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 Stephen Sheridan and broadcast by BBC Radio 4 on June 19) dealt with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Dorothy L. Sayers joining forces to investigate the mysterious disappearance of Agatha Christie in 1926. Derek Waring was Conan Doyle, and Roger Johnson notes that Waring also played Watson in 1988 and 1989 in "Sherlock Holmes: The Musical" (with Ron Moody as Holmes). Are there other actors who have played both Conan Doyle and Watson? Jul 02 #3 The Sherlockian parody "The South Sea Soup Company" (1931) was the first published story written by Kenneth Millar (aka Ross Macdonald), and Bill Vande Water reports that it's reprinted in HARDBOILED MYSTERY WRITERS: RAYMOND CHANDLER, DASHIELL HAMMETT, ROSS MACDONALD: A LIT- ERARY REFERENCE, edited by Matthew Bruccoli and Richard Layman (New York: Carroll & Graf, 2002; 324 pp., $22.00). Neil Simon's delightful film "Murder by Death" (1976) is often seen on tel- evision (most recently on Turner Classic Movies cable on July 21), but it always seems to be the theatrical release rather than the slightly differ- ent version broadcast on television in 1979. That television version had a brief scene at the end with Keith McConnell as Sherlock Holmes and Rich- ard Peel as Dr. Watson; does anyone have an off-the-air videocassette of the television version with the Holmes and Watson scene? William A. S. Sarjeant died on July 8. He was a professor of geology at the University of Saskatchewan, and honored as a fellow of the Royal Soci- ety of Canada; a fantasy writer, using the pseudonym Antony Swithin for his series of novels about "The Perilous Quest of Lyonesse" (and he merged the two fields when he delivered a paper at a meeting of the Mythopoeic Society on "The Geology of Middle Earth"); an energetic book collector and a writer about detective fiction; and he was both a Sherlockian and a Doylean: Bill was co-author with Alan Bradley of the delightful spoof MS. HOLMES OF BAKER STREET: THE TRUTH ABOUT SHERLOCK HOLMES (1989), and with Dana M. Batory of fine scholarly articles on "Sussex *Iguanodon* Footprints and the Writing of *The Lost World* (1989) and "'The Terror of Blue John Gap'- A Geological and Literary Study" (1994). John Linnell and John Flansburgh of "They Might Be Giants" (the rock group that took its name from the 1971 George C. Scott film) were in Washington last month, performing songs from their new children's album "No!" (which has been #1 on the Billboard children's chart). The group has a web-site at . Philip S. Hench (1896-1965) was a noted doctor (he won the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1950), an enthusiastic Sherlock- ian (he was for many years a member of The Norwegian Explor- ers, and led the society's campaign to place a plaque honor- ring Sherlock Holmes at the Reichenbach Falls), and an ener- getic book-collector (in 1978 his wife Mary donated his col- lection, including four copies of Beeton's Christmas Annual for 1887, to the University of Minnesota). Last year Micro- nesia included his portrait in a sheetlet of stamps issued to honor the 100th anniversary of the Nobel Prize. "Researchers have found the earliest surviving work of world famous author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle," the BBC reported on July 7, "his signature carved into a school desk top." According to the BBC story (forwarded by Takeshi Shimizu), the desk is at Stonyhurst, in Lancashire, where Conan Doyle was a student from 1868 to 1875, and "was described in reports by his teachers as lazy and slovenly." M.C. Black notes that the desk was shown to The North- ern Musgraves when they visited Stonyhurst in 2000. And John Baesch notes that Stonyhurst has a web-site at . Jul 02 #4 Frederick C. Page ("The Arcadia Mixture") died on July 12. He was a corporate recruiter, and one of the founders of The Arca- dia Mixture in Ann Arbor in 1976, serving as its Chief Tobacconist for many years; in 1979 Fred participated in the John Bennett Shaw workshop at Wayne State University in Detroit, and he received his Investiture from The Baker Street Irregulars in 1990. Randall Garrett's LORD DARCY (1984) has been reprinted as a trade paperback (New York: Baen Books, 2002; 688 pp., $18.00); it's an omnibus edition with TOO MANY MAGICIANS, LORD DARCY INVESTIGATES, and MURDER AND MAGIC. They're fine alternate-universe novels (magic works, and there's lots of detection needed) with many pleasant Sherlockian allusions in TOO MANY MAGICIANS. "Monk" is a new one-hour television series, broadcast by USA cable, star- ring Tony Shalhoub as obsessive-compulsive detective Adrian Monk, who fre- quently is seen performing Sherlockian observation and deduction. In the two-hour premiere (first broadcast on July 12), his assistant Sharona Flem- ing (played by Bitty Schram) tells a police officer: "I love this part. He does this Zen Sherlock Holmes thing." And it's an interesting series, with plot and humor and good acting. The June issue of the quarterly newsletter of The Friends of the Sherlock Holmes Collections at the University of Minnesota has tributes to Frederick Dorr Steele (illustrated with original artwork owned by the collections), Jon Lellenberg's discussion of Jack Tracy's correspondence with Dame Jean Conan Doyle and others, and other reports from and about the collections. Copies are available from Richard J. Sveum (111 Elmer L. Andersen Library, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455) . The summer issue of The Magic Door (the newsletter published by The Friends of the Arthur Conan Doyle Collection at the Toronto Reference Library) has an interesting report on the first Cameron Hollyer Memorial Lecture, given by Isaac Gewirtz (curator of the Berg Collection at the New York Public Li- brary), about the collection and its Sherlockian and Doylean holdings (and with photographs of two pages from "The Hound of the Baskervilles"), plus other news from the library; this is the first issue edited by Peter Wood, who has succeeded Chris Redmond on the editor's green settee. Copies are available from Doug Wrigglesworth (16 Sunset Street, Holland Landing, ON L9N 1H4, Canada) . "Sherlock Is Best Fictional Sleuth" was the headline on a Reuters report on July 17 on the results of a survey carried out by mail-order bookseller BCA . Sherlock Holmes won the votes of 27 percent of British readers; Hercule Poirot was second (16 percent) and Inspector Morse third (15 percent). Stu Shiffman noted an allusion to Sherlock Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle in S. M. Stirling's THE PESHAWAR LANCERS (New York: Roc/New American Library, 2002; 420 pp., $23.95); the allusion is minor, but the book is imaginative alternative history: a cluster of comets strikes the Earth in 1878, with a terrible effect on North America and western Europe, but the British Empire manages to shift its base to India, where the story is set in 2025. Stir- ling offers lots of derring-do, and a vivid picture of the British Raj. Jul 02 #5 Christopher Roden reports that the Calabash Press has published new editions of David Stuart Davies' BENDING THE WILLOW: JEREMY BRETT AS SHERLOCK HOLMES (with a new afterword and additional photographs), and of THE BAKER STREET FILE: A GUIDE TO THE APPEARANCE AND HABITS OF SHER- LOCK HOLMES (the "background bible" used for the Granada series). And THE CHRONICLES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES: VOLUME 4, with four new pastiches by Denis O. Smith. Details are available from the publisher (Box 1360, Ashcroft, BC V0K 1A0, Canada) . Sean Cunningham's comedy/musical "Sherlock Holmes and the Secret of Making Whoopee" will be produced during the New York International Fringe Festival with six performances (Aug. 18-25) at La Tea Theater (107 Suffolk Street); additional details are available from the Fringe box office (212-420-8877) (888-374-6436) . "See the master detective try to get Jill the Ripper. Or any woman." The new "fall preview" catalog from Signals Video (Box 64428, St. Paul, MN 55164 (800-530-2225 has two pages of Sherlockian videocassettes, paperweights, teapots, and clocks. The Algonquin Hotel has a new owner. Olympus Real Estate of Dallas and the Camberley Hotel Co. of Atlanta, who bought the hotel in 1997, have sold it to Miller Global Properties, which has selected Destination Hotels & Prop- erties to manage the Algonquin; the hotel will celebrate its 100th anniver- sary in November. The new owners plan to begin work soon on enhancements to guest rooms, installation of high-speed Internet access in all of the guest and meeting rooms, and other renovations intended to meet demands of business travelers. Maurice Denham died on June 24. He began his start as a professional actor in 1934 with the Hull Repertory Company, and went on to a long career as a distinguished character actor on stage, screen, radio and television. He was awarded the OBE in 1992; he played Josiah Amberley in "The Retired Col- ourman" (with Douglas Wilmer) for the BBC in 1965, and the Rev. Merridew in "The Last Vampyre" (with Jeremy Brett) for Granada in 1993. It has been six years since The Bull Terrier Club of Boston University had an excursion to a polo match, and Scott Monty is planning another one, to Newport, R.I., on Sept. 14, for a tailgate party and a chance to watch USA vs. England. You can contact Scott at 1836 Columbia Road, South Boston, MA 02127 (617-464-4153) . Polo is mentioned in the Canon, of course, and Scott reports that the full tournament schedule and directions are available at a web-site at . Anglofile reports that "Case of Evil" will debut on USA cable on Oct. 25. The film stars James D'Arcy (Sherlock Holmes), Roger Morlidge (Dr. Watson), Richard E. Grant (Mycroft), and Vincent D'Onofrio (Moriarty); Holmes is a young "super-smart, sexy society star with a growing reputation among the young women of London," and the story "has Moriarty trying to corner the opium market with his powerful new drug, heroin." Anglofile is a monthly newsletter offering detailed coverage of British entertainment; Box 33515, Decatur, GA 30033 ($15.00 a year). And there's a web-site for the film at . Jul 02 #6 "In touching upon . . . Sherlock Holmes, he said that detective stories are rather primitive as a literary production, but make a good setting for the dramatic." From a story in the [Northampton] Daily Gazette (Oct. 31, 1894) about Arthur Conan Doyle's lecture in Northampton, Mass., the previous evening (kindly forwarded by John Lockwood). The celebration of the centenary of THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES continues (since the book was published in 1902), and some excellent scholarship has been published in Britain. The 2001 issue of The Musgrave Papers offers 88 pages of essays by authors from both sides of the Atlantic (including the late Prudence Moran Swift); L7.50 or $12.00 postpaid (checks payable to The Northern Musgraves, please) from Paul M. Chapman (Alderley, Chapel Street, Easingwold, North Yorkshire YO16 3AF, England). And Richard Lancelyn Green has an excellent two-part article in the winter 2001 and summer 2002 issues of the Sherlock Holmes Journal on how the story was written and published; he has discovered where and when Conan Doyle was when he wrote and did his research, and offers a great deal of new informa- tion. SHJ subscription costs vary depending on where you are and on wheth- er you're adult or junior; details are available from Bob Ellis, 13 Crofton Avenue, Orpington, Kent BR6 8DU England , and the society has a web-site at . Leo McKern died on July 23. His acting career began on stage in Australia in 1944, and he moved to England in 1946, acting with the Royal Vic and the Shakespeare Memorial Theater. His first film was "Murder in the Cathedral" (1952), and is best-known today as the star of "Rumpole of the Bailey" on television; he also played a bravura Moriarty in the film "The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother" (1975). The comic-book mini-series RUSE continues; #9 appeared this month ($2.95) with Simon Archard and Emma Bishop investigating a new mystery (the series has excellent not-quite-Sherlockian atmosphere and artwork. Also issued in July: RUSE: ENTER THE DETECTIVE, a trade paperback ($15.95) reprinting iss- ues #1-6. And Comic Shop News has reported that there will be more issues of THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN, which begins a second mini-series in August; a trade paperback is due in September with the six issues in the first mini-series. Bill Barton notes that Sherlock Holmes continues to appear in role-playing games: GURPS STEAM-TECH, edited by William Stoddard, is a supplement for Steve Jackson Games' Generic Universal Role-Playing System (GURPS); it's a book that describes both historical gadgets of the Victorian era and those existing only in Victorian scientific romances (including H. G. Wells and the modern Victorian science-fiction genre known as "steampunk"), and there are descriptions and illustrations of the "Holmes I Detection Automaton" (a Sherlockian steam-age robot) and the "Mycroft IV Police Engine" (a S'ian- themed Babbage Difference Engine). It retails for $22.95 in stores (less in some on-line retail sites) and it's available directly from Steve Jack- son Games (Box 18597, Austin, TX 78760) . The Spermaceti Press: Peter E. Blau, 3900 Tunlaw Road NW #119, Washington, DC 20007-4830 (telephone: 202-338-1808) Aug 02 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press THREE PORGES PARODIES AND A PASTICHE (New York: Magico Magazine, 1988; 54 pp., $25.00) is the only collection of the Sherlockian writings of the pro- lific writer and journalist Arthur Porges, whose "Stately Homes" parodies were launched in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine (Feb. 1957); the book also has a pastiche on "The Aluminium Crutch" (published for the first time), a letter from Fred Dannay (editor of EQMM), a Porges article about Arthur Co- nan Doyle, and an interesting introduction by Michael H. Kean. Porges is a fine writer, and the book still is available from the publisher (Box 156, New York, NY 10002) for $27.00 postpaid. Ron Walotsky died on July 29. He was a science-fiction artist who work was used on hundreds of book covers, including Anne Rice's QUEEN OF THE DAMNED and Steven King's CARRIE, and he illustrated Sterling Lanier's "A Father's Tale" (a giant rat of Sumatra pastiche) in the July 1974 issue of The Maga- zine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Leonard Nimoy's I AM SPOCK (New York: Hyperion, 1995; 342 pp., $24.95) is the sequel to his I AM NOT SPOCK (1975); there's much about "Star Trek" and his other work, and a mention that Nicholas Meyer (director of "Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan") was a Sherlock Holmes buff as well as an opera lover: one day, preparing to go directly from the studio to see a performance of "Carmen", Meyer was dressed in his evening attire "as Holmes himself, com- plete with stalking hat and Inverness cape!" The third season of "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World" is in re-runs on Warner Brothers channels, and the first two seasons can be seen weekday mornings on TNT cable. And Jennifer O'Dell, who plays untamed jungle-girl Veronica on the series, is Playboy's "Babe of the Month" (on p. 22) in the September issue. Barbara and Christopher Roden have a new Calabash Press catalog (Box 1360, Ashcroft, BC V0K 1A0, Canada . It is their seventh catalog, with new and older Sherlockian and Doylean titles as well as some special discount offers. And they've written to members of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society that one more issue of ACD will be published ink-on-paper; thereafter the society and its journal will become web-based at . The summer rare-book list from Priscilla Juvelis (1166 Massachusetts Ave- nue, Cambridge, MA 02138) offers some fine examples of contemporary book arts, including a copy of the first American book edi- tion of A STUDY IN SCARLET, rebound by Donald Glaister in spectacular (and appropriately decorated multi-colored morocco ($12,000). "Beyond Oscar Wilde: Portraits of Late-Victorian Writers and Artists from the Mark Samuels Lasner Collection" is the title of an exhibition that will open at the University Gallery at the University of Delaware Sept. 5. The exhibition will include a previously unknown caricature of Wilde drawn by Max Beerbohm, and portraits and self-portraits of their contemporaries (but not Arthur Conan Doyle). The exhibition runs through Nov. 10, and the Uni- versity is in Newark, Del. (302-831-8242) . Aug 02 #2 Dinosaurs are quite popular with philatelists who have topical collections, and Liberia frequently issues such stamps, such as the 2001 miniature sheet and souvenir sheet (noted by Phillip Bergem) that celebrated Arthur Conan Doyle's THE LOST WORLD: Aug 02 #3 It's likely that most readers have seen advertisements and re- views for the new movie "Tadpole" (starring Sigourney Weaver, John Ritter, and Bebe Neuwirth). But did you wonder whether it was Sher- lockian? Possibly that it might have something to do with Percy Phelps? Bud Livingston made the connection (of course it appears from the reviews that only the title has any Canonical significance). Christie's will offer the second part of Richard M. Lackritz's collection of detective fiction (material from 1920 to 1945) on Sept. 24, at 20 Rocke- feller Plaza, New York, NY 10020 (212-636-2010) . Gideon Hill (Headmastiff of The Sons of the Copper Beeches of Philadelphia) reports that Abington Township has just completed construction of its new Copper Beech Elementary School (at 825 North Easton Road in Glenside); the grounds are landscaped with the namesake trees. Gideon also notes that one of the buildings that were demolished to make way for the new school housed the office of a private investigator who had a window sign showing a magni- fying glass and a deerstalker. Russ Mann notes that the Walt Disney animation "The Great Mouse Detective" (1986) has been issued on DVD (with a list price $29.99, but it's available for less at discount sites and stores). Cameron & Smith (Box 637, Vero Beach, FL 32961) (800- 472-9862) offer a "Sher- lock Holmes" in the Halcyon Days scarecrow series of bonbonniere; it's hand-painted porcelain on an enamel base, 3.75" high, and the bottom of the figure reads "Scarecrows take many forms this one is based on the famous English fictional detective Sherlock Holmes." It's in a lined presentation case, and costs $225.00 plus shipping. The excellent "Nero Wolfe" series continues to air on A&E cable, but this will be the last season of origi- nal programs: Allen Sabinson (A&E's senior vice pres- ident of programming) has been fired, and the series has been cancelled (because, according to a report, A&E has decided it can't afford to do original series. The Jack Myers Re- port, at , noted on Aug. 11 that A&E prime-time year- to-date ratings declined 15% in households and 13% in adults 25-54. And the furnishings of the set have been dispersed: the Nero Wolfe Set De- partment sold many of the props on-line this month, and the material that did not sell on-line to fans was to be sold to other set firms. Three of the items were Sherlockian, two of them paintings from Wolfe's office: the portrait of Sherlock Holmes seen on the wall above Archie Goodwin's desk in the series pilot "The Golden Spiders" but not in other programs (offered for $995.00), and the painting of the waterfall that did not look as much like the Reichenbach as it might have (sold for $550.00). The third item was Nero Wolfe's "brown and grey plaid country coat with cape and matching hat" (actually an Inverness and deerstalker) seen in the opening to "Immune to Murder" on A&E this month (offered for $500.00). Aug 02 #4 Derham Groves continues to produce imaginative and attractive booklets from his Black Jack Press (which is in Victoria rather than Ballarat); the most recent is THE REBUSES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, by Aus- tralian artist Vane Lindesay. The 46-page booklet is described (and quite accurately) by Derham as "a surrealist-style picture-puzzle book", and he has a few copies available for US $5.00 postpaid (in currency, please); his address is 485 Albert Street, Brunswick West, Vic. 3055, Australia. The comic-book mini-series RUSE continues; #10 appeared this month ($2.95) with Simon Archard and Emma Bishop and excellent-but-not-quite-Sherlockian artwork. Also in the shops is #1 in the second volume of THE LEAGUE OF EX- TRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN ($3.50); it's set on Mars, with most of the dialogue is in Martian, but it's only leading up to future events on Earth, where we may again encounter one or more characters from the Canon. Collectors will recall the catalogs of Sherlockiana issued by Sylvian Ham- ilton in the 1980s and early 1990s, first from England and then from Scot- land, where she retired from the book business; she's now an author, with a series about Sir Richard Straccan, a former Crusader who does his detecting in the Middle Ages. The first book in the series was THE BONE-PEDLAR (Lon- don: Orion Books, 2000; 264 pp., L12.99), and its opening sentence does get one's attention: "In the crypt of the abbey church at Hallowdene, the monks were boiling their bishop." The next book in the series was THE PENDRAGON BANNER, followed by THE GLEEMAIDEN, and Sylvian is getting ready to start work on a fourth book. For those who may be wondering why the bishop was being boiled, "Over the bishop's deathbed, the calculating eyes of the sac- ristan and the almoner had accurately weighed up the advantages of a splen- didly profitable set of skeletal relics, and Bishop Alain was barely cold before he was eviscerated, dismembered, and simmering in the largest pot the monastery kitchen could furnish." Trevor Raymond reports from Canada that the Sherlock Holmes Pub in Guelph has closed. The new establishment, in the same premises (which will be re- decorated) is to be a Frugal Macdougall's. "So every summer I truly intend/My intellectual sloth to end,/And every summer for years and years/I've read Sherlock Holmes and The Three Musketeers" (from Ogden Nash's poem "Each June I Make a Promise Sober"). The U.S. Postal Service honored Nash this year, celebrat- ing the 100th anniversary of his birth. Hichimes Lagg notes in a letter in the July-August issue of The Petrel Fly- er (published by The Stormy Petrels of British Columbia) an interesting ob- ituary published in the Economist (May 18, 2002), reporting the death, on May 11, of Joseph Bonanno, the well-known (at least in some circles) Ameri- can mafioso who many believe may have inspired Mario Puzo's novel THE GOD- FATHER. According to the obituary, Bonanno "was said to have invented the double coffin, in which the body of someone who had died naturally would conceal a murdered corpse." Lagg also notes that Bonanno was born in 1906, while Baring-Gould dates the disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax in 1902, and the story was published in 1911. One wonders, of course, whether he might have been inspired by the Sherlock Holmes story. Aug 02 #5 Often the simplest Sherlockian questions can be the most inter- esting. Such as, "What were Sherlock Holmes' first words to Watson?" Or, "What are the titles of the sixty Sherlock Holmes stories?" Well, try answering that question, without help from a table of contents or a list of abbreviations of the titles: just write them down, from memory, on a piece of paper. And keep track of how long it takes to get to fifty, and to fifty five, and to sixty (if you do get to sixty). The late Wayne Swift did it handily: he happily recited them from memory. If you can't do it handily, it's interesting to consider which were the last stories to be added to your list, and why it was more difficult for you to remember them. And how did you do with the first of the two questions? Sherlock Holmes' first words to Watson? If your answer was, "You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive," you're wrong. Most people are. You can look it up. Sherlock Holmes' first words to Watson were, "How are you?" Forecast for October: THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES, with a new introduc- tion by Laurie R. King; a Modern Library/Random House paperback ($7.95). MURDER IN BAKER STREET: NEW TALES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, edited by Martin H. Greenberg, Jon Lellenberg, and Daniel Stashower; a paperback reprint from Carroll & Graf ($14.00). SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE SECRET ALLIANCE, by Larry Millett; a paperback reprint of his fourth pastiche set in Minnesota, from Penguin Putnam ($6.99). "The Many Cases of Sherlock Holmes" is the theme of Bill Dorn's Sherlock Holmes Calendar for 2003; it has monthly artwork by Nancy Beiman, dates for Canonical cases, founding dates for Sherlockian societies, and other dates of significance in the Sherlockian world. It costs $16.15 postpaid (or CA$29.39 to Canada or $20.75 elsewhere), and you can send your checks to William S. Dorn at 2045 South Monroe Street, Denver, CO 80210; there's a web-site at . It isn't too late to consider joining The Bull Terrier Club for their excursion to a polo match (USA vs. England) at Newport, R.I., on Sept. 14. And if you need an incentive, there's an enter- taining cover story on "The Boys of Polo" in the Aug. 19 issue of New York magazine; "They've Got Game," is the title of the story, which notes that "With its alluring com- bination of beautiful horses, bruising competition, Latin charm, and A-list celebrities, polo has become the NASCAR of the Moet & Chandon set." Polo also is mentioned in the Canon, of course, and more information about the Newport event is available from Scott Monty, 1386 Columbia Road #2, Boston, MA 02127 (617-484-4153) Audio Book Contractors (Box 40115, Washington, DC 20016) continues to offer readings of a long list of authors, including Arthur Conan Doyle and Chris- topher Morley, on cassettes for rental or purchase (and after 18 years they are approaching their 1,000th recording). THE SIGN OF FOUR (with Flo Gib- son as reader) is the latest addition to their Conan Doyle titles. Aug 02 #6 Bert Coules reported to the Arthur Conan Doyle electronic mail- ing list on his recent visit to the National Portrait Gallery in London. Walking by the enquiry desk, it occurred to him to ask a ques- tion. "Excuse me." "Yes, sir?" "I was wondering if there's a portrait of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in the collection." "I'm sorry, who?" "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle." "That's what I thought you said. Well, no, there isn't." "Really?" "Well, there wouldn't be, would there? I mean, he wasn't a real person." She was quite convinced of this, but couldn't offer any reason for her certainty. It was just "something that everyone knows". It took quite some persuasion on my part to get her to look up poor ACD in the cat- alog. The Gallery has two portraits of Conan Doyle, both of them in stor- age, Bert notes, adding, "That's what you get for not being real." British actor Roger Llewellyn continues to tour in David Stuart Davies' one-man play "Sherlock Holmes - The Last Act!" (which was seen by many Sherlock- ians during the birthday festivities in New York in 2000); he'll perform the play at the Kavinoky Thea- tre in Buffalo, N.Y., from Jan. 9 to Feb. 9, 2003; 320 Porter Avenue, Buffalo, NY 14201, and their web-site is at . Richard Levinson and William Link have Sherlockian credentials (as creators of the television series "Murder, She Wrote" with its pilot story "The Mur- der of Sherlock Holmes"), and so does Alfred Hitch- cock. And William Link, current president of the Mystery Writers of America, had a delightful story to tell in the MYSTERY WRITERS ANNUAL (distributed at the MWA annual dinner in New York in May), about their three-hour lunch- eon conversation with him in the mid-1960s. They talked about many things, including credibility in films, and they noted his famous scene with Cary Grant being strafed by the crop-duster plane in "North by Northwest". Why would the heavies rent a plane, equip it with a machine gun and a pilot who could operate it when all they had to do was drive up in an anonymous car and dispense Cary with a gunshot? "That was one of my refrigerator sequen- ces," Hitchcock replied, explaining that the night after seeing the film, the movie-goer feels like a midnight snack. So he goes to the refrigerator and builds a delectable high-rise sandwich: ham, cheese, turkey, mayo--all lovingly described by a lip-smacking Hitchcock. While devouring the sand- wich it hits him that the crop-dusting scene is utterly preposterous. "But by then," Hitch said with a sly wink, "I have his money." The Practical, But Limited, Geologists will meet for drinks and dinner, in honor of the world's first forensic geologist, during the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Denver, on Wednesday, October 30, at 7:00 pm, at Dixon's Downtown Grill, at 1610 16th Street. Our tradition is to have neither scholarly papers, slide shows, nor quizzes; our agenda con- sits entirely of toasts (some scholarly, but many not). If you would like to join us for the festivities, please let me know. The Spermaceti Press: Peter E. Blau, 3900 Tunlaw Road NW #119, Washington, DC 20007-4830 (telephone: 202-338-1808) Sep 02 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press It was very nice to be able to see "The Adventures of Gerard" (1970) at the Library of Congress this month, and not just for the chance to see the film screened in a theater: I learned from a member of the audience that another Brigadier Gerard film is available on videocassette. "The Fighting Eagle" (1927) starred Rod La Rocque as Gerard, and Sally Rand in a supporting role (before her fan-dancing days), and it was directed by Donald Crisp (who was Col. Sebastian Moran in the 1929 film "The Return of Sherlock Holmes"); it is available from Grapevine Video on videocassette (NTSC format only) for $16.96 and on DVD for $19.95 (plus shipping); Box 46161, Phoenix, AZ 85063 . Grapevine also offers "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" on videocassette ($19.95) and DVD ($19.95) with shipping extra; it's a compilation of four silent films: "The Copper Beeches" (1912), "The Dying Detective " (1921), "The Devil's Foot" (1921), and "The Man with the Twisted Lip" (1921). THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, EPISODE 5, read by Edward Hardwicke, is the latest audiocassette set available from CSA Telltapes; as always, Hard- wicke is an excellent Watson, and the stories on the two cassettes are "A Scandal in Bohemia", "Silver Blaze", and "The Copper Beeches" (which were earlier available from Tangled Web Audio as SHERLOCK HOLMES: TALES OF BE- TRAYAL). CSA Telltapes's address is: 6a Archway Mews, 241a Putney Bridge Road, London SW15 2PE, England) ; the new set costs L9.95 postpaid (discounted to L7.95 at the web-site), and CSA offers other sets of the Sherlock Holmes stories. Mark Alberstat's 2003 Sherlock Holmes Calendar is illustrated with artwork from The Strand Magazine, and displays important Sherlockian birthdays and William S. Baring-Gould's dates for the cases. The cost is US$12.00 post- paid, and his address is 5 Lorraine Street, Dartmouth, NS B3A 2B9, Canada. Les Klinger, general editor of the Baker Street Irregulars' Manuscript Ser- ies, reports that the third volume, edited by Steven Doyle and planned for Jan. 2003, will feature Sherlockian artwork drawn by G. K. Chesterton for a never-published edition of the Sherlock Holmes stories, with new critical essays on Chesterton and the Canon, and reprints of several of Chesterton's essays on detective fiction. And the fourth volume, edited by William Hyd- er and planned for Jan. 2004, will present a facsimile of "The Six Napole- ons", with a transcript and new critical essays about the story. Les also reports that the fifth volume in his SHERLOCK HOLMES REFERENCE LI- BRARY will be THE RETURN OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, with an introduction by David Stuart Davies, and it will be available for purchase in New York during the birthday festivities in January. The first two volumes in the series, ANGELS OF DARKNESS: A DRAMA IN THREE ACTS and THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES (CHAPTER XI) debuted last January (Feb 02 #1), and they're still available; $35.00 each, plus shipping ($8.00 each or $9.50 for both, or $9.50 each or $12.00 for both outside North Am- erica), from The Baker Street Irregulars, Box 1360, Ashcroft, BC V0K 1A0, Canada . Sep 02 #2 The film "Shadow of a Doubt" (1943), directed by Alfred Hitch- cock, is included in the National Film Registry (selections are based on the films' "historic, cultural, or aesthetic importance"), and the Library of Congress recently restored the film from archival nitrate-stock sources; the new print was screened at the National Gallery of Art on Sept. 8. The film has been described as "Hitchcock's paragon of family suspense and small-town sociology: Joseph Cotton takes refuge with his sister's fam- ily while his adoring niece (Teresa Wright) assembles the puzzle of his in- famous part as a 'merry widow' murderer." Hume Cronyn plays a neighbor who is devoted mystery-magazine reader, and at one point he says, "That little Frenchman beats them all. You can talk all you like about Sherlock Holmes. That little Frenchman beats them all." Jeanne Jewell died on Sept. 30. She was a Sherlockian, as well as a wife, mother, and mother-in-law of Sherlockians, and one of the founders of The Bitches of the Copper Beeches of Philadelphia in the 1980s, for spouses who enjoyed convivial dining twice a year while The Sons of The Copper Beeches dined at the Orpheus Club. The latest issue of Scarlet Street (#45) focuses on the "Nero Wolfe" tele- vision series (recently cancelled by A&E but continuing in repeats), with interesting interviews with the actors, and stories about how the produc- tion of the series. And there's more, about Harry Alan Towers and Christo- pher Lee, and the first season of the radio series "The Adventures of Ell- ery Queen". $42.00 a year (for six issues); Box 604, Glen Rock, NJ 07452 . The new issue of Prescott's Press (published by The Three Garridebs) is a tribute to Bob Thomalen's eighteen Autumns in Baker Street, with 58 pages of photographs and reminiscences by almost 40 participants. Subscriptions cost $12.00 ($14.00 outside the U.S.) for four issues, from Warren Randall, 15 Fawn Lane West, South Setauket, NY 11720). Peter Ashman has reported that Doyle E. Holmes, a candidate in the primary race for state representative in Alaska this year, used a Sherlockian sil- houette on bumper stickers and other campaign materials; he lost to the in- cumbant, Bev Masek, who now will seek her fifth term in office in the gen- eral election in November. Holmes, who now has lost to Masek three times, told the Anchorage Daily News that his defeat was due to support Masek got from political groups such as the Alaska Outdoor Council and the National Rifle Association. "I think that it's just power politics," he said. Sep 02 #3 Thanks to Brian Taves for the latest news on the mini-series of "The Lost World" (starring Bob Hoskins as Challenger) that was broadcast in Britain last December: Arts & Entertainment cable will air the program in two parts on Oct. 6 and 7. There's all sort of material avail- able at A&E's web-site , including an opportunity to order the show on VHS cassettes or DVDs (if you order now, there's a $5.00 discount, and they'll ship orders on Oct. 8); cassettes cost $24/95/$19.95, and DVDs (with two hours of bonus programming) cost $39.95/$34.95). The comic-book mini-series RUSE continues; #11 appeared this month ($2.95) with Simon Archard and Emma Bishop and excellent-but-not-quite-Sherlockian artwork. Also in the shops is #2 in the second volume of THE LEAGUE OF EX- TRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN ($3.50); members of the League are investigating the mysterious Martian cylinder that has fallen to Earth in England. Bill Griffith's "Zippy the Pinhead" is a long-running comic strip which has fervent admirers among the readers of the Washington Post (and other news- papers); Mary Ellen Rich reports that Bill Griffith lives in Hadlyme, Conn- ecticut, and often uses people and places he likes in his work. This strip (which ran on July 31) shows Gillette Castle: It was in "The Norwood Builder" that Watson wrote that "I find, on looking over my notes, that this period includes the case of the papers of ex-Pres- ident Murillo, and also the shocking affair of the Dutch steamship Fries- land, which so nearly cost us both our lives." And Peter H. Wood noted a BBC news report (Sept. 3) that a team of English divers, attempting to sal- vage a cargo of tin ingots from the wreck of the Dutch ship Friesland off the coast of Galicia, had been arrested by the Spanish police. Peter Dev- lin, managing director of Force 9 Salvage, said that the Spanish government had awarded his company a licence to dive at the wreck, but the police had accused them of trying to steal gold and diamonds from a wreck, and of dam- aging Spain's heritage. The Friesland, which sank in 1877, was carrying a cargo with a current commercial value of L650,000. There were, of course, other ships with the same name (including the one that's mentioned in "The Lost World"), and "The Norwood Builder" is dated after Holmes returned from his Great Hiatus, so if Holmes and Watson were involved with the Friesland that sank in 1877, it might have had something to do with salvage. Sep 02 #4 Further to the report on the postage stamp honoring Ogden Nash (Aug 02 #4), his Sherlockian connections are more than poetic. Jon L. Lellenberg, in his IRREGULAR MEMORIES OF THE 'THIRTIES, reprinted (from the July 1946 issue of The Baker Street Journal) Christopher Morley's remembrance of a fateful gathering during the summer of 1930 at a "basement speakeasy, then momentarily esteemed by the Grub Street Runners of Messrs. Doubleday Doran and Co." That was when Frank Henry, "accompanied and rein- forced by his faithful assembly men" (among them Ogden Nash) suggested that Morley write a preface for THE COMPLETE SHERLOCK HOLMES. And, responding to a query from Bill Rabe, Nash later wrote that he had met Holmes in THE SIGN OF FOUR at the age of eleven "and never looked back." Joan Littlewood died on Sept. 20. She was an important producer, director, and author who presided over the Theater Workshop in East London, launching plays such as "Oh What a Lovely War", Shelagh Delaney's "A Taste of Honey", and Brendan Behan's "The Quare Fellow" and "The Hostage". "Theater should be grand, vulgar, simple, pathetic," she once said, "not genteel, not poet- ical." In 1961 she directed a Theatre Royal production of James Goldman's play "They Might Be Giants" (with Harry H. Corbett as Justin Playfair, and Avis Bunnage as Dr. Mildred Watson). William S. Dorn has edited A DAY-BY-DAY CHRONOLOGY OF MR. SHERLOCK HOLMES: ACCORDING TO ZEISLER AND CHRIST (Denver: Pencil Productions, 2002; 57 pp., $9.95); the dates run from the death of Lucy Ferrier's mother (May 1, 1847) to the capture of Von Bork (Aug. 2, 1914), and Bill relies on dating by Er- nest B. Zeisler and Jay Finley Christ rather than William S. Baring-Gould. It's available at his web-site or by mail (shipping is extra: $1.60 to the U.S., $2.60 to Canada, $4.60 elsewhere), and his address is 2450 South Monroe Street, Denver, CO 80210. Walter R. Brooks' delightful books about "Freddy the Pig" have amused chil- dren for more than 65 years, and they're still in print, including FREDDY THE DETECTIVE (1997), with the original Sherlockian illustrations by Kurt Wiese (New York: Overlook Press, 1997; 256 pp., $23.95). Michael Cart, in an article in Booklist (May 1), kindly forwarded by Kevin Parker, reports that Brooks, when he was reviewing books for the Outlook and Independent in the 1920s, was one of the first important observers to discover the work of Dashiell Hammett, recommending RED HARVEST "without reservation. We gave it an A plus before we'd finished the first chapter." And Alfred A. Knopf, contracted with Hammett to write an introduction to FREDDY THE DETECTIVE in 1932. But Hammett failed to deliver the introduction, despite frantic ap- peals from the publisher, and Freddy's fans thus lost a chance to read what Hammett might have written. The Friends of Freddy, founded in 1984, have a web-site , nearly 500 members, and an irregu- lar quarterly; $15.00 a year for membership (Box 912, Greenbelt, MD 20768). Kevin also notes that FREDDY'S COUSIN WEEDLY (1940) will be reprinted soon (New York: Overlook Press, 2002; 220 pp., $23.95); the book includes a play in which all of the animals appear as their favorite characters, solving a mystery in the court of Queen Elizabeth. The story may have provided the only opportunity for Freddy to appear on stage in Sherlockian costume, in a puppet show performed in 2000 during the biennial Friends of Freddy conven- tion (Michael Cart provided the puppetry for Freddy/Sherlock Holmes). Sep 02 #5 The Holmes & Watson Report continues to offer interesting dis- coveries, including Stu Shiffman's mention of the Sherlockian inspiration for a Grateful Dead song: "Dire Wolf" (music by Jerry Garcia, and words by Robert Hunter). David Dodd's web-site "The Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics" notes that the song was first performed in 1969 (and recorded in 1970 on the album "Workingman's Dead"), and he quotes from the journal of Hunter: "The song 'Dire Wolf' was inspired, at least in name, by watch- ing the Hound of the Baskervilles on TV with Garcia. We were speculating on what the ghostly hound might turn out to be, and somehow the idea that maybe it was a Dire Wolf came up." The Holmes & Watson Report costs $16.00 a year (for six issues) or $22.00 outside North America, or $3.00 for one issue, from Brad Keefauver (4009 North Chelsea Place, Peoria, IL 61614). And Dodd's web-site is at . State lotteries continue to use Sher- lockian artwork, Connecticut the most recent example, in August; thanks to Ev Herzog, who (alas) didn't win with this ticket. Scott Monty has reported that The Ba- ker Street Journal's traditional bin- ders are again available: navy-blue vinyl with the BSJ logo on the cover and spine, and with a label holder on the spine, and with a saddle mechanism using rods to hold issues in place. They're suitable for both the old and the new series, and each binder holds eight issues of the new series; they cost $10.00 each, plus $5.00 shipping for one to four binders, and $2.50 shipping for each additional one to four binders. The BSJ's web-site at has an order form, or you can send checks (payable to The Baker Street Irregulars) to W. Scott Monty (1836 Columbia Road, South Boston, MA 02127). Marian J. A. Jackson's series of pastiches about Abigail Patience Danforth (who happily ignores a warning from Arthur Conan Doyle that amateur detect- ing is no career for a young lady) has five titles: THE PUNJAT'S RUBY and THE ARABIAN PEARL (Sep 90 #5), THE CAT'S EYE (Oct 91 #3), DIAMOND HEAD (Nov 92 #6), and SUNKEN TREASURE (Jul 95 #2). And they're still in print, from iUniverse, one of the computerized companies that provide authors who can supply electronic text a way to have books published and sold through book- stores and via the World Wide Web. Jackson's books (originally published by Pinnacle and Walker), were reissued by iUniverse in 2001, and they cost $15.95 or $17.95 as trade paperbacks. The URL for iUniverse's web-site is . And Jackson has her own web-site (as do many authors now) at . Further to the report (Apr 02 #7) on the BBC Worldwide release of the 1968 television version of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (with Peter Cushing and Nigel Stock) on cassette and DVD, the 1959 film (with Peter Cushing and Andre Morell) also is available on DVD from MGM Home Entertainment ($14.95) with additional material: a theatrical trailer (in black-and-white), a fea- turette with Christopher Lee (who played Sir Henry Baskerville) reminiscing about the film, and a reading by Lee of excerpts from the novel. Sep 02 #6 Herbert Epstein died on Sept. 21. He bought Edgar W. Smith's home in Morristown, N.J., Dave Galerstein has reported, and re- tained the address 221B Baker Street for the cottage in which Edgar carried out and carried on his work for The Baker Street Irregulars. Epstein dona- ted to the BSI a switch plate with a Sherlockian profile, and a plaque that Edgar P. Smith had installed noting that his father's cottage had been the headquarters of the BSI. "When I bought the property," Epstein once said, "I didn't know I was buying a shrine." Phil Attwell reports that the watercolor of "The Great Falls of the Reich- enbach" (1804) painted by Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) will be on exhibit at Agnew's Gallery in Old Bond Street in London from Oct. 8 to Nov. 1 (with five other Turners). The September booklist from Peter L. Stern & Co. (55 Temple Place, Boston, MA 02111) has two interesting items: "Conan Doyle Speak- ing" (the 1930 Gramophone Co. recording) with his comments on both Sherlock Holmes and Spiritualism ($850), and Conan Doyle's bankbook (for February- October 1904) from the Capital and Counties Bank on Oxford Street, which by nice coincidence (well, perhaps it wasn't only a coincidence) was Sherlock Holmes' own bank ($2,500). The twelfth volume of The Shoso-in Bulletin, published by The Men with the Twisted Konjo and edited by Yuichi Hirayama and Mel Hughes, is an interest- ing anthology of articles, essays, pastiches, parodies, and artwork by con- tributors in ten countries on four continents, with 212 pages (and it's all in English); $12.00 plus shipping from Classic Specialties (Box 19058, Cin- cinnati, OH 45219) (877-233-3823) ; credit- card orders welcome. Back issues are available, and The Shoso-in Bulletin has a web-site at . If you are in Britain and want to order by mail, contact John Hall (20 Drury Ave- nue, Horsforth, Leeds LS18 4BR, England). The Japanese film director and writer Hayao Miyazaki is receiving rave re- views for his new feature-length animation "Spirited Away" (now in limited release, so it may not be available in every neighborhood), and Pam Verrey has noted that Miyazaki's previous credits include work on the 1983 televi- sion series "The Adventures of Sherlock Hound" (known in Japan as "Meitan- tei Holmes"). Doug and Sandi Greene report that the fourth volume in the "Crippen & Lan- dru Lost Classics" series (offering previously uncollected stories by great detective and mystery writers) is Stuart Palmer's HILDEGARDE WITHERS: UN- COLLECTED RIDDLES. None of the stories is Sherlockian (although one has a mention of Trichinopoly), but they're great fun as well as fine 1930s puz- zle stories; Palmer was a member of The Baker Street Irregulars (his enter- taining essay "The I-O-U of Hildegarde Withers" appeared in the Jan. 1948 issue of The Baker Street Journal). $29.00 cloth/$19.00 paper, plus ship- ping, from Crippen & Landru (Box 9315, Norfolk, VA 23505) (toll-free 877- 622-6656) . The Spermaceti Press: Peter E. Blau, 3900 Tunlaw Road NW #119, Washington, DC 20007-4830 (telephone: 202-338-1808) Oct 02 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press The famous (perhaps infamous) Sherlock Holmes "tent joke" was voted (temp- orarily) the funniest joke in the world in a "Laughlab" experiment launched last September by British psychologist Richard Wiseman (Dec 01 #6), and the good news (for those who detest the oft-repeated joke) is that it only came in second in the final voting (and I'm not going to tell it again); you can see the final results at the web-site . For all my readers who don't have access to the Internet, here's the winner: There are two hunters out in the woods, and one of them collapses; he seems not to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. So the other hunter takes out his cell phone and calls emergency services. He gasps: "My friend is dead! What can I do?" And the operator replies: "Calm down, I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead." There is a silence, then a gunshot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says: "okay, now what?" The second part of Richard M. Lackritz's detective-fiction collection (the material from 1920 to 1945) was sold at auction at Christie's in New York on Sept. 24; one item was his copy of Ellery Queen's THE MISADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, inscribed by Fred Dannay: "To Dr. Richard Lackritz/This is the only EQ book ever suppressed -- and for reasons that had nothing to do with the book!" It sold for $418.25 (including the 19.5% buyer's premium). THE MISADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES was indeed suppressed, after the fifth printing; Adrian Conan Doyle objected furiously to publication of Sherlock Holmes pastiches, but was unable to do anything about the book until Fred Dannay discovered, and brought to Adrian's attention, that Dannay had mis- takenly included (without permission) an excerpt from the Canon in the an- thology 101 YEARS' ENTERTAINMENT: THE GREAT DETECTIVE STORIES, 1841-1941; Adrian then threatened a lawsuit over the copyright infringement unless THE MISADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES was withdrawn, and Ellery Queen complied. Adrian changed his mind about pastiches in the 1950s, when he wrote some of them himself. Plan well ahead: "Gaslight and Fog" (an autumnal weekend of Sherlockian fun and frolic) is scheduled for Oct. 11-13, 2003, at the Nevele Grande Hotel in Ellenville, N.Y. (in the Catskills). Arrangements by The Sign of Four (aka Ron and Carol Fish, Al Gregory, and Jan Stauber), and they have a web- site at ; you can also reach Ron Fish at Box 4, Circleville, NY 10919 (845-361-4320). Judith Freeman notes that an exhibit of "Alien Stingers" opened at the N.Y. Aquarium on Sept. 27; it's devoted to jellyfish, and one of the 20 species exhibited is the Lion's Mane. *Cyanea capillata*, according to an aquarium press release, is the "giant of all the species of jellies; the belled sac of a lion's mane jelly can measure six feet or more across while its tangle of venomous tentacles may reach over 100 feet in length. The tentacles are arranged in eight groups with each group having 150 tentacles. The lion's mane ranges widely in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and although it is not believed capable of killing an organism as large as a human, its sting can cause severe discomfort." The Aquarium is at Coney Island in Brooklyn, and there's an interesting web-site at . Oct 02 #2 The September issue of the quarterly newsletter of The Friends of the Sherlock Holmes Collections at the University of Minne- sota offers Jim Hawkins' story about John Bennett Shaw's personal collec- ion with the movie "Young Sherlock Holmes" (and his comments on what John received for that work), and other reports from and about the collections. Expansion of the catalog of the Sherlock Holmes collections continues (and as of late summer 13,995 items had been added), and the results are avail- able on-line at . The newsletter is avail- able from Richard J. Sveum (111 Elmer L. Andersen Library, 222 21st Avenue South, Univ. of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455) . The newsletter also reports that Sherlock's Home (in Minnetonka, Minn.) has begun a "Sherlock for Governor" campaign. Holmes held a press conference at the micro- brewery to announce his plans to run for governor on the law and order platform, with "no taxation on beer" a special concern. Owner Bill Burdick is distributing window decals and campaign buttons, and has said that other gubernatorial candidates will be challenged to debate with the Great Detective. Philip Knightley's THE FIRST CASUALTY: FROM THE CRIMEA TO VIETNAM: THE WAR CORRESPONDENT AS HERO, PROPAGAND- IST, AND MYTH MAKER was published in 1975, and it's an excellent examination of "to what extent the war corr- espondent has been responsible for myths" (the epigraph for the book is the sugges-tion by Sen. Hiram Johnson in 1917 that "the first casualty when war come is truth"), and Conan Doyle's reporting on the Boer War and the First World War is mentioned briefly. A revised second edition (with a new sub- title "the war correspondent as hero and myth-maker from the Crimea to Kos- ovo) appeared in Britain in 2000, and there's now an American edition (Bal- timore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002; 574 pp., $19.95). Issue #50 of Sherlock offers its usual coverage of crime fiction (Sherlock- ian and otherwise). Mark Palmer reports on Sherlock Holmes pubs and rest- aurants ("From Silver Blaze to Mayonnaise"), Gavin Collinson discusses the new television film "Case of Evil", Paul Chapman explores "Encounters with Evil", and the continuing "Spotlight on a Society" feature offers Michael E. Bragg's report on The Harpooners of the Sea Unicorn. Sherlock is a bi- monthly, and a subscription costs L23.70 (U.K.)/L26.00 (continent)/$40.00 (elsewhere); the address is Box 100, Chichester, West Sussex PO18 8HD, Eng- land . 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. Phyllis Calvert died on Oct. 8. She trained as a child dancer until an in- jury forced a switch to drama, and made her first appearance on stage at the age of 10 in 1925 (in Dame Ellen Terry's last play), and her first ap- pearance in film at the age of 12, and by the 1940s was the most glamorous film star in Britain. She continued acting on stage, screen, and televis- ion, and played Agnes Garrideb in 1994 in the "Three Garridebs" segment of Granada's "The Mazarin Stone". Oct 02 #3 Filming for the fourth season of "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World" (the series that stars Peter McCauley as Challen- ger) has been postponed while producers pursue final agreements on funding for 22 more programs. The third season will continue in syndicated re-runs on Warner Brothers channels, while the first two seasons can be seen week- day mornings on TNT cable. There's a web-site that offers action, background, episode information, and a newsletter. "Studies in Sherlock" is being performed at the Saint Sebastian Players Theatre in Chicago through Nov. 17 (Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00 pm and Sundays at 2:00 pm); the play is a dramatization of "A Case of Identity" and "The Second Stain" by Jim Masini. The box office phone number is (773- 404-7922); web-site at . John Baesch reports that the National Portrait Gallery in London opens an exhibition on "The Cult of Byronism" on Nov. 20; according to the November issue of British Heritage, the show will examine the influence of Lord By- ron (1788-1824) on Benjamin Disraeli, Oscar Wilde, W. H. Auden, and T. E. Lawrence (all four, by interesting coincidence cited by Ron De Waal in his THE UNIVERSAL SHERLOCK HOLMES). Plan ahead: the Appletree Theater in Highland Park, Ill., plans to produce a new dramatization of "The Sign of the Four" (by Dr. Shanghai Low), June 18-July 20, 2003. The box-office address is 595 Elm Place, Highland Park, IL 60035 (847-437-4335) . Zakaria Erzinclioglu died on Sept. 26. He was a renowned forensic entomol- ogist in Britain, widely known as "Dr. Zak" (both in law enforcement and to the general public). His memoirs (MAGGOTS, MURDER AND MEN), published in Britain in 2000 and in the United States this year (May 02 #4), include a discussion of the achievements of Sherlock Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle, and citations of the Canon in each chapter. The November/December issue of Book magazine is their "Best of 2002" issue, and one of their five "best crime novels" is Laurie R. King's JUSTICE HALL, which they describe as "Sherlock Holmes and his brilliant young wife (sur- prised?) enter the world of British high society. In a country manor, they uncover the mechanisms that caused the execution of a well-born young sol- dier in World War I." One subscriber to the RUSS-L electronic mailing list has suggested that it should have read "Mary Russell and her husband." Of course it might also have read "Mary Russell and her brilliant elderly hus- band" . . . "It seems elementary, my dear readers, why Hunter couple William and Eliza- beth Holmes called their second boy Sherlock. After all, an affable doctor named Watson delivered him on January 20, 1911. 'A nurse told my parents that they just had to call me Sherlock,' the 91-year-old laughs." That's the opening of an article by Chad Watson (no relation, he carefully noted in his byline) in the Australian newspaper the Newcastle Herald (Aug. 3), recently at hand from Karen Murdock. And there's a bit more to the story: "I think his grandmother's sister was married to Conan Doyle or something like that," his former dance partner Joyce Mason said. "He told me how it was but now nobody can remember." Oct 02 #4 Kenton A. Johnson ("A Remarkable Invention") died on June 13. Ken became interested in ham radio as a teenager in the 1930s, and communications was both a vocation and an avocation for him (he used the call sign W6NKE). In 1975 he founded The Sherlock Holmes Wireless So- ciety for fellow ham operators who met by shortwave radio (in an era when the phrase "out there in the electricity" didn't mean the Internet), and edited The Sherlock Holmes Wireless Society Newsletter (later called The Log of the Canonical Hams) for people who weren't wireless. Ken received his Investiture from The Baker Street Irregulars in 1981. A LITERARY GUIDE TO LONDON, by Ed Glinert (New York: Penguin Books, 2000; 435 pp., L12.99), is an excellent guide, with a chapter "From Bart's to Ba- ker Street: A Walk Through Sherlock Holmes's London" and many other refer- ences, Sherlockian and non-Sherlockian, to Arthur Conan Doyle. The Bootmakers of Toronto met at the Bata Shoe Museum on Sept. 28, and one of the papers, nicely appropriate for the venue, was Chris Redmond's "Foot Notes" (which includes a spectacular Sherlockian pun). The paper is avail- able at , and his web-site offers a wide and interesting range of other Sherlockian and Doyl- ean material, and links to other web-sites. 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) (877-233-3823 . There's also news- letter content, including an interesting report on the "Sherlock Holmes and all That Jazz" excursion to New Orleans last March; planning is underway on a second excursion, to a different city, and you can ask the Senters to let you know details when they're available. Sherlock Holmes is now an honorary FRSC. That's Fellow of the Royal Soci- ety of Chemistry, and the award, usually reserved for Nobel Laureates and distinguished academics, is the first by the society to a fictional charac- ter (according to the society) and it was made in recognition of Holmes' pioneering use of forensic science. FRSC Dr. John Watson was photographed placing the medal around the neck of the statue of Sherlock Holmes outside the Baker Street Underground on Oct. 16, and Andrew Chancellor in a grumpy "Footnote" on the editorial page of the Daily Telegraph (Oct. 17), suggest- ed that the reason for the award was to "attract publicity to this not tre- mendously well known organisation, but it was carrying whimsy too far. You can hardly take seriously an institution that hands out honours to fiction- al characters. What would we think if the Nobel committee decided to give its prize for economics to Mr. Micawber?" Why didn't the Society give its award on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Chancellor wondered. "Not famous enough, I suppose." Kenneth Ludwig's play "Postmortem" (which premiered as "Dramatic Licence" in New Hampshire in 1983, with Patrick Horgan as William Gillette) is being performed at the Ottawa Little Theatre, through Nov. 9. It's a murder mys- tery set in Gillette's home in Connecticut, with Gillette trying to do the detecting. The theater is at 400 King Edward, Ottawa, ON K1N 7M7, Canada (613-233-8948) and there's a web-site at . Oct 02 #5 Sherlock Holmes' 149th birthday will be celebrated on Friday, Jan. 10, with the traditional festivities in New York, but the first formal event will be on Thursday at 9:00 am at the Hotel Algonquin (59 West 44th Street), whence Jim Cox will lead the annual Christopher Mor- ley Walk, which ends with lunch at McSorley's. The Baker Street Irregu- lars' Distinguished Speaker Lecture begins at 6:15 pm on the 6th floor of the Williams Club (24 East 39th Street, between Madison and Park Avenues); the speaker will be Douglas G. Greene, author of the biography JOHN DICKSON CARR: THE MAN WHO EXPLAINED MIRACLES (1995), editor of the anthology DETEC- TION BY GASLIGHT (1998), and proprietor (with his wife Sandi) of Crippen & Landru, publishers of a wide range of classic mysteries ($10.00); seating is limited, and you are advised to reserve early (details below). Friday begins with the Martha Hudson Breakfast, from 7:00 to 10:00 in the Oak Room at the Hotel Algonquin at 59 West 44th Street; the hotel provides guests with a continental breakfast, and others are welcome to attend each day and pay $17.00 (details below). The William Gillette Memorial Luncheon starts at noon, at Moran's Chelsea Seafood Restaurant at 146 Tenth Avenue at 19th Street; $37.00 (Susan Rice, 125 Washington Place #2-E, New York, NY 10014). And Otto Penzler will hold his traditional open house at The Mys- terious Bookshop (129 West 56th Street) from 11:00 am to 5:00 pm; Sherlock- ian authors are likely to be on hand to sign their books. The Baker Street Irregulars will gather at 6:00 pm at the Union League Club at 38 East 37th Street. The Baskerville Bash (open to all Sherlockians and their friends) offers dinner and entertainment at 6:30 pm at the Manhattan Club at 201 West 52nd Street (between Broadway and Seventh Avenue); $75.00 until Dec. 15, $85.00 thereafter (checks payable to Maribeau Briggs Shraw- der should be sent to Paula J. Perry, 346 East 87th Street #4-A, New York, NY 10128); please include your e-mail address and primary Sherlockian soci- ety affiliation). Early reservations are advised for the William Gillette luncheon and the Baskerville Bash. Those who wish to have seasonal souvenirs in the dinner packets can send 175 copies (for the BSI) to James B. Saunders (3011 47th Street, Astoria, NY 11103) and 125 copies (for the Bash) to Francine Kitts (35 Van Cortlandt Avenue, Staten Island, NY 10301); your material should arrive by Dec. 15. On Saturday a wide variety of Sherlockiana will be offered in the dealers' room on the second floor of the Hotel Algonquin (59 West 44th Street) from 9:30 am until 12:30 pm; Ralph Hall (2906 Wallingford Court, Louisville, KY 40218) (502-491-3148) will be glad to supply informa- tion about dealers' tables. And the Clients of Adrian Mulliner (devotees of the works of both John H. Watson and P. G. Wodehouse) will hold their Junior Bloodstain (a somewhat less than totally reverent gathering) in the lobby of the Hotel Algonquin at 12:30 pm; If you're planning to attend, please let Anne Cotton know (12 Hollywood Street, South Hadley, MA 01075) . The BSI annual reception, open to all Sherlockians and their friends, will be held on Saturday afternoon from 2:30 to 5:30, at the National Arts Club at 15 Gramercy Park (on 20th Street between Park and Third Avenues); open Oct 02 #6 bar, and hot and cold hors d'oeuvres, and the usual traditional and untraditional entertainment, and the cost of the event is $45.00 (details below) until Dec. 15, or $55.00 thereafter or at the door. The Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes will hold an informal brunch on Sun- day, at 11:30 am at the Baker Street restaurant at 1152 First Avenue (at 63rd Street); it's open to everyone, and reservations are strongly advised, to Marina Stajic (425 East 51st Street #4-A, New York, NY 10022) . The Baker Street Irregulars are a tax-exempt organization, and Mike Whelan has arranged with the Hotel Algonquin for single or double rooms at $175.00 a night (Tuesday through Sunday); this is the total cost, since there is no tax due on reservations arranged by the BSI (the special rate is the equiv- alent of $153.00 plus tax). Other charges (room service, telephone calls, meals, drinks, etc.) are not covered. The offer is available to all Sher- lockians; contact the Algonquin directly (there's a firm mid-December cut- off deadline) and ask for the Baker Street Irregulars rate (212-840-6800). And here are the details: you can request a reservation form for the Thurs- day lecture, the Martha Hudson breakfast, and the Saturday reception, from Michael F. Whelan, 7938 Mill Stream Circle, Indianapolis, IN 46278; please see that your reservations are received by Mike by Dec. 15. Mary Ellen Rich has kindly provided a list of hotels that offer reasonable (as defined by New York landlords) rates, along with a warning about non- optional extras: $2.00 a day occupancy tax, 8.25% state tax, and 5% city tax. Ask for the lowest available rate, don't be shy about asking for dis- counts (AAA, senior, corporate), and if you plan to arrive on Thursday you should confirm that weekend rates apply, and request written confirmation. Chelsea International Hostel (251 West 20th St.) $25 (dormitory) or $60 single/double, but no private baths (212-647-0100); West Park Hotel (6 Col- umbus Circle) $85 standard or $100 superior single/double (212-445-0200); Howard Johnson Plaza (851 8th Ave.) $87.95 single/double Internet special (866-260-0402); Wellington Hotel (55th St. at 7th Ave.) $99 single/double Internet special (212-247-3900); Hotel Pennsylvania (401 7th Ave.) $100 single/double Internet special (212-756-5000). Mary Ellen also recommends for specials and general information, as well as and . The Dr. John H. Watson Fund offers financial assistance to all Sherlockians (membership in the BSI is not required) who might otherwise not be able to participate in the weekend's festivities. A carefully pseudonymous John H. Watson presides over the fund and welcomes contributions, which can be made by check payable to John H. Watson and sent (without return address on the envelope) to Dr. Watson, care of The Baker Street Irregulars, at 7938 Mill Stream Circle, Indianapolis, IN 46278; your letters are forwarded unopened, and Dr. Watson will acknowledge your generosity. Requests for assistance can also be mailed to Dr. Watson at the same address. The Spermaceti Press: Peter E. Blau, 3900 Tunlaw Road NW #119, Washington, DC 20007-4830 (telephone: 202-338-1808) Nov 02 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press Some late-breaking news: there's an additional event scheduled during the birthday festivities in New York: a staged reading (with Paul Singleton as Sherlock Holmes and Mary Ellen Rich as Mrs. Hudson) of Andrew Joffe's new adaptation of "The Blue Carbuncle", on Thursday, Jan. 9, at 2:00 pm, at the West Bank Cafe (Downstairs) at 407 West 42nd Street (between 9th and 10th Avenues). The play runs about 90 minutes, and there will be a short inter- mission; admission is free (first come, first served), and there will be a cash bar. There has been a wide variety of Sherlockian television programs broadcast in Russian over the years, and it's nice indeed that many are now available here on videocassettes and DVDs, some in PAL format only, and others also in NTSC format, from RBC Computers (269 Brighton Beach Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11235) ; the company also offers a range of multi- system DVD players ($124.99 and up) that allow you to view PAL DVDs on NTSC television sets (the format doesn't matter if you play a DVD on your compu- ter. And some programs are available subtitled in English. Shipping costs extra, and credit-card orders are welcome; you'll save on shipping costs if you order at the web-site. Three programs starring Vasily Livanov and Vitaly Solomin are in Russian, with English subtitles: "Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson" (1979) (#30316) [with "A Study in Scarlet" and "The Speckled Band"]; "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson (1980) (#30315) [with "The Final Problem", "The Empty House", and "Charles Augustus Milverton"]; and "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (1981) (#29545) are on DVD-PAL and cost $14.99 each. "The Hound of the Baskervilles" also is available with subtitles on DVD-NTSC at $21.99 (#30194). Two other Livanov/Solomin programs are available without subtitles: "The Agra Treasure" (1983) [with "The Sign of Four" and "A Scandal in Bohemia"] on VHS-NTSC at $10.99 (#9458); and "The Twentieth Century Begins" (1986) [with "The Engineer's Thumb", "The Second Stain", "His Last Bow", and "The Bruce-Partington Plans"] on DVD-PAL at $15.99 (#5020), and on VHS-NTSC at $10.99 (#9459). Livanov also did Sherlock Holmes' voice on a nine-minute children's anima- tion "Sherlock Holmes and I" (1986) that is included with seven other non- Sherlockian animations on VHS-NTCS (no subtitles) at $10.99 (#29747). And there's "My Dearly Beloved Detective" (1986): a parody starring Yekaterina Vasilyeva (Miss Holmes) and Galina Shchepetnova (Miss Watson) as two detec- tives who run their own detective agency (to the annoyance of officials at Scotland Yard) on VHS-NTSC (no subtitles) at $10.99 (#8203). There's still time to see the exhibition "Exposed: The Victorian Nude" at the Brooklyn Art Museum through Jan. 5, where you can see some 150 paint- ings, sculptures, works on paper, photographs, popular illustrations, and films. Organized by Tate Britain, the exhibition provides an interesting look at what was considered proper or improper, and artistic or otherwise, during the Victorian era. The museum is at 200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, NY 11238 (718-638-5000) . Nov 02 #2 Dave Galerstein has forwarded an item from his local newspaper The Cranbury Press (Oct. 25) about the party at Castle Senior Living to celebrate the 100th birthday of Etta (Eddie) Lehrman, who talked about growing up in her grandfather's brownstone on East 50th Street in New York, where she had interesting neighbors: Katherine Cornell, Julie Harris, Irving Berlin, and Basil Rathbone. "We always knew when Mr. Rathbone was expecting to have a lady visitor," Mrs. Lehrman explained. "He would line the stairs in front of his place with flowers." The new BBC television film of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (Apr 02 #3) will air on PBS-TV in January, with Richard Roxburgh as Sherlock Holmes and Ian Hart as Dr. Watson, and the latest computer technology to generate the Hound. Richard E. Grant, who was Sherlock Holmes for BBC-2 in "Encounters: The Other Side" (1992) and Mycroft Holmes in "Case of Evil" on USA cable in October, will play Stapleton. And Ian Hart will be seen as Arthur Conan Doyle in "Neverland" next year. The film, based on Alan Knee's play "The Man Who Was Peter Pan" (about how J. M. Barrie was inspired to write "Peter Pan") stars Johnny Depp (Barrie), Dustin Hoffman (Charles Frohman), Kate Maberly (Wendy Darling), Kate Wins- let, and Julie Christie. Miramax will be the distributor in the U.S. Steve Rothman has reported that Ray Betzner is The Baker Street Journal's new editor of reports from the Sherlockian societies. Society reports can be sent to Raymond L. Betzner at 1535 South Jefferson Court, Lancaster, PA 17602 (typed and double-spaced, please); e-mail to . The "Sign of Three" (Jim Saunders, Scott Bond, and Ed Smith) offer a new Sherlock Holmes ring, designed by Scott Bond and available in ultrium, or white or yellow gold (10/14/18 car- ats) and in versions for men and women, at prices from $179 to $409; you can ask James Saunders (Box 9052, Astoria, NY 11103) for an illustrated flier. Communication (the newsletter of The Pleasant Places of Florida) is now up to its 225th issue, which is a "special fall television issue" (prepared by Wanda and Jeff Dow) with details on the fall Sherlockian schedule (similar to what TV Guide does, but for a season in which all the programs are Sher- lockian); it's imaginatively done, complete with photographs (including one showing Vicki Lewis in "Suddenly Susan Cushing"). Membership, including a subscription, costs $12.00 a year ($13.00 overseas) from Carl Heifetz, 1220 Winding Willow Drive, New Port Richey, FL 34655; the TV issue alone costs $2.00 postpaid. Rodger Garrick-Steele has found a publisher for his book with all the de- tails of his claim (Nov 01 #3) Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a plagiarist and a murderer (he allegedly colluded with his publishers to deny B. Fletcher Robinson recognition for devising the plot and supplying much of the local detail for THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES, and then in 1907, worried that his affair with Fletcher Robinson's wife Gladys would be discovered, pois- oned Fletcher Robinson with laudanum): the publisher is Nanundo, in Tokyo, and the book is in Japanese: CONAN DOYLE SATSUJIN JIKEN (with the subtitle THE HOUSE OF THE BASKERVILLES), and it costs Y950. Nov 02 #3 The Duke of Bedford died on Oct. 25. He was John Robert Russ- ell, born into a family which (in his own words) "thought them- selves slightly grander than God." He inherited the title in 1953 and de- voted years to rescuing and restoring Woburn Abbey; he opened its rooms to the public, created the first game park at a stately home, and turned the family estate into a business that drew visitors at the rate of more than 1.5 million a year. In 1974 he turned the estate over to his son and lived abroad with his third wife, whom he married in 1960: Nicole Milinaire, now the Dowager Duchess of Bedford, but in the 1950s associate producer of the "Sherlock Holmes" television series that starred Ronald Howard. There is a chapter about the series in her memoirs, NICOLE NOBODY (1974). The Baskerville Arms in Shiplake reopened under new ownership this summer, according to a flier at hand from John Baesch; it's a restaurant in Station Road, Henley-on-Thames, Oxon. RG9 3NY, England (in case you're on tour). "Sherlock Holmes and the curious case of a scholar who detects the Bible in Conan Doyle's tales" was the headline on Richard Owen's report in The Times (Nov. 7) about a new book that suggests that Conan Doyle's early education by the Jesuits is reflected in the Sherlock Holmes tales. The book is SOP- RANNATURALE!, WATSON: SHERLOCK HOLMES E IL CASO DIO, by Alessandro Gnocchi and Mario Palmaro (Milan: Ancora, 2002; 176 pp., E14.00); the title trans- lates as SUPERNATURAL, WATSON!: SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE CASE OF GOD. Worldwide Collectibles & Gifts (Box 158, Berwyn, PA 19312) (800-222-1613) offers the "Department 56" models of "Literary Classics" that include "The Hansom Cab" (DT5853-4) at $35.00, and "Sherlock Holmes: 221B Baker Street" with the house, figures of Holmes and Watson, and a book (DT5860-1) at $90.00; and "Legends of England" wall masks of Holmes (LL19) and Watson (LL20) at $29.00 each. The museum show "Sherlock Holmes and the Clocktower Mystery" (first exhib- ited in England in 1995) has been on tour in the United States and Canada, and it will open at the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield, Mass., on Jan. 21 and run through May 7. The museum is at 39 South Street, Pittsfield, MA 01201 (413-443-7171) . The Practical, But Limited, Geologists met for dinner at Dixon's Downtown Grill in Denver on Oct. 30, to honor the world's first forensic geologist, during the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America (the society gave this year's public service award to author John McPhee, whose classic book BASIN AND RANGE noted that Sherlock Holmes was a geologist). The lo- cal Sherlockians were led by were led by John and Judy Stephenson, and Bill Dorn, and temporarily-local Mia Stampe. Our next meetings will be in Salt Lake City in May, and in Seattle in November. John Leonard's review of USA cable's "Case of Evil" in the Oct. 28 issue of New York magazine reported that it "will remind you of every variation on Sherlock Holmes that the screen is heir to, plus every serial killer since Jack the Ripper," calling it "ridiculous but entertaining." He ended his review: "May I suggest the glorious alternative of Laurie R. King's Sher- lock Holmes-meets-Mary Russell series? *The Beekeeper's Apprentice* may be more fun that anything Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote." Nov 02 #4 The Honolulu Police Department has cancelled its annual "Sher- lock Holmes Night" this year because of staffing constraints, according to a report in the Honolulu Advertiser (Oct. 13). The popular event, designed to educate the public about forensic science and criminal investigations, invites participants to solve a mock crime, but deputy po- lice chief Glen Kajiyama said that "We regret that we cannot host the event his year. Right now we are concentrating on other priorities such as pre- paring our department and DNA lab for national accreditation." The depart- ment plans to resume the event next year. Sonia Fetherston and Tyke Niver have noted "Sherlock Holmes London Tea" ("blended to a delicious and secret Victorian re- cipe that not even Holmes could ferret out") in the fall-win- ter mail-order catalog from The Scottish Lion (Box 1700, 3424 White Mountain Highway, North Conway, NH 03860 (800-355-7268) ; $18.00 for two 4.4-ounce tins (item F185). Marina Stajic was the moderator of a Sherlock Holmes Workshop in Dearborn, Mich., on Oct. 17, as part of the annual meeting of the Society of Forensic Toxicologists, with five experts discussing "The Adventure of the Devil's Foot" (which was reprinted in the Program and Ab- stracts, possibly the first time a Sherlock Holmes story has been published by a scientific society). The Mystery Guild continues to offer its members inexpensive book-club edi- tions that include JUSTICE HALL, by Laurie R. King ($11.99) and MURDER IN BAKER STREET: NEW TALES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, edited by Martin H. Greenberg ($12.49); (Box 6325, Indianapolis, IN 46206) . And the November issue of the Guild's newsletter offers a "member profile" of George Schenk, a Sherlockian who lives in West Linn, Ore., and has been a member of the Guild since 1950. There's a new Sherlockian society in Philadelphia: Gideon Hill reports that Mycroft's League will meet for lunch at the Union League Club on the last Fridays in April and October, before the dinners of The Sons of the Copper Beeches and The Bitches of the Copper Beeches, and on other occasions, in- cluding an event now being planned for Saturday, Apr. 26, 2003. If you'd like to be notified of the society's activities, please contact Gideon at (215-887-8110) ; all Sherlockians are welcome to attend meetings of Mycroft's League. Mary Burke reports that a painting by Emile Jean Horace Vernet (the grand- uncle of Sherlock Holmes) is on display at the Walters Art Museum in Balti- more; the painting is "Italian Brigands Surprised by Papal Troops" (in the 19th Century Gallery). Fans of the country-pop group The Dixie Chicks may already know that Emily Robison named her baby, born on Nov. 11, Charles Augustus Robison. Mickey Fromkin ran an Internet search in pursuit of a possible connection to the Sherlock Holmes story and found that the baby was named after his father, Charles Robison, and the baby's parents' favorite literary character, Aug- ustus McCrea (from Larry McMurtry's LONESOME DOVE). Nov 02 #5 One (possibly last) item about the famous Sherlock Holmes "tent joke": Tad Friend's article "What's So Funny?" in The New York- er (Nov. 11) discusses humor and jokes and Dr. Richard Wiseman's "Laughlab" experiment; Friend mentions what he calls the "old groaner about Holmes and Watson going camping," and gives only the punch line, reporting that Wise- man said "It's a terrible joke." The Friends of the Arthur Conan Doyle Collection arranged an afternoon sym- posium on "Bringing *Angels of Darkness* to Light" at the Toronto Reference Library on Nov. 16, with the manuscript of the play on display, along with other interesting Doylean items from the collection; the event was well-at- tended, and it included a world premiere: Scott Kettles and Cliff Makinson performed two excerpts from the play, one between Elias Fortescue Smee and John Ferrier, and the other Jefferson Hope and John Watson, M.D. And there was a convivial Bootmakers pub night at the nearby Artful Dodger afterward. The Toronto Reference Library, celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, provides a suitably late-Victorian home for the Arthur Conan Doyle Collec- tion in an attractive and otherwise much-more-modern building that also is bordered on one side by a Sherlock Holmes Walk; the Arthur Conan Doyle room is open to the public from 2:00 to 4:00 pm on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sat- urdays, and at other times by appointment, and it's well worth a visit. The new BBC version of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (with Richard Rox- burgh as Holmes and Ian Hart as Watson) was broadcast by the CBC in Canada on Nov. 18, and was warmly reviewed by Sherlockians who posted to mailing lists. But Catherine Dawson March, in her preview in the Toronto Globe and Mail, complained that "Henry Baskerville, who's been abroad farming in Can- ada, is played by Matt Day, who flattens his accent into an American drawl rather than a Canadian twang." (I don't recall hearing any Canadian twangs in Toronto on Nov. 16, possibly because none of the Friends and Bootmakers have been farming.) The program will air in Britain at Christmas, and in the United States (on PBS-TV) on Jan. 19. Noted by Victoria Gill: INDEXERS AND INDEXES IN FACT AND FICTION, edited by Hazel K. Bell, with a Foreword by A. S. Byatt (Toronto: University of Tor- onto Press, 2001; 160 pp., CA$22.95); the contents include an interesting essay on "Indexing in Baker Street" by Margaret D. Anderson, who concludes that "Holmes was a successful indexer. He was industrious and painstaking, as all indexers must be, and, aided by his remarkable memory, his filing system never failed him. A modern practitioner would no doubt have made a master card-index for all the encyclopaedic volumes, but Holmes did very well without." The 2002 Christmas Annual of The Baker Street Journal is "Tilting at Wind- mills: Denis Conan Doyle and the Baker Street Irregulars", by Richard Lan- celyn Green, who examines Denis and Adrian's battles with Ellery Queen over THE MISADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, the sudden demise of The Baker Street Journal, and the "general unhappiness" that Conan Doyle's sons caused and felt in the United States. The annual is not part of subscriptions to the BSJ; orders can be sent to The Baker Street Journal (Box 465, Hanover, PA 17331) ; $11.00 postpaid in the U.S., or $12.00 to other countries. Nov 02 #6 The latest issue of Scarlet Street (#46) is a "special swimsuit issue" (devoted to the "Creature from the Black Lagoon" genre), also offering David Stuart Davies' review of Matt Frewer's "Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Whitechapel Vampire"). $42.00 a year (for six issues); the address is Box 604, Glen Rock, NJ 07452 . Brian Pugh reports that Britain has issued a set of "Pillar to Post" stamps, one of which shows an ornate letter-box in- troduced in 1857 in London, Dublin, and Edinburgh (a plainer "economy version" was produced for use elsewhere). The or- nate boxes were dark green, decorated in gold, but from 1874 to 1884 the boxes were repainted red (dark green being con- sidered a dingy color); thus it's likely that when Sherlock Holmes arrived in Baker Street the letter-boxes he saw would have been in red livery rather than green-and-gold. If you've not yet heard any of the excellent BBC Radio dramatizations with Clive Merrison as Holmes and Michael Williams as Watson, here's a chance to get some of the cassettes at a deep discount from Daedalus Books (Box 6000, Columbia, MD 21045) (800-395-2665) : THE RETURN OF SHER- LOCK HOLMES VOLUME 1 ("The Empty House", "The Norwood Builder", "The Danc- ing Men" and "The Solitary Cyclist" on two cassettes) and VOLUME 2 ("The Priory School", "Black Peter", "Charles Augustus Milverton", and "The Six Napoleons" on two cassettes) cost $4.98 each (plus shipping). Richard Harris died on Oct. 25. He began his acting career in a workshop production of Brendan Behan's "The Quare Fellow" in 1956, and appeared in his film in 1962, starring in "This Sporting Life" and "Camelot" and most recently in "Gladiator" and "Harry Potter". And he played James McParlan (with Sean Connery as Jack Kehoe) in "The Molly Maguires" (1970); the non- Sherlockian film was based on the events featured in the American portion of "The Valley of Fear". Issue #51 of SHERLOCK offers its usual coverage of crime fiction (Sherlock- ian and otherwise); the contents include reviews (by Alan Wightman) of Matt Frewer's "Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Whitechapel Vampire" and (by Gavin Collinson) of Douglas Fairbanks' "The Mystery of the Leaping Fish" and Richard Roxburgh's "The Hound of the Baskervilles", and an article by Alan Taman on Sherlock Holmes and forensic science. SHERLOCK is published bi-monthly and subscriptions cost L23.70 (U.K.)/L26.00 (continent)/$40.00 (elsewhere); the address is Box 100, Chichester, West Sussex PO18 8HD, Eng- land . Also available from their American agent Classic Specialties (Box 19058, Cincinnati, OH 45219) (877- 233-3823) ; credit-card orders are welcome at both addresses, and back issues are available. THE DETECTIVE AND THE INVESTOR: UNCOVERING INVESTMENT TECHNIQUES FROM THE LEGENDARY SLEUTHS, by Robert G. Hagstrom (New York: TEXERE, 2002; 262 pp., $24.95), is written for investors, with emphasis on how the methods of C. Auguste Dupin, Sherlock Holmes, and Father Brown can be used by those who want to invest wisely and well. Hagstrom also has interviewed modern mys- tery writers, and he includes four pages of discussion with Laurie R. King about Holmes and Mary Russell. Nov 02 #7 Evelyn Stefansson Nef is a fascinating woman; born in 1913, she had three husbands: master puppeteer Bil Baird, polar explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson, and John Nef, one of the founders of the University of Chicago's Committee on Social Thought. She now lives in Washington, in a nice Georgetown house with a garden mosaic mural designed and installed for her by Marc Chagall, and Sam Fry has noted an interesting story in her memoirs FINDING MY WAY: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN OPTIMIST (Washington: Fran- cis Press, 2002; 304 pp., $26.00). While married to Baird she suffered a ruptured appendix and peritonitis, and one of her visitors during a month- long recovery in the hospital was Stefansson, who arrived "bringing a copy of THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, by his friend Sir Arthur Conan Doyle" and then "did an amazing thing: before my eyes he tore the hardcover book apart, so I could read it a chapter at a time without having to bear the weight of the whole volume. It seemed to me an extravagant act of kindness that belonged to a lost chivalric age." Janice Fisher has forwarded a report that footage from sixty years of Brit- ish Pathe newsreels from 1910 to 1970 now is available at their web-site at . You can search the archive (there are 3 hits for "Conan Doyle" and 16 hits for "Sherlock Holmes"), and you're able to preview some of the footage; the hits range from Eille Norwood mak- ing up for his role of Sherlock Holmes (1923) and "The Adventures of Sammy Sausage" (1928), to the reconstruction of the sitting-room in Baker Street (1951), to the Sherlock Holmes Society of London's excursion to Switzerland "In the Footsteps of Sherlock Holmes" (1968). "They Might Be Giants" (the rock group that takes its name from George C. Scott's 1971 film) are celebrating an anniversary with a 2-CD 52-song album "Dial-a-Song: 20 Years of They Might Be Giants" that lists at $32.00 (but is discounted at $27.18 at . The group has its own web-site at . Ted Friedman's interesting series about Sherlockian philately for Topical Times continues with a two-page article "Sherlock Holmes Meets Dr. Watson" in the November-December issue; it's illustrated with stamps from Afghani- stan, and the Cinderella local-post stamps issued by the Maiwand Jezails in 1980. The magazine costs $5.00 postpaid from the American Topical Associa- ation, Box 50820, Albuquerque, NM 87181) (credit-card orders welcome). South Africa's four-year series of stamps commemorating the 100th anniver- sary of the Anglo-Boer/South African War, including the stamp honoring Ar- thur Conan Doyle and Winston Churchill as war writers (May 01 #2), has been reissued in a souvenir booklet, with historical background information and illustrations; the cost of the booklet is R45.00 from Philatelic Services, Private Box X505, Pretoria, South Africa . Martin Breese (Breese Books, c/o Magick Enterprises, 82 Broad Street, Shef- field S2 5TG, England) continues to publish in- teresting pastiches by John Hall and Val Andrews and others, and now offers an occasional newsletter Sherlock Holmes News, which includes the preface from Roger Jaynes' soon-to-be-published pastiche SHERLOCK HOLMES IN A DUEL WITH THE DEVIL. Copies of the newsletter are available without charge. Nov 02 #8 One test of "cultural literacy" is the assumption that readers don't need explanations for allusions to literature. As with "The Dog That Never Barks" (the headline on the lead editorial in the Wash- ington Post on Nov. 25). The editorial is about the Federal Election Comm- ission ("the watchdog here dozes most of the day"), and there is no mention of a detective story or a detective or an author, the assumption being that readers will understand the allusion. There's more news about the film "O Xango de Baker Street" (it's based on Jo Soares' pastiche, which was called A SAMBA FOR SHERLOCK when it was pub- lished in an English translation in 1997): it was screened at the Festival do Rio in Brazil on Sept. 27, 2001, and at the New Cinema Novo festival at the Leonard Nimoy New Thalia in New York on Nov. 24, 2002. Joaquim de Al- meida is Sherlock Holmes, with Anthony O'Donnell as Dr. Watson and Maria de Medeiros as Sarah Bernhardt. Debra Day, of St. Charles, Mo., has been creating hand-made collectibles for several years, Carolyn and Joel Senter report, and she has launched a new line of Sherlockian Mouse Christmas Tree Ornaments (they'll also stand up by themselves on your knick- knack shelf); she plans to offer two ornaments each year, and this year's pair are Mrs. Hudson and Wig- gins (they're about 2.5" high). The ornaments cost $32.50 (shipping extra) for the pair, from Classic Specialties (Box 19058, Cincinnati, OH 45219) (877- 233-3823) (credit- card orders are welcome. Reported by Tyke Niver: a deerstalker designed by Christys' of London, made of lambs wool and with a grosgrain tie, in brown check, in sizes S/M/L/XL, $59.95; from Stark & Legum, 739 Granby Street, Nor- folk, VA 23510 (800-356- 4287). Reported: Stephen Gaspar's THE CANADIAN ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (Blackfriars, 2002, $4.95); mys- teries solved by Holmes on a trip to and in Canada (this is an eBook that is available only on the In- ternet) . Peter Lovesey's THE SEDGE- MOOR STRANGLER AND OTHER STORIES OF CRIME (Nov 01 #5) has a British edition (London: Allison & Busby, 2002; 247 pp., L17.99); it includes a reprint of his pastiche "The Four Wise Men". The comic-book mini-series RUSE continues: issue #13 arrived in the shops this month ($2.95); and so did issue #3 in the second volume of THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN ($3.50) with an appearance by Mycroft directing the efforts of members of the League against the mysterious Martian cylin- ders that have fallen to Earth in England. The Spermaceti Press: Peter E. Blau, 3900 Tunlaw Road NW #119, Washington, DC 20007-4830 (telephone: 202-338-1808) Dec 02 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press Some late-breaking late-breaking news: the venue for the staged reading of "The Blue Carbuncle" during the birthday festivities has been changed: the performance of Andrew Joffe's new adaptation (with Paul Singleton as Sher- lock Holmes and Mary Ellen Rich as Mrs. Hudson) will be held on Thursday, Jan. 9, at 2:00 pm, at the Blue Heron Theatre at 123 East 24th Street (be- tween Park and Lexington Avenues). No charge for admission; reservations to Paul Singleton (144 East 24th Street #3-B, New York, NY 10010) (212-505- 3609) . Geoffrey S. Stavert ("The Shingle of Southsea") died on Dec. 19. He served in the Royal Navy and retired with the rank of Commander, and was a devoted member of The Sherlock Holmes Society of London, serving as a member of its council from 1978 to 1979 and as its Honorary Secretary from 1986 to 1994, and he was named an Honorary Member of the Society in 1998. Geoff lived in Southsea for decades, and his carefully-researched and well-written A STUDY IN SOUTHSEA: THE UNREVEALED LIFE OF DOCTOR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE (1987) was a splendid examination of Conan Doyle's life and career in Southsea from 1882 to 1890, and his brief visit there in 1896. Geoff received his Investiture from The Baker Street Irregulars in 1994. A STUDY IN SOUTHSEA is no longer in print ink-on-paper, but thanks to the wonders of computers it is still available on a CD-ROM disk that's offered by Archive Britain (409 Victory House, Portsmouth, Hants. PO1 1JP, England) ; the cost is L9.95 plus shipping. It's a fine picture of the place where Conan Doyle was both doctor and author, and of his family, friends, and associates there. English actor David Ian Davies, who earlier recorded "Silver Blaze" (Jun 02 #6), has now read "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (unabridged) on four CDs from One Voice Recordings; it's a fine performance (he supplies all of the voices, and he does them well indeed). The set costs $34.50 (shipping ex- tra) from Classic Specialties (Box 19058, Cincinnati, OH 45219) (toll-free 877-233-3823) ; credit-card orders welcome. The Actor's Playhouse at the Miracle Theatre in Coral Gables will produce Charles Marowitz's "Sherlock's Last Case" from Jan. 15 to Feb. 9. The box- office address is 280 Miracle Mile, Coral Gables, FL 33134 (305-444-9293) . The Nashville Scholars of the Three Pipe Problem will celebrate their 25th anniversary on Apr. 16-18, 2004, with a reception at the world's only full- scale replica of the Parthenon, papers, dealers, a dinner-theater produc- tion of "The Greek Interpreter", and breakfast at the Sherlock Holmes Pub. Additional details are available from Jim Hawkins (644 Vivian Drive, Nash- ville, TN 37211) . Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine continues its pleasant tradition of cele- brating the birthday festivities in its Feb. 2003 issue, with Steve Hocken- smith's cowboy whodunit "Dear Mr. Holmes", Arthur Porges' parody "Stately Homes and the Invisible Giant", C. McArthur's poem "The Hound", and Jon L. Breen's "The Jury Box" (devoted to reviews of Sherlockian pastiches). Dec 02 #2 Lewis Feuer died on Nov. 24. A Marxist as a student, and sus- pected of being a Communist during World War II (he was a ser- geant in New Caledonia and tried to organize local workers who were build- ing airfields for the Allies, he also was arrested in the Soviet Union in 1963. during an academic exchange trip, when he explained to Soviet workers that American workers owned cars and homes. He began his academic career as associate professor of philosophy at Vassar College in 1946, and taught at many universities until he retired as professor emeritus of sociology and government at the University of Virginia in 1988. And he combined his interests in Karl Marx and Sherlock Holmes in THE CASE OF THE REVOLUTION- IST'S DAUGHTER (1983), in which Holmes is hired by Marx to investigate the disappearance of his daughter Eleanor. Crocuses are shown on a postage stamp issued by Belgium in 2002, and mentioned twice in the Canon: "But I have heard that the crocuses promise well," Holmes said imperturbably (in "The Speckled Band"). And Watson reported that there was "a bed of crocuses in full bloom" beneath the window at the Honorable Ronald Adair's house (in "The Empty House"). Gavin Collinson continues to offer readers of SHERLOCK interesting and in- sightful comment on film and television: his review of the new Richard Rox- burgh version of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" is in issue #52, which al- so has comments by eight crime novelists on their favorite Sherlock Holmes stories, and the usual coverage of a wide range of crime fiction. SHERLOCK is published bi-monthly and subscriptions cost L23.70 (U.K.)/L26.00 (conti- nent)/$40.00 (elsewhere), from Box 100, Chichester, West Sussex PO18 8HD, England . Or you can order 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. Reported by Lawrence G. Myers: reproduction posters for three of the Rath- bone/Bruce films ("The Woman in Green", "Dressed to Kill", and "The Secret Weapon") available from Nina's Discount Oldies (Box 77, Narberth, PA 19072 (800-336-4627); large (17 x 26 in) $14.98 or small (11 x 17 in) $5.98, plus shipping. They also offer the three films, plus "Terror By Night", on vid- eocassettes or DVDs for $5.95 each, plus shipping. Spotted by Peter Ashman, in Patrick O'Brien's biography PABLO RUIZ PICASSO (1976): in 1909 Picasso and Fernande Olivier moved from the boarding-house Bateau-Lavoir to a flat in the Boulevard de Clichy, just by the Place Pig- alle: "[F]irst came the easels and the canvases . . . then the few sticks among which they had lived all these years, consisting of one spring-matt- ress with no feet, one round table, one stained white-wood chest of draw- ers, several broken chairs; then the tin bath in which he kept his books (Sherlock Holmes, Nick Carter, Buffalo Bill, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Mallarme); three cats, the huge furniture-like bitch Frika, and one small ape." Plan ahead: The Canonical Convocation and Caper will hold a revival/reunion in Door County, Wis., on Sept. 12-14, and the conclave will honor the Sher- lock Holmes and All That Jazz Society. Additional information is available from Donald B. Izban (71 East Division Street #1203, Chicago, IL 60610). Dec 02 #3 The Civic Center Library of Marin County, in San Rafael, will honor Sherlock Holmes' birthday with a display of Sherlockiana loaned by members of The Scowrers and Mollie Maguires, from Jan. 2 to Jan. 25. There will also be lectures, by Kathleen Zell on Jan. 21, and by Ron White on Jan. 23; a panel of mystery authors (Michael Kurland, Cara Black, and Richard A. Lupoff) on Jan. 25 (followed by a post-panel supper party in San Rafael). Additional information is available from Carol Russell (314 Laurel Court, Cloverdale, CA 95425) . Further to the report that the Algonquin Hotel has a new owner (Jul 02 #5), Destination Hotels & Properties has created a handsome new web-site for the hotel (and its history) at . Vlad Wolynetz has reported a delightful web-site for fans of older British television programs, at . The Mauso- leum Club archives information about series such as "Detective" (which in- cluded Douglas Wilmer's "The Speckled Band" in 1964) and "Sherlock Holmes" (with Wilmer in 1965) and "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes" (with Peter Cushing in 1968), and (of particular interest) "The Stories of Arthur Conan Doyle" (1967). What's most interesting about the 1967 series is that one program survives in the BBC archives: "The Mystery of Cader Ifan" (with Charlotte Rampling as Julia Lambert); it's the BBC version "The Surgeon of Gaster Fell" (dramatized by John Hawkesworth), and the web-site has a de- tailed synopsis of the program, with a Radio Times photograph of Rampling. The web-site also offers Radio Times listings and photographs for many oth- er program in the series (and in other series). Another series discussed in detail at The Mausoleum Club is the BBC's "Late Night Horror", which included "The Kiss of Blood" (John Hawkesworth's dram- atization of "The Case of Lady Sannox") in 1968. According to Radio Times, Sean Connery, "famous for the role of James Bond (the toughest and bravest man in the world)," came to the set to see his wife Diane Cilento perform as Lady Sannox and "was seen to blanch visibly. Diane herself enjoyed it very much, 'although,' she admits with relief, 'the script demanded that I kept my eyes shut most of the time.'" For those who are wondering just how horrible the story is, I should note that Ian McKellen was recently a guest on "Inside the Actors Studio" on Bravo cable, and was asked for hints about what was going to happen in the second "Lord of the Rings" film. He smiled and replied, "if you want to know what happens in the story, you could read the book." Amanda Knight is planning a magazine that will appear three times a year, publishing Sherlockian short stories written by fans, and welcomes submiss- ions; her address is 3/69 McIntosh Road, Narraweena, NSW 2099, Australia . William Henson died on Dec. 2. He was veteran animator who began his car- eer with Walt Disney in the 1940s, where he helped create "Chip 'n Dale"; after a move to New York to work on cartoons such as "Casper the Friendly Ghost", he went to Mexico to supervise a team of 180 animators working on "The Adventures of Bullwinkle and Rocky" (which, in a story about counter- feit box-tops that threatened to flood the world's economy, featured Boris Badenov as Hemlock Soams and Natasha Fatale as Dr. Watkins). Dec 02 #4 "An Ancient Link to Africa Lives On in Bay of Bengal" was the headline on Nicholas Wade's story in the N.Y. Times (Dec. 10), spotted by Jack Koelle. Researchers have analyzed DNA obtained from Anda- man Islanders and determined that they are direct descendants of the first modern humans to have inhabited Asia. The Andaman Islanders are "arguably the most enigmatic people on our planet," according to a report in Current Biology by a team led by geneticist Dr. Erika Hagelberg of the University of Oslo; the physical characteristics of the Andamanese are African; their language belongs to a family that includes those of Papua New Guinea, Tas- mania, and Melanesia; and their DNA establishes them as Asians whose ances- tors migrated from Africa 40,000 to 50,000 years ago. The first lapel pin of 2003 celebrates The Baskerville Bash (one suspects that the "BBC" represents the Baskerville Bash Committee as well as the British Broadcasting Corporation); it's available from Warren Randall, 15 Fawn Lane West, South Setauket, NY 11720, for $8.50 postpaid. Stephen Rebello's preview (in the January issue of Playboy) of the new film "Shanghai Knights" notes that "Jackie Chan's manic charm and Owen Wilson's loopy, stoner rhythms played so well off each other in the action romp Western 'Shanghai Noon' that the ac- tors have been reteamed. This time they're off to Victorian London to av- enge Chan's father's death but instead get tangled in a conspiracy--involv- ing such legends as Jack the Ripper and Sherlock Holmes--to kill the royal family." According to the Internet Movie Data Base, the cast includes Tom Fisher as Det. Artie Doyle (aka Arthur Conan Doyle); the film is scheduled to open in February. Peter Tanner died on Dec. 10. He was a drummer and a stockbroker before he found work in the film industry, as a tea boy at a British studio. He soon became a film editor for Ealing, working on "Scott of the Antarctic" (1948) and "Kind Hearts and Coronets" (1949), and went on to a distinguished edit- ing career in films that included "Without a Clue" (1988). William Harker reports that L.O.F. Communications maintains a nice web-site devoted to old-time radio; one of the features is a series of columns writ- ten by Harry Bartell, the announcer on the Rathbone/Bruce "Sherlock Holmes" 1945-1946 radio series. is the URL for Bartell's "Struts and Frets"; just click on "On Auditions" to read his story about how he auditioned for the series. The twelfth annual Watsonian weekend (a joint celebration by The STUD Sher- lockian Society and The Watsonians) will be held on May 2-4; additional de- tails (and a registration form) are available from Susan Diamond and Allan Devitt (16W603 3rd Avenue, Bensenville, IL 60106) . Laurie R. King's web-site at has interesting new material: check the "Mutterings" section for her thoughts on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and her "Holmes Chronology" (in which she explains why she has Sherlock Holmes somewhat younger than some Sherlockians expect). Laurie's next two books, she reports, will be Mary Russell novels, one (due in 2004) set in India, and the other (due in 2005) set in San Francisco. Dec 02 #5 Larry Millett's THE DISAPPEARANCE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (New York: Viking, 2002; 340 pp., $23.95) is his fifth pastiche (and the first not set in Minnesota); Holmes has not really disappeared, but he's in serious trouble, in London and New York and Chicago, and again assisted by Shadwell Rafferty as well as Watson, and battling a vicious villain. The winter issue of The Magic Door (the newsletter published by The Friends of the Arthur Conan Doyle Collection at the Toronto Reference Library) off- ers an amusing cartoon tribute by Michael Ffolkes to Sidney Paget's illus- tration of the battle at the Reichenbach, Dayna McCausland's report on the recent celebration of "Angels of Darkness" at the library, and other news from the library. Copies are available from Doug Wrigglesworth (16 Sunset Street, Holland Landing, ON L9N 1H4, Canada) . Only a few collectors can own manuscripts of the Sherlock Holmes stories, but it's not difficult to own facsimiles, two of which were published by the Westminster Libraries and are offered in the new Rupert Books discount sales-list for L15.00 each. THE DYING DETECTIVE (1991) has an introduction by Julian Symonds and an afterword by Owen Dudley Edwards, and THE LION'S MANE (1992) has an introduction by Colin Dexter and an afterword by Richard Lancelyn Green. There are many other items of interest in the sales-list, and Rupert Books is at 58/59 Stonefield, Bar Hill, Cambridge CB3 8TE, Eng- land ; the sales ends on Jan. 31. There's no shortage of paperback reprints of THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES with introductions and afterwords by noted authors. One of them is a Mod- ern Library edition published this year (181 pp., $7.95) has a biographical note on Conan Doyle, twelve pages of end-notes on the text by James Danly, and an introduction by Laurie R. King, who suggests that: "So great is the pleasure in the book, in fact, that the hapless commentator hesitates to pick over it, wanting only to thrust the book, whole and unanalyzed, into the reader's hand and urge, 'Enjoy! Oh, this is your tenth read? Well, have a grand time!'" She has much more to say, and says it well. And there's a Signet Classic edition (250 pp., $4.95) first published in 1986 with an afterword by Frederick Busch, reissued in 2001 with an updated bibliography and a new afterword by Anne Perry, who notes that: "Many of us who write other books, other series, still love to add to the Holmes canon. We wish to draw him with our own particular slant, give him new adventures, exercise his brilliant intellect, his deductive reason, and his foibles of character. But have we the courage to make him dance and laugh and wring Watson's hand, or for that matter live alone in a derelict stone hut, but of course with bread and a clean collar--and apparently adequate means to be perfectly shaved?" David Pirie's THE NIGHT CALLS (London: Century, 2002; 360 pp., L17.99), is his second novel based on his television series "Murder Rooms: The Dark Be- ginnings of Sherlock Holmes": it's an expansion of the two-hour mini-series that was broadcast in Britain and the United States in 2000: it opens with Conan Doyle as a medical student assisting Dr. Joseph Bell in his forensic investigations in Edinburgh in 1878 and ends with bizarre villainy in Lon- don in 1883, and there are some interesting additions to the story told in the television mini-series, including a surprise at the end of the novel. Dec 02 #6 Barbara Roden has reported that "Murder by Decree" (1979) (with Christopher Plummer and James Mason) will be issued on Jan. 21 on DVD and videocassette by Anchor Bay Entertainment. As will "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (2002) (with Richard Roxburgh and Ian Hart), by Warner Home Video; the DVD will include a "making of..." featurette and interviews with cast and crew. The DVDs are in region 1 format (North America), and the videocassettes are NTSC; the films are listed at Amazon at $14.99 each for pre-orders. The new version of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (with Richard Roxburgh as Holmes and Ian Hart as Watson) aired in Canada on Nov. 18, and in Brit- ain on Dec. 26, and it was favorably reviewed by most Sherlockians who have commented on it. It will air in the United States on "Masterpiece Theater" on PBS-TV on Jan. 19. The Friends of the Arthur Conan Doyle Collections and the Canadian Insti- tute for Mediterranean Studies will present Clifford S. Goldfarb's lecture on "Arthur Conan Doyle and the Dorando Affair: The Evolution of an Olympic Legend" at the Library at 4:00 pm on Feb. 15. The legend involves widely- published suggestions that it was Conan Doyle whose assistance at the fin- ish line resulted in Dorando's disqualification as the winner of the Mara- thon, and Cliff will offer facts that contradict the legend. Further to the report (Oct 02 #4) on the Royal Society of Chemistry grant- ing honoring fellowhip to Sherlock Holmes, Steve Mirsky, in his column in Scientific American (Jan. 2003) has suggested other possibilities, includ- ing nominations to the American Podiatric Medical Association for Achilles (for his elucidation of the vital importance of foot health care); to the International Society of Entomology for Gregor Samsa sa (for serendipitous study of the social life of the common cockroach), and to the Royal Agri- cultural Society of England for Dr. John Watson (for being the quintessen- tial banana). James Hazeldine died on Dec. 11. He began his theatrical career at the age of 15 as assistant student stage manager for the Salford Repertory Theatre, and went on to act with the Royal Shakespeare Company, and in the West End and on Broadway, and he appeared in films and on television, and he played Brunton in Granada's "The Musgrave Ritual" (1986). David R. Lenat has an interesting sales-list of Sherlockiana that includes some seldom-seen ephemera from the 1960s and 1970s and 1980s; his address is 3607 Corbin Street, Raleigh, NC 27612 . Randall Stock reports that Michael Kurland has a new Sherlockian anthology due in February: MY SHERLOCK HOLMES (New York: St. Martin's Minotaur, 2003; 368 pp., $24.95) is edited by Kurland and contains stories written from the viewpoints of Canonical characters other than Holmes and Watson. The auth- ors include Kurland, Dick Lupoff, Gary Lovisi, Barbara Hambly, and Michael Mallory. Kurland has a web-site at , and he notes that there will be a Japanese translation of THE GREAT GAME. The Spermaceti Press: Peter E. Blau, 3900 Tunlaw Road NW #119, Washington, DC 20007-4830 (telephone: 202-338-1808)