecast: THE HAMSTER OF THE BASKERVILLES: A CHET GECKO MYSTERY, by Bruce Hale, from Harcourt Children's Books in April; 132 pp., $14.00. "Something is trashing the classrooms at Emerson Hicky Elementary School, and sixth- grade private eye Chet Gecko sets out to find the creature that's responsi- ble. Chet Gecko doesn't believe in the supernatural. His idea of voodoo is his mom's cockroach ripple ice cream. But when a teacher reports seeing a monster by the list of a full moon, it falls to Chet and his sleek-winged partner, Natalie Attired, to answer the burning question: Is this the work of a vicious, supernatural werehamster on the loose? Or just another sci- ence fair project gone wrong?" Issue #47 of Sherlock (that's the new title for Sherlock Holmes: The Detec- tive Magazine) has Bert Coules' interesting "studio diary" reporting on the ten days it took to record the five new programs in "The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" for BBC radio and Chris Senior's review of the series, Gavin Collinson's report on the new BBC videocassette with Peter Cushing's "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (from the 1968 television series, which had the highest ratings in the United Kingdom of any Sherlock Holmes series be- fore or since), Trish and Jay Pearlman's history of the Mini-Tonga Society (for Sherlockian miniaturists), and much more (S'ian and otherwise). Ann- ual subscriptions (six issues) cost L20.00 (U.K.)/L22.00 (continent)/$40.00 (elsewhere); Box 100, Chichester, West Sussex PO18 8HD, England; there's a web-site at . Classic Specialties is their agent in the U.S. (Box 19058, Cincinnati, OH 45219) (877-233-3823) ; credit-card orders are welcomed at both addresses, and back issues are available. Mar 02 #5 Naxos AudioBooks, which offers recordings of THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES and other Doylean books (Nov 01 #5), has added A STUDY IN SCARLET to its list, read by David Timson on four CDs (L14.99) or four audiocassettes (L11.99); 34 Holmethorpe Avenue, Redhill, Surrey RH1 2NN, England . The Practical, But Limited, Geologists met for dinner at Mia Bella Tratto- ria in Houston on Mar. 13, during the annual meeting of the American Asso- ciation of Petroleum Geologists, to honor the world's first forensic geolo- gist. The local Sherlockians were led by Bruce R. Parker, whose toast to Sherlock Holmes was only one of many offered during the evening. Our next meetings will be in Denver in October, and in Salt Lake City in May 2003. David W. Bradley died on Mar. 16. He had been a research assistant for the Tennessee State Legislature for 29 years, and he was an energetic member of the Sherlockian societies in Nashville, especially interested in the Sher- lockian aspects of stage, screen, radio, and television. Prescott's Press, published by The Three Garridebs, offers an excellent re- view of the birthday festivities in its 30-page Jan. 2002 issue, including Warren Randall's script for the Baskerville Bash's "Bash-In" tribute to Ro- wan and Martin's television series. Subscriptions cost $12.00 ($14.00 out- side the U.S.) for four issues (and you can start with the January issue), to Warren Randall, 15 Fawn Lane West, South Setauket, NY 11720. Ev Herzog spotted a story in the New Haven Register reporting that Gillette Castle will reopen on Memorial Day weekend (that's May 25-27 this year) af- ter major renovation work. According to an earlier report (Mar 01 #3) vis- itors will now be able to see the steam and electric trains that once ran on track installed by William Gillette (the trains were purchased years ago by an amusement park in Bristol, and last year returned to the Castle). The film "Zero Effect" (1998) starred Bill Pullman as Daryl Zero, the best private detective in the world (utterly brilliant, a deductive genius, emo- tionally unstable, and a user of disguises) and Ben Stiller as Steve Arlo (the steady, reliable aide who eventually leaves to get married); Jake Kas- dan, who wrote and directed the film, told an interviewer that "There's a bunch of detective stories that have been important to me, and Sherlock Holmes is certainly among them." And stories in Variety and the Hollywood Reporter last month reported that Alan Cumming will star as Daryl Zero in an NBC-TV pilot for a series to be produced by Warner Bros. TV/Castle Rock. Laurie R. King's new Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes novel JUSTICE HALL (Feb 02 #4] is available from Recorded Books, read unabridged by Jenny Sterlin on ten cassettes ($49.50, or $18.50 rental); they're at 270 Skipjack Road, Prince Frederick, MD 20678 (800-638-1304) . William S. Dorn offers his latest CD-ROM disk THE COMPLETE SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THEN SOME, with the text of the 60 Canonical stories plus "The Man with the Watches" and "The Lost Special" (with an illustration for each story); it's in searchable PDF format. Bill's address is 2045 South Monroe Street, Denver, CO 80210; and the postpaid cost is $11.45 (to the U.S.) or $12.45 (to Canada) or $14.45 (elsewhere). Mar 02 #6 The Friends of the Arthur Conan Doyle Collection at the Toronto Public Library are honoring the founding curator of the collec- tion with an annual Cameron Hollyer Memorial Lecture; the first lecture, at the Toronto Reference Library (at 789 Yonge Street) at 2:00 pm on Apr. 20, will be on "The Berg Collection: A Tale of Literary Taste and Scholarship" by Isaac Gewirtz, curator of the Berg Collection at the N.Y. Public Library (which also owns some splendid Sherlockian and Doylean material). There's no charge for the event, and the collection will be open for visiting foll- owing the lecture. Fans of the excellent "Nero Wolfe" series running on Arts & Entertainment cable will welcome the news that "Death of a Doxy" will debut on Apr. 14; according to Sharon Doyle (who dramatized the story), it's set in 1965, the year Rex Stout wrote the story. The series will continue with "Die Like a Dog", "The Next Witness", "The Mother Hunt", "Murder is Corny", "Poison A La Carte", "Too Many Clients", "Help Wanted Male", "Before I Die", "Silent Speaker", "The Cop Killer", and "Immune to Murder". Celebrations of the centenary of "The Hound of the Basker- villes" continue: on Mar. 23, Sherlockians from Italy (and England and Japan) assembled in Firenze for the unveiling of a new bronze bust of Sherlock Holmes, sculpted by Gian- carlo Buratti. The formal unveiling took place on Mar. 24 at the Biblioteca Civica Ernesto Regionieri, and the bust will be moved soon to the Sesto Fiorentino railway station, where (according to Uno Studio in Holmes, the local Sher- lockian society) Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson arrived in 1891 on their way to Florence. Firenze isn't the only city in Italy to have a different name in English (Livorno's an- other); the British seemed to find it quite easy to do that in the days of the Grand Tour. Marco Zatterin reports that the Italian newspaper La Stampa kindly hosts a "Sherlockiani italiani" web- site at , where you can read more (in Italian) about the bust and about other aspects of the Sherlockian world in Italy. Marco works for La Stampa, which surely helps to explain why the newspaper is so kind to Sherlockians. Thanks to Dave Morrill for spotting a new CD of John Scott's score for his first film "A Study in Terror" (1965). It's a new recording, by the Holly- wood Symphony Orchestra (conducted by Scott), and the accompanying booklet includes an interesting discussion by the composer of his work for the film and for the CD; he explains that "If any authoritarian, purist, film music specialist, collector should ask 'Why didn't I include the pub piano music heard on the film and on the original LP?' my answer would be that I never did enjoy pub pianists. But if anyone misses it that much I can recommend some pubs where the pianists are every bit as bad as the one performing on the original sound track." The CD is available in shops, and ($16.99 plus shipping) from Intrada (2220 Mountain Boulevard #220, Oakland, CA 94611) . And fans of John Scott's music will want to visit Randy Levy's web-site at . The Spermaceti Press: Peter E. Blau, 3900 Tunlaw Road NW #119, Washington, DC 20007-4830 (telephone: 202-338-1808) Apr 02 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press Patrick Macnee has performed as Sherlock Holmes, and as Dr. Watson, and as a psychotic former British secret agent who believes he is Sherlock Holmes, and (as John Steed) he was involved with Sir Arthur Doyle. And now he's an excellent guide to Sherlockian London in a 45-minute videocassette ("In the Footsteps of Sherlock Holmes") available from Chip Taylor Communications (2 East View Drive, Derry, NH 03038 (800-876-2447) . The cassette costs $29.95 plus shipping (credit-card orders welcome); $99.99 to schools and libraries. Billy Wilder died on Mar. 27. He was a Hollywood legend, the winner of six Oscars, and the only person to win three times for the same film: as direc- tor, producer, and co-writer of "The Apartment" (1960). His "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes" (1970) was splendid fun, and might have been more even fun if United Artists hadn't insisted on leaving almost a third of the film on the cutting-room floor. But one can see some of the longer film, on a two-laserdisc set issued in 1994 with the film (in letterbox format), production stills, a shooting script, music cue sheets, a pressbook, "The Dreadful Business of the Naked Honeymooners" (film only, with subtitles), "The Curious Case of the Upside Down Room" (sound only), an interview with Ernest Walter (the editor of the film), and the theatrical trailer. MPI Home Video is continuing its DVD series with programs from the Granada series. Volume 4 offers "The Greek Interpreter" and "The Norwood Builder" ($14.98); if you can't find it locally, try Critics' Choice Video (Box 749, Itasca, IL 60413 (800-367-7765) . Their current catalog also has videocassettes of John Neville's "A Study in Terr- or (1965) ($19.95) and Matt Frewer's "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (2000) ($14.95). And Signals Video offers 30 of the Granada programs in boxed sets of video- cassettes ($89.95 to $219.95); videocassettes of Ian Richardson's "The Sign of Four" and "The Hound of the Baskervilles" ($29.95 the pair); and audio- cassette and CD sets (from the Smithsonian Institution) of "The New Adven- tures of Sherlock Holmes" ($59.95/$69.95) with ten hours (20 programs) from the 1947-48 radio series that starred John Stanley and Alfred Shirley. THE HIDDEN ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES II, by Bill Paxton (Independence: Omnibus Enterprises, 2001; 153 pp., $25.00), has two short pastiches and a novella that involves Holmes once again with the Knights Hospitaler in an adventurous pursuit of treasure long lost undersea off the coast of Egypt. $25.00 postpaid from the publisher (12907 East 36th Street Terrace, Inde- pendence, MO 64055. His earlier THE HIDDEN ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (Aug 00 #6) is available for the same price, and both volumes cost $40.00 postpaid. The "Left Coast Crime 12" convention in Portland (Mar. 21-24) featured Lau- rie R. King as one of the guests of honor, and included a session on "Sher- lock Through Time: The Detective We Can't Stop Reading About" with Michael Kurland, David Haugen, Stanley Johnson, and John Schilke. On Site Taping recorded the sessions and offers cassettes or CDs ($8.75/$15.99 postpaid); 29318 Quall Run, Agoura Hllls, CA 91301) . Apr 02 #2 Milton Berle died on Mar. 27. He began his entertainment car- eer in vaudeville in 1908, and went on to become "Mr. Televis- ion" (he didn't invent it, but he was first seen on television in 1929, on an experimental broadcast in Chicago). He played Sherlock Holmes on "Tex- aco Star Theatre" in 1949 (with Victor Moore as Watson) in "Sherlock Holmes in the Mystery of the Sen Sen Murder". Basil Rathbone often was a guest on Berle's programs, and in Berle's autobiography he recalled Rathbone's first guest appearance: "Nobody ever had it worse on the show than Basil Rathbone --or at least, that's what he thought at the time. In fairness to him, it must have been rough for a man of Basil's dignity to find himself in front of the camera with Martha Raye and me. Both of us can go pretty wild in the low-comedy department when we forget our lines. Which is exactly what happened in some sort of Sherlock Holmes takeoff that was dreamed up for Basil's guest shot. We just ran wild around him, pushing, shoving, ad lib- bing, mugging, swinging burlesque bladders. Mr. Rathbone looked stunned throughout the whole thing. As soon as he got off stage, he said to the first person he me, 'Nevah again will I work with those two fucking people! Nevah!' He was on the show three weeks later, after everyone he knew had congratulated him on how marvelous he looked and on what a real flair for comedy he had displayed." Great Britain issued six high-tech stamps in 1991 honor- ing the 100th anniversary of the Nobel Prize: the physics stamp had a hologram that showed a molecule; the medicine stamp was scratch-and-sniff with the odor of eucalyptus; and the 45p literature stamp had the entire text of T. S. Eliot's poem "The Ad-dressing of Cats" in 0.1mm-high mic- roprinting (readable with a good magnifying lens, but not in the illustration here). The poem is from OLD POSSUM'S BOOK OF PRACTICAL CATS (which has two Sherlockian poems). Bill Barnes (19 Malvern Avenue, Manly, NSW 2095, Australia) notes that THE HOUNDS' COLLECTION: VOLUME 7 now is available, with 74 pages of wit, schol- arship, pastiche, and artwork by 16 members of The Hounds of the Internet; most of the material is new, but a few items have appeared elsewhere. The cost is $10.00/CA$15.00/L6.00/E10.00/AU$12.00 postpaid by air; payment in currency or by PayPal to preferred, but checks are acceptable. Further to the report (Mar 02 #6) on the festivities in Firenze celebrating the 100th anniversary of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" in March, Uno Stu- dio in Holmes has published two items of interest. SOTTO ORDINI DEL MEDICO E SOTTO IL SOLE ITALIANO/UNDER DOCTOR'S ORDERS AND UNDER THE ITALIAN SUN is an analysis by Philip Weller of a letter from Arthur Conan Doyle to William Gillette (undated, but the accompanying envelope was postmarked on Mar. 26, 1902); the 32-page booklet, with a color facsimile of the letter, is in It- alian and English, and the postpaid cost is $10.00. The letter is owned by Gabriele Mazzoni, and his collection is a fine one: LA MALEDIZIONE DEI BAS- KERVILLES is the catalog of an exhibition during the celebration, with 461 items all related to the story, from first editions to comic books, in var- ious languages, and games, records, videocassettes, and DVDs; 82 pp., with by a colorful poster, $15.00 postpaid. Order from Gianluca Salvatori, Casa Postale 140, 55042 Forte dei Marmi (Lucca), Italy; currency only, please. Apr 02 #3 Dudley Moore died on Mar. 27. He was a talented musician, com- edian, and actor, from the start of his career in "Beyond the Fringe" in 1960 to starring roles in "10" and "Arthur. He shared screen- play credit with Peter Cook for a comedy version of "The Hound of the Bas- kervilles" (1978) and played three characters in the film: Dr. Watson, Mrs. Ada Holmes, and Mr. Spiggot. I've suggested in the past that it would be grand to see a film or televis- ion dramatization of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" starring a Hound crea- ted George Lucas' computer wizards at Industrial Light & Magic, that being the only way, really, to bring a truly terrifying Hound to the screen. And we're now going to have a chance to see such a Hound on television, thanks to the BBC, which is planning to use the same computer technology that gen- erated the dinosaurs in its recent version of "The Lost World" in a "chill- ing thriller for the 21st century" (according to Jane Trantor, controller of drama commissioning at the BBC). Jay Hyde has forwarded a report in The Independent (Apr. 2) that says the dramatization will be set in 1901, and will star Richard Roxburgh (who played the Duke in "Moulin Rouge") as Sher- lock Holmes, Ian Hart (he was Quirrell in "Harry Potter and the Philosoph- er's Stone") as Dr. Watson, Richard E. Grant as Stapleton, and John Nettles as Mortimer. Also according to the story, Holmes and Watson will be "por- trayed as young and athletic men in their mid-30s, in contrast to the mat- ure and paternalistic figures of most screen versions." Reported: WRITING THE URBAN JUNGLE: READING EMPIRE IN LONDON FROM DOYLE TO ELIOT, by Joseph McLaughlin (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2000; 256 pp., $55.00 cloth, $18.50 paper); two of the book's seven chap- ters are "Holmes on the Range: Frontiers Old and New in 'A Study in Scar- let'" and "The Romance of Invasion: Cocaine and Cannibalism in 'The Sign of Four'" (which Karen Murdock found "heavily freighted with academic language and far-fetched observations"). The Thalia was one of New York's best art-film theaters for decades; almost derelict for a decade, it has been renovated and is now open again as the Leonard Nimoy Thalia (renamed in honor of Nimoy because he paid for much of the renovation). And it has a Doylean connection: it may be the only thea- ter in the U.S. to have screened Peter McEnery's "The Adventures of Gerard" (1970), which had a brief run at the Thalia in Dec. 1978. The film will be screened again (probably for the second time in the U.S.) at the Library of Congress in August (Feb 02 #4). "Sherlock Holmes (Meitantei Holmes)" is a boxed DVD set issued in Japan in 2001 with all 26 episodes of the animated television series produced there in 1983 (and better known here as "The Adventures of Sherlock Hound"). The soundtrack's in Japanese, and there are five disks (with total running time of 636 minutes), a 44-page booklet, television promotion spots, imageboard stills, and trailers, and it is formatted in NTSC for region 2 (Japan and Europe) and costs Y31,500 ($236.66). You can order on-line, at a web-site at . The series also is being issued here on DVD by Pioneer Entertainment, but not (yet) as a set: "Sherlock Hound: Case File 1" was issued in February ($29.98) with five episodes; "Case File 2" was released in April ($29.98) with five epi- sodes; and "Case File 3" is due in June ($29.98) with four episodes. Apr 02 #4 Commentary on a re-reading of "The Hound of the Baskervilles": "But Sherlock Holmes was a comedy character; and I cannot call up any picture of what a real interview between him and a real ghost would be like. Sherlock Holmes, having the kind of cleverness that belongs to a comedy character, has also the kind of stupidity, or at least the kind of limitation, which belongs to a man who could never have had a chat with a ghost." G. K. Chesterton, in his essay "On Ghost Stories, Crime Stories, the Rules, & Holmes" in the Illustrated London News (May 30, 1936); it was reprinted in All Things Considered (the newsletter of the Ottawa Chesterton Society), and kindly forwarded by Pat Accardo. House of Ascot sells a wide variety of architectural bookends and models sculpted by Timothy Richards, in- cluding 221b Baker Street (modeled after the Sherlock Holmes Museum); it's item TRSL, 7.5 in. high, $69.95 plus shipping, and the new catalog offers a 10% dis- count until May 15 (quote code AM4); their address is 365 Boston Post Road #244, Sudbury, MA 01776) (800- 717-3105) . Richard Bradford died on Mar. 23. He lived in Santa Fe since he was twelve years old, and his novel RED SKY AT MORNING (1968) established his reputation as one of the best writers about the southwest (and it was made into a film that starred Richard Thomas and Claire Bloom). His musical melodrama "Sherlock" (written with Tim Thompson and Marianne De Pury) was produced in Santa Fe in 1972 and had good reviews (members of The Brothers Three of Moriarty, led by John Bennett Shaw, were at the opening night, of course). Marcel Theroux's THE CONFESSIONS OF MYCROFT HOLMES: A PAPER CHASE (Jun 01 #2) now is available as a trade paperback (New York: Harvest Books, 2002; 228 pp., $14.00); it's not Sherlockian, but it's an intriguing mystery. The new production at Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre is John Chaffin's dram- atizations of ""The Resident Patient", "The Final Problem", and "The Empty House"; the production opened on Apr. 9 and will run through May 18. The theater's address is 8204 Highway 100, Nashville, TN 73221) (800-282-2276) . Bantam Doubleday Dell has begun a reprint series of Laurie R. King's novels about Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes as trade paperbacks; THE BEEKEEPER'S APPRENTICE is now available, with new cover art (368 pp., $11.95). "A Hound It Was..." is a video compilation produced by Paul Singleton and Maribeau Briggs; it had its world premiere for an enthusiastic audience at the "Footprints of the Hounds" conference in Toronto last October, and it was revised and shown again during the birthday festivities in New York in January. Copies of the 65-minute videocassette are available ($20.00 post- paid, $23.00 to Canada) from Maribeau Briggs (On-the-Fly Video Productions, 46 East 29th Street #3-F, New York, NY 10016). The cassette also is avail- able in formats for other countries; Sherlockians overseas should ask about shipping costs . Apr 02 #5 A review of "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" noted by Willis Frick in "Book Reviews by Kids" in the Los Angeles Times (Mar. 27): "Sherlock Holmes is a great detective who solved many cases. He has a partner named Dr. John Watson who helps solve many of his cases. Holmes possesses an intelligent and clever mind. His motto is 'eyes and brains.' Many people try to challenge him, but he's never failed a case yet!" (Gil, 10, Overland Avenue Elementary, Los Angeles). Well, you won't find "eyes and brains" as Sherlock Holmes' motto in Canon, but it is his motto in the animated television series "Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century" (which you can see in re-runs on local Warner Bros. channels, usually on weekend morn- ings). It was produced by DIC Entertainment and Scottish Entertainment and first shown in 1999, with 26 30-minute episodes; Holmes, preserved in honey after his battle with Moriarty, is revived in the 22nd century, teamed with a robotic Dr. Watson and assisting a (female) descendant of Insp. Lestrade, and the shows are based (sometimes loosely) on Canonical stories. And it's interesting to see what the producers and writers have done. A DVD with episodes from "Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century" was issued by Trimark Entertainment in April: its title is "The Fall and Rise of Sher- lock Holmes" ($14.99), and its length is 78 minutes, suggesting that it has at least four episides. And "The Great Mouse Detective" has been forecast on DVD from Walt Disney Home Video in July ($29.99); this will include ad- ditional material about the film. Reported: an American edition of SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE CROSBY MURDER, by Barrie Roberts (New York: Carroll & Graf, 224 pp., $24.00); according to Publishers Weekly, "Roberts captures the flavor of the originals but little of their drama." Barry Took died on Mar. 31. He was a noted British comedian and writer; he worked on radio series such as "Round the Horne" and "The Army Game", was one of the producers for a television series the BBC planned as "Baron Von Took's Flying Circus" and then as "Owl Stretching Time" before launching it as "Monty Python's Flying Circus". He also produced the 1973 BBC-1 tele- vision program "Elementary, My Dear Watson" with John Cleese as Holmes and William Rushton as Watson. Reported: THE CAMDEN HOUSE COOKBOOK 2: RECIPES FROM THE EMPTY HOUSE, edited by Janet Bensley; 200 pp., $24.00 postpaid to the U.S., $26.00 elsewhere), available from Stan Tinsley, Box 21, Zeigler, IL 62999. The Holmes & Watson Report continues to provide interesting reading written by "publisher, editor-in-chief, and absolute scapegoat" Brad Keefauver and others. In the Jan. 2002 issue Brad expands on Chris Redmond's suggestion that Sherlockians need a new Game: Sherlockian role-playing; it's an intri- guing idea, as Brad discovered when he appeared as guest speaker John Clay- ton at the annual banquet of the Hansoms of John Clayton. Other contribu- tors included David Morrill, who reminisces about the Great Revival of the 1970s; Bill Mason, who offers some thoughtful comments on last year's Baker Street Journal Christmas Annual; and Jennie Paton, who reviews the four new programs in the "Murder Rooms" television series. $16.00 a year (six iss- ues), $22.00 outside North America; $3.00 for one issue, from Brad Keefau- ver (4009 North Chelsea Place, Peoria, IL 61614). Apr 02 #6 Robert Urich died on Apr. 16. He began his television career in 1973, and became best known as Dan Tanna in the television series "Vega$" (1978-1981), and in the title role in "Spenser: For Hire" (1985-1988). He had Sherlockian dialogue in both series, and one "Vega$" episode ended with Dan Tanna being made a member of the British Detectives and given a deerstalker and calabash. There will be 17 lots of Sherlockiana and Doyleana from the collection of Fred Stutman at auction on May 16 at Samuel T. Freeman & Co. (1808 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103 (215-563- 9275). The December issue of the quarterly newsletter of The Friends of the Sher- lock Holmes Collections at the University of Minnesota has Richard Lancelyn Green's "100 Years Ago" article about statues honoring Sherlock Holmes (the first proposal for such a monument appeared in Tit-Bits on Dec. 29, 1901), John Bergquist's "50 Years Ago" report on the Sherlock Holmes Exhibition in 1951 and the founding of The Sherlock Holmes Society of London, and news of the special collections. The March issue has Richard J. Sveum's report on Christopher and Barbara Roden's gift to the collections of a file of let- ters from John Bennett Shaw to Jack Tracy (from the archive on which they based their 2001 Baker Street Journal Christmas Annual), Julie McKuras' "50 Years Ago" article about A. A. Milne, and other news. Copies of the news- letter are available from Richard J. Sveum (111 Elmer L. Andersen Library, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455) . If you want to bid on a damaged and incomplete copy of the first British edition of THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES, contact Richard Howe in England before the end of June. The comic-book mini-series RUSE continues; #5 ($2.95) has a new mystery for Emma Bishop to solve, and nice Victorian (but not-quite-Sherlockian) atmo- sphere and artwork, and someone lurking behind an easily identifiable por- trait of Arthur Conan Doyle. The auction at Christie's of the first part of Richard M. Lackritz's detec- tive fiction library (Mar 02 #1) on Apr. 17 was lively and interesting: the two-page manuscript of Conan Doyle's working draft for his introduction to Harold Baylor's THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY brought $3,346; a lot with 79 sin- gle issues of The Strand Magazine (with all the stories that were published in the magazine) sold for $26,290 (including the buyer's premium, which now is 19.5%); an inscribed copy of Vincent Starrett's "The Unique Hamlet" (one of 10 imprinted for the friends of Vincent Starrett) went for $38,240 (well over the estimate of $3,000-5,000); and another inscribed copy (one of 190 imprinted for the friends of Walter M. Hill) brought $1,434. Bram Stoker's corrected typed manuscript of "Dracula" (estimated at $1,000,000-1,500,000) sent to auction by another owner went unsold at $700,000. Two items were withdrawn before the sale: an autograph manuscript signed by Vincent Starrett of his poem "221B", and a Frederick Dorr Steele portrait of Sherlock Holmes inscribed to Starrett by the artist; both were forgeries (the portrait being a carefully inked-over print) with provenance that ori- ginated with the late Michael Murphy, who was Starrett's literary executor. Apr 02 #7 The winter issue of The Magic Door (the newsletter published by The Friends of the Arthur Conan Doyle Collection at the Toronto Reference Library) offers Janice McNabb's reminiscences about working with Cameron Hollyer (excerpted from a talk she gave at a ceremony honoring Cam during the "Footprints of the Hound" conference last year), and other in- teresting reports. Copies are available from Doug Wrigglesworth (16 Sunset Street, Holland Landing, ON L9N 1H4, Canada) . Further to the report (Dec 01 #1) on BBC Worldwide's plans to issue video- cassettes and DVDs of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (1968) starring Peter Cushing and Nigel Stock, they're now available; the recording is excellent, 100 minutes long, with fine color (there are four other programs in the BBC vaults, and one hopes they will issue them as well). L19.99 plus shipping for the PAL cassette or DVD, or L25.00 plus shipping for the NTSC cassette. You can order by mail (Video Offer, BBC Learning, Room A3022, 80 Wood Lane, London, W12 0TT, England) , and credit-card orders are welcome. "Graphic Classics" is an attractive series of single-author anthologies ed- ited and published by Tom Pomplun, and the second issue is devoted to Arth- ur Conan Doyle (Mount Horeb: Eureka Productions, 2002; 144 pp., $9.95); the contents include "The Adventure of the Speckled Band" (illustrated by Nes- tor Redondo and adapted from the version that Pendulum Press published in 1974); "The Lost World" (illustrated by Don Marquez and reprinted from the version he published in 1994); and many new stories (including "The Adven- ture of the Copper Beeches" illustrated by Rick Geary, "The Los Amigos Fi- asco", "How It Happened", and "The Hound of the Baskervilles"). Available in comic-book shops, and ($11.95 postpaid) from Eureka Productions, 8778 Grove Road, Mount Horeb, WI 53572 . Harry Alan Towers has worked in radio, films, and television for more than six decades, primarily as a producer and screenwriter; he produced the 1954 John Gielgud/Ralph Richardson BBC radio series, and the two 1992 television films that starred Christopher Lee and Patrick Macnee, and in 1994 the two "Lost World" television films with John Rhys-Davies as Challenger. And he is still at work at the age of 81, planning a new film ("The Baker Street Irregulars") starring Malcolm McDowell as Holmes, and (Towers hopes) Edward Hardwicke as Watson. You can read more about that, and his many other pro- ductions, in an excellent interview by Terry Pace in the latest issue (#44) of Scarlet Street, which also offers a fine interview with Christopher Lee by David Del Valle. $42.00 a year (for six issues); Box 604, Glen Rock, NJ 07452 . "Following Lord Peter Wimsey" is the title of a Book Adventures tour (July 12-22) of Dorothy L. Sayers' England with members of the Dorothy L. Sayers Society and other experts, and there will be an optional Scotland Extension at the end of the tour, into "The Five Red Herrings" country (one assumes that the experts are aware of Sayer's interest in Sherlock Holmes). Addi- tional information is available from Book Adventures, 512 West Venice Ave- nue #102, Venice, FL 34285 . The Spermaceti Press: Peter E. Blau, 3900 Tunlaw Road NW #119, Washington, DC 20007-4830 (telephone: 202-338-1808) May 02 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press Occasionally readers of this newsletter have asked about back issues. I've always felt that there's nothing sillier than stale gossip, but if you want to see what has (or hasn't) happened since I acquired my first computer in 1985, and have access to the World Wide Web, Willis G. Frick has generously provided expanded web-space for all those bits and bytes (text only) at his Sherlocktron web-site at . Marina Stajic has reported that the annual meeting of the Society of Foren- sic Toxicologists will be held on Oct. 13-17 at the Hyatt Regency in Dear- born, Mich; a "Sherlock Holmes Workshop: The Adventure of the Devil's Foot" is scheduled for Oct. 17 (2:00-4:00 pm) with a panel of five eminent foren- sic toxicologists presenting their opinions on the true identity of *Radix pedis diaboli*. Local Sherlockians are welcome (and encouraged) to attend. THE POISON BELT is available in a trade paperback reprint (93 pp., $11.95) in a series of science-fiction classics published by the University of Neb- raska (Edgar Rice Burroughs' PIRATES OF VENUS also was issued this year). Big Feats! Entertainment's 30-minute "Wishbone" series (broadcast by PBS- TV) has won a lot of fans over the years ("Wishbone is a short-haired Jack Russell terrier whose active imagination lands him--in full costume--smack in the middle of signature scenes from classic works such as 'The Hound of the Baskervilles'"). That story ("The Slobbery Hound") first aired on Oct. 18, 1995, and it was issued on videocassette by Polygram Video, and again (to bedevil the completists) by Lyrick Studios as "The Hound of the Basker- villes" (both are now out of print, but they turn up at auction on eBay). The first four of Laurie R. King's novels about Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes have been translated into Japanese and published by Shueisha, with attractive cover artwork that the electronically-enbabled can see at Naomi Tanaka's Japanese web-site at . "That painting was by Jean Baptiste Greuze," said Sherlock Holmes (in "The Valley of Fear"). An exhibition devoted exclusively to the artist's draw- ing ("Greuze the Draftsman") opened at the Frick Collection in New York on May 14, and it will run through Aug. 4 (and it will open at the Getty Mus- eum in Los Angeles in September). The Frick Collection is at 4 East 70th Street in New York . Terry Walsh died on Apr. 21. He was an actor, stuntman, stunt coordinator, and fight arranger, beginning his career on television in the "Doctor Who" series in 1963 (doubling for Jon Pertwee and then for Tom Baker, Jay Pearl- man notes), and he was a stuntman on "Without a Clue" (1988). If anyone knows of a mention in print of Conan Doyle having helped Dorando at the marathon finish line at the 1908 Olympics, earlier than THE PEOPLE'S ALMANAC PRESENTS THE BOOK OF LISTS NO. 2, by Irving Wallace, Amy Wallace, and David Wallechinsky (1980), please communicate with Clifford S. Goldfarb (22 Markdale Avenue, Toronto, ON M6C 1T1, Canada) . Cliff's working on an article demonstrating that no one in that famous pho- tograph is Conan Doyle, who was in the stands when the race was run. May 02 #2 Those who remember Doctor Who from seeing Jon Pertwee on tele- vision, or Tom Baker, or any of the other actors who have ap- peared as the Doctor, and who may have avoided novels that have extended the series should take another look, at least at Lloyd Rose's THE CITY OF THE DEAD (London: BBC Worldwide, 2001; 278 pp., $6.95). It's a dramatic story (she has been the Washington Post's drama critic) that has brought the Eighth Doctor (played by Paul McGann in a television film in 1996) to New Orleans; there are surprises and humor, and a minor allusion to Sher- lock Holmes. Her next Doctor Who novel (CAMERA OBSCURA) is due this year, and Lloyd reports that it's set in England in 1893, and full of Sherlock- ian references. Paul Petrucci's PRODIGAL LOGIC (Bangor: Booklocker, 2002; 240 pp., $14.95) is a first novel, featuring Ray Gabriel, a computer programmer who lives on a houseboat in Seattle and who is working on a "Sherlock-in-a-Box" program based on the "thumb-rules" found in the Sherlock Holmes stories; he becomes involved in a murder investigation, and his computer program helps with the solution. Booklocker's address is Box 2399, Bangor, ME 04402, and the book can be downloaded from their web-site; you can use a link at Petrucci's own web-site at . Howard Merrill died on Apr. 20. He was a child actor and a teen-aged radio scriptwriter (he made it into "Ripley's Believe It or Not" for being in 58 silent movies before he was 11 years old and for 487 radio broadcasts on 38 shows by the time he was 14); he also wrote for television, and with Allan Sherman created the television game show "I've Got a Secret" in 1952. And he was one of the writers for the "Sherlock Holmes" radio series (1948-49) that starred John Stanley and Ian Martin. The new shows in the excellent "Nero Wolfe" series running on Arts & Enter- tainment cable have been great fun, and there was a surprise in "Die Like a Dog" (on Apr. 28): the dog is important to the solution of a murder, and it frequently is called a hound (it's really a black Labrador), and the police department's dog-handler shows up wearing a deerstalker. Sharon Doyle (who dramatized the story) credits costume designer Chris Hargedon for the allu- sive costume (a nice touch indeed during a centenary year). The museum exhibit "Sherlock Holmes and the Clocktower Mystery" has been on display in the United States and Canada, and it opened at the Witte Museum in San Antonio on May 25 and will run through Aug. 25. It's an interactive exhibit with lots of Victorian flavor, and a mystery to solve; the museum's at 3801 Broadway, San Antonio, TX 78209 . "Gripping Tale as Kissinger Plays Moriarty" was the headline on Frank John- son's "Commons Sketch" in the Daily Telegraph (Apr. 23), at hand from Shir- ley Purves. MP Jeremy Corbyn "is a vigorous Left-winger," Johnson noted. And Henry Kissinger "is to Mr. Corbyn, and to the Left in general, what Dr. Moriarty was to Arthur Conan Doyle: the indispensable villain." Corbyn's concern was that Kissinger, who hasn't held government office since 1977, was visiting Britain. Johnson explained that Conan Doyle killed off Holmes and Moriarty, and brought back the detective, and that "Mr. Corbyn did not make Conan Doyle's mistake. That shows him to be the greater, certainly the more commercial, artist. Mr. Corbyn brought back his villain." May 02 #3 Mary Burke reports that Claude-Joseph Vernet's painting "Vue du Port de Dieppe" (1765) is on display in a French naval exhibit "Le Grand Voyage" that has toured in Quebec and Wilmington, and will be at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Mass., July 12-Oct. 14. Claude-Joseph Vernet (1714-1789) was the official painter for the French navy, and the grandfather of Sherlock Holmes' granduncle Horace Vernet. John Murray, founded in 1768 and the publisher of Byron, Jane Austen, Conan Doyle, and Charles Darwin (the Financial Times noted), has been acquired by Hodder Headline, a division of the retailer W. H. Smith; the paper also re- ported that Hodder Headline is planning to rejuvenate Murray's fiction list (which has suffered from an inability to offer the staggering advances that successful authors expect from big publishing houses). The firm will con- tinue as an imprint under Hodder, according to John Murray (the seventh of that name to head the company), and its archives, which include quills used by Dickens and locks of hair of Byron's lovers, will be preserved. There's an electronic "Gaslight" mailing list for people interested in the gaslight era (1800-1919), and their web-site offers many e-texts from that period's authors. There's also a page of links to Sherlock Holmes parodies at with e-texts for authors such as Lehmann, Ramsay, Munkittrick, Barr, Bangs, Twain, Forrest, Leblanc, Harte, O. Henry, Leacock, Barrie, and Conan Doyle. Reported: David Pirie's THE PATIENT'S EYES: THE DARK BEGINNINGS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, published last year in Britain and now in an American edition (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2002; 252 pp., $22.95); a pastiche by the author of the British television mini-series "Murder Rooms: The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes" (2000) that starred Ian Richardson as Dr. Joseph Bell. Marsha Pollak reports that the American Library Association will hold its annual meeting in Atlanta in June, and that the Sub-Librarians will gather on Sunday, June 16, from 4:00 to 5:00 pm, in the Greenwood Room at the Omni Hotel. Tim Johnson (curator of the Sherlock Holmes Collections at the Uni- versity of Minnesota) will be the guest speaker, and local Sherlockians and visiting librarians are welcome to attend. Reported: DEATH AT DARTMOOR, by Robin Paige (New York: Berkley Prime Crime, 2002; 336 pp., $21.95); the latest in a series of mysteries set in the Vic- torian era, this one with Conan Doyle and Fletcher Robinson in the cast of characters (neither one is murdered, by the other or by anyone else). Gertrude H. Mahoney died on May 18. She enjoyed dolls and dollhouses, min- iatures (she helped found the National AssocIation of Miniature Enthusiasts in 1971), Sherlockians (she joined The Red Circle of Washington in 1978 and in 1983 masterminded a local weekend for Sherlockian miniaturists), and her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. She had a grand sense of humor, and of curiosity, which may help explain what happened when not too many years ago she surprised a burglar in the kitchen of her son's house in Washington: he fled, and she went to the door to see which way he went, and he shot her, grazing her arm. "But it's only a flesh wound," she explained to the paramedics who were insisting that she go to the hospital, "and I've never had a chance to watch the police investigate a crime scene." May 02 #4 Reported by Bill Vande Water: MAGGOTS, MURDER AND MEN: MEMORIES AND REFLECTIONS OF A FORENSIC ENTOMOLOGIST, by Zakaria Erzinc- lioglu: it was published in Britain in 2000, and there is now an American edition (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2002; 256 pp., $23.95). The author cites the Canon in each chapter, and devotes a couple of pages to Sherlock Holmes and Conan Doyle's achievements. Otto Penzler's pamphlet series of pastiches and parodies has a new volume: SHERLOCK HOLMES FINDS THE LOST DUTCHMAN MINE, by Murray Shaw; the 28-page pamphlet costs $10.00, from The Mysterious Bookshop, 129 West 56th Street, New York, NY 10019) (800-352-2840) . Plan well ahead: Takeshi Shimizu has forwarded a report from the Manchester Evening News that the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh will celebrate its 500th anniversary from July 2005 to Oct. 2006, and that the festivities will include honors to famous "sons" of the college, including Dr. Joseph Bell, "who was immortalized as Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle." "Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Vanishing Lady" premiered at Elaine's Famous Dinner Theater and Haunted Mansion Restaurant in Cape May, N.J., on Apr. 20. It's a murder-mystery musical, with prizes awarded to diners who guess the culprit, and it runs nightly through the summer, with some mati- nee dates. Additional details are available from Terrence O'Brien (513 La- fayette Street, Cape May, NJ 08204 (609-884-4358) . And you'll get a discount if you mention the magic word ("Scuttlebutt"). Those who have fond memories of the Sherlockian alternate universe at Brad Keefauver's "Dangling Prussian" will appreciate the May issue of The Holmes & Watson Report, which includes "A Tale of Two Empty Houses" and a copy of "The Wisteria Lodge Journal" as his tribute to the 25th anniversary of The Occupants of the Empty House. $16.00 a year (six issues) or $22.00 outside North America; $3.00 for one issue, from Brad Keefauver (4009 North Chelsea Place, Peoria, IL 61614). Arthur H. Lewis was a talented writer, and a member of The Sons of the Cop- per Beeches, whom he had grand fun libelling in his murder mystery COPPER BEECHES (1978). And I recommend his CARNIVAL (1970), non-fiction (except, certainly for some of the stories he was told) about "the wide, weird won- derful world where carnies meet the marks, and everyone goes away happy," not because it is Sherlockian or Doylean, but because of throw-away lines such as his description of carnivals as a "world that is never really sur- prised at anything, where a man can say quite casually, 'What this country needs is a frozen whale,' then go out and freeze one." Some interesting things come up for auction at eBay (an electronic auction web-site): this month Canadian collector-dealer Mark Hacking (Scientifica Opticae) offered an amputation set (with four Liston knives, two scalpels, a pair of forceps, and a small amputation saw, in a mahogany case) that be- longed to Dr. Joseph Bell; the on-line auction lasted a week, and the win- ning bid was $11,700. The new owner is Fred Kittle, an ardent collector of Doyle material, who is donating his collection of Doyleana to the Newberry Library in Chicago; their exhibit on "The Remarkable Doyle Family--Includ- ing Sherlock Holmes" is scheduled for April-June 2003. May 02 #5 Anglofile reports that the four 90-minute episodes of the mini- series "Murder Rooms" (with Ian Richardson as Dr. Joseph Bell and Charles Edwards as Arthur Conan Doyle) that were broadcast by BBC-1 in Britain last year will air on "Mystery!" on PBS-TV weekly beginning on July 22. Anglofile is a monthly newsletter offering detailed coverage of Brit- ish entertainment; Box 33515, Decatur, GA 30033 ($15.00 a year). A signed silhouette of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle will be offered at auction by Ear- ly American History Auctions on June 8, with similar signed silhouettes of Lady Doyle and of their children; the silhou- ettes were cut by "Beatrix Sherman, the premiere 20th-century silhouette artist" when the Conan Doyle family visited At- lantic City in 1922. It's lot 484, and you can bid by mail or phone or e-mail: Box 3341, La Jolla, CA 92038 (800-473- 5686) . A reminder: the world premiere of the new play "The West End Horror (drama- tized by Anthony Dodge and Marcia Milgrom Dodge from the novel by Nicholas Meyer) will open at the Bay Street Theatre (Bay & Main Street, Sag Harbor, NY 11963) on June 18, and close on July 7, 2002. The box-office phone num- ber is 631-725-9500; web-site at . Stephen Jay Gould died on May 20. He was a biologist and a geologist, a fine lecturer, and a splendid writer whose many books help explain varied aspects of modern science, including evolutionary biology. His letter to the magazine Science 83 responding to an article by John Hathaway Winslow and Alfred Meyer that accused Sir Arthur Conan Doyle of perpetrating the Piltdown hoax described their article as "an evidence-free argument based on speculations about motive." He also enjoyed Sherlockian films: in THE FLAMINGO'S SMILE: REFLECTIONS ON NATURAL HISTORY (1985) he described the Universal series as "the unnumerable, yet wonderful, Rathbone-Bruce anach- ronisms that pit Holmes against Hitler and assorted enemies." Further to last year's discussion in my monthly newsletter of Investitured Irregulars who have appeared in movies as actors, we can expand the list to include television soap operas: Paul Singleton played a cameo role as Dr. Brookglad on "All My Children" on ABC-TV on May 20. Issue #48 of Sherlock offers editor David Stuart Davies discussion of the friendship between Holmes and Watson, Gavin Collinson's review of the BBC- TV dramatization of Kingsley Amis' "Dr. Watson and the Darkwater Hall Mys- tery" (1974), and Rod Murphy's analysis of the humor in the Canon, and much more (including an interview with Ed McBain and a tribute to the late John Thaw. Annual subscriptions (six issues) cost L23.70 (U.K.)/L26.00 (conti- nent)/$40.00 (elsewhere); Box 100, Chichester, West Sussex PO18 8HD, Eng- land . It's also available from their American agent Classic Specialties (Box 19058, Cincinnati, OH 45219) (877-233-3823) ; credit-card orders welcome at both addresses, and back issues are available. May 02 #6 "On June 22, 1979, twelve days after his 77th birthday, Sher- lock Holmes died." "Sherlock Holmes" was the "nom" of Palmer C. Peterson, who was one of the most renowned members of the National Puzz- lers' League; and he specialized in form puzzles (which require the multi- ple skills of anagrammatist, palindromist, and crossword puzzler, according to O. V. Michaelsen). You can see some of Peterson's best form puzzles in Michaelsen's WORDS AT PLAY: QUIPS, QUIRKS AND ODDITIES (New York: Sterling Publishing Co. 1987). Mystery conventions: the ninth Mid Atlantic Mystery will be held in Phila- delphia on Sept. 27-29, with Jonathan Gash and Lisa Scottoline as featured guests; the organizer is Deen Kogan (507 South Eighth Street, Philadelphia, PA 19147 . Bouchercon 2002 will be in Austin on Oct. 17-20; the guests of honor are Mary Willis Walker and George Pelecanos (Box 27277, Austin, TX 78755) . Bouchercon 2003 will be in Las Vegas, Oct. 16-19, with James Lee Burke, Ian Rankin, and Ruth Rendell as guests of honor (507 South Eighth Street, Phil- adelphia, PA 19147) . Laurie King's JUSTICE HALL (her sixth novel about Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes) is a June Book-of-the-Month Club selection ($14.37 plus shipping). Further to the report on plans for a film based on the comic-book mini-ser- ies "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" (Mar 02 #1), Bill Barnes notes that Richard Roxburgh has reported that he will be in the film as Fantom, a character who turns out to be Moriarty. We will also be able to see him as Sherlock Holmes in the BBC's new dramatization of "The Hound of the Basker- villes" (Apr 02 #3); filming has been completed on that production. Reported by Karen Murdock: LITERARY LIVES, edited by John Sutherland (Ox- ford University Press, 2001; 388 pp., L14.99); a collection of essays from supplements to the DICTIONARY OF NATIONAL BIOGRAPHY, including an essay by A. Cochrane on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (first published in 1937). Karen also spotted two minor mentions of Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes in HOW THE SCOTS INVENTED THE MODERN WORLD: THE TRUE STORY OF HOW WESTERN EUROPE'S POOREST NATION CREATED OUR WORLD & EVERYTHING IN IT, by Arthur Herman (New York: Crown Publishers, 2001; 288 pp., $25.95). Also: THE COLLECTION, by Peter Ackroyd (London: Chatto & Windus, 2001; 476 pp., L25.00); reviews and essays, including his review of "Young Sherlock Holmes" in The Spectator (1985). Also: THE GREAT RADIO HEROES (REVISED EDITION), by Jim Harmon (Jefferson: McFarland, 2001; 256 pp., 2001); with discussion of Sherlock Holmes broad- casts in the (reprinted) chapter "For Armchair Detectives Only". And: THE DETECTIVE AS HISTORIAN: HISTORY AND ART IN HISTORICAL CRIME FICTION, edited by Ray B. Browne and Lawrence A. Kreiser, Jr. (Bowling Green: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 2000; 313 pp., $29.95); Sherlock Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle are mentioned in essays by Judy Ann Ford ("Umberto Eco: THE NAME OF THE ROSE") and by Gary Hoppenstand ("Elizabeth Peters: THE LAST CAMEL DIED AT NOON as Lost World Adventure Pastiche"). The Spermaceti Press: Peter E. Blau, 3900 Tunlaw Road NW #119, Washington, DC 20007-4830 (telephone: 202-338-1808) Jun 02 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press Domestic postage rates increase on July 1, and so will the cost of my news- letter, to $10.00 a year (as in the past, for six or more pages a month of whatever gossip I find appropriate, most of it quite trivial, but much of it Sherlockian or Doylean). The cost is still $12.70 to Canada and $15.30 overseas, at least until those rates increase. The text (no illustrations) is available at , thanks to Willis G. Frick. At hand from Philip Wilson is an article in the spring issue of Now & Then (the newsletter of the National Center for Osteopathic History at the Still National Osteopathic Museum) about "William Smith, M.D., D.O. (1862-1912)". Like Conan Doyle, Smith studied under Joseph Bell at the University of Ed- inburgh, and in 1938 Smith's son said that Conan Doyle fashioned the char- acter of Dr. Watson around Smith as "a friendly gesture." The newsletter's address is: Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine, 800 West Jefferson Street, Kirksville, MO 63501. Further to last year's discussion of Investitured Irregulars who have ap- peared in movies as actors, we can expand the list to include television soap operas: Paul Singleton played Dr. Brookglad on "All My Children" on ABC-TV on May 20. THE ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE READER: FROM SHERLOCK HOLMES TO SPIRITUALISM, edited by Jeffrey Meyers and Valerie Meyers (New York: Cooper Square Press, 2002; 500 pp., $28.95), offers a wide-ranging sample of his writings, from an ex- cerpt from A STUDY IN SCARLET (1887) to an excerpt from THE WANDERINGS OF A SPIRITUALIST (1921), including Sherlockian and non-Sherlockian short stor- ies, and there's an excellent introduction setting the contents in context. Which actor played a furious Sherlock Holmes? Vitaliy Solomin died on May 28. He acted on stage and screen and televis- ion in the Soviet Union, and was an excellent Dr. Watson (with Vasiliy Liv- anov as Holmes) in five Russian television films broadcast in the USSR from 1979 to 1986. British actor Roger Llewellyn appeared in David Stuart Davies' interesting one-man play "Sherlock Holmes - The Last Act!" during the birthday festivi- ties in New York in 2000, and has toured world-wide since then. And he is happy to perform anywhere: details on bookings are available from Joseph S. Ajlouny (Federal Bureau of Entertainment, 29205 Greening Boulevard, Farm- ington Hills, MI 48334) . Further to the item on "The Baker Street Marketplace" (Feb 02 #5), the Sus- sex Group has purchased the on-line business from the Rev. Sherlock Holmes, D.D., and it is now called "The Sherlock Shop.Com at SherlockHolmes.Com". Sherlockians and societies who wish to sell material are invited to get in touch with Paul Crane at . Their web-site URL is . And they continue to offer a 10% dis- count on books if you mention the magic word ("Scuttlebutt"); you enter the word in the "coupon" section. Jun 02 #2 MEDICAL READERS' THEATER: A GUIDE AND SCRIPTS, edited by Todd L. Savitt (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2002; 192 pp., $22.95), is an interesting anthology of dramatizations of short stories in- tended for use in educating health-care students who are encouraged to dis- cuss the productions; one of the scripts is Gregory A. Watkins' adaptation of Conan Doyle's "The Doctors of Hoyland". Which actor played a furious Sherlock Holmes? Basil Wrathbone. Credit to Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon, in their "Wrote Learning" crossword puzzle in the Boston Globe (May 26). Herman Cohen died on June 2. He started his movie career before he was a teenager, as a gofer and then an usher at the Fox Theater in Detroit, and in Hollywood he became a producer and writer. He was assistant producer of "Bride of the Gorilla" (1951), and produced American International's earli- est hits (including "I Was a Teenage Werewolf"), and he was the executive producer of John Neville's "A Study in Terror" (1965). The new edition of John McAleer's REX STOUT: A MAJESTY'S LIFE (Rockville: James A. Rock & Co., 2002; 621 pp., $44.95 in cloth, $26.95 in paper) has been shipped to those who ordered before publication (Feb 02 #5); it's nice to have this excellent biography back in print, with a new introduction by the author, and an afterword by his son Andrew, and additional photographs. The publisher's address is 113 North Washington Street, Rockville, MD 20850 (800-411-2230) . Also available from Rock is a paperback reprint of Maurice Leblanc's ARSENE LUPIN VERSUS HOLMLOCK SHEARS (271 pp., $16.95); first published in France in 1908 and in English in 1910, the book describes two encounters between the famous gentleman burglar and (as he was called in the original French) Herlock Sholmes. The text is a facsimile of the first English translation by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos. And it's part of a series of "Yellowback Mysteries" that include Grant Allen's AN AFRICAN MILLIONAIRE: EPISODES IN THE LIFE OF THE ILLUSTRIOUS COLONEL CLAY and Arthur Morrison's THE DORRING- TON DEED BOX (also 2002 and $16.95 each). Finally, there's his "Sense of Wonder Press" imprint that reprints material from the early days of science fiction and fantasy: FORREST J ACKERMANN & FRIENDS PLUS (2002, $14.95) is a collection that includes a description of his home (commissioned by Esquire but never published); the "Ackermansion" is a delight, packed with memorabilia such as the model pterodactyls that Willis H. O'Brien used in two of his more memorable films ("The Lost World" and "King Kong"). Forry was born in 1917, and he started collecting in Los Angeles in the long-ago days when movie studios just threw things away; his treasures include the bolts from the neck of Boris Karloff's Frankenstein's monster, and Bela Lugosi's "Dracula" ring. Signe Hasso died on June 7. She was born in Sweden and began acting at the age of 12 at the Royal Dramatic Theatre; she made her film debut in 1933, and arrived in Hollywood in 1941. After starring in many films in the next decade, she returned to the stage on Broadway, and helped start a national repertory theater in Sweden. She also acted on television, and played Frau Reichenbach in the television film "Sherlock Holmes in New York" in 1976. Jun 02 #3 Fritz Sonnenschmidt, culinary dean at the Culinary Institute of America, has retired after 33 years at the CIA, where he provi- ded great assistance to Al and Julie Rosenblatt in masterminding a series of grand gourmet Sherlockian meals. He was co-author with Julie of the de- lightful cookbook DINING WITH SHERLOCK HOLMES (1976), and received his In- vestiture ("Simpson's") in The Baker Street Irregulars in 1982, the BSI's Two-Shilling Award in 1987, and The Queen Victoria Medal in 1991. Reported: NAMES, TITLES, AND CHARACTERS BY LITERARY WRITERS--SHAKESPEARE, 19TH AND 20TH CENTURY AUTHORS, by Robert F. Fleissner (Lewiston: Edwin Mel- len Press, 2001; 239 pp., $89.95); a collection of essays, including "The Onomastics of *Sherlock*", "Poe's C. Auguste Dupin and Sherlock Holmes's Initial", and "On the Pedigree of the *Holmes* Name: Apropos of the First English Detective Work". And his THE MASTER SLEUTH ON THE TRAIL OF EDWIN DROOD: SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE JASPER SYNDROME: AN ANNOTATED PASTICHE, by Robert F. Fleissner (Philadelphia: Xlibris, 2002; 238 pp., $31.99 in cloth, $21.99 in paper, $8.00 e-book); discounts are available at the publisher's web-site at . "If a herd of buffaloes had passed along," said Sherlock Holmes (in "A Study in Scarlet"), "there could not be a greater mess." American readers of the tale tend to ass- ume that the buffaloes were the kind that were hunted by Buffalo Bill, but those are mentioned in the same story, later on, and quite correctly, as "those great herds of bisons which graze upon the prairie land." In this instance Arthur Conan Doyle was a careful writer: the buffaloes alluded to earlier in the story surely were Cape buffalo; one of them is shown on a stamp issued in 2001 by South Africa. The Occupants of the Empty House, clearing out the attic, offer their lapel pin, 25th-anniversary mug and book bag, and back issues of Beeman's Christ- mas Annual; copies of their sales-list are available from Stan Tinsley (Box 21, Zeigler, IL 62999) . Charles Ede died on May 29. He founded the Folio Society in 1947, and pro- duced handsome books at affordable prices for society members, who were al- so welcome to visit a clubroom in London to enjoy sandwiches and wine. He sold the business in 1971 to pursue his interested in antiquities, becoming a respected dealer in Roman and other material. The society published THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES in 1958, with an introduction by Brian Marsh and illustrations by Paul Hogarth, and additional Sherlockian volumes under later owners. The signed silhouettes of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his family offered at auction this month at Early American History Auctions (May 02 #5) brought $4,500 (plus 15% buyer's premium). M. C. Black reports that plans are afoot to turn the now-disused Bow Street police station into a museum to be called "The Beat" (planning and listed- building applications have been submitted to the Westminster City Council). There's a web-site at . Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson visited the Bow Street station (in "The Man with the Twisted Lip"). Jun 02 #4 The entry for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in the new edition of the ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA (2002) is also new, revised by Philip K. Wilson (a Doylean and a medical historian). The electronically-enabled also can view the entry (and a new entry by Wilson on Sherlock Holmes that doesn't appear in the print edition) on-line at , if you're a subscriber or if you sign up for a free 72-hour trial subscription. "The Case of the Whitechapel Vampire" (the fourth television film starring Matt Frewer and Kenneth Welsh) has been scheduled as a "movie of the week" on the Hallmark channel in October. Gillette Castle reopened to the public on Memorial Day, and tickets for the tour of the castle sold out quickly. The Connecticut department of public works has spent $11.5 million restoring and renovating the castle, and it's well worth a visit if you're anywhere near Hadlyme. There's also an exhib- it "Honoring William Gillette" at the East Haddam Historical Society Museum (though Oct. 13); one of the features is a continuous showing of "William Gillette: A Connecticut Yankee on the American Stage" (a 30-minute documen- tary produced by Peter Loffredo in 1986, with a long interview with Helen Hayes, and an impersonation of the actor by Garrett Walters. The museum's telephone number is 860-873-3944. Reproductions of 19th-century railway station clocks include more than Padd- ington Station (Feb 02 #3); a clock for London Victoria Station (frequently mentioned in the Sherlock Holmes stories) is available (9" diameter $49.95; 15" diameter $74.95) from Alberene Royal Mail (9 Mill Alley, Box 902, Harr- isville, NH 03450 (800-843-9078) . Carolyn and Joel Senter have a new sales-list of Sherlockiana that includes books, CDs, videos, artwork, and other collectibles. The Sherlockian Times is available on request from Classic Specialties (Box 16058, Cincinnati, OH 45219) . Forecast from Forge for August: CASTLE ROUGE, by Carole Nelson Douglas, the next in her mystery series about Irene Adler ($25.95); Midnight Louie says it's the second part of a Jack the Ripper duology. And a paperback reprint of last year's CHAPEL NOIR ($6.99). And for December: ANOTHER SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA; a paperback reprint of IRENE'S LAST WALTZ. Mystery-writer Peter Lovesey has long been interested in the Olympics. His article on "Conan Doyle and the Olympics" in the Journal of Olympic History (Dec. 2001) discusses both the famous photograph of the end of the marathon in 1908 that some have claimed shows Sir Arthur Conan Doyle helping Dorando Pietri at the finish line (Lovesey explains that the two men actually were Clerk of the Course Jack Andrew and Chief Medical Officer Michael Bulger), and Conan Doyle's later efforts to rally support for British participation in the Olympics. The first issue of Nicholas Twit: The Schoolboy Sherlock Holmes (June 2002) has two stories by Cenarth Fox about a young fan who winds up solving mys- teries, plus Sherlockian Snippits and word games. The magazine is Austral- ian, and a quarterly with 24 pages; it costs AU$6.00 plus shipping, and you can order only through the publisher's web-site at . Jun 02 #5 "The Tale of the Giant Rat of Sumatra" was written, performed, and produced in Hollywood "that foggy September of '73" by The Firesign Theatre; it was issued as a phonograph record in 1974 (described as "a thrilling mis-adventure from 'The Cheque Book of Hemlock Stones'"), and Tim O'Connor has noted that it's now available as a CD (HWLGH1 0762) from Collectors' Choice Music (900 North Rohlwing Road, Itasca, IL 60143) (800-993-6344) for $14.95. Issue #49 of Sherlock offers its usual coverage of crime fiction (Sherlock- ian and otherwise). Tony Earnshaw reports that the BBC has donated copies of otherwise-unavailable programs from Peter Cushing's 1968 television ser- ies ("A Study in Scarlet"/"The Sign of Four"/"The Boscombe Valley Mystery"/ "The Blue Carbuncle") to the National Museum of Photography, Film & Tele- vision (Bradford, West Yorkshire, BD1 1NQ, England). Visitors are welcome to view the programs, and the archive holdings (now more than 700 titles) are listed at (the Cushing shows are not yet listed). And Crime Scene 2002 ("Criminal Film and Fiction Exposed") will be held on July 11-14 at the National Film Theatre (Belvedere Road, South Bank, Water- loo, London SE1 8XT (020-7255-144) ; the schedule includes speeches by Gavin Collinson (on "Holmes and His Habit") and David Stuart Davies (on Holmes on radio), a performance by Roger Llew- ellyn in "Sherlock Holmes - The Last Act!", and presentation of the maga- zine's "Sherlock" awards for 2001 (the winners include Dr. Joseph Bell in "Murder Rooms" for best television detective, and Tony Earnshaw for his AN ACTOR AND A RARE ONE: PETER CUSHING AS SHERLOCK HOLMES). Sherlock is a bimonthly, and subscriptions cost L23.70 (U.K.)/L26.00 (con- tinent)/$40.00 (elsewhere); Box 100, Chichester, West Sussex PO18 8HD, Eng- land . It's also available from their American agent Classic Specialties (Box 19058, Cincinnati, OH 45219) (877-233-3823) ; credit-card orders welcome at both addresses, and back issues are available. Rebecca Bohner relays news from Laurie R. King, who plans to start writing the next Mary Russell book (which will take Russell and Holmes to India) in August, for publication in the spring of 2004. And she'll be participating in a discussion panel at Books by the Bay in San Francisco at noon on July 20. She'll also be at Bouchercon in Austin, Texas, on Oct. 17-20. It's not quite breaking news, but it seems there's a Canonical reason not to swim in at least one of New York City's rivers. An "F.Y.I." item in the N.Y. Times (Aug. 1, 1999), spotted by Bud Livingston, responded to a query about a sighting of a group of large milky-white jellyfish in the East Riv- er, from a reader who wondered what salt-water organisms were doing in the East River. The response began, "The breast stroke, perhaps?" and went on to note that the East River actually isn't a river: it's a saltwater strait that connects Long Island Sound with New York Harbor. Dr. Dennis A. Thoney (a New York Aquarium marine biologist) explained that it's not uncommon for *Aurelia aurita* to float into the river in the summer, and that it's sting is not severe compared with that of the lion's mane, or *Cyanea capillata*, which also is found in East River waters, though in smaller numbers. Jun 02 #6 This year's Christmas card from The Sherlock Holmes Society of London will celebrate the centenary of the first edition of THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES: the card will show Douglas E. West's watercolor of Holmes, Watson, and Lestrade lying in wait for the Hound. $13.00 post- paid for ten cards (L5.50 to the U.K., L6.00 to Europe, L7.00 elsewhere); checks payable to the Society, please, with orders sent to Cdr. G. S. Stav- ert, 22 Homeheights, Clarence Parade, Southsea, Hants. PO5 3NN, England. Note: you can order now, but the cards will not be shipped until September. Karen Murdock spotted THE DEVIL HIMSELF: VILLAINY IN DETECTIVE FICTION AND FILM, edited by Stacy Gillis and Philippa Gates (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2002; 232 pp., $64.95); the title of the book is taken from the Canon, and there are many references to Sherlock Holmes, as well as a chapter by Cath- erine Wynne on "Philanthropies and Villainies: The Conflict of the Imperial and Anti-Imperial in Conan Doyle". English actor David Ian Davies has recorded "Silver Blaze" (unabridged) on a CD issued by One Voice Recordings, and he has done an excellent job with the story and with various voices. It's available for $12.00 (plus ship- ping) from Classic Specialties (Box 19058, Cincinnati, OH 45219) (877-233- 3823) ; credit-card orders welcomed. And the electronically-enabled can hear a six-minute sample of the reading at a web-site at . Patricia and Dick DiFalco make delightful teddy bears, including Sherlock Holmes (shown here) and Dr. Watson; they're cute and cuddly, and 17" high (seated), and they cost $95.00 each (plus $10.00 shipping per order). More information is available from the DiFalco Bear Company, Box 700192, Plymouth, MI 48170 (810-632-9631). The blurb in the June issue of Inside Borders reports that "Artemis Fowl is a very unusual hero. He has the astuteness of Sherlock Holmes, the sang-froid of James Bond, and the attitude of Attila the Hun. And he's only 12 years old." The young-adult series, written by Eoin Colfer, is published by Hyperion; ARTEMIS FOWL is out in paperback ($6.99) and ARTEMIS FOWL: THE ARCTIC INCIDENT in hardcover ($16.95). Tsukasa Kobayashi and Akane Higashiyama have completed their translation of THE COMPLETE SHERLOCK HOLMES into Japanese, for a hard-cover set published by Kawade-Shobou-Shinsha: A STUDY IN SCARLET appeared in 1997 and THE CASE- BOOK OF SHERLOCK HOLMES this year. The set is a translation of THE OXFORD SHERLOCK HOLMES, and this is the first time that all the stories have been translated into Japanese by the same Sherlockian translators (the total of their books written in or translated into Japanese is now 69). The set of nine volumes costs Y31,600 (plus shipping), and the publisher's address is Sentagaya 2-32-2, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 151-0051, Japan. The Spermaceti Press: Peter E. Blau, 3900 Tunlaw Road NW #119, Washington, DC 20007-4830 (telephone: 202-338-1808) Jul 02 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press The Doyles were an interesting family. James and Catherine Tynan Doyle of Dublin had six children, one of them the artist John Doyle (the grandfather of Arthur Conan Doyle); another was a daughter, Anna Maria Doyle, who isn't mentioned in any of biographies of Sir Arthur. But his grand-aunt now has her own biography: 'IT COMMENCED WITH TWO...': THE STORY OF MARY ANN DOYLE, FIRST COMPANION OF CATHERINE MCAULEY, by Bonaventure Brennan (2001). Anna Maria was born in Dublin in 1801; she met Catherine McAuley in 1827, and they became nuns in 1831, Anna Maria taking the name Sister Mary Ann. She helped found the Sisters of Mercy, and served the poor in Ireland until her death in 1866. The biography, which includes information on the Doyle fam- ily, is now out-of-print, but may be reprinted (and likely will cost E30.00 postpaid); if you are interested in a copy of the second printing, write to Sister Bonaventure (2 St. Brigid's Court, Athboy, County Meath, Ireland). Daniel S. Knight died on July 6. He was a lawyer and an ardent oenophile, and a loyal fan of both grand opera and Gilbert & Sullivan operettas, as well as a Sherlockian, and he presided over The Sons of the Copper Beeches of Philadelphia as their Headmastiff from 1995 to 2000. Which actor played a ghostly Sherlock Holmes? The Toronto Star (July 2) ran Peter Calamai's story about the new Canadian satellite SCISAT-1 that will be launched into orbit next January, carrying two instruments that will monitor chemical reactions in the atmosphere and monitor the Earth's ozone layer. The instruments are the Fourier Transform Spectrometer (FTS) and the Measurements of Aerosol Extinction in the Strat- osphere and Troposphere Retrieved by Occultation (MAESTRO); he's given them the nicknames Sherlock Holmes and Watson, and notes that the nicknames have caught on with journalists, but not (yet) with the public. Peter also noted that Cambridge professor Richard Chorley died on May 12. He was a noted physical geographer and geomorphologist, and his obituary in The Times (June 24) reported that after his retirement in 1995 he regaled colleagues with tales of his latest efforts to prove that Sherlock Holmes had been a member of Sidney Sussex College, of which Chorley had been Vice Master. "This improbable project once led him to send a house brick pur- porting to come from the College to a Holmes society in Japan." Chorley's SHERLOCK HOLMES AT SIDNEY SUSSEX COLLEGE, 1871-1873: AN IMAGINA- TIVE RECONSTRUCTION is a carefully-researched, illustrated, and footnoted pastiche published in 1997; the 40-page pamphlet still is available (L5.41 postpaid to the U.K./L5.99 to the continent/L5.83 elsewhere) from the Sid- ney Sussex Society (attn: Wendy Hedley), Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge CB2 3HU, England (checks should be made payable to Sidney Sussex College, please), and credit-card orders are welcome by mail or at their web-site at . Gerald Campion died on July 9. He began his acting career in movies as an uncredited soldier in "The Drums" (1938) with Sabu and Raymond Massey, and had many more roles on screen and television, including Morse Hudson in the Granada version of "The Six Napoleons" in 1986. Jul 02 #2 Garry James continues to report on Canonical weaponry in Guns & Ammo: his article on his test of the Webley Metropolitan Police Revolver (Aug. 2002) notes that some believe that Sherlock Holmes used one to dispatch both Tonga and the Hound of the Baskervilles. James was unable to hit a target at 25 yards, but did much better at the "more acceptable" range of seven yards. They're not quite as Canonical, certainly, as the 221b Baker Street bricks that Abbey National made available as souvenirs in 1981, after they built their new headquarters in Baker Street, but bricks from Edgar Allan Poe's home are now available. According to an item in the June-July issue of The 3rd Degree (the newsletter of the Mystery Writers of America), 700 bricks were retrieved from the Poe House on West 3rd Street in Greenwich Village when New York University demolished the historic building, and they're now on sale through a partnership between the MWA and the Edgar Allan Poe Mus- eum. $40.00 each, including shipping (checks should be payable to the Poe Foundation, please), from the Museum (attn: Steve Hicks), 1914-16 East Main Street, Richmond, VA 23223 (804-648-5523). Which actor played a ghostly Sherlock Holmes? Basil Wraithbone. Credit to David Stuart Davies, who notes that Holmes often assisted Spectre Lestrade. Don Werby ("Old Abrahams") died on June 15. Don and his wife Willy assem- bled the spectacular version of the sitting-room that delighted visitors to the S. Holmes, Esq. restaurant at the Grosvenor Towers and then on the top floor of the Holiday Inn at Union Square in San Francisco. Another version of their sitting-room can still be seen, at the Grosvenor Hotel near Disney World in Orlando. He received his Investiture from the Baker Street Irreg- ulars in 1986. Harry Houdini is honored by a new stamp issued by the U.S. Pos- tal Service this month (one year after the 75th anniversary of his death in 1926); Houdini knew Conan Doyle, and argued with him about Spiritualism. Houdini wrote about Conan Doyle in A MAGICIAN AMONG THE SPIRITS (1924), and Conan Doyle's article on "The Riddle of Houdini" was published in The Strand Magazine in Aug. and Sept. 1927, and reprinted in THE EDGE OF THE UNKNOWN (1930). CURIOUS INCIDENTS, edited by J. R. Campbell and Charles Prepo- lec (Calgary: Mad for a Mystery, 2002; 96 pp., $8.00), offers six new pas- tiches (six Sherlockian and one Gillettean) and artwork by Philip Cornell. The publisher is at 3805 Marlborough Drive NE #D-308, Calgary, AB T2A 5M4, Canada; postpaid prices are $10.00 (U.S.), CA$17.00 (Canada), $12.00 (else- where); payment by check or money order, please. "The Case of the Vanishing Author" (an entertaining 45-minute program writ- ten by S