Jan 06 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press Travelers from afar found clear skies and pleasant temperatures when they arrived in New York for the birthday festivities (but winter had returned by the time people left on Sunday). The ASH Wednesday supper was held at O'Casey's, the Christopher Morley Walk was led by Jim Cox on Thursday morn- ing (with lunch at McSorley's, where Chuck Kovacic presented the restaurant with a color portrait of Morley). This year's Baker Street Irregulars Dis- tinguished Speaker at the Williams Club on Thursday evening was Leroy Lad Panek, who talked about the impact of Sherlock Holmes on Early American De- tective Fiction. The William Gillette Luncheon attracted a sizeable crowd on Friday at Mor- an's Chelsea Seafood Restaurant, where Curtis Armstrong introduced Denis, Adrian, and Dame Jean Conan Doyle (impersonated by Paul Singleton, Andrew Joffe, and Sarah Montague); Charles Foley (grandson of Sir Arthur's sister) congratulated them, but only after saying that "my lawyer will be contact- ing you." Chuck Kovacic presented Moran's with a color portrait of William Gillette. And the traditional open house at Otto Penzler's relocated Mys- terious Bookshop offered the usual opportunities to browse, The Beacon Society held its annual meeting in the Algonquin lobby on Friday afternoon; the group's mission is to encourage and recognize programs that introduce young people to Holmes, and the winners of this year's award were Lynn Beaulieu and Kim Bartolo, teachers in upstate New York, who were hon- ored for their long-standing work introducing fifth-graders to the Canon. The Irregulars and their guests gathered for the BSI's annual dinner at the Union League Club, where Peter Blau delivered the cocktail-party toast to *the* Woman: Norma Hyder (who went on to dine at the Club with other ladies who have been honored in past years). The agenda of the annual dinner in- cluded the usual toasts and traditions;ypresentations by David Musto and Terry Belanger and Lloyd Rose; Tyke and Teddie Niver in a music-hall per- formance; and a tribute to an era of old Irregulars (the 1950s) by Art Le- vine (Art and two other Irregulars at the dinner received their Shillings in the 1950s). Mike Whelan (the BSI's "Wiggins") announced the Birthday Honours, and Ir- Irregular Shillings and Investitures were presented to Richard Olken ("Bob Carruthers"), Regina Stinson ("A Little Ribston Pippin"), Curtis Armstrong ("An Actor and a Rare One"), Paul Churchill ("Corot"), Jerry Kegley ("Nath- an Garrideb"), Trevor Raymond ("Horace Harker"), and Jennie Paton ("Laura Lyons"). The Baskerville Bash, held at the Manhattan Club, featured the "Sherl-Oscar Awards" presented by the Academy of Sherlockian Arts and Sciences; categor- ies for the awards were "Least Fearsome Hound of the Baskervilles", "Most Shameless Display of Overacting in a Sher-lockian Film", "Best Portrayal of Holmes and Watson in an Alternative Lifestyle", "Best Drug-Induced Halluci- nation in a Sherlockian Movie", "Best Tribute to Arthur Conan Doyle's Ob- session with the Spirit World", "Worst Disguise Featured in a Sherlockian Film", and "Best Choreography in a Sherlockian Film". And miniature Oscars were awarded to those at the table that won the evening's quiz. Jan 06 #2 On Saturday morning the dealers room at the Algonquin was (as usual) crowded with sellers and buyers, and at 12:30 The Cli- ents of Adrian Mulliner (devotees of the works of both Wodehouse and Wat- son) gathered for their Junior Bloodstain, which featured a discussion of pig-stealing (methodology, not morality), and a reading of Marilyn MacGreg- or's dramatization of Robert L. Fish's "The Return of Schlock Homes". The BSI's Saturday-afternoon cocktail party attracted a goodly crowd to 24 Fifth Avenue, where Mary Ann Bradley introduced the ladies who have been honored as *the* Woman over the years, and Al and Betsy Rosenblatt reported in verse on the events of the previous year and the previous evening. The new winner of the Morley-Montgomery Award (an attractive certificate and a check for $500) for the best contribution to The Baker Street Journal last year was Catherine Cooke, for her article on "Mrs. Hudson: A Legend in Her Own Lodging House". And the John H. Watson Fund benefited from the raffle prize, kindly donated by Jerry and Chrys Kegley and The Curious Collectors of Baker Street: Maggie Schpak's replica of the snuffbox of old gold, with a great amethyst in the center of the lid, presented to Sherlock Holmes by the King of Bohemia, and from energetic bidding in the traditional auction. The Watson Fund (administered by a carefully anonymous Dr. Watson) offers financial assistance to all Sherlockians (membership in the BSI is not re- quired) who might otherwise not be able to participate in the birthday fes- tivities. The generous donors to the auction were Joanne Zahorsky-Reeves (a custom-made Inverness cloak with a matching teddy bear); Ron White and The Scowrers and Molly Maguires and The Persian Slipper Club (Ron's framed color photograph of Willy Werby's reproduction of the sitting-room formerly on view in San Francisco), and Paul Smedegaard (a complete set of the six medals issued for the excursions of The Sherlock Holmes Society of London). And on Sunday a convivial group of visiting long-weekenders were on hand at the Oldcastle Pub & Restaurant for a brunch arranged by the Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes. I've not reported on everything, I hasten to add; if you want more details than I've provided here, there will be much more in The Baker Street Jour- nal, which is published quarterly and costs $24.95 a year ($27.50 outside the U.S.), and checks (credit-card payments accepted from foreign subscrib- ers) should be sent to the BSJ (Box 465, Hanover, PA 17331); and there's an option offering a subscription to the BSJ and to the Christmas Annual for $34.95 (or $38.50 foreign). You can also subscribe at the BSJ web-site at , where there's additional interesting materi- al, such as issues of The Lamp-Post (the BSJ's occasional newsletter), some of the papers that have won Morley-Montgomery Awards for their authors, and news of various BSI publications. The Baker Street Irregulars are planning a sequel to the excursion into the Valley of Fear (Oct 04 #6); the next one (open to all) will be to Salt Lake City, Aug. 29 through Sept. 1, 2008; Salt Lake City was an important venue for part of the first published Sherlock Holmes story, of course, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle visited in 1923 (there's still much to see now that he saw then). Additional details are not yet available, but the contact for the mailing list is Gideon Hill (215-887-8110) . Jan 06 #3 Francine Kitts spotted something worth watching for when there is a repeat of the episode "Hunting" (Nov. 22, 2005) of the TV series "House" (on the Fox network): Dr. Gregory House, played by Hugh Lau- rie, is seen leaving his home, which has the address 221B. According to TV Guide (Dec. 26), series creator David Shore explained that when they built the set, he said "Let's put Sherlock Holmes' address on it." Shore has of- ten acknowledged that he modeled House after Holmes. Allen Mackler ("Sarasate") died on Dec. 29. His enthusiasms included cats, classical music, pigs, fine cuisine (he reported often in Baker Street Mis- cellanea on the grand gourmet Sherlockian dinners at the Culinary Institute of America), and the thoroughly Sherlockian room in his home, and he was an energetic member of Sherlockian societies in Chicago, Washington, and Minn- eapolis. He became a member of the Baker Street Irregulars in 1990. The December issue of the quarterly newsletter of The Friends of the Sher- lock Holmes Collections at the University of Minnesota has Julie McKuras' "100 Years Ago" discussion of the poet Harry Graham, a "50 Years Ago" re- port on The Five Orange Pips and their first anthology of Canonical schol- arship, and news from and about the Collections; copies of the newsletter are available on request from Richard J. Sveum, (111 Elmer L. Andersen Li- brary, Univ. of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455) . "Smoking Ban Will Leave Theatre World Fuming" was the headline on a story by Mark Fisher in Scotland on Sunday (Jan. 8) about the ban on smoking that will come into force on Mar. 26, when "actors in film, television, and the- atre will be forbidden, like the rest of us, from smoking in enclosed pub- lic spaces." Other countries allow the use of herbal cigarettes by actors. Pattie Tierney has added to her collection of Sherlockian jewelry (Sep 05 #3): the new items are four domino necklaces with photo transfers of por- traits of Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, and Jeremy Brett; $25.00 each plus shipping, and you can request an illustrated flier from Pattie (229 Here- ford Avenue, St. Louis, MO 63135 . For the "I hear of Sherlock everywhere" department: Peter Ashman reports that in Truman Capote's IN COLD BLOOD (1965), the elderly mail messenger of Holcomb, Kansas, recalls: "Time was wasn't anybody here wasn't my kin. Them days, we called this place Sherlock." And yes, there was a Sherlock, Kan- sas; according to the Finney county library, the Santa Fe railroad changed the name of its station from Sherlock to Holcomb in 1907. The Sherlockians in Kansas might consider erecting a commemorative plaque there some day. "Quick, Dogson," cried Whippet, "the game is afoot!" That's Sherlock Whip- pet and Dr. Dogson, in John Semper Jr.'s THE SINGULAR AFFAIR OF THE MISSING BALL: A SHERLOCK WHIPPET MYSTERY (Toluca Lake: Barker Street Press, 2005; 70 pp., $24.95); it's an imaginatively illustrated parody, "for children of all ages," and offers a sample of the artwork and a link for purchasers. The book also can be ordered through bookstores, or from the publisher (10153.5 Riverside Drive, Toluca Lake, CA 91802); checks or money orders, please. Semper has a long list of credits as a television writer and producer, from "Smurfs (1981) to "Jay Jay the Jet Plane" (2005), and he reports that a sequel, BAST OF THE HOUNDERVILLES, is due soon. Jan 06 #4 Admirers of Bert Coules' BBC Radio 4 series "The Further Adven- tures of Sherlock Holmes" (starring Clive Merrison and Andrew Sachs in programs based on the unrecorded cases) will welcome the news that the BBC has commissioned Bert to write a third five-program series, to be recorded later this year (the first two series aired in 2002 and 2004). Tina Rhea has noted the 101st annual quiz from King William's College, in The Guardian (Dec. 23) and (one hopes) still available at the paper's web- site . It's a delight- ful example of something typically British that one seldom sees here, and Section 17 will be of particular interest to Sherlockians. Phil Attwell notes that the "Complete Sherlock Holmes Box Set" (Nov 04 #2) with the entire Canon broadcast by BBC Radio 4, starring Clive Merrison as Holmes and Michael Williams as Watson (48 hours on 64 CDs), together with a book written by Bert Coules (who dramatized many of the programs), has been discounted to L115 at the BBC Shop (P.O. Box 308, Sittingbourne, Kent ME9 8LW, England) . Gordon Lee died on Oct. 16. Credited as Eugene Lee, he starred as Spanky McFarland's chubby little brother Porky in more than 40 "Our Gang" films in the 1930s; two of the films were "Rushin' Ballet" in 1937 (in which he wore a deerstalker) and "Hide and Shriek" in 1938 (in which the kids played de- tective) Lee told friends that when a growth spurt made him thinner, he was replaced (his replacement was Robert Blake). Julian Barnes' ARTHUR & GEORGE (Sep 05 #5) now has an American edition (New York: Knopf, 2006, 390 pp., $24.95), and his book has been widely and well reviewed. He is on tour in the United States, through Feb. 13 (at least), and you can check his schedule at . And Laura Kuhn reports that ARTHUR & GEORGE is one of the two "main selec- tions" from the Book-of-the-Month Club for February. Forecast: THE SCIENCE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, by E. J. Wagner, from John Wiley & Sons in March (256 pp., $24.95); "from Baskerville Hall to the Valley of Fear, the real forensics behind the great detective's greatest cases." Andy Peck notes a Mystery Guild "editor's choice" edition of Les Klinger's THE NEW ANNOTATED SHERLOCK HOLMES (the first two volumes) in paper covers ($39.95); it's likely the same edition offered earlier by the Quality Pap- erback Book Club (Oct 05 #2). The Mystery Guild also offers Steve Hocken- smith's HOLMES ON THE RANGE and Laurie R. King's LOCKED ROOMS. The winter issue of The Magic Door (the newsletter published by The Friends of the Arthur Conan Doyle Collection at the Toronto Reference Library) off- ers Doug Wrigglesworth's discussion of Conan Doyle's poem "On the Athabaska Trail" (the collection has acquired his notebook with an early draft of the poem), a reminiscence by Peter Wood, a report on the collection by curator Peggy Perdue, and other news. Copies of the newsletter are available from Doug Wrigglesworth (16 Sunset Street, Holland Landing, ON L9N 1H4, Canada) . The next Cameron Hollyer Lecturer will be Glen Miranker, who will speak at the library on Apr. 1, with a meeting of The Bootmakers of Toronto following. Jan 06 #5 THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES, valued at L80,000, came in sec- ond in a recent poll of the most valuable works of fiction in the 20th century, according to an article in the January issue of Book and Magazine Collector that ranks first editions in very good condition. James Joyce's ULYSSES led the list (L100,000), and T. E. Lawrence's SEVEN PILLARS OF WISDOM was third (L60,000); only first editions in dust jackets were in- cluded in the survey, and a list of the top 100 books was published in The Guardian (Jan. 19). A copy of the first edition of THE HOUND OF THE BASK- ERVILLES in dust jacket was auctioned at L72,000 (plus 15% buyer's premium) in July 1998, and a copy in splendid condition but without dust jacket sold for L5,000 (plus the premium) in December 1998. Cyril Wecht, whose book MORTAL EVIDENCE quoted the Canon (Jan 05 #6), has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges he misused his public off- ice for private gain; the 84-count indictment includes charges that the Al- legheny County Coroner traded unclaimed bodies stored by the coroner's off- ice to Carlow University in Pittsburgh in exchange for use of a laboratory there for his private practice. Gideon Hill has spotted a polyester Sherlock Holmes apron (item T24426) offered ($18.50) by Linefeed (Gatterburggasse 15, A-1190 Vien- na, Austria) . Many of us have fond memories of the musical "Baker Street" (1964), which starred Fritz Weaver, Inga Swenson, and Martin Gabel; the original-cast LP has long been out of print, but Decca has issued a new CD ($14.98). Laura Kuhn spotted a press release announc- cing plans for "CBS's Secret Saturday Morn- ing Slumber Party" (three hours of FCC-com- pliant children's programming) scheduled for this fall; one of the older series to run in the period will be the animated "Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century" (Aug 99 #4). Guy Deel died on Dec. 13. Best-known for his cover art for western novels, he had more than 250 covers to his credit, as well as a 130-foot mural at the Gene Autry Museum of Western Heritage in Los Angeles. He also painted covers for the eight-volume set of Sherlock Holmes paperbacks published by Berkley in 1977, and the Berkley paperback editions of John Gardner's "Mor- iarty" novels, and he illustrated the Reader's Digest edition of GREAT CAS- ES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (1966). If you enjoyed Neil Gaiman's story "A Study in Emerald" in SHADOWS OVER BA- KER STREET (Jan 05 #3), it's available as a signed print ($40.00) and as a poster ($10.00) at his official on-line store at . Or you can wait for the new version of the web-site to launch in February with the story in PDF format that can be downloaded free. Neil was in New York for the birthday festivities, and to make some recordings for Harper Audio, and "A Study in Emerald" will be issued on a CD later this year. Jan 06 #6 How many members of The Baker Street Irregulars have had songs named for them? Just one (known so far, at least): "The H.C. Potter's Ball" (recorded in 1946 by Johnnie Mercer with Freddie Slack and his Orchestra) released last year by Mosaic Records in a 3-CD set "Mosaic Select: Freddie Slack" (MS-018; $39.00). Jon Lellenberg heard it played on WAMU-FM's "Hot Jazz Saturday Night" on Jan. 21; host Rob Bamberger talked about Potter's career as a movie director. Potter was "The Final Problem" in the BSI (1971), and he is the only member of the BSI to have a star on Hollywood Boulevard. Details are now available for the next annual STUD-Watsonian Weekend in and near Chicago on Mar. 31-Apr. 2; there will be a dinner (with Les Klinger as featured speaker), a running of The Silver Blaze at Hawthorne Race Course, and a Fortescue Honours brunch. You can ask Susan Diamond, 16W603 3rd Ave- nue, Bensenville, IL 60106 for a registration form. The Mystery Writers of America have announced their nominations for Edgar awards, including Les Klinger (best critical-biographical) for THE NEW AN- NOTATED SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE NOVELS; The winners will be announced at the MWA awards dinner in New York on Apr. 27. History Magazine offers a "Private Investigation" section; their December/ January issue has Phill Jones' four-page article on the "Pinkerton Detec- tive Agency" (with a sidebar on "Sherlock Holmes and the Pinkertons"), and the February/March issue his one-page article on "William J. Burns". Back issues can be ordered at their web-site (US$5.55 or CA$6.65); and you subscribe for a year for US$24.00/CA$28.00. Al Gregory offers (e-mail only) his 2006 edition of "The ABC of the BSI" (an alphabetical listing of Investitures, with recipients, from "Abbey Grange" to "Young Stamford") and "The Florin Society" (couples in which both spouses have received Irregular Shillings). Domestic postage rates went up in January, and so has the cost of my news- letter, to $10.25 a year (as in the past, for six or more pages a month of whatever gossip I find appropriate, most of it quite trivial, but much of it Sherlockian or Doylean). The new cost to Canada is $13.15, and overseas it's $15.65. Thanks to Willis G. Frick, the text (without illustrations) is available at . And a few commercials: a 16-page list of the Investitured Irregulars, the Two-Shilling Awards, *the* Women, and the Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes costs $1.30 postpaid. An 82-page list of 841 Sherlockian societies, with names and addresses for contacts for 435 active societies, is $4.85 post- paid. A run of address labels for 357 individual contacts (recommended to avoid duplicate mailings to those who are contacts for more than one soci- ety) costs $10.65 postpaid (checks payable to Peter E. Blau, please). The list of BSIs and others also is available from me by e-mail (at no charge), and both lists are available at Willis G. Frick's "Sherlocktron" home page at . The Spermaceti Press: Peter E. Blau, 7103 Endicott Court, Bethesda, MD 20817-4401 (301-229-5669) Feb 06 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press Bob Verrey died on Jan. 31. He was an energetic member of The Red Circle of Washington and an enthusiastic performer with The Red Circle Players in various roles in the serial "Upstairs, Downstairs, All Around the Holmes" in the 1970s; he also played Sherlock Holmes in "The Certain and Answerable Story of Irene Adler" for the Adventuress of Sherlock Holmes in New York in 1979, and Billy in "The Painful Predicament of Sherlock Holmes" at Boucher- con in 1980. Sorry about that: The Baker Street Journal has increased the price of sub- scriptions, now $25.95 a year ($28.50 outside the U.S.), or $35.95/$39.50 for the four issues plus the Christmas Annual; credit-card payment can be made only via PayPal at the BSJ web-site . Skeletons in the Closet still offer their Sherlock Mugs and other interest- ing merchandise (their profits help to support the Los Angeles County Coro- ner's Department's Youthful Drunk Driver Visitation Program); their address is 1104 North Mission Road, Los Angeles, CA 90033 . This isn't really a trivia question, because I don't know the answer: many people believe that the folks who made the Reginald Owen film "A Study in Scarlet" stole the plot device from Agatha Christie's book, but in fact it was the other way round (the film was released in 1932, while the book was published in 1939). And the question is: was the plot device original when the film was made, and if not, who came earlier, and when and where? Yes, I've not described the plot device, and I'm not going to, because I'm sure there are people out there who don't know what it is, and I'm not go- ing to spoil the fun. The book was published at TEN LITTLE N****RS, then as TEN LITTLE INDIANS, and now as AND THEN THERE WERE NONE. Dave Morrill spotted the report that after 145 years Western Union has gone out of the telegram business; effective Jan. 27 they discontinued all Tele- gram and Commercial Messaging services. Of course they discontinued sing- ing telegrams many years ago, and then stopped having their agents hand-de- liver telegrams. According to one article, there were 20 million messages sent in 1929, and 20,000 in 2005. The headline on the story in the Wash- ington Post was "WE REGRET TO INFORM YOU THAT THE TELEGRAM HAS DIED STOP IT IS SURVIVED BY EMAIL CELL PHONE AND THE INTERNET STOP". And yes, it's quite true that it was the post office that handled telegrams in the U.K. in Sherlockian times, but Holmes did send a telegram to Cleve- land in "A Study in Scarlet"; it's likely that Western Union was involved at the American end, and in the reply. The company hasn't gone out of bus- iness; according to news reports their revenue last year from money trans- fers rose 14 percent to $3.8 billion. The Company of Animals (Ruxbury Farm, St. Ann's Hill Road, Chertsey, Surrey KT16 9NL, England advertises a wide variety of products, including (in the "not all dogs are angels!" department), their Baskerville muzzle, available in 14 sizes and "suitable for most breeds." Thanks to Phil Attwell for reporting on his discovery. Feb 06 #2 Further to the item about Western Union going out of the tele- gram business, Sam Roberts' story in the N.Y. Times (Feb. 12) quotes from Linda Rosenkrantz's TELEGRAM! (2003) with a sampler of "famous, infamous, and apocryphal dispatches"; one of them is "Both Mark Twain and Arthur Conan Doyle supposedly sent similar telegrams to a dozen prominent men, all of whom packed up and left town immediately. FLEE AT ONCE--ALL IS DISCOVERED." The story's widely told, about both authors, but it's always unsourced, and it's not to be found on the CD "The Works of Sir Arthur Co- nan Doyle"; can anyone provide a source for the quote? The Royal Mail honored the 50th anniversary of the In- dependent Television Authority last year with a set of postage stamps featuring six "Classic ITV" series; "The Avengers" included "The Curious Case of the Countless Clues" (1968) with Peter Jones as Sir Arthur Doyle, and "The South Bank Show" had "The Underground of the Imag- ination" (1987) with a segment showing Bernard Davies leading members of the Sherlock Holmes Society of Lon- don on a "Bruce-Partington Plans" tour. , maintained by Ron Fish and Ben and Sue Vizoskie, is an excellent list of upcoming Sherlockian events at; if you would like to have something listed, Ron is at . Scott Tate spotted a report about A STUDY IN SCANDAL, by Robyn DeHart (New York: Avon Books, 2006; 368 pp., $5.99); it's a romance novel, and the Pub- lishers Weekly review noted: "Enthralled by the fictional Sherlock Holmes, Victorian aristocrat Lady Amelia Watersfield has recruited three reluctant friends to form the Ladies' Amateur Sleuth Society." The author has a web- site at www.robyndehart.com, and according to the Romantic Times Book Club magazine (Mar.), there are to be four books in the series; the second one, tentatively title DELICIOUSLY WICKED, is due in October. Gary Lovisi's "The Adventure of the Missing Detective" (in SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE HIDDEN YEARS), nominated for an Edgar from the Mystery Writers of Amer- ica last year, is reprinted in THE ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING DETECTIVE: AND 25 OF THE YEAR'S FINEST CRIME AND MYSTERY STORIES!, edited by Ed Gorman and Martin H. Greenberg (New York: Carroll & Graf, 2005; 336 pp., $15.95) John Woodnutt died on Jan. 3. He began his acting career on stage in 1942 and went on to become a prolific character actor on British screen, radio, and television; he played a station master in "The Bruce-Partington Plans" and a pawnbroker in "The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax" on televis- ion in the 1965 Douglas Wilmer series, Mr. Merryweather in the Granada ver- sion of "The Red-Headed League" (1985), and Arthur Frankland in "The Hound of the Baskervilles" on BBC Radio 4 in 1998. Megan Kean spotted an announcement that New Line Television will bring "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World" back into syndication this fall; there were 52 episodes in the series, which ran from 1999 to 2002 and used Conan Doyle's title but not much else from the book. Jennifer O'Dell, the skimp- ily-dressed local girl was Babe of the Month in Playboy (Sept. 2002). Feb 06 #3 "Return of the Black Bullet Elementary to Holmes Clan" was the headline on a story in a New Zealand newspaper (Feb. 4), noted by Karen Murdock. A man named Sherlock Holmes (also known as Shock) built and raced the midget speedway car at the Waiwhakaiho Speedway in 1955, and two Taranaki men found the car in Australia and have brought it home. Mr. Holmes died in 1996. survived by his wife Margaret, his daughters Judy and Pauline, and a son Sherlock (who lives in Australia). David L. Hammer describes A TALENT FOR MURDER as his first book, written in 1958 and published (almost posthumously) in 2000; it's a mystery, dedicated to citizens of Dunleith (a "pleasant little Iowa river town" that resembles Dubuque in many ways), where three murders are committed, and solved (by a young lawyer who might think resembles the author), and there's an admirer of the Sherlock Holmes tales involved in the story. 120 pp., $15.00 (plus shipping) from George A. Vanderburgh (Box 204, Shelburne, ON L0N 1S0, Can- ada) . Among the nice things about looking through single issues of The Strand Magazine are the occasional surprises: in the Aug. 1943 issue they had "Away from It All" photographs of four "men of fame caught in moments of war- time relaxation," one of them with the cap- tion "Leslie Howard, actor and film produc- er, takes to clarinet-playing, accompanied by his son." His son was Ronald Howard, who was Sherlock Holmes in the 1954 television series. Thanks to Ted Schulz for tracking down the issue. If you want to see what people are buying, you can consult the list of "top sellers" at and the best-seller lists in the N.Y. Times and the Los Angeles Times and other newspaper, but if you want to know what people are reading, you can check the "top 100 books and authors" at Project Gut- enberg , where they list the top 100 eBooks and authors downloaded yesterday, last 7 days, and last 30 days. Conan Doyle ranks second (behind Mark Twain and ahead of William Shakespeare in all of the three author lists. The Silver Blaze, conceived by Thomas L. Stix, Sr., was run for the first time at Jamaica Race Course on Long Island in 1952; it was revived by The Baker Street Irregulars at historic Saratoga Race Track in upstate New York in 2000, and the next running of the race at Saratoga will be on July 29. It will be a weekend event, with lunch at the track on July 29, and brunch and a program on July 30, all for $115 and with a maximum of 60 people; you can send your checks (made payable to The Baker Street Irregulars, please) to (and obtain more information from) Lou Lewis (2 Lookerman Avenue, Pough- keepsie, NY 12603) , and you can visit the web-site for the race at . And there's a special rate available for rooms at the Johnstown Holiday Inn. Feb 06 #4 John Baesch spotted the letter to the Daily Telegraph (Jan. 29) written by Robert Epps, former chief police officer at the Bow Street Police Office (as it was originally called), lamenting "the neglect and contempt of this Government and the Mayor of London, who appear to be about to sell off the old Bow Street Police Station." Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson visited the Bow Street station at least once (in "The Man with the Twisted Lip"). Yuichi Hirayama maintains an interesting "blog" about "Sherlockiana in Jap- an" (with content in English) at , and it's helpful to know that you can buy Japanese books on-line at (there's an "in English" link at the upper right of the opening screen). Karen Murdock reported a library-catalog record for BLEAK HOUSES: MARITAL VIOLENCE IN VICTORIAN FICTION, by Lisa Surridge, (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2005; 272 pp., $55.00 cloth, $24.95 paper); the author surveys fact and fiction (from Dickens through Conan Doyle), with a final chapter "Are Women Protected? Sherlock Holmes and the Violent Home" that offers inter- esting commentary on marital violence recorded in the Canon. There are those who believe that Arthur Conan Doyle hated Sherlock Holmes, or merely disliked him, and it is interesting to remember what Sir Arthur wrote in The Strand Magazine (Mar. 1927), recalling his decision to end the stories at the conclusion of THE MEMOIRS: "I did the deed, but, fortunate- ly, no coroner had pronounced upon the remains, and so, after a long inter- val, it was not difficult for me to respond to the flattering demand and to explain my rash act away. I have never regretted it, for I have not in ac- tual practice found that these lighter sketches have prevented me from ex- ploring and finding my limitations in such varied branches of literature as history, poetry, historical novels, psychic research, and the drama. Had Holmes never existed I could not have done more, though he may perhaps have stood a little in the way of the recognition of my more serious literary work." And he repeated those sentiments in his Preface to THE CASE BOOK OF SHERLOCK HOLMES. Frederick Busch died on Feb. 23. He was a highly-regarded novelist, and a professor at Colgate University, and he wrote an introduction for THE SHER- LOCK HOLMES MYSTERIES (New American Library, 1985) and an article on Sher- lock Holmes' centenary for the Chicago Tribune (1987). Greg Darak has noted an article by Francois Thomas on "Les 'dix grandes in- terpretations' selon Orson Welles (1938)" in the French film magazine Posi- tif (Oct. 2005); according to a clipping found in a scrapbook in the N.Y. Library for the Performing Arts, Welles was one of many people asked by an unknown newspaper in 1938 to list ten great performances. Welles' list in- cluded William Gillette in "Sherlock Holmes"; later that year he performed on stage in Gillette's "Too Much Johnson" and then on radio in Gillette's "Sherlock Holmes". The others on Welles' list were Mrs. Patrick Campbell in "The Matriarch", Edith Evans in "The Way of the World", Sir Cedric Hard- wicke in "The Barretts of Wimpole Street", Spencer Tracy in the film "Now I'll Tell", Whitford Kane in "Juno and the Paycock", Emil Jannings in the film "The Last Laugh", Fedor Chaliapin in "Boris Goudenov", Charles Chaplin in all his films, and Kirsten Flagstad in "Tristan and Isolde". Feb 06 #5 "Russian Actor Livanov to Receive Order of British Empire for Acting Sherlock Holmes" was the headline on a story on Feb. 23, quoting a Radio Liberty report that Tony Brenton, Brit- ish ambassador to Russia, had said that the Queen had made that a decision. had more detail: the award is a CBE (Companion of the Order of the British Empire), and Brenton made the announcement during a recep- tion at his residence, and Livanov said he was grateful for the honor; he also expressed regret that his friend Vitaliy Solomin, who had played Wat- son in the series, had died, saying that "I think we would have shared this high award with him." Honours are generally announced in January and June, and by the prime minister rather than an ambassador, and awards are seldom made to a foreigner, but it's not unprecedented. Don Knotts died on Feb. 24. He began his entertainment career before World War II as a ventriloquist, and after the war appeared on stage, screen, and television, winning five Emmys as Deputy Barney Fife on "The Andy Griffith Show". In the film "The Private Eyes" (1981) he starred as Inspector Win- ship, wearing Sherlockian costume throughout the film. Phil Attwell notes that "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: The Real Sherlock Holmes" is available on DVD from Razamataz (Parkside, Avenue 2, Station Lane, Wit- ney, Oxon. OX28 4YF, England) for L5.95 plus shipp- ing; it's a 57-minute documentary produced, directed, and narrated by Liam Dale in 2004, with (as a "special feature") the radio broadcast of "The Ad- venture of the Devil's Foot" (1947) starring Nigel Bruce and Tom Conway. Amy Spencer, in her article on "12 Ways to Remake Your Boring Old Self" (in New York magazine, Feb. 27) suggests as #12 "Disappear Completely"; it may or may not be a coincidence, but she includes information from two sources in Manhattan: Sherlock Investigations and the Holmes Detective Bureau . Reported: THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES, edited (and annotated) by Francis O'Gorman (Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2006; 300 pp., CA$11.95/US$9.95/ L5.99); O'Gorman's introduction "places the text in the context of numerous literary and cultural debates, about aristocracy, primitivism, biology and criminology, the supernatural, Empire, and spiritualism." "Sherlock Holmes just might be the man to give the Mary Winspear Centre a jumpstart," according to a report in the Victoria Times Colonist (Feb. 16) on how better use might be made of a community center in Sidney in British Columbia. A report with 42 recommendations begins with a suggestion that the center host a series of festivals, with an annual Sherlock Holmes-in- spired gathering leading the list. "There are hundreds of Sherlock Holmes clubs around to world, and Japan has a huge number of them," said Michael Wicks, the report's author, "We certainly believe that there's huge mileage in that." The Friends of the Arthur Conan Doyle Collection are continuing their ann- ual Cameron Hollyer Memorial Lectures: Glen Miranker is their guest speaker this year, on the topic of "When Is a Book Not a Book?"; the lecture will be at 3:00 pm on April 1, at the Elizabeth Beeton Auditorium in the Toronto Reference Library (no charge for admission). Feb 06 #6 Further to the item (Dec 05 #7) on Paul Spiring having conclud- ed that Fletcher Robinson died of natural causes, rather than murder by Conan Doyle, Plymouth's Western Morning News reported (Feb. 20) is still determined to prove his claim of murder. Garrick-Steele and Spir- ing "went their separate ways," and Garrick-Steele now says that Fletcher Robinson's death certificate is a forgery. The Diocese of Exeter has still not decided to permit an exhumation (which Spiring still hopes to perform). The next day the paper reported that BBC South West had broadcast an "In- side Out" segment about Garrick-Steele on Feb. 20. William R. Hanson, MD, has created more Sherlockian first day covers, one for "The Blue Carbuncle" (with the 37c Holiday Cookies stamp and his ori- ginal artwork in the cachet); $10.00 postpaid. The other was for the Sher- lock Holmes/William Gillette festival in Tryon, N.C. (with the festival's pictorial cancel); $4.50 postpaid, or $4.00 if ordered with the Christmas cover. Checks or money orders can be sent to Dr. Hanson at 78 West Notre Dame Street, Glens Falls, NY 12801. "I very much didn't want it to be one of those books for Holmesheads," Ju- ian Barnes said about his novel ARTHUR & GEORGE in an interview published i in the Madison Capital Times (Feb. 3), adding that "I didn't want there to be obscure planted references to a detail in 'The Case of the Upturned Sau- cer,' where they would be able to tug on their deerstalkers and say, 'Ah, yes.'" If you're unhappy about the increase in U.S. postage to 39c, consider that in April the basic letter rate in Britain will increase to 32p (that's al- most 56c); postage in most other countries costs even more. The Internet is a blessing, of course, to those who can use e-mail instead of the postal service. Ernest Dudley died on Feb. 1. He was an actor, a writer, and a journalist, and in 1930 he married Eille Norwood's step-daughter Jane Grahame; accord- ing to Jack Adrian (who wrote Dudley's obituary in The Independent), this gave rise to an oft-used conversational gambit: "You don't know it, my dear chap, but you're looking at Sherlock Holmes' stepson-in-law!" He adapted "The Return of Sherlock Holmes" (the 1923 play that starred Norwood) for a new production in 1953, and again for a tour in 1997. The Spermaceti Press: Peter E. Blau, 7103 Endicott Court, Bethesda, MD 20817-4401 (301-229-5669) Mar 06 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press The Baker Street Irregulars' next annual dinner will be held in New York on Jan. 12, 2007, and I expect to have the detailed forecast of weekend events in the end-of-October issue of my newsletter. The Sherlock Holmes Society of London will have their annual dinner in London on Jan. 20. Further to the report on the Penguin Classics edition of THE LOST WORLD AND OTHER THRILLING TALES (Jul 04 #1) with an introduction and notes by Philip Gooden and three additional stories ("The Poison Belt", "The Terror of Blue John Gap", and "The Horror of the Heights"), there was a separate Penguin edition of THE LOST WORLD issued as a tie-in to the mini-series (with Bob Hoskins as Challenger) broadcast by BBC-1 in 2001 and by A&E cable in 2002. The separate edition has only "The Lost World" and Gooden's notes on that story, and a ferocious *Tyrannosaurus rex* on the cover. "It is difficult to be moderate about the charm of these brief portraits," Michael Dirda wrote at the beginning of his review (in the Washington Post Book World on Feb. 5) of Javier Marias' WRITTEN LIVES (New York: New Direc- tions, 2006; 192 pp., $22.95); one if those portraits is a seven-page essay on "Arthur Conan Doyle and Women", and it's nicely done indeed. The book was originally published in Spanish as VIDAS ESCRITAS in 2000. The March issue of Golf Digest has a well-illustrated article on "How Golf Saved Sherlock Holmes" (by Charles McGrath), which notes that there are on- ly passing allusions to the sport in the Sherlock Holmes stories, and deals in considerable detail with what golf meant to Arthur Conan Doyle, and whom he played with, and where and when. Ev Herzog spotted the Gemstone comic book "Mickey Mouse and Friends" (#261, February, $2.95) with a Sherlockian cover and with a story "Mickey Mouse in Surefoot Jones" (with Jones' smarter assistant Dr. Watsup). "Rich Seam of Technology Behind the Start of Another Australian Gold Rush" was the headline on a story in the Daily Telegraph (Feb. 6), noted by John Baesh. The gold new rush is in the "Golden Triangle" bounded by the towns of Ballarat and Bendigo. "Mining in the past was a disorganized treasure hunt. Computer modelling means we can be much more accurate about where we think the gold is," explained Joel Forwood, a geologist with Ballarat Gold- fields, which poured its first ingot in December; the company hopes to ex- tract 200,000 ounces of gold a year, worth about L60 million. No mention of a modern Black Jack of Ballarat in the article. John also spotted an editorial in the Daily Telegraph (Feb. 2) that reminds us of just what one of the Moriarty brothers did for a living, in the days when each railway station was looked after by its own dedicated stationmas- ter. "Stationmasters have been replaced by managers, each responsible for several of the smaller stations," the editorial lamented, leading to an in- crease in vandalism. "Instead of boasting about the millions that they are spending on CCTV and maintenance, the train operating companies should put an individual member of staff in charge of each station. They should equip him or her with a broom, a pot of paint, and a hanging basket or two. Pride and a spirit of competition will do the rest." Mar 06 #2 From Tom Deveson's review (in the Sunday Times on Feb. 26) of Jeffrey Archer's FALSE IMPRESSIONS: "Allow one honest sentence to emerge from all this feeble, formulaic footling. Give your elderly aris- tocrat the chance to say on page 352 that 'we have been giving honours to pop stars, footballers, and vulgar millionaires.' Cherish this tiny seed of self-knowledge, Lord Archer." Deveson obviously didn't like Archer's new the book, and complains (when it comes to plot): "Take an idea from an 1893 Sherlock Holmes story and wrap it in pages of stuff about real and fake Van Goghs." Pattie Tierney now has a web-site at showing her Sherlockian "wearable art" (including her new "Great Detectives" mys- tery necklace" that can be customized). The electronically-handicapped can request a copy of her illustrated flier (229 Hereford Avenue, St. Louis, MO 63135). Further to the item (Nov 05 #8) on the diamond necklace/tiara owned by Dame Jean Conan Doyle, scheduled to be auctioned at Bonhams in London on Dec. 8 and described as "late 19th century (circa 1890), set throughout with old brilliant and single-cut diamonds," the hammer price was L13,000 (add 20% for the buyer's premium); Lady Doyle's will bequeathed her diamond tiara to her daughter, and of course it's likely that the tiara was a gift from her husband. Is there a photograph somewhere of Lady Doyle wearing the tiara? One of the interesting aspects of the Internet is how international it is. offers Italian readers links to stories by Conan Doyle (and many other authors) at Project Gutenberg and other web-sites, and to articles in newspapers and magazines in Italy and other countries. Douglas Johnston, who maintains the web-log "A Million Monkeys Typing: Ran- dom Musings from a Primate Mind" at has launched a new Sherlockian blog "A Study in Sherlock" at . The Internet and the World Wide Web offer far more Sherlockian content than anyone has time to read, and the amount of content increases by the minute, but if you want to explore an interesting Sherlock blog, this one's a good place to start. Scott Monty notes that Ch. Rocky Top's Sundance Kid (affectionately known as Rufus) won best in show at the Westminster Kennel Club dog show in Feb- ruary. Add there's a Sherlockian connection: Rufus is a bull terrier, and has a nice photograph of him. Scott also notes that there's another Canonical connection for Rufus (not the red-bearded Duke of Holdernesse or all those people in "The Red Headed League"); answer below, for those who can't fig- ure out the answer. The Sherlock Holmes pub at the Gulf Hotel in Bahrain (May 92 #1) now has a web-site at , Scott Monty reports. The "events" section at the web-site explains that "Sher- lock Holmes and Dr. Watson lived at 221b Baker Street between 1881-1904. Now he and his partner currently resides at the Gulf Hotel where they hold office and offering their clients live sports coverage, live entertainment, and the best fish and chips in town." Mar 06 #3 It's still possible to dine at the Langham Hotel in London, just as Arthur Conan Doyle and Oscar Wilde did on Aug. 30, 1889, when they were commissioned to write stories for Lippincott's Monthly Magazine, although it costs a lot more now (L36.00 for a three-course dinner) than it did then. The Langham opened in 1865 as Europe's first Grand Hotel, and it eventually was turned into offices for the BBC, and then back into a luxury hotel (Dec 90 #7) that is now the flagship for the Langham Hotel Group; you will find other Langhams in Auckland, Boston, Hong Kong, and Melbourne, and there's a web-site at . Ewan McDonald began his re- view of the Auckland Langham's restaurant in the New Zealand Herald (Mar. 8) with the story of that long-ago dinner in London. And in case you don't know the story, Conan Doyle wrote "The Sign of the Four" for Lippincott's, and Wilde "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (there are some Sherlockian scholars who believe that you can see some of Oscar Wilde in the mannerisms of Thad- deus Sholto in "The Sign of the Four"). Further to the item (Oct 05 #4) about Steven Dietz's play "Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure", the script is not yet available, but Dietz has a web- site with information about this and his other plays. Don Hobbs put together a "Great Whimsical Sherlockian Tour of Oklahoma and Texas" last year, and it was thoroughly Sherlockian and decidedly whimsi- cal; (click on "Activities" and then on "2005 Whimsical Tour") has Jim Webb's delightful description of the tour at the web-site of The Diogenes Club of Dallas. There are a few railroad spikes collected at Sherlock, Texas, available as souvenirs (with a small brass plaque commemorating the tour); $15.00 postpaid from Don at 2100 Elm Creek Lane, Flower Mound, TX 75028. "Sherlockian Resources on the Internet: A Survey" is the title of a useful web-site maintained by John Bergquist at , with discussion of many of the better Sherlockian links; its goal being "to help one pick out a few choice strands to follow along the World Wide Web." Further to the forecast (Feb 06 #5) of THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES WITH "THE ADVENTURE OF THE SPECKLED BAND", edited by Francis O'Gorman (Peterbor- ugh: Broadview Press, 2006; 300 pp., CA$12.95/US$9.95/L4.99), the book has a long and informative introduction, the stories (with many annotations), nine appendices with excerpts from relevant authors such as Francis Galton, Jack London, Edgar Allan Poe, and Arthur Conan Doyle, and a good list of selected further reading. It's all useful and entertaining for both teach-ers and students. About the second Canonical connection for Rufus: it was the Red King (Will- iam Rufus) who granted the estate of Birlstone to Hugo de Capus. Google has added Mars to its web-site at , which serves as a reminder that they already show the Moon, at , where you can see Sherlock Crater (named during the Apollo 17 mission by geologist- astronaut Jack Schmitt in honor of Sherlock Holmes). Unfortunately, they don't identify which crater is Sherlock Crater. For that, try Mia Stampe's "The Universal Sherlock Holmes" at . Mar 06 #4 Further to the item (Feb 06 #5) about Vasiliy Livanov, the offi- cial word is that he received an honorary MBE (honorary because he's not a British subject). Formally, he's a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire; next step up is Officer (OBE), then Companion (CBE), and Knight or Dame (KBE or DBE). Dame Jean Conan Doyle was awarded an OBE in 1948, and a DBE in 1963. OBEs have been awarded in the past to Leslie Bricusse, Peter Cushing, and Penelope Keith (names that may be fami- liar to Sherlockians and Doyleans); CBEs have been given to Simon Callow, Michael Holroyd, Alan Howard, Deborah Kerr, Christopher Lee, Dudley Moore, and Ian Richardson; Michael Caine, Nigel Hawthorne, and John Mills received CBEs, and later knighthoods. Sherlock Holmes refused a knighthood, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle accepted one. Carolyn and Joel Senter (Classic Specialties) have published a new issue of their Sherlockian E-Times with news, and offers of new Sherlockiana, and links to their web-site, which has much more Sherlockiana; you can request an e-mail subscription at . James Taylor & Son note that "Conan Doyle practiced in rooms just a couple of hundred yards away from our shop," and that their "Sherlock Holmes coll- ection" is "true to the styles of the great detective." They are shoemak- ers ("quality shoemakers since 1857"); the shop is at 4 Paddington Street (London W1U 5QE, England), with a web-site at , where you will find the Watson Walker, the Sherlock Shoe, the Gloria Scott, the Baskerville Boot, the Lestrade, and the Hudson Hopper. You "could or- der something of the same quality as Sherlock Holmes would have worn," the company suggests. "It might cost a few guineas more, but you will detect the quality." Phil Attwell reports that the first two seasons of the Granada series (with Jeremy Brett and David Burke) are available on zone-2 DVDs with dialogue in French. You can see and hear excerpts at ; the sets cost E54.00 each per season, but they're discounted at . Roger Johnson has reviewed the first set in The District Messenger: you can watch the shows in French or in English (with or without French subtitles), and there's added-value material provided by The Jeremy Brett Society of France and La Societe Sherlock Holmes de France. The Practical, But Limited, Geologists will meet for drinks and dinner in Houston, to honor the world's first forensic geologist, at 7:00 pm on April 12, at Artista (800 Bagby Street at Rusk), during the annual meeting of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists. We traditionally discourage scholarly papers, quizzes, and slide shows, and our agenda consists entire- ly of toasts (some scholarly, but many not). Visitors and locals are wel- come, as always, to attend the festivities. Maureen Collins reports that the National Library of Medicine is screening a series of films having to do with forensic investigation, in conjunction with an exhibition "Visible Proofs: Forensic Views of the Body". The exhi- bition will be open through Feb. 16, 2008, and there's an informative web- site at ; the Library is at 8600 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, MD 20894. "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" (1939) was the first film (screened on Mar. 16) in the weekly series. Mar 06 #5 There aren't many authors who can maintain two successful ser- ies of mysteries (along with some stand-alone novels): Laurie R. King is one of them, and she has won many fans (and awards) for her ser- ies about Mary Russell and her series about Kate Martinelli. Martinelli is a contemporary lesbian San Francisco homicide inspector, and it can be in- teresting to imagine a Russell fan innocently picking up a Martinelli novel (and, needless to say, vice versa). THE ART OF DETECTION (New York: Bantam Books, 2006; 358 pp., $24.00) is the latest Martinelli mystery, and it's an intriguing cross-over: a compulsive collector who has turned his home into a Sherlockian museum is murdered, perhaps by a fellow-member of his S'ian society who covets a manuscript that, if it's authentic, is a first-person account of a case Sherlock Holmes solved in San Francisco in 1924 (when he was there with Mary Russell, as recorded in LOCKED ROOMS). The manuscript is part of THE ART OF DETECTION, so there are two murders in the novel, one solved by Holmes and the other by Martinelli. Michael Chabon's THE FINAL SOLUTION (set on the Sussex Downs and in London in the summer of 1944, and featuring an aged beekeeper detective) won the 2005 National Jewish Book Award in Fiction. Runners-up in the competition were Philip Roth's THE PLOT AGAINST AMERICA and Cynthia Ozick's HEIR TO THE GLIMMERING WORLD. The U.S. Postal Service has released a set of five "Crops of the Americas" stamps, in booklets and coils, showing squashes, corn, chili peppers, sunflowers, and beans. The famous Blue Carbuncle was described as a "brilliantly scintillating blue stone, rather smaller than a bean in size." Further to the earlier item (Mar 05 #3) about Nicholas Twit: The Schoolboy Sherlock Holmes, the fifth (and last) book in the series was published last year (the books are "for mystery readers from 8 to 80"), and author Cenarth Fox has reported that his play "The Real Sherlock Holmes" is in its third year on tour in Australia. There's a web-site at (copies of all the books are still available) and a preview copy of the script can be downloaded free at ; Classic Specialties (Box 19058, Cin- cinnati, OH 45219) (877-233-3823) offers a CD re- cording of the play ($12.95). It has been some years since there has been any Sherlockian cross-over into the science fiction magazines; Philip K. Jones reports "The Scarlet Band", by Harry Turtledove, in Analog Science Fiction and Fact (May 2006). It's set in the late 19th century and involves Athelstan Homes, Dr. John Walton, and Captain La Strada. Further to the item (Dec 05 #2) about "Springtime in Baker Street" (on Apr. 22-23 in Norwolk, Conn.), Bob Thomalen now has a detailed schedule; some of the events include talks by Gideon Hill on "The Lithium Link: Gout, Mania, and Sherlock Holmes", Charles Meyer on "The Magical Sherlock Holmes", Jim Cleary on "Sounds of Baker Street", Mike Berdan on "Connecticut's Canonical Connections", and Philip Shreffler on "Watson's Weird Tales: Horror in the Canon", plus a dinner performance by the Sherlettes and the Friends of Bog- ies on Baker Street. Additional details are available from Bob at 82 High- view Drive, Carmel, NY 10512 (845-225-2445) . Mar 06 #6 "My old friend Charlie Peace was a violin virtuoso," Sherlock Holmes said (in "The Illustrious Client"). Holmes was 25 years old when Peace was executed on Feb. 25, 1879; the executioner was hangman William Marwood, and a letter from Marwood confirming that Peace had been executed was sold at auction at Bonhams in Leeds on Feb. 28 for L520 (plus premium and tax). The Edinburgh Evening News has reported (Mar. 14) that "A decade-long cam- paign for the village where Arthur Conan Doyle grew up to be given special conservation status has failed due to a glut of home extensions." Planning chiefs have refused to give Nether Liberton special conservation status be- cause they say that residents' work on their homes has damaged the area's character. The decision does not affect restoration of Liberton Bank House (where Conan Doyle lived for four years during the 1860s); that work (Dec 05 #2) is about to begin. Don Izban reports that SBIOS (Sherlockians by Invitation Only) will be have their next meeting on Oct. 8 at the Ridgemoor Country Club in Chicago, fea- turing a gourmet dinner, open bar, prizes, and David Hammer's dissertation on why Sherlock Holmes birthday ought to be celebrated on the tenth day of the tenth month. And earlier that day Don will conduct a tour of Graceland Cemetery, where Vincent Starrett and others (both famous and infamous) are buried. Don's events sell out early, and he's accepting reservations now (the all-in cost is $77.50) at 1812 Rene Court, Park Ridge, IL 60068). There's no record in the Canon of Sherlock Holmes ever visiting the Sand- wich Islands (that's the name that Captain Cook gave to what are now known as the Hawaiian Islands), and the Andaman Islanders of Honolulu are at the moment dormant, but there are (of course) traces of Sherlock Holmes and Ar- thur Conan Doyle on Oahu, where you can visit the site of the house where Robert Louis Stevenson lived for a while on his way to Samoa (where he cor- responded with Conan Doyle about Sherlock Holmes), and on Hawai'i (known as the Big Island), where Mark Twain stayed at Volcano House and was amazed by the eruptions in the Kilauea Caldera (he wrote a Sherlockian parody). And Christopher Morley visited Honolulu in 1933 to lecture at the University of Hawaii; he gave three lectures, which you can read in his book SHAKESPEARE AND HAWAII (1933). There is a Canonical connection as well, since sandwiches are mentioned in four of the Sherlock Holmes stories; the sandwich was named after John Mon- tagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, and he was First Lord of the Admiralty in 1778, when Cook arrived in the islands and named them in honor of the Earl. All of which by way of explaining why this issue of my newsletter may be a bit late, and why there's no news from the last part of March, when I was in Hawaii (having decided it was embarrassing for a geologist never to have seen a working volcano); Hawaii is delightful, with far more to offer than just Waikiki. I also had a chance to see Pam Verrey, who sends regards to all her friends. My apologies to those who have sent material about which I won't report until the next issue. The Spermaceti Press: Peter E. Blau, 7103 Endicott Court, Bethesda, MD 20817-4401 (301-229-5669) Apr 06 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press Three Conan Doyle manuscripts owned by his daughter Dame Jean Conan Doyle went to auction at Bonhams in London on Mar. 28, for the benefit of chari- ties she supported during her life; the mss. were "Brigadier Gerard at Wat- erloo" (est. L15,000-20,000), "How Brigadier Gerard Lost His Ear" (L8,000- 12,000), and "Ypres: September 1915" (L800-1200), and descriptions and pho- tographs may still be available at . The "Ypres" ms. sold for L900 (add 20% for the buyer's premium), and the two Gerard stories went unsold. Sorry about that: is the correct URL for John Bergquist's useful web-site "Sherlockian Resources on the Internet: A Survey" (Mar 06 #3). "Professor Moriarty's is for sale," according to the Saratogian (Mar. 20). The Saratoga Springs (N.Y.) restaurant opened in 1984, and owner Dale East- er is ready to retire, and entertaining offers. The restaurant claims to be the only one with a library (actually a stuffed magazine rack, but there are a lot of Sherlock Holmes book around), the paper reported. "Celebrity Digs Fetch L700,000" is the headline on a story in the Sheffield Star (Mar. 29) about a pair of Sheffield townhouses, one of which was said to have a connection with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who "wrote about 6 Ash- gate Road, possibly while living there, in his story The Sheffield Banker." And which story was that? Apple has long included a "Sherlock" file-finding utility in the Macintosh operating system (Aug 98 #5), and of course the utility now does a lot more than that. And Laura Kuhn has reported that Mozilla (a free software/open- source software) project now offers a "Mycroft" collection of search plug- ins for browsers such as Mozilla and Firefox. You can read more about it at , and see artwork showing Mozilla (their version of Godzilla) with a Sherlockian cap and pipe. Further to the item (Dec 05 #4) on The Baker Street Irregulars Trust (which supports the BSI Archives at the Houghton Library at Harvard University), the Trust now has a web-site at with information about the Trust and the Archives, and photographs of letters written to Edgar W. Smith by Vincent Starrett and Christopher Morley. Videotaper alert: Jerry Margolin reports an interesting line of dialogue in "King of the Underworld" (1939) which starred Humphrey Bogart as an on-the- lam gangster, and James Stephenson as a writer who is kidnapped and ordered to write the gangster's biography. Bogart (Joe Gurney) suggests a title, and Stephenson (Bill Stevens) replies, "I have a better title to use. How about 'Joe Gurney, the Napoleon of Crime'?" Carolyn and Joel Senter (Classic Specialties) have published a new issue of their Sherlockian E-Times, with a report on a bottle of Gloria Scott black currant wine received from David Milner (unfortunately, it's not for sale); you can visit their web-site , and you can request an e-mail subscription to the newsletter at . Apr 06 #2 It was Ken Kenza who reported the "Sherlock Holmes Action Fig- ure" (Aug 04 #6), available from Archie McPhee & Co. (Box 3852, Seattle, WA 98113 (425-349-3009) ; they offer other action figures with Sherlockian and Doylean connections, including Houdini, Poe, Shakespeare, Wagner, and Wilde. And the "Marie Antoinette Action Fig- ure" may not be Canonical, but it's amusing. And which story was The Sheffield Banker? "The Adventure of the Sheffield Banker" was an alternate title for "The Case of the Man Who Was Wanted", at one time believed to have been written by Conan Doyle, but in fact written by Arthur Whitaker. Further to the item (Oct 05 #4) on "Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure" (adapted by Steven Dietz from Gillette's play), there are two additional productions scheduled: at the Actors Theatre in Louisville from Jan. 30 to Feb. 24, 2007 (316 West Main Street, Louisville, KY 40202 (502-584-1205) ; and at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park from Apr. 26 to May 25, 2007 (962 Mount Adams Circle, Cincinnati, OH 45202 (513- 421-3888) . An exhibition on "Conan Doyle and Joseph Bell: The Real Sherlock Holmes" is scheduled at the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh from July 1 to Oct. 29, according to the Sunday Times (Apr. 16), and one of the items on view will be the letter written to Bell in May 1892 in which Conan Doyle said: "It is certainly to you that I owe Sherlock Holmes and though in the stor- ies I have the advantage of being able to place him in all sorts of drama- tic positions I do not think that his analytical work is in the least an exaggeration of some effects which I have seen you produce in the out-pa- tient ward." The letter was held in a private collection by Bell's family and recently acquired by the RSCE. Conan Doyle also was dissatisfied with some of the reviews, and wrote: "I know the public, or the upper public, are much more intelligent than the newspaper editors who are in the position of a man who has to swallow an orange and then an anchovy and then ice and then a rump steak and yet is expected to have a sensitive and discriminating palate. It is disheart- ening however when you take pains over a work which is essentially one of character drawing and find it pretty generally taken to be a mere book of adventure." Dorothy Stix has kindly donated to the BSI Archives copies of photographs she has taken at many Sherlockian events over the years. The photographs include a few people who have not been identified, and the Archives would welcome any and all assistance in solving these mysteries; Scott Monty has made the photographs available at his blog at the Baker Street Journal web- site at . Laurie R. King will be on tour in June in California, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arizona and Washington promoting her new Kate Martinelli novel THE ART OF DETECTION (Mar 06 #5); it's a Sherlockian cross-over, and the list of her appearances is on-line at . Her Mary Russ- ell novel LOCKED ROOMS (May 05 #6) was published in a paperback edition in March (Bantam, $6.99). Apr 06 #3 Sherlock Holmes has solved the case of the missing Arctic Oz- one, Peter Calamai reported in the Toronto Star (Mar. 19). The Fourier Transform Spectrometer, nicknamed Sherlock Holmes (Jul 02 #1), is part of the Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment orbiting the Earth on Canada's science satellite SciSat. As it turns out, the problem of the missing Arc- tic ozone was that it didn't appear to be missing when it should have been, during the Arctic winter of 2005; the SciSat's instruments showed that vast amounts of Arctic ozone had indeed been destroyed, but had been replaced by ozone in masses of air blown in from outside the depletion zone. Reported: CONAN DOYLE AND THE PARSON'S SON: THE GEORGE EDALJI CASE, by Gor- don Weaver (Cambridge: Pegasus/Vanguard Press, 2006; 380 pp., L9.99); an account of the case based on contemporary documents. You can read more at . The U.S. Postal Service has finally issued a 24c stamp (that's the new cost for additional ounces, and it shows a butterfly: a common buckeye (*Junonia coenia*); butterflies are mentioned in four of the stories, including "The Three Gables" (Douglas Maberley was not "a society butterfly"). Christiane Maybach died on Apr. 12. She began her acting career on screen in Germany in 1951 and appeared on stage and on television until 1995; she played Polly Nichols in "A Study in Terror" (1965). I've mentioned the colorful Edinburgh policeman James McLevy before (Sep 03 #8); many of his cases were published in 1861 (in CURIOSITIES OF CRIME IN EDINBURGH and THE SLIDING SCALE OF LIFE), and it's intriguing to think that Conan Doyle read and enjoyed the stories. David Ashton encountered McLevy while researching a television play that was broadcast by BBC-2 in its "En- counters" series in 1992 (with Frank Finlay as Conan Doyle and Richard E. Grant as Holmes). Ashton has written four McLevy series for BBC Radio 4, and his first McLevy novel (SHADOW OF THE SERPENT) will be published this year by Polygon (L8.99). The radio series, with Brian Cox as McLevy (Cox played Joseph Bell in BBC-2's "The Strange Case of Sherlock Holmes and Ar- thur Conan Doyle" (2005). Recent programs in the radio series are avail- able on-line at . "I have a trade of my own," Sherlock Holmes said (in "A Study in Scarlet"). suppose I am the only one in the world, I'm a consulting detective, if you can understand what that is. Here in London we have lots of government de- tectives and lots of private ones. When these fellows are at fault, they come to me, and I manage to put them on the right scent." There were de- tectives before Holmes, of course, and the list extends back through Zadig to Daniel and includes one recently discovered by Joe Rainone in the pages of Saturday Night, a story paper published in Philadelphia in 1884. "Old Marvel" first appeared in the issue for Feb. 23, 1884, and Rainone suggests that it's possible that Conan Doyle read the story paper and that "Old Mar- vel" was an inspiration for Sherlock Holmes. Rainone's "The Amazing Adven- ture of Old Marvel; or A Baffling Mystery" is in the fall/winter 2006 issue (#12-13) of Blood 'n' Thunder ($12.00), published by Ed Hulse (2467 Route 10 East, Mountain Club, Building 15, Apt. 4B, Morris Plains, NJ 07950); the web-site is at . Apr 06 #4 There was nothing strictly Sherlockian at Malice Domestic this year, but the schedule included panels moderated by Dan Stash- ower ("Writing the Historical Mystery") and by yours truly ("Stalking Your Prey: How to Choose Your Victim"), and of course any panel with a Sherlock- ian on board involves some discussion of the Canon. The voting for the Ag- atha for best children/young adult fiction ended in a tie, and the winners were Carl Hiassen's FLUSH and Peter Abrahams' DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE, which has an eighth-grade Sherlock Holmes fan and amateur actress as the heroine (Apr 05 #1). And Douglas G. Greene won the Poirot Award for contributions to the genre as publisher (with his wife Sandi) of short-story collections from Crippen & Landru. Malice Domestic XIX will be held on May 4-6, 2007, at the Crystal City Marriott in Arlington, Va., featuring Rochelle Krich as guest of honor, Elaine Vietz as toastmaster, a lifetime achievement award for Carolyn Hart, and Georgette Heyer as ghost of honor; you can register at Box 8007, Gaithersburg, MD 20898 . The New Play House presented a reading of Lee Shackleford's play "Holmes & Watson" (1989) in Frederick, Md., last year (Nov 05 #2), and now they have scheduled a full production at the Cultural Arts Center in Frederick, June 15-25, 2006. The box office is at Box 601, Frederick, MD 21705 (301-668- 8019) . Felix Morley, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1936 for his editorial writ- ing for the Washington Post, is one of two Investitured members of The Bak- er Street Irregulars to have won a Pulitzer; Karen Murdock reports that one of his editorials is included in PULITZER PRIZE EDITORIALS: AMERICA'S BEST WRITING 1917-2003, edited by Wm. David Sloan and Laird B. Anderson (2003). The other Investitured Irregular who has won a Pulitzer is Michael Dirda, for criticism in 1993 (for his book reviews in The Washington Post). Stephen Vincent Benet won the Pulitzer twice, for poetry in 1929 (for JOHN BROWN'S BODY) and 1944 (for WESTERN STAR), and William Rose Benet won for poetry in 1942 (for THE DUST WHICH IS GOD). Both were friends of Christo- pher Morley, and mentioned often in Jon Lellenberg's IRREGULAR MEMORIES OF THE 'THIRTIES as involved in Sherlockian affairs before the era of Irregu- lar Investitures. Further to the item about the new butter- fly stamp, William R. Hanson, MD, chose a different mention for the cachet artwork on a first day cover that showing Beryl Stapleton in the room that held her hus- band's collection. $10.00 postpaid (in a signed and numbered edition of 100) from Dr. Hanson at 78 West Notre Dame Street, Glens Falls, NY 10801. "Case Closed" is the English-language version of "Meitantei Conan" [Detec- tive Conan], a Japanese animation about Shinichi Kudo, a 17-year-old master detective who is turned by villains into a child and assumes the name Conan Edogawa and pursues evil-doers. The 30-minute series aired in English on the Cartoon network (May 04 #6), and it's available here now on a series of DVDs from FUNimation Productions . Apr 06 #5 David Pirie has updated his web-site at , and he reports that on July 27 the BBC and MPI will release a two-DVD set ($39.98) with the four 90-minute programs in the "Murder Rooms" series that aired on BBC-1 in 2001 and on PBS-TV in 2002 (with Ian Richard- son as Joseph Bell and Charles Edwards as Arthur Conan Doyle). And Pegasus has succeeded St. Martin's Press as his American book publisher: THE DARK WATER (the third in the series) is scheduled for October, and there will be reprints of THE PATIENT'S EYES and THE DARK CALLS; Pirie has begun work on a fourth title THE DEAD TIME. Scott Monty spotted a list of the 50 best film adaptations of all time, as selected by a panel of experts organized by The Guardian; the list, which includes "The Hound of the Baskervilles", will be voted on by the public in May. The panel didn't identify a particular adaptation of the story. That's a photograph of Eleonora Suhoviy, who arrived in Britain from the Ukraine 11 years ago and taught herself English mainly by reading the Sherlock Holmes stories, according to a story in the Daily Telegraph (Apr. 19), kindly forwarded by Jay Hyde. Now 24 and an Oxford graduate, Eleonora made the news by winning an appeal against deportation; her mother's temporary permission to remain in Britain ran out in 1999, and the Home Office has spent six years trying to deport them. The Home Office has been turned down by a tri- bunal, and Eleonora said she was "very relieved" and that her ambition is to join the Royal Navy. "Sherlock Holmes and the Speckled Band" is a one-man play performed by Neill Hartley; he appears next at the Township of Washington Public Library in Bergen, N.J., on May 6 (201- 664-4586). He also will perform the show at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia on Sept. 14-17, and at the Atlantic Highlands Historical Soci- ety on Sept. 20; his two other one-man shows are "The Legend of Sleepy Hol- low" and "The Spirit of Lindburgh", and you can see photographs and a full schedule at his web-site at . Thanks to Ted Friedman for news of the show. Phil Attwell reports that the Granada television series is being released on DVDs in France: the first three seasons are available at and there are more to come (they're zone 2 DVD sets), and you get to hear Holmes and everyone else speaking French. Thomas A. Dunn died on Dec. 12. He worked in life insurance and human re- sources, and an enthusiastic hiker and mountain climber, but his real love was pipes, and he was best known as the founder and president of The Uni- versal Coterie of Pipe Smokers and as the editor and publisher of The Pipe Smoker's Ephemeris, launched in the spring of 1965 as an informal typed and mimeographed newsletter, sent free to anyone who requested it. The Ephem- eris was devoted to pipes, smoking, and tobacco, and packed with news from members of the Coterie, many of them Sherlockians who made sure there was S'ian content in each issue. Circulation eventually reached 3,000 copies, and the pages of the Ephemeris are a splendid monument to Tom. Apr 06 #6 Bill Griffith's "Zippy the Pinhead", a long-running comic strip with fervent admirers among readers of the Washington Post (and other newspapers), occasionally shows Gillette Castle; Mary Ellen Rich has reported that Bill Griffith, who lives in Hadlyme, Connecticut, often uses people and places he likes in his work. The strip for July 31, 2002, shows the Castle (Sep 02 #3), and so does the strip for Apr. 1, 2006. The strips (as well as those for June 25, 2000, and Oct. 18, 2002) can be seen at the strip's web-site , where you can also buy original artwork ($350.00), signed prints ($155.00 colored/$55.00 black and white), and annuals ($19.95). Further to the item (Mar 06 #5) about the new set of five "Crops of the Am- ericas" stamps, one of them showing beans (which seemed appropriate for the Blue Carbuncle, described as "rather smaller than a bean in size"), Scott Monty has noted another connection between the stamp and the story: the gem allegedly turned up in the goose's crop. It has been a while since I wondered about Investitured members of the Bak- er Street Irregulars who have appeared in movies as actors (Apr 01 #1), and at that time there were three: Elmer Davis, Bill Ward, and John E. Pforr. You can add Curtis Armstrong to the list; he received his Investiture last January, and has appeared on screen and television, most recently, as Jerry Margolin notes, in the film "Akeelah and the Bee", which opened on Apr. 28. People sometimes ask, "How many *other* Sherlock Holmes stories are there?" It's always been hard to quantify, but computers do make things easier: an answer can be found in Philip K. Jones' data-base "Beyond the Gaslight: The Non-Canonical Tales", a 2.6-MB Microsoft Excel file that can be downloaded at : Philip has identi- fied 5,520 different pastiches, parodies, and related fiction, and expects to increase the total to at least 6,000 with help from people who can add to the data-base. He includes scripts and storyboards for stage, screen, radio, and television, but not recordings, and his "Holmesian Universe" ex- tends to "any fiction that acknowledges the existence of Holmes as a real person, important to the tale being told." The Spermaceti Press: Peter E. Blau, 7103 Endicott Court, Bethesda, MD 20817-4401 (301-229-5669) May 06 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press Further to the mention (Apr 06 #3) of the new paperback edition of Laurie R. King's Mary Russell novel LOCKED ROOMS (Bantam, $6.99), this is an item for completists, since it contains at the end of the book an excerpt from THE ART OF DETECTION; it's now common for a paperback edition to have this sort of promotion for the next hardback edition. Laurie's next book will be a stand-alone (TOUCHSTONE), due this year, and the novel after that will be a new Mary Russell. Rebecca J. Bohner (listmom for RUSS-L) reported a delightfully imaginative pastiche at . If you don't have access to the Internet, go to a neighbor or local library; the pastiche is highly recommended. The Practical, But Limited, Geologists met for drinks and dinner at Artista in Houston on Apr. 12, at the end of the annual meeting of the American As- sociation of Petroleum Geologists, and we were welcomed by local members of the John Openshaw Society. We will dine next at McGillin's Old Ale House in Philadelphia on Oct. 25 during the annual meeting of the Geological So- ciety of America; our tradition is to discourage scholarly papers, quizzes, and slide shows, with the agenda consisting entirely of toasts (some schol- arly, but many not). The local societies will be announcing the event to their mailing lists, and others who might want to attend can let me know. Jay Pearlman reports that off- ers photographs of Nancy Garces-Saroli's miniature of the sitting room at 221B, as well as the full-scale sitting room at the Sherlock Holmes Museum in Lucens, after which the miniature is modeled. The fifth season of "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" has been issued as a set of seven DVDs ($89.99), and the first part of the season is available in Britain as a set of three DVDs (L39.99)); each set has the episode "Who Shot Sherlock?" (2005) and special features that include commentary by wri-ters Rich Catalani and David Rambo, who reveal that they named the Holmes-fanatic victim Dennis Kingsley in honor of Conan Doyle's sons. Noted by Mark Stratton: Dick Riley and Pam McAllister's THE BEDSIDE, BATH- TUB, AND ARMCHAIR COMPANION TO SHERLOCK HOLMES (1999) has been reprinted by Barnes & Noble as THE BEDSIDE COMPANION TO SHERLOCK HOLMES (2005, $7.98). Henry Zecher has spoken at many events about William Gillette, and his as- yet-unpublished biography THE MASQUE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE EXTRAORDINARY LIFE OF WILLIAM GILLETTE, and you can see excerpts from that and his other work at his web-site at . Further to the item (Jan 06 #3) on a ban on smoking by actors in film, tel- evision, and theaters, government ministers have announced that they plan to exempt live performances and film and television recordings where smok- ing is "integral to the plot or storyline" when the ban on smoking in pub- lic spaces comes into effect next summer. Actors had complained that it would be difficult to stage plays if "characters such as Sherlock Holmes or Winston Churchill had to stop smoking," the Evening Standard reported. May 06 #2 Further to the item (Apr 06 #6) about the Investitured members of the Baker Street Irregulars: who have appeared in movies as actors, the list now is a bit longer (thanks to Jon Lellenberg most of the additions): Curtis Armstrong, Elmer Davis, Al Gregory, John E. Pforr, Don- ald Pollock, H. C. Potter, Bill Ward, and (possibly) Julian Wolff. Elmer Davis played himself in "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951), Hank Pott- er played himself in the documentary "On Stage!" (1949); Al Gregory was an extra in "Diamonds" (1975), and Don Pollock an extra in "Dawn of the Dead" (1978). Julian Wolff is reported to have made a little money, when he was in medical school, as an extra in movies being filmed in New York. That's Sherlock Holmes, a beagle-border collie- cross, and his owner Blair Anderson; according to a story om the Christchurch Press (May 5), Holmes' barking alerted Anderson to a robbery in progress at the Wainoni Dairy, and the pol- ice were quick to respond. And the burglar has been sentenced to 18 months in prison, "a re- sult police say was largely due to Holmes' dog- ged detection." Frank Thomas died on May 11. He began acting on Broadway in 1932 (and in 1993 appeared in a dramatization of the Christopher Morley novel THUNDER ON THE LEFT) and he acted in his first Hollywood film in 1934; in 1950 Frank won the title role in the television series "Tom Cor- bett, Space Cadet" (beating out Jack Lemmon and other actors), and when the series ended he be- came a radio and television writer, bridge in- structor, and author. His Sherlockian bridge columns were published in Popular Bridge (and were collected in two books), his pastiche of August Derleth's "Solar Pons" pastiches appeared in Luther Norris' Pontine Dossier), and a series of Sherlockian novels. He was bur- ied, at his request, in his Tom Corbett costume. Carolyn and Joel Senter (Classic Specialties) have published the May issue of their Sherlockian E-Times, with (as usual) offers of interesting Sher- lockiana; the newsletter's URL is . You can also visit their web-site , and request an e-mail subscription. And they have a report from David Stuart Davies that he has returned as editor of SHERLOCK, and that after one general-interest issue without him (Jul 05 #6), the next (and much more Sherlockian) issue (#67) will be published in June. Further to the items about "The Adventure of the Sheffield Banker" (Apr 06 1 and 2), it would appear that Richard Lancelyn Green or someone at Penguin chose that title for "The Case of the Man Who Was Wanted" for the reprint in THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (1985); some of the other sto- ries in the collection were retitled so that all were "The Adventure of..." One can assume that the realtors did not carefully read Richard's introduc- tion, which notes the original title, nor for that matter the story, which while it does mention Ashgate Road, has nothing about 6 Ashgate Road. May 06 #3 Reported: THE RISE OF THE DETECTIVE IN EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY POPULAR FICTION, written by Heather Worthington (New York: Pal- grave Macmillan, 2005; 216 pp., $65.00); advertised as an academic study of early models that culminate in the figure of Sherlock Holmes and the estab- lishment of the crime genre. Jim Vogelsang spotted "Veggie Tales: Sheerluck Holmes and the Golden Ruler" on DVD from Big Idea ($9.95); it's a 20-minute kid-vid (there's another adventure on the DVD, as well as Sheerluckian special feature), and their web-site offers coloring pages, computer and buddy icons that show Larry the Cucumber as Holmes (Bob the Tomato plays Watson). HOLMES ON THE RANGE, by Steve Hockensmith (New York: St. Martin's Minotaur, 2006; 294 pp., $22.95), is an excellent Sherlockian mystery, set in Montana in 1893 and featuring two cowboys: Old Red Amlingmeyer (a de- voted admirer of the Sherlock Holmes stories) and his literate brother Big Red (who reads the stories for him); it's an interesting and amusing example of what can be done with the Canon other than trying to write a new Sherlock Holmes story. The Amlingmeyers have appeared in short stories in birthday-festiv- ites issues of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine (Feb. 2003, 2005, and 2006), and a second novel (with ON THE WRONG TRACK as a working title) is due next year. The author has a web-site at , where you can read the first of the stories published in EQMM, and more about Hocken- smith and his work. Marvin Lachman's THE HEIRS OF ANTHONY BOUCHER: A HISTORY OF MYSTERY FANDOM (Scottsdale: Poisoned Pen Press, 2005; 199 pp., $16.95) describes the re- sults of a chain reaction, from Boucher's mystery reviews in the N.Y. Times to the founding of The Armchair Detective to the creation of Bouchercon af- ter his death; Lachman calls this "the fan revolution," and he does a fine job of explaining what it was and is now. The book is up-to-date through 2004, with sections on "Sherlockian Fandom" and on "Mystery Fandom in Cyb- erspace", and the index includes the names of many Sherlockians and Sher- lockian societies. Bouchercon is a long-established world mystery convention, run by fans for fans, and named in honor of Anthony Boucher; Bouchercon 38 will be in An- chorage on Sept. 27-30, 2007 , and Bouchercon 39 in Baltimore on Oct. 9-11, 2008 . The Morgan Library & Museum in New York reopened on Apr. 29, after an ex- tensive expansion and renovation project, with an inaugural exhibition of "Masterworks from the Morgan" that includes an illustrated manuscript let- ter from Richard Doyle to his father John Doyle. Richard, a noted artist, was the brother of Sir Arthur's father Charles Doyle, and the Morgan owns 79 letters written by Richard and his brothers: 51 by Richard, 25 by Henry, and 3 by Charles, who once owned all the letters. You can see the letter at the Morgan's web-site at , and the exhibition is at 225 Madison Avenue (at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016 (212-685-3484). May 06 #4 Further to the item (Apr 06 #4) about Felix Morley, Karen Mur- dock has found the Felix Morley Journalism Competition, which awards $5,000 in prizes annually for "the best published newspaper or maga- zine articles inspired by liberty." It's administered by the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University (3300 North Fairfax Drive #440, Arlington, VA 22201) . This year's Canonical Convocation and Caper will take place in Door County, Wis., on Sept. 15-17; there's a web-site at , or you can request additional information from Jane Richardson, 3427 East Exchange Street, Crete, IL 60417. "Sherlock Holmes and the Saline Solution" is a new comedy presented by the Sound & Fury Fakespearean Players at the Cafe-Club Fais Do-Do dinner thea- ter in Los Angeles through June 17. The club is at 5257 West Adams Boule- vard, Los Angeles, CA 90016 (323-954-8080), and you can purchase tickets at the Sound & Fury web-site at . Plan ahead: the next Norwegian Explorers conference will be held in Minnea- polis on July 6-8, 2007, and the theme will be "Victorian Secrets and Ed- wardian Enigmas"; the contact is Julie McKuras (13512 Granada Avenue, Apple Valley, MN 55124 . "Japanese to Honour Briton Who Saved Them From Cholera" is the headline on a story in the Daily Telegraph (May 8) that begins, "If William Kinninmond Burton is remembered at all in Britain, it is as a childhood friend of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle." Conan Doyle lived for a time with the Burton family, and his book THE FIRM OF GIRDLESTONE is dedicated to "my old friend" Will- iam K. Burton. Burton became an engineer, and arrived in Japan in 1887 and over 12 years supervised the establishment of fresh-water and sewage sys- tems in most of the major cities in Japan. He died in 1899, and Japanese admirers are planning to erect a monument to him in Edinburgh to commemor- ate the 150th anniversary of his birth. Reported: MURDER IS NO MITZVAH: SHORT MYSTERIES ABOUT JEWISH OCCASIONS, ed- ited by Abigail Browning (New York: St. Martin's Minotaur, 2004; 304 pp., $23.95); an anthology of 12 stories, one of them Conan Doyle's "The Jew's Breastplate". The winter 2006 issue of Mystery Scene has a Sherlockian cover (Rupert Ev- erett), articles on "The Eternal Detective" (by Steve Hockensmith) and on "Sherlock Holmes on TV" (by Ron Miller), and lots of interesting non-Sher- lockian content. The magazine costs $7.50 in stores or $10.00 by mail, or $32.00 for a five-issue annual subscription; 331 West 57th Street #148, New York, NY 10019, and the web-site's at . Mike Barraclough has reported a new resource for research on British radio and television: the experimental prototype BBC Programme Catalogue avail- able at . There are details of 947,368 BBC radio and television programs, dating back 75 years; it doesn't offer any- thing to listen to or watch, and it isn't complete, but it's fascinating to explore, searching for titles and subjects and contributors (that includes actors, directors, producers, and scriptwriters). May 06 #5 Michael S. Greenbaum (Janus Books) has a new saleslist at his web-site at ; it's an "in- teresting, unusual, and scarce Sherlockiana," with one item qualifying for all three adjectives: Rosemary Herbert's A SECOND ADVENTURE OF THE SPECKLED BAND, OR ANOTHER CASE OF IDENTITY (her personal account of the first woman to infiltrate successfully an all-male scion-society meeting in the guise of a man). Sorry: it's no longer available, but you can read more about it at the web-site. "Private Eye Popeye" was a 7-minute animation produced by Famous Studios in 1954, with Popeye in Sherlockian costume, and it's one of eight shorts on a "Popeye the Sailor Man Volume Four" discovered by Jennie Paton, and it's in the $1.00 bin at stores such as Best Buy. Jennie also spotted a Dollar Tree audiobook-on-CD of "The Boscombe Valley Mystery", well read (by someone unidentified but with a good accent); the price (of course) is $1.00). Reported: Andrea Barham's THE PEDANT'S REVOLT: WHY MOST THINGS YOU THINK ARE RIGHT ARE WRONG (London: Michael O'Mara Books, 2005; 160 pp., L9.99) (New York: Delacorte Press, 2006; 160 pp., $15.00); the author exposes "a great many of the common myths and fallacies that have become entrenched in everyday thought," and among the myths exposed is that Sherlock Holmes says "Elementary, my dear Watson" in the stories, as well as that the deerstalk- er is mentioned. The March issue of the quarterly newsletter of The Friends of the Sherlock Holmes Collections at the University of Minnesota has Julie McKuras' "100 Years Ago" discussion of the June 1906 issue of The Strand Magazine (which was Sherlockian as well as Doylean), Randy Cox's "50 Years Ago" reminiscen- ces about his first appearance in a national publication (his article about "Mycroft Holmes, Private Detective" in the Baker Street Journal), and news from and about the Collections; copies of the newsletter are available from Richard J. Sveum, (111 Elmer L. Andersen Library, Univ. of Minnesota, Minn- eapolis, MN 55455) . The Sherlock Holmes Collections web-site at is well worth visiting, especially for its links to Tim Johnson's on-going "Supplement to the Uni- versal Sherlock Holmes". Christopher Morley and Franz Grillparzer appeared in the January issue of Oprah magazine, not for their connection at the time of the founding of The Baker Street Irregulars, but for quotes on the monthly calendar (reported by Francine Kitts): "There are no precendents: You are the first You that ever was." (Morley) and "I notice well that one stray step from the habit- ual path leads irresistibly into a new direction." "Dr. Arthur Conan Doyle and the Case of Congenital Syphilis", by Arthur M. Silverstein and Christine Ruggers (Perspectives in Biology, spring 2006), is an examination of "The Third Generation" based on what late nineteenth- century doctors believed about congenital and hereditary syphilis, rather than more modern beliefs on how the disease is passed from generation to generation; it's an interesting demonstration of why it's better to think late nineteenth-century when reading a story written then. May 06 #6 Further to the item (Jan 06 #5) about the new Decca original- cast CD of the musical "Baker Street" (1964), the accompanying booklet has an interesting article on "The Case of the Singing Detective" by Laurence Maslon, and the CD has some nice bonus tracks: "A Married Man" by Richard Burton with Richard Hayman & His Orchestra, and "Baker Street Mystery" by Kai Winding & His Orchestra. "Baker Street Mystery" was in the show (as "A Veritable Work of Art") in the Boston tryout, but never made it to Toronto or New York. Ales Kolodrubec notes that "Icons: A Portrait of England" offers people an opportunity to nominate and vote for aspects of British culture. Sherlock Holmes has already been nominated; people who want to vote for (or against) him, or see other icons, can visit the web-site at . Brian Pugh reports that the Portsmouth Museum will hold an exhibition from June 10 to Sept. 24, displaying about 150 items from the more than 16,000 that were bequeathed to Portsmouth by Richard Lancelyn Green; a permanent exhibition should be open next year. The first two issues of the City of Portsmouth's quarterly newsletter about the bequest, with information on on-going cataloguing and some attractive material shown in photographs can be seen at their web-site at ; to enroll on their mailing list, write to Mark Wright (ECCS 1st Floor, Civic Offices, Guildhall Square, Portsmouth PO1 2AD, England). Sale 5076 ("The Fine Art of Smoking") at Christie's on May 23 with material from the private collection of Alfred Dunhill (1872-1959) included an in- teresting carved-portrait meerschaum pipe in a silver-mounted leather case engraved "H. A. Saintsbury on His 500th Performance of Sherlock Holmes Dec. 21st 1903"; the pipe sold for L960 (including the buyer's premium). Their web-site is at , and the pipe is illustrated in Philip Weller's THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (1992, p. 15). The pipe was previously owned by Stanley Mackenzie, and was sold at auction at Sotheby's on July 24, 1995, along with a curved shell briar pipe also once owned by Saintsbury; the two pipes were sold as one lot for L2,990 (also including the buyer's premium). There are still a few spaces open for the next running of The Silver Blaze at Saragota Race Track in upstate New York (Feb 06 #3), with lunch at the track and the race on July 29 and brunch and a program on July 30; more in- formation is available from Lou Lewis (2 Lookerman Avenue, Poughkeepsie, NY 12603) and at . The BBC America Shop (Box 681, Holmes, PA 19043 (800-898-4921) continues to offer interesting new Sherlockian items, including a Sherlock Holmes Marble Coaster Set ($49.98) and a Sherlock Holmes Mug Set ($34.98); their web-site is at . SOME DANGER INVOLVED (Jul 04 #1) was the first of Will Thomas' mystery nov- els featuring Cyrus Barker (an homage to Holmes' rival in "The Retired Col- ourman") and with excellent Victorian atmosphere; the series continued with TO KINGDOM COME (2005), and now there's THE LIMEHOUSE TEXT (New York: Simon and Schuster/Touchstone, 2006; 352 pp., $24.00), reported to be as good as the earlier volumes in the series. May 05 #7 "On the one hand, we have a conspiracy that lasts 2,000 years and threatens the very foundations of Christianity, and on the other hand a network of rich dilettantes who resemble a theological branch of the Baker Street Irregulars," suggests Roger Ebert in his review of the film "The Da Vinci Code" in the Chicago Sun-Times (May 17), reported by Jon Lellenberg. One hears of the BSI everywhere . . . Empire Publishing Services (Box 1344, Studio City, CA 91614) (818-784-8918) offers a catalog of "novels, plays, television and film scripts, and factual books on Holmes and Conan Doyle" (including many books published by Jack Tracy's Gaslight Publications and by Ian Henry); a sales-list is available on request. The film archives of The Sherlock Holmes Society of London were auctioned by Christie's in London in a sale of "Cameras, Magic Lanterns, and Photo- graphs" on May 15. There were two lots of 35mm and 16mm films, sold for a total of L552 (including the buyer's premium). Google (the Internet search engine) often celebrates holiday and events with appro- priate logos on its opening page, and they celebrated Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's birth- day on Nay 22. They've been amusing their users with one-day-only logos since 1999, and your can visit their on-line museum at . Earl- ier this year they honored Spanish painter Joan Miro's birthday on Apr. 20 with a log in Miro's style, and removed it when they received a complaint from the painter's family that the logo was an infringement of the Miro copyright. Sherlockians are well aware that "A Study in Scarlet" was first published in Beeton's Christmas Annual; the periodical was named for Isabella Beeton, but it was her husband Samuel who published it, capitalizing on the fame of his late wife Isabella, who was renowned for her BOOK OF HOUSEHOLD MANAGE- MENT, first published in 1861. Conan Doyle titled a chapter in his A DUET: WITH AN OCCASIONAL CHORUS (1898) "Concerning Mrs. Beeton", and involves his newly-married couple involved in an amusing discussion of the book. Lytton Strachey planned to write a biography of Mrs. Beeton, but didn't, and there is a new biography: THE SHORT LIFE AND LONG TIMES OF MRS. BEETON: THE FIRST DOMESTIC GODDESS, by Kathryn Hughes (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006; 480 pp., $29.95); there was an enthusiastic review in the N.Y. Times on May 17 (spotted by Francine Kitts). THE BEST OF 'THE SHERLOCK HOLMES JOURNAL' (VOLUME ONE) has been published, edited by Nicholas Utechin from the first eight volumes of the SHJ, with a foreword by the late Anthony Howlett (his last piece of Sherlockian writing before his death). There are 25 "special" copies, numbered and signed by Freda Howlett, Nicholas Utechin, and Philip Porter (L40.00 postpaid to the UK, L41.00/E60.00 to Europe, $45.00/$90.00 elsewhere), and a regular edi- tion (L25.00 or L26.00/E40.00 or L30.00/$60.00); checks made payable to the The Sherlock Holmes Society of London can be sent to Judi Ellis (13 Crofton Avenue, Orpington, Kent BR6 8DU, England . May 06 #8 One of the many interesting aspects the Internet is the growing number of opportunities for those who wish to share their per- sonal information to do that. There are blogs, and Facebook, and MySpace, and (reported by Jon Lellenberg) LibraryThing : "an online service to help people catalog their books easily." You can enter 200 books free, or as many as you want for $10.00 (a year) or $25.00 (life- time), and you can make your information available to others (or not). THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES ($18.95 hardcover, $11.95 paperback) and THE MEMOIRS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES ($16.95/$9.95) are among the titles in the Book series . A Bed Book, according to the company pub- licity, is a book printed sideways, so that it can be read lying on one's side in bed. Sherlock Holmes said that he had paid 55 shillings for his Stradivarius vi- olin, and it would be worth more now. A Stradivarius (called "The Hammer" from its first recorded owner, the 19th century Swedish collector Christian Hammer) was sold at Christie's in New York on May 16, and set a record for the most valuable musical instrument: $3,544,000 (including the buyer's premium); the previous record-holder was the "Lady Tennant" Stradivarius that sold at Christie's for $2,032,000 in April 2005. The County Seat Theater Company will perform Bill Majeski's play "The Very Great Grandson of Sherlock Holmes" (1976) at the Old Country Church Theater in Atkinson, Minn. on July 27-30; 2185 County Road 61, Atkinson, MN 55718 (218-591-0049). "Best of Friends: R. Buckminster Fuller and Isamu Noguchi" is the title of an exhibition through Oct. 15 at the Noguchi Museum at 9-01 33rd Road (at Vernon Boulevard, Long Island City, NY 10016) ; they met in 1929 and were friends and collaborators for more than 50 years. Bucky Fuller also was a protege and good friend of Chistopher Morley, as well as a member of the Three Hours for Lunch Club, the Grillparzer Sittenpolizei- verein, and the Baker Street Irregulars. "The calabash pipe is made from a gourd," Gary B. Schrier notes in THE HIS- TORY OF THE CALABASH PIPE, but there's a lot more to be said about the cal- abash; the author does exactly that, and does it well, in his 222-page pri- vately printed (and well-illustrated) discussion of the pipe. The book is much more than a mere history of the calabash: there is discussion of the Boer War, manufacturers, collections and collectors (including Robert Storm Petersen, the noted Danish Sherlockian), and Sherlock Holmes in a chapter that includes a reprint of Robert S. Ennis' "The Great Calabash Question" from The Baker Street Journal. Schrier notes that the iconic Sherlockian calabash is non-Canonical, and quotes a report that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle owned one, which was shown to Robert Kagan by Anna Conan Doyle. There's a web-site at , and the book is available at a discount ($60.00 plus shipping) until Sept. 30 to readers of this newsletter (just say the magic word "Scuttlebutt"). The History of the Calabash Pipe, 14229 Bethel-Burley Road SE, Port Orchard, WA 98367 . The Spermaceti Press: Peter E. Blau, 7103 Endicott Court, Bethesda, MD 20817-4401 (301-229-5669) Jun 06 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press "My favorite authors included Conan Doyle, Dickens, Will James on cowboys, Joseph A. Altsheler on Indians, and Dr. Raymond L. Ditmars on reptiles. I read a lot of Conrad; I loved all that sea stuff, all the gloom. I've read everything." Roger Angell (in New York magazine, May 29) on what he read as a youth; his contributions to The New Yorker over many decades have in- cluded occasional allusions to the Canon. Julian Barnes' ARTHUR & GEORGE (Jan 06 #4) has a new British trade paper- back edition (London: Jonathan Cape, 2006; 368 pp., L10.99). The author's web-site is at . Tom Dunn, editor and publisher of The Pipe Smoker's Ephemeris, died last year (Apr 06 #5) and requested that there be no obituaries, but there are some heart-felt tributes to Tom, by Ben Rapaport and others, in the spring issue of Pipes and Tobaccos; $9.95 plus shipping from SpecComm Internation- al, 5808 Faringdon Place #200, Raleigh, NC 27609 . Wikipedia at is an interesting Internet encyclopedia, with some surprises in its entries. If you search for "a treatise on the binomial theorem" and then click on the link to "a review of a later jour- nal version of the paper", you'll find an imaginative review written by Ian Parberry, now a professor at the University of North Texas, and published in SIGACT News in 1994. The Camden House web-site at is one of the more interesting Sherlockian web-sites; Rachel Wilcox reports that there's a new "Agony Column" for those who have Sherlockian want-lists, or S'iana for sale or trade. Christopher Morley and Franz Grillparzer appeared in the January issue of Oprah magazine, not for their connection at the time of the founding of The Baker Street Irregulars, but for quotes on the monthly calendar (reported by Francine Kitts): "There are no precedents: You are the first You that ever was." (Morley) and "I notice well that one stray step from the habit- ual path leads irresistibly into a new direction." Arthur Porges died on May 12. He was a mathematics teacher before becoming a professional author, and his first published story appeared in 1950; best known for his science fiction and fantasy, he wrote in many other genres, and his series about Stately Homes began in EQMM in EQMM (Feb. 1957). Reported: MURDER IS NO MITZVAH: SHORT MYSTERIES ABOUT JEWISH OCCASIONS, ed- ited by Abigail Browning (New York: St. Martin's Minotaur, 2004; 304 pp., $23.95); an anthology of 12 stories, one of them Conan Doyle's "The Jew's Breastplate". Sherlockian fans of Wallace & Gromit will want to pursue WALLACE & GROMIT: THE WHIPPET VANISHES, by Simon Furman and Ian Rimmer (London: Titan Books, 2004; 48 pp., L8.99 hardcover, L5.99 paperback) ($12.95/$8.95); the graphic novel features the popular claymation characters, with Wallace and Gromit appearing in Sherlockian costume (discovered by Ev Herzog). Jun 06 #2 E. J. Wagner's THE SCIENCE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES: FROM BASKERVILLE HALL TO THE VALLEY OF FEAR: THE REAL FORENSICS BEHIND THE GREAT DETECTIVE'S GREATEST CASES (Hoboken: John Wiley, 2006; 244 pp., $24.95) is a fine demonstration of how the Canon can be used to make a technical sub- ject interesting, and it will be just as interesting to Sherlockians: Wag- ner tells stories of how science was and is used to solve crimes, and she uses the stories to show how forensics have expanded in scope since Sher- lock Holmes' time. Her web-site's at . Caleb Carr's THE ITALIAN SECRETARY: A FURTHER ADVENTURE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (Apr 05 #5) is out in paperback (New York: St. Martin's Paperbacks, 2006; 352 pp., $7.99); it brings Holmes and Watson to Edinburgh to help Mycroft defend Her Majesty against a plot that involves Holyrood and David Rizzio (who was Queen Mary's secretary and met his death at Holyrood). The Norwegian Explorers' "Christmas Annual 2005" offers Andrew Malec's re- port on "An Interesting William Gillette Letter", Pasquale Accardo's dis- cussion of "The Crooked Man", and other scholarship; copies of the 50-page booklet are available from its editor, John Bergquist (3665 Ashbury Road, Eagan, MN 55122) for $10.00 postpaid (checks payable to The Norwegian Ex- plorers, please). Robert W. Douty ("The Priory School") died on May 30. He was a teacher and then a pastor and chaplain, ordained in 1990. His middle name was Watson, and Bob was an early member of The Hudson Valley Sciontists and The Three Garridebs, and in 1980 co-authored (with Bruce Kennedy) a pamphlet on their explorations IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF BIRDY EDWARDS. He was awarded his Inves- titure in The Baker Street Irregulars in 1980. At hand from Will Thomas: a copy of Tony Wolf's article on "Bartitsu: The 'New Art of Self-Defence'" in Classical Fighting Arts #9 (2006); bartitsu. invented by E. W. Barton-Wright, is believed by many Sherlockian scholars to be the baritsu that Sherlock Holmes mentions in "The Empty House" (the conclusion of the article will appear in issue #10). $5.95 plus shipping from Dragon Associates (Box 6039, Thousand Oaks, CA 91359) (800-717-6288) . Reported: FACES OF THE LIVING DEAD: THE BELIEF IN SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPHY, by Martyn Jolly (London: British Library Publishing Division, 2006; 160 pp., L20.00) (West New York: Mark Batty, 2006; 160 pp., $39.95); "examines the evolution and photographic technique of spirit photography," with discuss- ion of Conan Doyle's involvement. Laura Kuhn reports that Stuart M. Kaminsky's Sherlockian pastiche "The Man from Capetown" (which was first published in Martin Greenberg's collection MURDER IN BAKER STREET in 2001) can now be read free at Kaminsky's web-site . Jens Byskov Jensen, founder of Le Cercle de Sherlock Holmes in New Orleans, published some of his Sherlockian scholarship for the birthday party that was held by Hugo's Companions in Chicago on May 27; a few copies of the 24- page pamphlet THREE STUDIES are available ($8.95 postpaid) from William E. Sawisch (149 Rockford Avenue, Forest Park, IL 60130). Jun 06 #3 Further to the item (Oct 05 #4) on "Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure" (adapted by Steven Dietz from Gillette's play), an- other production is scheduled next year, by the Kansas City Repertory The- atre, at the Spencer Theatre in the Performing Arts Center in Kansas City, Feb 23 through Mar. 18 (the theater's address is 4949 Cherry Street, Kansas City, MO 64110 (816-235-2700) . Congratulations to Peter Calamai, national science reporter for the Toronto Star, who has won a Canadian Science Writers' Association's 2005 Science in Society award ($1,000) for his ten-part series on Albert Einstein's legacy. The series is available on-line at : scroll down to "Fea- ture Sections" and click on "Ideas", scroll down to the picture of Albert Einstein, and click on "The miracle worker"; his stories (beginning Oct. 2) are in the links under "Einstein's Miracle Year". The Long Beach Playhouse is performing Ken Ludwig's "Postmortem" (a mystery featuring William Gillette and set at his home in Connecticut) through July 15 (562-494-1014) . The play also is being performed by the Old Lyric Repertory Company at the Caine Lyric Theatre in Logan, Utah, from July 6 through Aug. 8 (435-752-1500) . The Baker Street Dispatch, now in its 16th year, is an interesting six-page newsletter edited by Thomas and Janet Biblewski ($10.50 a year for six iss- ues; Box 5503, Toledo, OH 43613); the May issue includes a humorous report from Sam Stinson on the perils of being a collector. Emerson G. Wulling died on May 29. He taught English for 40 years, but his real calling was printing: he began at the age of 13, with rubber type on a toy press he received from his parents as a Christmas present in 1915, and he was still printing two years ago at the age of 100; his Sumac Press was famous for its interesting books, pamphlets, and ephemera, including many items published for The Norwegian Explorers. Something new for Sherlockians visiting Edinburgh: the Scottish Storytell- ing Centre has opened on the Royal Mile, with a storytelling wall that cel- ebrates famous stories, among them Tom O'Shanter, Greyfriars Bobby, Sher- lock Holmes, Inspector Rebus, Maisie from Morningside, and The Gruffalo. Simon Callow's ORSON WELLES: THE ROAD TO XANADU (Apr 96 #1) was the first installment of a three-volume biography, now followed by ORSON WELLES: HEL- LO AMERICANS (London: Jonathan Cape, 2006; 528 pp. L25.00); Welles is known best to many Sherlockians as the answer to a trivia-quiz question (name an actor who played both Sherlock Holmes and Prof. Moriarty), and Callow is an excellent writer (and actor and director). The new volume covers the years 1941 to 1947. Barry Day's SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE APOCALYPSE MURDERS (Sep 01 #1) is now available as an audiobook, well read by David Ian Davies, who does a fine job with voices and accents; Holmes (and Watson and Mycroft and Irene) are involved in a battle against a serial killer who intends to destroy London. The recording is offered at as a download to your comput- er ($16.07); the recording was produced by One Voice Recordings, who offer other S'ian recordings by Davies on CDs at . Jun 06 #4 offers a new feature to users: if the picture of the cover of a book shows "search inside" above it, you can click on the cover and get added-value features such as "Statistically Im- probable Phrases" and "Capitalized Phrases" that allow you to pursue phras- es into other books; you can find for example, how and where "Conan Doyle" is mentioned in Jeffrey C. Kinkley's CHINESE JUSTICE, THE FICTION: LAW AND LITERATURE IN MODERN CHINA. Carolyn and Joel Senter (Classic Specialties) have published the June issue of their Sherlockian E-Times, with their usual offers of interesting Sher- lockiana, including a new set of Sherlockian salt and pepper shakers, and the official Col. Sebastian Moran's Gun Club fanny pack. The newsletter's URL is , and you can request an e- mail subscription at their web-site . Jesse W. Thornton died on June 5. He acted at the Weston Playhouse in Ver- mont, and in 1990 played Billy (with Christopher Lloyd as Holmes) in their production of Gillette's "Sherlock Holmes". Provenance can be important: a copy of the first edition of THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, inscribed by the author, was auctioned at Christie's in London on June 6 (with an estimate of L3,000-5,000); it sold for L45,600. The reason for the high bidding? Inscribed on the title page "with Arth- ur's love, Nov 8th/92," the book was a gift to the vendor from a godchild of Conan Doyle. In other auction news, there was an interesting item at eBay this month: a lined notebook, bound in plum-colored polished leather, with a brass lock and key and gilt edges, inscribed on the first page "Kingsley Conan Doyle, with much love from his Dorothy" and dated June 4th, 1911; the notebook was never used (Kingsley, born in 1892, was Conan Doyle oldest son). The bidd- ing opened at L25 and closed at L609. Phil Attwell reports that the BBC has discounted its DVDs with five of the 1968 programs starring Peter Cushing as Holmes: "A Study in Scarlet & The Boscombe Valley Mystery" (L8.99), "The Sign of the Four & The Blue Carbun- cle" (L6.99), and "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (L8.99); a boxed set is discounted to L13.99 . Roger Johnson reports that the BBC plans to issue a larger boxed set with the three Cushing DVDs, Richard Rox- burgh's "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (2002), Rupert Everett's "Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking" (2004), and "The Strange Case of Sherlock Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle" (2005) with Douglas Henshall (Con- an Doyle) and Brian Cox (Joseph Bell); all for L39.99. The Sherlock Holmes Society of London and the Old Court Radio Theatre Com- pany have collaborated on a recording of "The Yellow Face" and "The Three Students" (among the more neglected of the stories); they're dramatized by M. J. Elliott, with Jim Crozier as Holmes and Dave Hawkes as Watson. The 30-minute recordings are excellent, and it's interesting to hear Canonical characters with new voices. Available from the Society (Mole End, Sandford Road, Chelmsford CM2 6DE, England); L5.00 postpaid to the U.K., L6.00/E9.00 to Europe, L9.00/$12.00 elsewhere (sterling checks payable to Roger Johnson and dollar checks payable to Jean Upton; euros in currency, please). Jun 06 #5 The spring issue of The Magic Door (the newsletter published by The Friends of the Arthur Conan Doyle Collection at the Toronto Reference Library) has Barbara Rusch's report on a Conan Doyle notebook re- cently acquired by the collection, an amusing Jabez Wilson pastiche by Mar- ilyn Penner, and other news. Copies of the newsletter are available from Doug Wrigglesworth (16 Sunset Street, Holland Landing, ON L9N 1H4, Canada) . Paul Martin reports a "super summer sale" at Signals (Box 2599, Hudson, OH 44236) (800-669-9696) , with the three volumes of THE NEW ANNOTATED SHERLOCK HOLMES discounted to $69.96; add shipping and it's still cheaper than Amazon's price. Further to the item (Mar 06 #4) about Vasiliy Livanov receiving an honorary MBE, the ITAR-TASS New Agency reported from Moscow on June 15 that Anthony Brenton, British Ambassador to Russia, presented the award to Livanov at a gala party at the embassy; Brenton said that Livanov received the award for producing an image of English tolerance and intellectualism in the Russian cinematic art." 500 guests were invited to the birthday party, and treated to "national British meals and drinks." Reported: A TREASURY OF DECEPTION: LIARS, MISLEADERS, HOODWINKERS, AND THE EXTRAORDINARY TRUE STORIES OF HISTORY'S GREATEST HOAXES, FAKES, AND FRAUDS, by Michael Farquhar (New York: Penguin Putnam, 2005; 320 pp., $14.00); in- cludes a discussion of Conan Doyle and the Cottingley fairies. A new catalog at hand from Audio Editions (Box 6930, Auburn, CA 95604 (800- 231-4261) serves as a reminder that many books now are published on CDs as well as ink-on-paper. Among them: Laurie R. King's LOCKED ROOMS, read by Jenny Sterlin, and THE ART OF DETECTION, read by Aly- ssa Bresnahan and Robert Ian MacKenzie (both from Recorded Books, $39.99), as well as three sets of THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, each with 12 of the Rathbone/Bruce radio shows that were packaged by Simon & Schuster some years ago (Solution Economy, $29.95). Add one more to the list of members of the Baker Street Irregulars who have appeared in movies: Jean Upton, who did voice-overs and dubbing in "Martha, Meet Frank, Daniel and Lawrence" (1998), released in the U.S. as "The Very Thought of You" (1999). Ken Lanza spotted the web-site for A Victorian Village Inn (Box 112, Clin- ton, CT 06413) (860-895-9588) ; there are "cott- age villas" available by the week (or longer), with different themes, and one of them is a three-story Sherlock Holmes Cottage ($750-1500 per week). Michael Gilbert died on Feb. 8. He was a lawyer as well as a prolific mys- tery writer, and a founding member of the Crime Writers Association; he was named a grandmaster by the Mystery Writers of American in 1988 and received the CWA's Diamond Dagger for lifetime achievement in 1994. He combined his interests in an article on "Sherlock Holmes and the Wombles" in the British magazine Author (summer 1977), discussing copyright and characters in lit- erature; the article was reprinted in Baker Street Miscell-anea (June 1979) with comments by Saul Cohen and Francis M. Nevins, Jr. Jun 06 #6 Alan Rettig has reported that Turner Classic Movies cable will feature Dick Cavett as their "guest programmer" on July 24; his four favorite films, all to be broadcast that evening, are "The Third Man", "A Strange Affair", "To Be or Not to Be", "Sherlock Holmes and the Woman in Green"; Cavett says that he saw "The Woman in Green" while in high school, and it was his first Sherlock Holmes movie and the one during which, figur- atively speaking, "I fell in love with Basil Rathbone." SHERLOCK has returned, as SHERLOCK MAGAZINE, with David Stuart Davies again as editor, and many of the traditional contributors on hand for issue #67, which offers Paul M. Chapman's interesting article on "The Heart of Holmes" (Love, Sex and the Great Detective), M. J. Elliott's examination of "A Tar- dis on Baker Street" (about Doctor Who and Sherlock Holmes), a "preposter- ous conclusion" about "Sherlock Holmes & The Da Vinci Code", and much more. SHERLOCK is published six times a year and subscriptions cost L23.70 a year (U.K.) L30.00 (other Europe) L46.00/$70.00 (rest of the world); Atlas Pub- lishing, Jordan House, Old Milton Green, New Milton, Hants. BH24 6QJ, Eng- land . Their American agent is Classic Specialties (Box 19058, Cincinnati, OH 45219) (877-233-3823); credit-card orders are welcome at both addresses, and there are back issues available. Forge/Tom Doherty Associates are continuing their reissues of Carole Nelson Douglas' series about Irene Adler in paperback, with uniform cover artwork by Glenn Harrington and minor revisions and a reader's guide. The fourth reissue is A SOUL OF STEEL, due in December ($7.99); it's the third volume in the original series (published as IRENE AT LARGE). Carole's web-site is at . The June 26 issue of The New Yorker has eight amusing Sherlockian "spots" drawn by Benoit Jacques, who had a different (single) Sherlockian spot in The New Yorker on Aug. 7, 2000 (reprinted on Nov. 2, 2002). Eric Quayle died in Nov. 2001. He was an energetic collector and a prolif- ic author of books about books; his THE COLLECTOR'S BOOK OF DETECTIVE FIC- TION (1972) is packed with splendid color photographs of first editions in the genre, including splendid copies of the "Adventures" and the "Memoirs". Many of the books in his collection were sold at auction by Bonhams in Lon- don on Mar. 14 and Apr. 11. Mitch Cullin's A SLIGHT TRICK OF THE MIND (Apr 05 #2) now has a trade pap- erback edition (New York: Knopf Publishing Group, 2006; 272 pp., $13.95). ELEMENTARY, MY DEAR GROUCHO, by Ron Goulart (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 1999; $23.95); features Groucho Marx as a detective. In a Hollywood movie studio where Valley of Fear is being filmed in the '30's, the body of the director has been found murdered. The actor portraying Holmes in the film vies with Groucho to see which one can find the murderer first. The dust- jacket features a superb caricature of Groucho as Holmes (this is the third book by this author featuring Groucho as a detective). The Spermaceti Press: Peter E. Blau, 7103 Endicott Court, Bethesda, MD 20817-4401 (301-229-5669) Jul 06 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press A Sherlock Holmes/Arthur Conan Doyle Colloquium will be held at the Newber- ry Library in Chicago on Oct. 7 (9:30 am to noon) to highlight the C. Fred Kittle Collection of Doyleana at the Library; the speakers will be Dan Pos- nansky, Paul Martin, and Glen Miranker. The colloquium is open to the pub- lic, and the Newberry is at 60 West Walton Street in Chicago. Further to the item (Apr 06 #5) on the "Murder Rooms: The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes" two-DVD set ($39.98): it's been released, with the four 90-minute programs broadcast on BBC-2 in 2001 and on PBS-TV in 2002 (with Ian Richardson as Joseph Bell and Charles Edwards as Arthur Conan Doyle). "The Complete Sherlock Holmes Collection" has been released by MPI on five DVDs ($129.98), with the 14 Rathbone/Holmes movies, and interesting added features: an interview with Robert Gitt (UCLA Film and TV Archive), audio commentaries (including a new discussion of "Dressed to Kill" by Patricia Morrison), footage of Conan Doyle, theatrical trailers, production notes, and photo galleries. Ken Lanza discovered an interesting web-site at ; the Daily Script is a collection of movie scripts and screenplays intended "to serve as resource for writers and actors and those who simply enjoy reading movie scripts." One of them is a script for "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes" (1970), and you can find other scripts in which Sherlock Holmes is mentioned. The Barnes & Noble reprint (1992) of THE COMPLETE SHERLOCK HOLMES (with the introduction by Christopher Morley) is now available in an edition suitable for gifts: in "genuine bonded leather with ribbon marker," with gilt edges ($19.98). Reported: HIDE-AND-SEEK WITH ANGELS: A LIFE OF J. M. BARRIE, by Lisa Chaney (New York: St. Martin's, 2006; 432 pp., $27.95); a new biography of the au- thor of the parodies "The Late Sherlock Holmes" and "The Adventure of the Two Collaborators". And THE MOST FAMOUS MAN IN AMERICA: THE BIOGRAPHY OF HENRY WARD BEECHER, by Debby Applegate (New York: Doubleday, 2006; 527 pp. $27.95); a new biography of the man whose unframed portrait stood upon the top of Watson's books. MISSIVES FROM THE MIRE (Jan 04 #3) is still available for $27.50 postpaid from Bill Sawisch (418 Gallahad Road, Bolingbrook, IL 60440) ($27.50 post- paid) (checks payable to Hugo's Companions, please); it's a CD-ROM with the "collected newsletters and other scribblings" covering the 55-year history of Hugo's Companions of Chicago. The "Sherlock Holmes Festival" held in Tryon, N.C., last year (Aug 05 #1) included performances of Ike Wilson's 45-minute adaptations of "The Second Stain" and "The Six Napoleons" by the Blue Ridge Radio Players. They are nicely done, and recordings (and five other Sherlockian dramatizations by Hendrik Booraem) are available on cassettes and CDs ($7.00 each postpaid) (sorry: no credit-card orders) from the National Audio Theater (Box 1197, Tryon, NC 28782) . Jul 06 #2 Lyle Stuart died on June 24. He was a journalist (who feuded with Walter Winchell and sued him and won) and a publisher who was best known for the literary hoax NAKED CAME THE STRANGER (1969) and for THE ANARCHIST COOKBOOK (1971), and a book distributor whose titles included Chris Steinbrunner's classic THE FILMS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, Terrance Dicks' DOCTOR WHO AND THE TALONS OF WENG-CHIANG, and Peter Haining's THE TELEVI- SION SHERLOCK HOLMES. "Our country cottage" is what Conan Doyle once called Bignell Wood (in OUR AFRICAN WINTER); he purchased the house in 1926, and it's now for sale (for L1,450,000). It's far grander than a mere cottage: the main house has two stories and 5,568 square feet, with eight reception rooms, eight bedrooms, and three bathrooms; a detached garage has two stories and 676 square feet; and there are five acres of grounds and private-gate access to the New For- est. You can see photographs, a floor plan, and a downloadable brochure at : search "so43" in the "area" block, and scroll down to the description of the house. "Holmes Found Watson, Thanks to a Lakhnavi" was the headline on a story in the Hindustan Times (on May 22) about Conan Doyle's close friend Dr. Mohammed Ebrahim Sufi of Lucknow having suggested that Sher- lock Holmes should have a friend and assistant (Co- nan Doyle relished the idea and instantly created the character of Dr. Watson). It's not known where Joyjit Ghosh, author of the story, got the informa- tion: perhaps from Wikipedia, the Internet encyclo- pedia, where the entry for Conan Doyle was "vandal- ized" on Dec. 26, 2005, by someone who inserted a paragraph about Sufi (and a photograph); both were removed on Jan. 3, 2006 (previous versions of en- tries are preserved at the web-site, whence comes the photograph). There's another possible (though less likely) source for the information about Sufi: an article "About the author" in the Sherlock Holmes stories offered on a CD from the Coradella Collegiate Bookshelf . Ac- cording to the company, the article is based on [now corrected] information from Wikipedia; one might suspect that the Indian writer relied directly on Wikipedia. Wikipedia exists in other languages, and there are links from ; the Finnish version of the entry at has not yet been corrected. There are 299 books (including six of the nine volumes of the Canon, each with the "About the author" article) on the CD, which costs $29.95 from Oberon/The Write Direction, 6346 Rygate Drive, Rey- noldsburg, OH 43068) (866-397-2424). "Just look up the trains in Bradshaw," said Sherlock Holmes (in "The Copper Beeches). George Bradshaw published the first official railway timetable in 1838, and Bradshaw's Guide became indispensable for those who traveled by train. But now the publisher has announced the end of Bradshaw's, ac- cording to a story in the Daily Telegraph (July 18), spotted by Catherine Cooke; the Guide's demise is blamed on the Internet, which makes informa- tion available without requiring a 2,500-page book that costs L12.00 (amd that has sales of only 12,000 copies). Jul 06 #3 Nice news for those who already own the "Crowborough Edition" of Conan Doyle's works, published in 1930 in 24 volumes, with his signature in the first volume: listings at show an asking price of $15,000 for in dust jackets (lower prices for sets without the jackets, of course). The Kelmscott Bookshop (32 West 25th Street, Bal- timore, MD 21218) (410-235-6810) is asking $14,000 for a set with only one volume lacking a dust jacket. Watson's House of Ales in Houston is a new addition to a Texas chain that includes nine Sherlock's Pubs and six 221B Baker Street Pub and Grills (two of them in Oklahoma and Colorado); details at . Ken Lanza noted a report on an exhibition "In My Life: The Artwork of John Lennon" in Alexandria, Va., in June, arranged with the assistance of Legacy Fine Art and Pro- ductions (300 Clematis Street #117), West Palm Beach, FL 33401) (561-651-1156) (888-278-1969); their web-site is at . The company is selling limited-edition prints (300 cop- pies) of "Sherlock Lennon" (copyright Yoko Ono) ($2,350 framed). Lennon's self-portrait in Sherlockian costume, first appeared on p. 33 of his A SPANIARD IN THE WORKS (1965), at the end of a Shamrock Wolmbs parody "The Sin- gularge Experience of Miss Anne Duffield" Noted by Jim Vogelsang: "How to produce a TV show: Have a miserable child-hood. Stay in your room and read com- mic books and Sherlock Holmes. Don't worry about making friends. Don't worry about sports. Just keep reading." As recommended by Andy Breckman, creator of the television series "Monk", in MONK: THE OFFI- CIAL EPISODE GUIDE, by Terry J. Erdmann and Paula M. Block (New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 2006; 224 pp., $19.95); the book has many other referen- ces to Sherlock Holmes. Michael Wharton died on Jan. 23. He was a journalist and a humorist, and was credited in his obituary in the Daily Telegraph for having created the strongest fictional character ever to appear in a newspaper column: Peter Simple, who was in the paper for 49 years. In 1973 he noted that President Tito of Yugoslavia had praised Sherlock Holmes, and Simple suggested that there should be books "in which Marx and his teachings were merged with the life and philosophy of Sherlock Holmes, with Fred Engels as his side, per- haps, as a fox-hunting dialectical Dr. Watson, whose utter inability to un- derstand was getting at would provide light relief." The manuscript of "The Illustrious Client" was owned by Sir Arthur, by his wife, and by their daughter, and was bequeathed by Dame Jean Conan Doyle to the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh and delivered to the Library on June 30. Cate Newton, director of development at the Library, said that the story is particularly relevant because "in the course of helping Holmes to solve the case, Dr. Watson himself uses a library to get the information he needs." The manuscript will be displayed in the exhibition "Conan Doyle and Joseph Bell: The Real Sherlock Holmes" at the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh through Oct. 29 (Apr 06 #2). Jul 06 #4 Conan Doyle "often visited the centuries-old Hill House in Hap- pisburgh and in 1903 wrote 'The Adventure of the Dancing Men' while staying there," according to a story in the Eastern Daily Press (July 17) about a blue plaque that now commemorates the literary significance of the Hill House Hotel. It seems to have been Gavin Brend who first reported that Conan Doyle stayed at the hotel, at the time owned by a man named Cu- bitt, and was inspired by the stick-figure alphabet in the landlord's son's autograph book to create the dancing men. But there appears to be no evi- dence for more than one visit, in May 1903. The report about the installa- tion of the plaque also notes that "Hill House's heritage, along with the rest of the picturesque village, is threatened by coastal erosion and the pub may have only 25 years left if no action is taken." THE SECRET ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, by Paul E. Heusinger (Centennial: Lifevest, 2006; 147 pp., $14.95), is a collection of ten stories memorized by Watson and rescued by telepathic clairvoyance; the stories involve Jack the Ripper, Tarzan, the Irish Uprising, and other cases not set to paper by Watson; Authors to Believe In (4901 East Dry Creek Road #160, Centennial, CO 80122) (877-843-1007) . Further to the report (Feb 04 #3) on a newspaper restaurant critic's review of the restaurant at the Undershaw hotel, the most recent use of the house in Hindhead in Surrey, where Conan Doyle lived from 1897 to 1907, the hotel closed, and the company that owns the house left it vacant and unprotected, and recently proposed turning the property into thirteen apartments. There were protests (local and international), and newspaper publicity (including an article by Julian Barnes in the Guardian on July 8), and the application has been withdrawn. The Victorian Society and The Sherlock Holmes Society of London have asked English Heritage to upgrade the property to Grade I- listed status (from the current Grade II status); the upgrade would place Undershaw in the top three percent of Britain's buildings. And the Guard- ian has published (July 17) a letter supporting that campaign from Doyleans and Sherlockians in the U.K. and the U.S.; you can search for Conan Doyle at the paper's web-site at . William R. Hanson, MD, has created another new Sherlockian first day cover, for "The Gloria Scott" (with the 39c Sugar Ray Robinson stamp and a cachet showing Holmes as college-days boxer and the explosion of the brig; $10.00 postpaid. And a postcard postmarked with the Steamboat Rock, Iowa, pictor- ial cancel showing a frog in Sherlockian costume (perhaps related to a pro- duction of a Sherlockian play at a local dinner theater); $4.50 postpaid or $4.00 if ordered with the boxing cover. Checks or money orders can be sent to Dr. Hanson at 78 West Notre Dame Street, Glens Falls, NY 12801. Jul 06 #5 "My name is Joe Sherlock. But almost everybody calls me Sher- lock. Never Joe." And with good reason: JOE SHERLOCK: KID DE- TECTIVE is featured in Dave Keane's THE HAUNTED TOOLSHED and THE NEIGHBOR- HOOD STINK (New York: HarperCollins, 2006; 120 and 105 pp., $15.99 cloth, $3.99 paper); the stories are for kids aged 7-10, and they're written and illustrated with style and humor, and Joe (of course) is an avid fan of Sherlock Holmes. The next title due in the series is THE MISSING MONKEY- EYE DIAMOND. Across the Pond Tours offer independent guided tours in the United Kingdom, including one called "The Game Is Afoot" (which starts at $2,945 for seven days); mention code SHM06 for a $250 discount. They're based in Los Ange- les (310-373-2720) (866-485-8728) . "Clue into Reading" is the slogan for the Summer Reading Club 2006 in Maryland and the District of Columbia, advertised on buses and fliers and on- line (the cat seems to be named Sneaks); the web- site's at Entertainment Weekly published a list of the 50 "greatest sidekicks" in its July 17 issue: first place went to Ed McMahon, with Robin ranking sec- ond, followed Robin, George Costanza, Chewbacca, Ethel Mertz, and Dr. Watson (who was ranked ahead of Samwise Gamgee, Ed Norton, Tattoo, and Dwight Schrute; the complete list can be seen at their web-site at (search for "50 greatest sidekicks"). "Leaf of orange and red, spiced with tobacco from the Brazils" is the de- scripton of Peterson's "Sherlock Holmes" pipe tobacco (50g for $7.95) in a new catalog from McCranie's (4143 Park Road, Charlotte, NC 28209) (800-523- 8554) . They also offer McClelland's "221-B Black Shag" "221-B Honeydew", and "221-B Arcadia". Andrew Sachs, who played Dr. Watson in the BBC Radio 4 series of pastiches scripted by Bert Coules in 2002 and 2004, has now played a rather differ- ent Watson: Adso of Melk, in a two-hour dramatization of Umberto Eco's "The Name of the Rose" broadcast by BBC Radio 4 this month. Sachs also played the King of Bohemia in "A Scandal in Bohemia" on BBC Radio 4 in 1990, and (a fine example of the scope that radio offers actors) the Spanish waiter Manuel in the television series "Fawlty Towers" (1979). A question about the date of Nigel Bruce's birth date revealed as-yet-unre- solved confusion about whether he was born on Feb. 4 or Feb. 14. A photo- graph showing three generations of the Bruce family: Sir William Cunningham Bruce, 9th Baronet of Stenhouse (1825-1906); Sir William Waller Bruce, 10th Baronet (1856-1912); Sir Michael William Selby Bruce, 11th Baronet (1894- 1957); and (sitting on the 10th Baronet's knee), Sir Michael's younger bro- ther William Nigel Ernle Bruce (1895-1953). The photograph can be found at , and there is more information about the family at . Jul 06 #6 "Save the date," Lou Lewis has suggested, the date being Oct. 13, when the Dutchess County Bar Association will honor Judge Albert M. Rosenblatt by hosting his retirement dinner at Marist College in Poughkeepsie. Al has been a Dutchess county district attorney and judge, N.Y. state Supreme Court justice, chief administrative judge, and associate justice of the Court of Appeals, and (perhaps more important in the "Sher- lockian world) one of those responsible for the many and fondly-remembered gourmet Sherlockian dinners at the Culinary Institute of America in Pough- keepsie. His friends are welcome to attend the retirement dinner, and more information is available from Lou Lewis (2 Lookerman Avenue, Poughkeepsie, NY 12603) or the Association's executive director Janna Wheatly (845-473-2488). Reported: Linda Simon's DARK LIGHT: ELECTRICITY AND ANXIETY FROM THE TELE- GRAPH TO THE X-RAY (New York: Harcourt, 2004; 357 pp., $25.00 cloth, $14.00 paper); a social history of the introduction of electric power in 19th-cen- tury America, with discussion of fact and fiction (including Conan Doyle's stories "Crabbe's Practice" and "The Los Amigos Fiasco"). It's difficult to find anything Sherlockian in Al- aska, other than Peter Ashman, but Peter has sent an advertisement for Motznik Information Services (831 Briarwood Street #100, Anchorage, AK 99518). with a nicely Sherlockian bear. The company web- site is a , but there's no bear there. "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes" is a set of three DVDs issued by the St. Clair Enter- tainment Group, and spotted at Walgreens ($9.98); also available at at the price. The set has four Basil Rathbone films, three Ar- thur Wontner films, Raymond Massey's "The Speckled Band", Reginald Owen's "A Study in Scarlet", and Christopher Lee's "Sher- lock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace", plus (as bonus features) biographies and Conan Doyle and Holmes, and a radio broadcast of "The Bruce-Partington Plans". Scott and Alison Ibbitson breed and sell bull terriers at Baker Street Bull Terriers; Alison reports that Scott's first bull terrier was named "Watson" (and it was registered with the American Kennel Club as "Action's Sherlock Holmes"). They're at 121 Pennapacker Road, Trappe, PA 19426, and the web- site is at . Further to the item (Sep 05 #4) about the One Act Players, in 2002 they re- corded three stories ("The Speckled Band", "A Scandal in Bohemia" and "The Final Adventure"), and the production in San Francisco was the first live performance of any of the dramatizations. You can listen to the shows free at or pay for downloads at . A CD also is available. The Spermaceti Press: Peter E. Blau, 7103 Endicott Court, Bethesda, MD 20817-4401 (301-229-5669) Aug 06 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press The Baker Street Irregulars' running of The Silver Blaze was held at Sara- toga on July 29, with about 40 Sherlockians on hand. It costs $1,000 to have a race named, so the executive committee decided that the third race would be unofficially ours, and many of us bet on Hesanoldsalt, by way of honoring Black Peter and because the horse's colors were red and black, and were of course dismayed when he turned out to be the long shot in race. We were less dismayed when he won, handily, and at nice odds. William R. Hanson, MD, celebrated The Silver Blaze with an artistic cacheted postcard with a postmark approved by the Postal Service for the event. Checks or money orders can be sent to Dr. Hanson (78 West Notre Dame Street, Glens Falls, NY 12801). The postmark was approved too late for publicity at the race. and was unfortunately available for only 30 days. Sorry about that: I had an incorrect postal address (Jul 06 #1). MISSIVES FROM THE MIRE (Jan 04 #3) is still available for $27.50 postpaid from Bill Sawisch (149 Rockford Avenue, Forest Park, IL 60130), for $27.50 postpaid. (checks payable to Hugo's Companions, please); it's a CD-ROM with the "col- lected newsletters and other scribblings" covering the 55-year history of Hugo's Companions of Chicago. The third volume of Les Klinger's THE NEW ANNOTATED SHERLOCK HOLMES (with the four long stories) has been nominated for an Anthony (for best criti- cal/nonfiction) at Boucheron 2006 in Madison, Wis. The winners will be an- nounced at the convention dinner on Sept. 30. The third volume of the NEW ANNOTATED has also been nominated in the mystery/suspense/thriller category for a Quill Book Award; the Quills are a Reed Business Information/NBC con- sumers-choice awards program for books, and you can vote on-line (through Sept. 30) at . Brian Mills died on June 3. He was a director, mainly for Granada, and had worked on their series "Coronation Street" over almost 40 years, beginning in 1968; he also directed Granada's "Silver Blaze" (1988) and "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (1988). And Patrick Allen died on July 28. He began his career as a narrator for the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., acted in films in Hollywood, and went on to work on stage, screen, radio, and television in England; he was an excellent Colonel Sebastian Moran in Granada's "The Emp- ty House" (1985). There's a new sequel to Jane Hindsley's video travelogue "Sherlock Holmes: The Missing Years" (Dec 05 #3): "The Devil's Foot" is a 15-minute narrated photographic tour of Cornwall, including a retelling of the Canonical tale. The DVDs cost $10.00 each (plus $2.00 shipping per order), and credit-card orders are welcome; you can order from Jane (18559 Carpenter Street, Home- wood, IL 60430 . Aug 06 #2 Doug Wrigglesworth has reported THE WIPERS TIMES: THE COMPLETE SERIES OF THE FAMOUS WARTIME TRENCH NEWSPAPER (London: Little Books, 2006; 400 pp., L20.00); the newspaper (which eventually became The B.E.F. Times) was published by British soldiers at the front during World War I, and it contained three parodies featuring Herlock Shomes. And Brian Pugh notes that the 24th Division List of Staff Officers 28 September 1915 (on p. 375) includes Lt.-Col. J.F.I.H. Doyle (Arthur Conan Doyle's brother Innes); his full name was John Francis Innes Hay Doyle. Our new "Super Heroes" set includes postage stamps honoring Batman and Superman, whose comic books have contained Canoni- cal allusions over the years. And Wonder Woman, who actually appears in the Canon (well, someone is described as a wonder woman). I'm not aware of any connections for the other super heroes in the set: Green Lantern, Plastic Man, Hawkman, Green Arrow, Supergirl, The Flash, and Aquaman. Fans of August Derleth and Solar Pons will welcome The Solar Pons Gazette, edited by Bob Byrne and available at his web- site ; the first issue has 28 pages of new material and reprints and colorful art-work by Frank Utpatel and others. It is an excellent successor to Luther Norris' Praed Street Dossier. Le Cercle de Sherlock Holmes and the English-Speaking Union of New Orleans have scheduled "Autumn in New Orleans" on Oct. 22, featuring a brunch and Baker Street Journal editor Steve Rothman as the guest speaker; more infor-mation is available from Jens Byskov Jensen (1045 Acadian Drive, Madisonville, LA 70447) <221b@byskovjensen.com>. "Sherlock Holmes and the Final Problem" is a new play written by Justin Webb, presented by the Cotton Grass Theatre Company on tour beginning Sept. 8, 2006, at the Village Hall in Cann- ock Wood. Their address is 2 Overdale, The Hills, Bradwell, Hope Valley, Derbyshire S33 9GZ, England; their web-site's at . Dick Miller found a web-site for the Baskerville Hall Hotel in Hay-on-Wye (in Wales). According to their history of the hotel, it was built in 1839 by Thomas Mynors Baskerville, and Conan Doyle was a family friend who often stayed there, and learned of the local legend of the hounds of the Basker- villes; at the request of his friends he set the book in Devon "to ward off tourists." The hotel's offers include "stags, hens, and party time" week- ends with exotic dancers (female or male) . Sherlockians Around the World at is an inter- active "visual/virtual community" created by Scott Monty. using Google map technology to show the locations of (and information about) Sherlockians, societies, and sites of interest. And since it's interactive, you can add, edit, or comment on entries; visit to read Scott's blog (for Aug. 7) to learn more about this new and interesting resource. Aug 06 #3 Nash Entertainment has been mentioned before: they bought the film, stage, television rights to Rodger Garrick-Steele's story about how Conan Doyle murdered Fletcher Robinson (Oct 00 #4), and last year they hired Julie Golden to write a screenplay for a movie "inspired by the many letters sent from all over the world to Sherlock Holmes" asking him to help solve crimes (Jun 05 #5). The project's called "Sherlock' Secretary", and Mark Dindal has been signed as director (he directed the animated Dis- ney film "Chicken Little"). Nash's three-year contract expired, and Garrick-Steele's story in now with Thunderball Films, who are planning to start filming a "reality document- ary" in Jan. 2007. Their web-sites at . Who knew? Charles Baskerville Jr. was born in 1896 and died in 1994, and his name was observed by Ev Herzog on a brochure accompanying an exhibition (now closed) of "Colorful Tales in Black & White" at the Museum of American Illustration at the Society of Illustrators in New York. "It's a nice lit- tle two-room museum," Ev notes, "and you can generally always tell what the artist was painting, which is rare enough in these troubled times." You'll find some of his artwork at various web-sites (run a Google search for his name). And no, he's not the son of Sir Charles. The District of Columbia is well on its way to becoming smoke- free inside all buildings: the ban takes effect at the end of the year, and affects all establishments, including private clubs, which if they want to have "cigar nights" as in the past will need to have them on the roof. Of course to- bacconists will still be able to their wares to people who want to smoke at home or in the open air. And there's still at least one Sherlockian tobac- conist, in California: BakerStreet Downtown in Napa. It's owned by Brenda Roberts, who has been in business for twenty years, and (of course) has a web-site at . "'Another glass, Watson!' said Mr. Sherlock Holmes as he extended the bott- le of Imperial Tokay." Imperial Tokay is available again, according to an article in the Daily Telegraph (July 15), kindly forwarded by Ev Herzog and John Baesch. It's called Royal Tokaji, and it's expensive, but well worth the price, according to wine expert Jonathan Ray. Ev and John also noted spotted an article in the same issue that reported that the mining landscape of Cornwall and West Devon has been recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site (joining Stonehenge, the Taj Mahal, and the Great Wall of China). The area supplied much of the western world's copper and tin for more than 4,000 years, according to the article, and it was the world's greatest producer of the metals in the 18th and 19th centuries. It was in "an old tin mine on an island in the heart of the Mire" that Staple- ton kept the Hound of the Baskervilles. London must be the most written-about city in the world, according to Paul Theroux, quoted by Richard Tames in the introduction to his AMERICAN WALKS IN LONDON (New York: Interlink Books, 1997; 160 pp., $14.95), also spotted by Ev and John. It's an interesting guidebook and still in print, offering "ten step-by-step itineraries for North American visitors," that are nicely done; there are helpful maps, and mentions of Holmes and Conan Doyle. Aug 06 #4 It's always nice to discover interesting Sherlockian books made available at web-sites, and one of them is CRIME SCENE SKETCH- ES: REPRODUCED IN FAC-SIMILE FROM THE PEN AND INK DRAWINGS IN THE NOTE BOOK OF A PRIVATE ENQUIRY AGENT, edited by Thomas F. Hanratty and Daniel P. King and published in 1976 with an introduction by John Bennett Shaw. Hanratty, a forensic investigator, analyzed crime scenes in 17 Sherlock Holmes stor- ies; you can read the book at . Thanks to Russ Mann for the tip. There's an addition to the list of Arctic and Antarctic explorers who have Sherlockian and Doylean connections: Sir Ernest Shackleton and Robert Fal- con Scott (Aug 03 #4) are now joined by Robert Peary. According to an ar- ticle in the Portland Press Herald (Aug. 20), Peary's home on Eagle Island (in Casco Bay) has been preserved, and his books are still on the shelves, one of the books being HIS LAST BOW. Further to earlier reports on interesting things to be found at Wikipedia, Pat Ward has found Muppet Wiki at ; it is a collaborative effort to create an encyclopedia for everything related to Jim Henson and The Muppets, and you can search for character names such as Sherlock (Holmes and Hemlock), Watson, and Baskerville. "L.A.con IV" was the title of this year's World Science Convention, held in Anaheim this month, and there was a session devoted to "Sherlock Holmes and Science Fiction" on Aug. 25, with Fiona Avery as the moderator and John R. Douglas, Jody Lynn Nye, Jon L. Breen, and Barbara Hambly as panelists. Ac- cording to the program, "We all know the great detective. He's somehow come to fascinate science fiction authors.... What captivates us so about Sher- lock Holmes?" Wally Conger gets credit for the discovery. Bob Thaves died on Aug. 1. He created the comic strip "Frank and Ernest", which was syndicated in 1972 and now distributed to more than 1,300 news- papers. This strip, published on Apr. 12, 1998, it's a fine display of the puns with which he filled the strip. Aug 06 #5 Dennis Hoey is well-known to Sherlockians as Inspector Lestrade in the Rathbone/Bruce films, but there was far more to his long career; you can read about his life, and his S'ian and non-S'ian work, in Michael A. Hoey's excellent article "Dennis Hoey: A Son's Remembrance" in the summer 2006 issue of Films of the Golden Age. The newsstand price is $4.95; $6.00 postpaid (301 East 3rd Street, Muscatine, IA 52761 (800-383- 3198) . The article is available on-line at the web-site (but you'll miss the many photographs and stills). This year's Sherlock Holmes Festival in Tryon, N.C., on Nov. 3-6 will in- clude theatrical performances, meals, memorabilia, presentations, displays, and a contest. More information is available from the Festival (Box 333, Tryon, NC 28782) (800-440-7848) . The Secretary of State for Education and Skills has announced that his de- partment will review the literature curriculum for 11- to 14-year-olds in Britain, and may remove some modern authors from its prescribed list. Ac- cording to a report in The Guardian (Aug. 9), department head Alan Johnson said that Conan Doyle is one of the writers who are "a crucial part of our national heritage," and he would remain on the list of authors that stud- ents can choose to read. The review will begin in February and is not ex- pecting to be implemented until September 2008. Paul Giovanni's play "The Crucifer of Blood" (1978) will be produced at the Cider Mill Playhouse in Endicott, N.Y. [near Binghamton], from Jan. 25 to Feb. 18, 2007; the box office is at 2 South Nanticoke Avenue, Endicott, NY 13760 (607-748-7363) . Oxford judge Charles Harris denied an attempt by the City Council to evict Phillip Pledge because he had grown and stored cannabis valued at L3,400 in his council flat. According to a story in the Oxford Times (Aug. 3), the judge said in court that "If you are Sherlock Holmes and you go back to Ba- ker Street and inject yourself with cocaine, as he did, he cannot be called a nuisance. So quietly smoking cannabis at home, not that it is to be en- couraged, I'm not at all sure it constitutes a nuisance. If you are simply growing it, it's no more offensive to neighbours than tomato plants." Ken Lanza found , described as "a veritable cornu- copia of streetwise lingo, posted and defined by its readers," with defini- tions for terms that range from "sherlock" to "sherlocking" and with a def- inition for "sherlock holmes" that's both imaginative and pornographic. Ken also spotted an article in the Daily Telegraph (July 27) that provides a Sherlockian connection for "Dog the Bounty Hunter" (which has been airing since 2004 on A&E cable): "Dog" Chapman would like to come to England, both to pass on some of his expertise and to acknowledge one of his crime-fight- ing heroes. "I have a Sherlock Holmes gig. I love to sit there and think about what Sherlock Holmes would have done." Julian Barnes' ARTHUR & GEORGE (Sep 05 #5) has a British paperback edition from Vintage (L7.99). Alex Clark, in his review in the Observer (Aug. 27), noted that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle "'brought detectivism up to date' in the shape of his coolly analytical protagonist, Sherlock Holmes." Aug 06 #6 Jim French's Imagination Theatre has been airing "The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" for many years (Jun 98 #4), and it's now available on more than 130 stations, on XM Satellite Radio's "Son- ic Theater", and on the Internet at , where you can download the programs ($7.00) or purchase CDs ($10.95). The latest Sherlock Holmes issue is #11, with John Patrick Lowrie as Holmes and Law- rence Albert as Watson, in M. J. Elliott's "The Moriarty Resurrection" and Jim French's "The Strange Death of Lady Sylvia Eichhorn". Their new series "The Classic Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" (two issues now available) off- ers M. J. Elliott's dramatizations of Canonical stories, and other series available include "Raffles the Gentleman Thief" and "Harry Nile" (you can listen to samples at their web-site). The company's is at 16215 S.E. Roa- noke Place, Bellevue, WA 98006. And Jerry Kegley gets credit for the lat- est news of their work. Tom Huntington spotted a new reprint of H. R. F. Keating's SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE MAN AND HIS WORLD (1979) (Secaucus: Castle Books, 2006; 160 pp., $9.99 ($7.98 at Barnes & Noble). It was (and is) an excellent book, from a fine writer; highly recommended. The Illustrious Clients of Indianapolis have joined the Indianapolis-Mar- ion County Public Library in sponsoring a "Sherlock Holmes Month" with film screenings, lectures, and story discussions at county libraries. It's an excellent example of society outreach and keeping the memory green, and you can request more information from Pat Ward (5119 Turtle Creek Court #5, In- dianapolis, IN 46227) . The August issue of the Sherlockian E-Times is at hand from Joel and Caro- lyn Senter (Classic Specialties) with offers of interesting Sherlockiana; the newsletter URL is , and you can request an e-mail subscription at their web-site . Further to the report (May 06 #6) on "Icons: A Portrait of England", Sher- lock Holmes has been voted onto the list (which now numbers 53): the web- site is at , and each icon has links to additional infor- mation. Robert Sanderson has a fine article about Imagination Theater's Sherlockian work in the latest issue of Sherlock Magazine (#68), which also offers Neil McGaw's first glimpse of Richard Lancelyn Green's collection in Portsmouth, David Stuart Davies' interview with author Nick Rennison (SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE UNAUTHORIZED BIOGRAPHY), and as usual much more. The magazine is a bi- monthly; L23.70 a year (U.K.) L35.00 (other Europe) L46.00/$70.00 (rest of the world) from Atlas Publishing, Jordan House, Old Milton Green, New Mil- ton, Hants. BH24 6QJ, England . Classic Special- ties is the American agent (Box 19058, Cincinnati, OH 45219) (877-233-3823) credit-card orders are welcome at both addresses, and there are back issues available. David and Kathryn White have moved, so there's a new editorial address: 31 Matthew Lane, Meltham, W. Yorks. HD9 5JS, England. The Spermaceti Press: Peter E. Blau, 7103 Endicott Court, Bethesda, MD 20817-4401 (301-229-5669) Sep 06 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press The New American Theater will perform Charles Marowitz's "Sherlock's Last Case" in Rockford, Ill., from Oct. 17 to Nov. 12; 118 North Main Street, Rockford, IL 61101 (815-964-6282) . It's part of a "Mysteries of Rockford" celebration that also includes a presentation of "Sherlock Holmes and the Clocktower Mystery" at the Discovery Center Mu- seum at from Oct. 1 to Jan. 3 . And you'll find more about the celebration at . Readers who enjoyed Philip Ardagh's THE SILLY SIDE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (Nov 05 #4) may also enjoy his THE NOT-SO-VERY-NICE GOINGS-ON AT VICTORIA LODGE (London: Faber and Faber, 2004; 64 pp., L7.99); it's similar but non-Sher- lockian. Further to the report on The Island at Newquay in Cornwall (Sep 01 #3), the house, which stands on a 70-foot-high slab of rock accessible via its own suspension footbridge from the adjacent clifftop, is again available, off- ered for L750,000. According to a story in the Independent (Sept. 2), "Lo- cals insist Sir Arthur Conan Doyle visited his friend Sir Oliver Lodge, the man who invented the spark plug, there, when his son was in residence." It was priced at L500,000 when the 4th Viscount Long purchased it in 2001; the "unique island property" (called Towan Island), is being offered by Savills (73 Lemon Street, Truro, Cornwall TR1 2PN, England) . Gideon Haigh's amusing compilation THE UNCYCLOPEDIA (New York: MJF Books, 2004; 159 pp., $14.95) is subtitled "Everything you never knew you wanted to know," and there's an entry for "221B Baker Street" with a description of the famous house and its contents. E. S. Turner died on July 6. Described as the "doyen of freelance journal- ists" in his obituary in the Guardian (July 18), he started his career in 1926 and had his first article published in the Dundee Courier in 1927. He contributed to Punch for more than 50 years; they published his "Variations on a Winter's Tale" (commenting in the styles of various authors, including Conan Doyle, on the high price of electricity). Go to to see a slide show of Alan Saunders' imaginative Sherlockian scenes created with Lego bricks (which now offer far more than mere bricks); take a look at to see just how much more the company has to offer. Alan reports that Lego doesn't actually do Holmes and Watson, but you can make things work: Holmes' cape is Obi Wan Kenobi's cloak. Thanks to Vic Lahti for noting Kaptain Kobold's work. "Exhumation application, B. Fletcher Robinson, believed murdered. Comments to Exeter Diocesan, Pynes Hill, Exeter EX2 5WR, by September 15," according to a notice (and that's the entire notice) in local papers this month; the Diocesan registrar said the Diocesan Consistory Court would make the deci- sion, but the process could take months. According to the story in the Ex- eter Express & Echo (Sept. 9) "author Rodger Garrick-Steele has for years claimed Mr. Fletcher Robinson was poisoned in 1907 by the creator of Sher- lock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle." Sep 06 #2 This year's annual Kennedy Center Honors will be presented on Dec. 3, recognizing the life-long artistic achievements of five performers, including Steven Spielberg, executive producer of "Young Sher- lock Holmes" (1985), and director of "Jurassic Park" (1993) and "The Lost World: Jurassic Park" (1997); and Andrew Lloyd Webber, the composer of the musical "Cats" and the song "Macavity" (1981). In 1990 Spielberg and Webb- er were reported as collaborating on a full-length animated film of "Cats" but the project was later described as being "permanently on hold" because "there were too many ego battles." A poker is mentioned in the Canon, but there's no evidence that anyone indulged in the game that's more popular than ever now, in casinos and on the Internet. According to a press release spotted by Ken Lanza, "the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes was considered a master at using logic and keen observation to solve cases. The same holds true for Poker Sherlock, a high-tech tool that uses its own revolutionary form of reasoning to identi- fy the characteristics of on-line poker players." You can read all about it at . Peter L. Stern's summer 2006 catalog offered Conan Doyle's pencil drawing of Professor Challenger (with an illustration) for $7,500 (he purchased it at the auction at Christie's in 2004, and has been sold). And the 143-page manuscript of "The Maracot Deep" (still available) for $100,000 (formerly owned by Dame Jean, it went unsold at the auction at Christie's in 2003). Masamichi Higurashi continues to translate good Sherlockian books for Jap- anese readers, the most recent of them being BAKER-GAI NO YUREI [GHOSTS IN BAKER STREET] Tokyo: Hara Shobo, 2006; 400 pp., 1,900), with an afterword "For Japanese Readers" by Jon Lellenberg and Daniel Stashower. Barbara Ulan Van Buskirk died on Aug. 30. Barbara was an imaginative art- ist and an enthusiastic member of the Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes (as "Violet Smith"). She designed the ASH membership pin in 1975 and wrote for the ASH newsletters, and her S'ian artwork appeared in Dilys Winn's MURDER- ESS INK (1979). British Heritage (Nov. 2006) has Jennifer Dorn's report on "Streetlights of London: Marylebone and the Sherlock Holmes Museum", with an interesting re- view of the attractions of the neighborhood. "Dangermouse, the world's greatest detective, and his faithful assistant, Penfold, the world's most obvious coward, operate from a letterbox on Baker Street, helping their boss, Colonel K, solve crises that range from explod- ing custard that is taking over the world to a weather machine run amok." He was created by Brian Cosgrove and Mark Hall in 1981, and was the star of a ten-minute animated cartoon series that aired in Great Britain, and later on Nickelodeon cable in the United States. He also appeared in a series of children's books and videocassettes, and was one of five children's tele- vision characters on a set of stamps issued in Britain in 1996 (Sep 96 #7), and (of course) he has a web-site at . Thanks to An- drew Clark for information on the web-site. Sep 06 #3 The New Play House will produce Lee Shackleford's play "Holmes & Watson" (1989) at the Cultural Arts Center in Frederick (MD) on Oct. 5-15. The box office address is Box 601, Frederick, MD 21705 (301- 668-8019) ; Lee will be on hand for the performances on Oct. 7, and there will be a "talk back" session with a Sherlockian panel after the matinee on Oct. 14. And there's a MySpace site for the play, at . It's an imaginative play, enjoyed by Sherlockians who attended a performance during the birthday festivities in New York in 1990. Lee has worked on the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" television series, and wrote the treatment and first draft for "Ship in a Bottle" (the episode in which Moriarty escapes from the holodeck computer). Ronald Mansbridge ("A Case of Identity") died on Sept. 1 at the age of 100. Born and educated in Britain, he moved to New York in 1928 and in 1930 he was recruited by S. C. Roberts as head of the New York office of the Cam- bridge University Press, which he ran until he retired in 1970. He was a member of The Baker Street Irregulars, and he attended annual meetings in the 1930s and 1940s, and received his Investiture in 1998. There is much more about this interesting man, and the early days of the BSI, to be found in Jon Lellenberg's archival histories and the 1998 Christmas Annual of the Baker Street Journal, and in an article by Mike Berdan in the summer 2006 issue of the BSJ. Reported: Laurie R. King's cross-over Martinelli/Russell mystery THE ART OF DETECTION (Nov 05 #6) in a British edition (Bristol: Poisoned Pen Press UK, 2006; 396 pp., L15.95); they've also published a new trade paperback of THE BEEKEEPER'S APPRENTICE (350 pp., L9.95). Nick Rennison's SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE UNAUTHORIZED BIOGRAPHY (Nov 05 #6) has an American edition (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2006; 304 pp., $24.00). SHERLOCK HOLMES' GUIDE TO LIFE, edited by Vince Emery (San Francisco: Vince Emery Productions, 2006; 112 pp., $12.95); a collection of Sherlockian quotations. SHERLOCK HOLMES QUOTATION PUZZLES, VOL. 1, by James E. Irwin (Victoria: Trafford Publish- ing, 2004; 84 pp., $13.00); a collection of puzzles based on the Canon. Forecast for October: RED CARPETS AND OTHER BANANA SKINS, by Rupert Everett (London: Little, Brown, 2006; 416 pp., L18.99); his memoirs, which may or may not include discussion of his television film "Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking". An American edition is due from Warner Books in January ($25.99). Further to the report on the new set of "Super Heroes" stamps (Aug 06 #2), Al Gregory has noted that Green Lantern can be found in the Canon, if you are willing to stretch a bit): "Yes, that green lamp at the side" (Inspec- tor Jones, describing the police-boat in "The Sign of the Four"). Raymond Massey played Sherlock Holmes in "The Speckled Band" (1931), his daughter Anna married Jeremy Brett and acted with him in "Rebecca" (1979), and her brother Daniel played Trelawney Hope in Peter Cushing's "The Second Stain" on BBC-1 (1961) and J. Neil Gibson in Brett's "Thor Bridge" (1991). now Anna has written her memoirs, TELLING SOME TALES (London: Hutchinson, 2006; 259 pp., L17.99), with many stories about her family and her career. It is interesting to note that one of her personal quotes is "Actors mar- rying each other is not a good idea." Sep 06 #4 Reported: THE AFTERLIFE OF LESLIE STRINGFELLOW: A NINETEENTH- CENTURY SOUTHERN FAMILY'S EXPERIENCES WITH SPIRITUALISM (Fay- etteville: Univ. of Arkansas Press, 2006; 140 pp., $14.95). Leslie String- fellow died in 1886 at the age of 19, and wrote many letters to his spirit- ualist parents, who showed the letters to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. LESLIE'S LETTERS TO HIS MOTHER was published in 1926, with two letters from Sir Ar- thur; the new book reprints the letters, with an added history of the fami- ly and the spiritualist movement. John Conte died on Sept. 4. He began his acting career as a radio announc- er in the 1930s, and went on to work in television and on stage and screen; he is credited as the announcer for the Rathbone/Bruce radio series "Adven- tures of Sherlock Holmes" (1939-1940). "A Phony Fairy Tale" is the title of Phill Jones' article about Conan Doyle and the Cottingley fairies in History Magazine (Aug.-Sept.), forwarded by John Baesch. It may be an old story to Sherlockians and Doyleans, but it continues to reach new readers. $5.50 (Box 194, Niagara Falls, NY 14304) (877-731-4478) . British Heritage (Nov. 2006) has Jennifer Dorn's report on "Streetlights of London: Marylebone and the Sherlock Holmes Museum", with an interesting re- view of the attractions of the neighborhood. Bob Lauderdale has reported some new CDs with Sherlock Holmes stories read by James Alexander at a Dollar Tree store: "A Case of Identity", "The Red- Headed League", "The Blue Carbuncle", and "A Scandal in Bohemia" (they cost $1.00 each, of course). They're produced by Post Productions and distribu- ted by Greenbrier International; they're also available (but for more than $1.00) at . Further to the item about Eleonora Suhoviy (Apr 06 #5), the Oxford graduate has won her battle to stay in Britain; she arrived in England at the age of 13 and taught herself English by reading the Sherlock Holmes stories, which she already know by heart in Russian translation. Ian Rankin has written 19 novels featuring modern-day Scots detective John Rebus, who also has appeared in two ITV television series that starred John Hannah and Ken Stott; now BBC-4 is planning a new version of Rebus, renamed Jim Buchan and played by Alec Newman. Filming on "The Acid Test" has begun in Edinburgh, and the program is scheduled to air at Christmas. According to a report in Scotland on Sunday (Sept. 3), "Buchan will cross paths with Sherlock Holmes writer Arthur Conan Doyle," played by Richard Wilson. Ken Lanza noted an announcement for "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened", a new computer game produced by Frogware and to be released by Focus Home Interactive on Jan. 1. "Join Sherlock Holmes in the most risky adventure of his career: an original confrontation between the universe of Sherlock Holmes and the myth of Cthulhu, for a fight between the rational and the supernatural." It's a 3D game, and you can play either Holmes or Watson, and interact with "more than 60 characters in 5 disturbing univer- ses." Frogware also produced the games "The Mystery of the Mummy" (Mar 03 #2) and "The Silver Earring" (Oct 04 #2). Sep 06 #5 This year's Christmas card from The Sherlock Holmes Society of London offers a full-color facsimile of the cover of Beeton's Christmas Annual for 1887 (it has been argued that the figure seen rising to light the gas lamp is the first sighting of the Great Detective); $13.00 postpaid for ten cards (L6.00 to the U.K., L6.50 to Europe, and L7.00 else- where); checks (payable to the Society) can be sent to Judi Ellis, 13 Crof- ton Avenue, Orpington, Kent BR6 8DC, England. Ken Lanza spotted a new Linda Ronstadt/Ann Savoy album called "Adieu False Heart" (Vanguard CD SKU-79808, $16.98) with Richard Thompson's song "King of Bohemia" Alas, the song isn't Sherlockian; you can read the lyrics at . Robert S. Schultz ("The Gloria Scott") died on Sept. 7. Bob was an execu- tive with the Econometric Institute of New York when he attended his first Baker Street Irregulars annual dinner in 1947, and his first Baker Street Journal article ("The Ballistics of the Empty House") was published in the Oct. 1947 issue. His next article appeared in the Sept. 1997 issue, and he later noted that he had wandered in a "Sherlockian limbo" until he retired to Vermont and rediscovered the BSI. Bob returned to the annual dinners, and received his Investiture in 2002; his article "Upon the Dating of Blood Stains" in the winter 2002 issue of the BSJ won him the Morley-Montgomery Award for the best article published that year, and it is unlikely indeed that anyone will surpass his record of imaginative scholarship in the BSJ over 55 years. It has been quite a while since I mentioned Pipeworks & Wilke (Jan 88 #2); they closed their shop in New York years ago, but they're still in business by mail order, and they still offer their Blend 515 ("exotic tobaccos aged in rare Jamaica rum: smooth, mild, with a delightful aroma"). It was Basil Rathbone's favorite, when he used to walk down to the shop from his apart- ment on Central Park South, accompanied by his Irish wolfhound, to buy the tobacco. They also supplied Blend 515 to Christopher Lloyd when he played Holmes in William Gillette's "Sherlock Holmes" at the Weston Playhouse in 1990. Blend 515 costs about $37.00 a pound (the shop also offers 4-oz and 8-oz packets); according to shop owner Carole Burns, only a couple of peo- ple smoke it now, so it's not listed at their web-site , but she'll be happy to have new customers (1 Park Avenue, Montpelier, VT 05602) (800-832-8309). Another forecast for October: Daniel Stashower's THE BEAUTIFUL CIGAR GIRL: MARY ROGERS, EDGAR ALLAN POE, AND THE INVENTION OF MURDER (New York: Dutt- on, 2006; 336 pp., $25.95); about the events that led to Poe's "The Mystery of Marie Roget" (Dan promises that there are mentions of Holmes and Conan Doyle in the book). You can read the prologue and see some illustrations at his web-site at . "Rule, Britannia! Britannia, Rule the Waves! Sherlock Holmes and the Royal Navy" is the theme for this year's "Saturday with Sherlock Holmes" (spon- sored by the local Sherlockian societies) at the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore on Nov. 11; the festivities begin with morning coffee in the Edgar Allan Poe Room at 10:00, and end at 1:00. There's no charge, and the library is at 400 Cathedral Street in Baltimore. Sep 06 #6 Reported: SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE BAKER STREET IRREGULARS: THE FALL OF THE AMAZING ZALINDAS, by Tracy Mack and Michael Citrin (New York: Orchard Books, 2006; $16.99, 272 pp.); the irregulars, assisted by Holmes, with illustrations by Greg Ruth (who has worked on comic books such as The Matrix as well as children's books), in the first of a series. Oliver Mundy reports a Latin translation of "Silver Blaze" [as "Fulmen Ar- genteum"] at , with the Paget illu- strations. And that "Facies Lutea" [that's "The Yellow Face"] will be the next story in the series; translator Stanislaus Tekieli hopes to do all of the Canon eventually. Al Gregory has visited, and enjoyed, the preliminary exhibition of material from Richard Lancelyn Green's collection at the Portsmouth Museum; work is underway on a larger exhibition next year, and the Museum's planning to be- gin making the collection accessible to the public (in stages) next autumn. The museum's web-site is at (with the hand- some poster), is the URL for the collec- tion's own web-site (with the third and latest issue of their newsletter), earlier issues can be found at . To enroll on their mailing list, write to Mark Wright (ECCS 1st Floor, Civ- ic Offices, Guildhall Square, Portsmouth PO1 2AD, England). The Dept. of Performing Arts will present William Gillette's play "Sherlock Holmes" at the Burke Theater at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette on Oct. 19-28 (104 University Circle, Lafayette, LA 70504) (337-482-6357). It will be directed by John Patrick Bray, whose dramatization of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" was performed as a reading in New York last year. The second season of the latest "Doctor Who" television series (with David Tennant as the Doctor) launched on the Sci Fi channel on Sept. 29, and the episode "Tooth and Claw" will air on Oct. 6; the Doctor travels back to the Scottish highlands in 1879 to defend Queen Victoria (Pauline Collins) from a werewolf, and at one point the Doctor mentions a noted Scottish surgeon in Edinburgh. Further to the item on the new "Super Heroes" set of postage stamps, Bill Mason has noted a Canonical connection for Hawkman, who used the "when you have eliminated the impossible" quote in Detective Comics #500 (Mar. 1981). There is also a remote connection for The Flash: in Flash #35 (Feb. 1990, Elongated Man also uses an "eliminate the impossible" quote and appears on the cover in Sherlockian costume. "The Unexpected Return of Sherlock Holmes" is a comedy by Jack L. Herman, set three years after Holmes' death at the Reichenbach Falls; Conan Doyle is asked to solve a mystery and brings along the ghost of Sherlock Holmes. At the Sierra Stage (144 Sierra Bonita Avenue, West Hollywood) through Oct. 14 (323-836-6339) . It also seems (as noted by Charles Prepolec) to be a revision of David Belke's play "The Reluctant Resurrection of Sherlock Holmes" (1992). The Spermaceti Press: Peter E. Blau, 7103 Endicott Court, Bethesda, MD 20817-4401 (301-229-5669) Oct 06 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press Nancy Springer's THE CASE OF THE MISSING MARQUESS (New York: Sleuth/Philo- mel, 2006; 216 pp., $10.99) (Dec 05 #4) is the first of a series (for chil- dren aged 4-8) about Enola Holmes, the younger sister of Mycroft and Sher- lock (both of whom appear in the story). It's also available from Recorded Books, read by Katherine Keligren, on 4 cassettes ($39.75) or CDs ($49.75), and you can rent the story for $12.50; 270 Skipjack Road, Prince Frederick, MD 20678 (800-636-1304) . Further to the report on Charles Baskerville Jr. (Aug 06 #3), Jon Lellen- berg notes that some of Baskerville's fine World War II art can be seen at the Pentagon; his portrait of Lt. Gen. Carl Spaatz (whose connection with "Aunt Clara" is noted by Bill Rabe in his WE ALWAYS MENTION AUNT CLARA) on display at (it's catalog number 1950.063). The Noble Bachelors of St. Louis celebrated their 15th anniversary on Jan. 28, 1984, and the festivities were recorded; now Chuck Lavazzi has (thanks to the wonders of modern technology) been able to make audio of some of the events available at his blog at . Chuck also can supply audio of the entire meeting, which included a staged reading of "The Speckled Band", on two CDs ($10.00 postpaid); 2619 South 11th Street, St. Louis, MO 63118. The 26th annual Sherlock Holmes/Arthur Conan Doyle Symposium will be held in Dayton on Mar. 9-11, 2007; Cathy Gill (4661 Hamilton Avenue, Cincinnati, OH 45223) (513-681-5507) maintains the mailing list. Further to the item about Jack L. Herman's "The Unexpected Return of Sher- eock Holmes" (Sep 06 #6), the play was indeed a revision of David Belke's "The Reluctant Resurrection of Sherlock Holmes" (1992); more to the point, it was a plagiarism: the records of the Playwrights' Guild of Canada show that Herman bought a copy of Belke's script in May 1999 (and by nice coin- cidence Herman states a 1999 copyright date on his script). The producers in California closed the show after two performances, but might produce it again with proper credit to the real author. Reported: Peter Costello's CONAN DOYLE, DETECTIVE: TRUE CRIMES INVESTIGATED BY THE CREATOR OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (New York: Carroll & Graf, 2006; 256 pp., $15.95); an updated and revised edition of his THE REAL WORLD OF SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE TRUE CRIMES INVESTIGATED BY ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE (Oct 91 #1). Also: FAKERS, FORGERS & PHONEYS: FAMOUS SCAMS AND SCAMPS, by Magnus Magnus- son (Edinburgh: Mainstream, 2006; 416 pp., L17.99); Magnusson is the quiz- master on the television series "Masterminds" and his book contains 16 case studies, one of them of the Cottingley fairies. "Enthralled by the fictional Sherlock Holmes, Victorian aristocrat Lady Am- elia Watersfield has recruited three reluctant friends to form the Ladies' Amateur Sleuth Society." A STUDY IN SCANDAL is a romance novel written by Robyn DeHart (New York: Avon Books, 2006; 368 pp., $5.99), reported by Paul Herbert; the next title in the series is DELICIOUSLY WICKED (New York: Avon Books, 2006; 304 pp., $5.99), and there may well be more to come. Oct 06 #2 "Conan Doyle is a classic example of a novelist of genius who had Asperger's syndrome," according to Michael Fitzgerald; he has a chapter on Conan Doyle in THE GENESIS OF ARTISTIC CREATIVITY: ASPER- GER'S SYNDROME AND THE ARTS (London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2005; 256 pp., L13.95/$19.95). Fitzgerald also found the syndrome in Sherlock Holmes and Prof. Moriarty, and other authors: Jonathan Swift, Hans Christian An- dersen, Herman Melville, Lewis Carroll, George Orwell, and Bruce Chatwin, and there are philosophers, painters, and musicians discussed as well. The protagonist of Mark Haddon's THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT- TIME (Aug 04 #4) showed the syndrome, a form of high-functioning autism. The fall issue of The Magic Door (the newsletter published by The Friends of the Arthur Conan Doyle Collection at the Toronto Reference Library) is a special 35th anniversary issue, with color illustrations and eight pages of reminiscences from people who have used and contributed to the collection. Copies of the newsletter are available from Doug Wrigglesworth (16 Sunset Street, Holland Landing, ON L9N 1H4, Canada) . A new lapel pin honors this year's Sherlock Holmes Festival in Tryon, N.C., the first weekend in November; based on a poster for William Gillette's play, and the cost is $8.00 postpaid from the Sherlock Holmes Festival (Box 333, Tryon, NC 28782) . The 2005 lapel pin and T-shirt also are still available. Six of Laurie R. King's novels about Mary Russell and Sher- lock Holmes have now been translated into Japanese; you can see the cover art-work at (that's Naomi Tanaka's web-site). Further to the item (Jul 06 #4) on the campaign to protect Undershaw (where Conan Doyle lived from 1897 to 1907), Ev Herzog notes that the Aug.-Sept. issue of the e-mail newsletter of the Victorian Society in America reports that "a Holmes fan and Victorian here in the U.S." wishes to purchase the house in order to save it and its history; the newsletter includes a nice color photo of Undershaw . Sorry about that: I omitted the prices for Dr. Hanson's cacheted postcards with a postmark for The Silver Blaze at Saratoga (Aug 06 #1): $4.50 post- paid (and $4.00 for additional cards) to the U.S. and Canada; you can con- tact Dr. Hanson at for prices to other countries. San Francisco's Acorn Books, founded in 1980, was one of the few remaining immense used-book stores in major cities; it closed its doors on Sept. 30 with prices marked down 70% and with thousands of Sherlockian items still available: multiple copies of THE SEXUAL ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES and THE PAINFUL PREDICAMENT OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, copies of The Pontine Dossier and other society material, and much much more. Their staff said they had bought the stock of a local dealer who specialized in Sherlock Holmes (most likely the late Bill Berner, who died in 1997); it would appear they only recently got round to moving the material into the store. They were plan- ning to sell their remaining stock to local dealers, and promised to tell whoever buys the Sherlockiana that I'll give them some publicity. Oct 06 #3 "Dear Mr. Dead Sherlock Holmes, I feel stupid writing you this letter because I know you're six feet under. It's my teacher's idea." As Tanya Martin of Dallas wrote to Sherlock Holmes in 1993, in one of a folder of letters available for inspection at the Sherlock Holmes Mu- seum in London, noted by Andrew Mueller in an article in The Guardian (Oct. 7), spotted by Laura Kuhn. Mueller also reports that the ground floor of the museum has "a souvenir shop, stuffed to the gunwales with deerstalker hats, curvy pipes, and fat, braying Americans." "On the S.S. America, Adrian Conan Doyle, son of Sir Arthur, finds writing comes easy in his spacious and comfortable stateroom," was the caption on a photograph in an advertisement in The New Yorker (Apr. 11, 1953) for the United States Lines. Propped up on the desk is the catalog for "The Sherlock Holmes Exhibition" at the Plaza Galleries; Adrian seems to have been returning to England. Credit John Baesch for discovering the advertisement. Neil Gaiman's FRAGILE THINGS: SHORT FICTIONS AND WONDERS (New York: William Morrow, 2006, 400 pp., $26.95) includes his "A Study in Emerald" (reprinted from the anthology SHADOWS OVER BAKER STREET) (Jan 05 #3) with an introduc- tion in which Gaiman explains how and why he decided to write the pieces in the collection; the book's also available (read by the author) on CD from HarperAudio ($34.95), and you can listen to Gaiman read from the introduc- tion at his web-site at . E. J. Wagner has reported that Trillium Productions has optioned the tele- vision rights for her book THE SCIENCE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES: FROM BASKERVILLE HALL TO THE VALLEY OF FEAR: THE REAL FORENSICS BEHIND THE GREAT DETECTIVE'S GREATEST CASES (Jun 06 #2) for a documentary based on her book. Her web- site is at . The first Dick Tracy comic strip appeared 75 years ago, and anniversary has been celebrated at , where Beverly Keel noted that Chester Gould modelled Tracy after Gould's childhood hero, Sherlock Holmes. Hugo's Companions gave Gould a "Baker Street Tankard Award" at their annual dinner in 1977; the awards honored someone "who thirsts after justice for justice's sake." Thanks to Debbie Clark for reporting the story. Don Hobbs reports that "Facies Lutea" [that's a Latin translation of "The Yellow Face"] is now available at . Scroll to the end to find a link to "Fulmen Argenteum" (translator Stanis- laus Tekieli intends to do more stories). Production has begun on the new film "Death Defying Acts" (Aug 05 #1); the scenes due to be shot in Scotland were films on sound stage in London (too many tourists on the street in Edinburgh), but exteriors are being filmed in Edinburgh this month. The film stars Guy Pearce as Houdini and Cather- ine Zeta-Jones (rather than Rachel Weisz) as Mary McGregor, a local psychic who responds to Houdini's reward for anyone who can contact his mother; no word yet on who might portray Conan Doyle in the film. Oct 06 #4 Sherlock Holmes mentioned (in "The Noble Bachelor") a possible "quartering of the Union Jack with the Stars and Stripes," and "Quartering in the Fifties" is the title of The Baker Street Journal's 2006 Christmas Annual, which has been edited by Nicholas Utechin and focuses on the correspondence between Colin Prestige and four American Sherlockians: Nathan L. Bengis, Jay Finley Christ, James Montgomery, and Edgar W. Smith, offering a look at what the Sherlockian world was like half a century ago. If you aren't already scheduled to receive a copy as part of your subscrip- tion to the BSJ, the Annual costs $11.00 postpaid (or $12.00 foreign); Box 465, Hanover, PA 17331 . Scott Monty has re- vised the BSJ web-site (there's now a link to "gift certificates" in case you want to hint to family or friends), and he continues to offer interest- ing news and other material at his "Baker Street Blog". Further to the report about the computer game "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened" (Sep 06 #4), there's now a web-site with screenshots and such, at . The Baker Street Journal is always of interest, and the autumn 2006 issue is particularly so, for its article by Harold Billings about "The Materia Medica of Sherlock Holmes". In 1971, employed by the University of Texas, he found in Los Angeles a copy of Alfred Baring Garrod's ESSENTIALS OF MA- TERIA MEDICA AND THERAPEUTICS (1877) that was owned and annotated by Arth- ur Conan Doyle during his medical studies, and Billings' article offers a fascinating look at the book and annotations, and investigates the medical aspects of the Canon. The BSJ costs $26.50 a year (or $29.00 outside the U.S.), and checks (credit-card payments accepted from foreign subscribers) should be sent to the BSJ (Box 465, Hanover, PA 17331); you can also sub- scribe to the BSJ and the Christmas Annual ($36.50/$40.00), and you can use PayPal at the BSJ web-site at Further to the forecast of Rupert Everett's memoirs RED CARPETS AND OTHER BANANA SKINS (Sep 06 #3), Catherine Cooke reports that there are a lot of anecdotes and conversations, but nothing about his television film "Sher- lock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking" (2004). Andrew Joffe has rewritten his dramatization of "The Blue Carbuncle" (with a new two-scene prologue), and it will be performed on Dec. 10 at 6:00 pm at the Jewelbox Theater (312 West 36th Street, between 8th and 9th Avenues) in New York; the theater is on the 4th floor, admission is free, there will be a feedback session after the performance, Paul Singleton will be playing Holmes, and more information is available at . Sherlockians in New York for the birthday festivities had an opportunity to see Lee Shackleford's play "Holmes & Watson" (Jan 90 #3), and it was per- formed again this month at the Cultural Arts Center in Frederick, Md. (Sep 06 #3). The play offers an interesting look at the relationship between Holmes and Watson after Holmes' return to London from the Great Hiatus, and some surprises. Copies of the script are available ($9.00 postpaid to the U.S.); you can send checks or money orders to Lee Shackleford, Box 55704, Birmingham, AL 35255. If you're outside the U.S. you can ask him for in- formation about costs; Lee's e-mail address is , and his web-site is at . Oct 06 #5 Sherlock Holmes' 153rd birthday will be celebrated on Friday, Jan. 12, with the traditional festivities in New York, but the first formal event will be The Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes' ASH Wed- nesday dinner starting at 6:30 pm at O'Casey's (22 East 41st Street); at- tendees pay their own checks, but you should let Susan Rice (125 Washington Place #2-E, New York, NY 10014 know if you're com- to the event. The Christopher Morley Walk, led by Jim Cox and Dore Nash, will leave from the Algonquin Hotel (59 West 44th Street) at 9:30 am on Thursday, followed by lunch at McSorley's at about 1:30 pm; those planning to participate are asked to get in touch with Jim (2240 15th Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94116) . The Baker Street Irregulars' Distinguished Speaker Lecture begins at 6:15 on the 6th floor of the Williams Club (24 East 39th Street, between Madison and Park Avenues); the speaker will be Laurie R. King, Edgar-award-winning author of the Mary Russell and Kate Martinelli series; her latest novel is the cross-over THE ART OF DETECTION. The lecture will cost $11.00; seating will be limited, and you are advised to reserve early (details below). Otto Penzler will hold his traditional open house on Friday, from 11:00 to 5:00 at the Mysterious Bookshop, at 58 Warren Street (between West Broadway and Church Street) in Tribeca; the 1, 2, and 3 trains stop at the Chambers Street station (one block from the shop). If you get lost, the bookshop's telephone number is 212-587-1011. The William Gillette Memorial Luncheon starts at noon, at Moran's Chelsea Seafood Restaurant at 146 Tenth Avenue at 19th Street; $43.00 for salmon or chicken ($48.00 for roast beef). Contact Susan Rice (125 Washington Place #2-E, New York, NY 10014) for a formal announcement. The Beacon Society will hold its annual meeting at 3:15 pm in the lobby of the Algonquin to make the Fourth Annual Beacon Award recognizing efforts of individuals to introduce Sherlock Holmes to young people. More information on the award is available at . The Baker Street Irregulars will gather at 6:00 pm at the Union League Club at 38 East 37th Street. The Gaslight Gala (which is open to all Sherlock- ians and their friends) will provide dinner and entertainment at 6:30 pm at the Manhattan Club (201 West 52nd Street between Broadway and Seventh Ave- nue); $75.00 (checks payable to Will Walsh can be sent to Carol Fish (Box 4, Circleville, NY 10919). Please include your e-mail address and primary Sherlockian society affiliation). There is more information at their web- site . Early reservations are advised for the William Gillette Luncheon and the Gaslight Gala. 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), 110 copies (for the Gala) to Francine Kitts (35 Van Cortlandt Avenue, Staten Island, NY 10301), and 20 copies (for The Women) to Mary Ann Bradley, 7938 Mill Stream Circle, Indianapolis, IN 46278); your material should arrive by Dec. 15. Oct 06 #6 On Saturday a wide variety of Sherlockiana will be available in the dealers' room on the second floor of the Algonquin Hotel at 59 West 44th Street, from 9:30 am until 12:30 pm; Ralph Hall (2906 Walling- ford Court, Louisville, KY 40218) (502-491-3148) will be glad to supply information about dealers' tables. The Clients of Adrian Mulliner (devotees of the works of both John H. Watson and P. G. Wodehouse) will hold a Junior Bloodstain (a rather less than totally reverent event) on the second floor of the Algonquin at 12:30 pm; if you plan to attend the festivities, please tell Anne Cotton (12 Hollywood Street, South Hadley, MA 01075) . The Baker Street Irregulars' annual reception, open to all Sherlockians and friends, will be held from 1:30 to 4:30 at the New York City Bar Associa- tion (42 West 44th Street); there will be hors d'oeuvres (adequate but not replacing lunch or dinner) and an open bar (wine, beer, juice, soft drinks, and juice). $65.00 (details below) or $75.00 after Dec. 8 or at the door. Baker Street West 1 and The Curious Collectors of Baker Street will present a very irregular "Lost in New York with a Bunch of Sherlockians" dinner at 6:00 pm at Kennedy's Irish Pub & Restaurant (327 West 57th Street, between 8th and 9th Avenues); $35.00 per person (including tax and tip, and with a cash bar). You can reserve by sending your checks (payable to the CCOBS) to Jerry and Chrys Kegley (9338 Sophia Avenue, North Hills, CA 91343); more information is available from them at 818-894-1501, and his e-mail address is . The Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes will hold an informal brunch on Sun- day, from 11:30 am to 2:30 pm at the Oldcastle Pub & Restaurant at 160 West 54th Street (between 7th and 6th Avenues) (and yes, 6th Avenue is the Ave- nue of the Americas). It's open to all, but space is limited and reserva- tions will be important; please reserve with Judith Freeman (280 Ninth Ave- nue #1-C, New York, NY 10001 . And here are the details: if you've not already received Mike Whelan's an- nouncement with the prices and a reservation form for the Thursday lecture and the Saturday reception, you can request a copy from Michael F. Whelan, 7938 Mill Stream Circle, Indianapolis, IN 46278. The Baker Street Irregulars are a tax-exempt organization, and Mike Whelan has arranged with the Algonquin for single or double rooms at $175.00 (or $275.00 for a suite), Tuesday through Sunday; this is the total cost, since there is no tax on reservations arranged by the BSI. The offer's available to all Sherlockians, and room reservations must be made directly to the Al- gonquin (mention The Baker Street Irregulars) at 212-840-6800 on or before Dec. 8. Mary Ellen Rich kindly continues to provide advice about hotels that offer reasonable (as defined by New York landlords) rates, but it's a mark of the 21st century that the best offers are to be found on the Internet, at web- sites such as , , , , and ; wise shoppers then check the hotel's web-site and ask for the best rate (and don't forget non-optional extras that include 14% in state and city taxes). Oct 06 #7 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 care- fully pseudonymous John H. Watson presides over the fund and welcomes con- tributions, 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 gener- osity. Requests for assistance should also be mailed (quickly) to Dr. Wat- son at the same address. And that's the end of the forecast of the birthday festivities in January. Now back to our regular program: Bill Vande Water reports SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE BASIL RATHBONE ERA: 2007 CALENDAR (Windsor: Tide-Mark Press, 2006; 26 pp., $13.95); a wall calendar created by Patricia Guy and Vinnie Brosnan. An interesting assortment of books by Conan Doyle, many of them inscribed or signed, was scheduled at auction at Sotheby's in London on Nov. 1; de- tails and prices will be available at (search for "4074 doyle"); they were owned by Rene de Chochor, who according to the catalog was the director of the Estate of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle from 1956 to 1967; one of the books was a copy of John Dickson Carr's biography of Sir Arthur, inscribed in 1952 by the author and by Adrian (who described de Chochor as an obstetrical physician and friend). Maureen Green Van der Flaes ("Kitty Winter") died on Oct. 17. She was an enthusiastic and long-time member of The Bootmakers of Toronto (and she re- ceived their Master Bootmaker Award in 1985); Maureen was an Adventuress of Sherlock Holmes ("Mary Sutherland"), honored by the Baker Street Irregulars as *The* Woman in 1988, and received her Investiture from the BSI in 1992. Laurie R. King's THE BEEKEEPER'S APPRENTICE was dramatized by Shaun Pren- dergast and broadcast by BBC Radio 4 in four weekly episodes (Nov 00 #2). Farah Hussin has reported that offers downloads of all four episodes. And THE BEEKEEPER'S APPRENTICE was chosen as this year's "Spokane Is Reading" project; there was an interest- ing interview with Laurie in the Oct. 11 issue of the Spokane Spokesman-Re- view . YouTube is a video-sharing web-site that was founded in 2005 and now shows more than 100 million video clips each day; this month it was purchased by Google for $1.65 billion. YouTube's three young founder could afford the start-up costs: their previous start-up company was PayPal, which was sold to eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion. You can visit and run a search for "sherlock holmes" [in quotes]; in mid-October there were 134 hits, and there surely will be more now. A search for "Conan Doyle" pro- duced 7 hits, one of them non-Sherlockian: a fan video combining the Chee- tah Girls' song "I Won't Say (I'm in Love)" (from Disney's 1997 film "Her- cules") with video of Marguerite and Roxton from the 1999 television series "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World". The Spermaceti Press: Peter E. Blau, 7103 Endicott Court, Bethesda, MD 20817-4401 (301-229-5669) Nov 06 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press Add an event to the birthday festivities: Paul Singleton reports that his article in the spring 2006 issue of The Baker Street Journal on the redis- covery of the Hotel Duane's Grille Room (where the first gathering of The Baker Street Irregulars was held on Jan. 6, 1934), has spurred interest in a commemorative meeting, on Friday, Jan. 12, at 5:00 pm: the Grille Room is now Morgans Bar (237 Madison Avenue, between 37th and 38th Streets), con- veniently just one block from the Union League Club. Morgans Bar is a lot fancier that the Grille Room (Paul notes that a manhattan costs $16.00, but wine and beer is available); enter the door at the far left of the building and proceed downstairs. An electronic tour of the bar is available at its web-site at . If you are planning to attend, please let Paul know at . And some corrections: Susan Rice's e-mail address (for the William Gillette Luncheon is , and the Junior Bloodstain of the Cli- ents of Adrian Mulliner (Oct 06 #6) will begin at noon on Saturday on the second floor of the Algonquin. is the URL for their pick of the month, the first edition of THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES; click on "Clues on Collecting Sherlock Holmes Books" to read an essay by book-dealer Phillip Gold. Thanks to Andy Fusco for the report. Further to the report on Frogware's computer game "The Adventures of Sher- lock Holmes: The Awakened" (Sep 06 #4), the game is scheduled for release in the United Kingdom in January and in North America in March, according to a press release at noted by Ken Lanza. The press release has links to the official web-site, a new trailer, and a playable German demo. Don Hobbs reports that "Proxenetae functionarius" [that's the Latin trans- lation of "The Stockbroker's Clerk"] has now been added to the web-site at . Scroll to the end to find links to other stories translated by Stanislaus Tekieli. Val Andrews died on Oct. 12. He was introduced to magic when he was five years old, and he went on to perform for decades as a professional ventri- loquist and magician. He also wrote articles about magic, and biographies of magicians, and in 1980 he began writing a long series of Sherlock Holmes pastiches that often involved Holmes with magic and magicians and were pub- lished by Magico Magazine, Ian Henry, and Breese Books. Further to the mention of Debby Applegate's THE MOST FAMOUS MAN IN AMERICA: THE BIOGRAPHY OF HENRY WARD BEECHER (Jul 06 #1), there's an interesting re- view at . The latest catalog from Acorn (Box 1670, West Chester, OH 45071) (888-870- 8047) offers a Sherlock Holmes Watch ($39.00) and a Sherlock Holmes Pen and Holder ($24.00); they suggest that the holder "re- sembles the briarwood pipe made famous by actor William Gillette," but it doesn't match anything in photographs of Gillette in the rle. Nov 06 #2 Mosaic Records has issued a excellent jazz CD "Rich In London: Buddy Rich Recorded Live at Ronnie Scott's" (MCD-1009); the re- cording was made in December 1971, and the tracks include two Sherlockian arrangements by John La Barbera: "Dancing Men" and "Watson's Walk" ("Wat- son's Walk" was not included in a 2-LP set issued by RCA in 1972). La Bar- bera is a Sherlock Holmes fan (and says so in album notes written for the CD): he has also written "The Chase on the Moor", "The Tiger of San Pedro", "The Sign of Four", and "The Man on the Tor". The CD costs $15.00 (35 Mel- rose Place, Stamford CT 06902) ; you can listen to an excerpt from "Dancing Men" at the web-site. George Schenk reports that the October-November issue of In Britain has a seven-page illustrated article (by Nick Jenkins) on "Mysterious Moorland", with color photographs and a map of Dartmoor. Bob Brusic visited the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, Conn., and its exhibition "Art and Music in Britain" (through Dec. 31), which includes Thomas Rowlandson's watercolor "Old Vauxhall Gardens" (1784). One of the figures in the painting is Georgiana, 5th Duchess of Devonshire, who gave her name to the style of hat worn by Mary Sutherland (in "A Case of Identi- ty"), and whose portrait by Gainsborough was stolen by Adam Worth (who was described as the Napoleon of crime long before that title was given to the evil Prof. Moriarty. Visit to see Rowlandson's watercolor. Mitch Higurashi has reported an audio CD of "A Study in Scarlet" in Japan- ese. You can see the flier at , and more information at . The recording is a dramatiza- tion (rather than a reading), scheduled for release in October at Y2940. The next annual STUD-Watsonian Weekend will be held in and near Chicago on Apr. 27-29; there will be a dinner, a running of The Silver Blaze at Haw- thorne Race Course, and a Fortescue Honours Brunch. You can ask Susan Dia- mond (16W603 3rd Avenue, Bensenville, IL 60106) for a registration form. Three of David Stuart Davies' stories about Johnny Hawke (a one-eyed pri- vate eye working in London during World War II) have appeared in SHERLOCK, and now there's a Johnny Hawke novel, FORESTS OF THE NIGHT, due in January (New York: St. Martin's Minotaur, 2006; 244 pp., $23.95). The fall 2006 issue of Storytelling: A Critical Journal of Popular Narra- tive has John G. Cawelti's article "Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Per- petual Detective"; he opens by suggesting that "Even Sherlock Holmes, that confirmed bachelor and misogynist, would have been stunned by the enormity and variety of his progeny," and discusses the stories that he classifies as imitations, pastiches, and recreations. 1319 18th Street NW, Washing- ton, DC 20036; $27.00. And the fall 2006 issue of Clues: A Journal of De- tection (a theme issue devoted to Victorian detective fiction) offers Jim Barloon's article "The Case for Identity: Sherlock Holmes and the Singular Find"; he suggests that Holmes' popularity results from his focus on indi- viduality at a time when human beings tended to be measure in the aggregate rather than as individuals. Same address; $32.00. Nov 06 #3 "The Andaman Basin, falling in the trend of occurrence of hy- drocarbons in the Myanmar-Andaman-Sumatra belt, has the poten- tial to host sizeable hydrocarbon reserves," according to an article in the August issue of The Leading Edge (published by the Society of Exploration Geophysicists), at hand from Dean Clark; the Andaman Islands lie within the Andaman Basin, of course. Gordon E. Kelley died on Oct. 23. Gordon was an enthusiastic researcher in the field of Sherlockian sound and screen, a member of The Listeners of the Modern Mazarin Gramophone, and the author of SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE WORLD'S MOST FAMOUS CONSULTING DETECTIVE: BROADCAST AND MOVIE LOG (1991) and SHER- LOCK HOLMES: SCREEN AND SOUND GUIDE (1994). Filming has begun in Dublin for a new two-part television drama "The Baker Street Irregulars", starring Jonathan Pryce (Sherlock Holmes) and Bill Pat- erson (Dr. Watson). Written by Richard Kurti and Bev Doyle, and produced by RDF Media and Element Films, the series "pits Holmes and the Irregulars against one of Holmes' greatest enemies" (according to a press release). The New London Day reported on Oct. 26 that UConn-Avery Point students of maritime archeology are at work on the remains of William Gillette's steam yacht, the Aunt Polly, one of only two shipwrecks in Connecticut designated as an archeological preserve. The yacht was Gillette's home while his cas- tle was being built, and it burned and sank in 1932; there were rumors that Gillette burned the yacht himself for the insurance money, but he defended himself in a newspaper, saying there was no insurance. "I did not think of it in time," he wrote in a letter to the editor. Actress Emma Thompson, on her childhood reading (in New York magazine, Nov. 13): "I'm a narrative junkie. I was obsessive about Arthur Conan Doyle and Ian Fleming and Alistair MacLean. Of course those are very hero-driven, and that's what's been a big part of my life and my questions about life." Audio Editions offers a wide range of books on cassettes and CDs, including Conan Doyle's Sherlockian and non-Sherlockian stories, read by people such David Timson, Ben Kingsley, Ralph Cosham, Carlos Zambrano (in Spanish); and dramatizations from BBC Radio 4; and pastiches and parodies (Box 6930, Au- burn, CA 95604 (800-231-4261) "Famous Novel 'The Lost World' May Not Have Been Fiction" was the headline on a press release for "The Real Lost World"; the two-hour documentary will air on the Animal Planet channel on Dec. 10 and 17 and on Discovery HD The- ater on Dec. 14, and it "takes a modern team in the footsteps of 19th-cen- tury explorers" to Mount Roraima. The program starts in Los Llanos in Ven- ezuela, 400 miles from Roraima, and the trek offers a look at local wild- life found on the way; there's reenactment footage of the first expedition to Roraima (in 1884), occasional comment by Richard Milner (the historian of science at the American Museum of Natural History in New York who some years ago suggested that Conan Doyle perpetrated the Piltdown Hoax) (Mar 97 #7), scenes from Wallace Beery's "The Lost World" (1925) and Bob Hoskins' BBC-1 "The Lost World" (2001), and a look at what the modern team found on Roraima. There's a trailer, and more information, available at a web-site at . Nov 06 #4 Joel Rickett reported in the Guardian (Nov. 11) that Headline (an imprint of HodderHeadline, who also now own John Murray) is planning to issue the nine Sherlock Holmes books "with suitably foggy cov- ers" just before Christmas. Stephen Fry has endorsed the project, saying that Conan Doyle "is unique in simultaneously bringing down the curtain on an era and raising one on another," adding that "Personally, I would walk a mile in tight boots to read his letters to the milkman." Jim Suszynski noted the November issue of Previews ($4.50) with a colorful cover showing Sherlockian artwork from THE HELMET OF FATE: DETECTIVE CHIMP #1, due on sale on Jan. 17 ($2.99); it will be a five-part series, and you can see the front-cover artwork at . The new issue of the Sherlockian E-Times is at hand from Joel and Carolyn Senter (Classic Specialties) offers interesting Sherlockiana and a report on the latest annual Sherlock Holmes/William Gillette Festival in Tryon, N.C.; the newsletter URL is , and you can request an e-mail subscription at . HONORING THE BAKER STREET IRREGULARS is Bill Dorn's colorful calendar for 2007, with daily entries noting Canonical events of interest, and monthly illustrations in full color of "distinguished members of the BSI." $18.45 postpaid (or $20.45 to Canada or $22.95 elsewhere), and checks can be sent to William S. Dorn at 2045 South Monroe Street, Denver, CO 80210; his web- site's at . Forecast for March: ON THE WRONG TRACK, by Steve Hockensmith, from St. Mar- tin's Minotaur (304 pp., $23.95); there's more information, on the new book and on his earlier HOLMES ON THE RANGE, and on the author, at his web-site at . Marian Grudeff died on Nov. 4. She was a pianist, composer, and teacher; she launched her musical career at the age of 11, playing Liszt's "Hungar- ian Fantasy" with the Toronto Symphony Ochestra, and went on to collaborate with Raymond Jessel on the music and lyrics for the musical "Baker Street" (1964). THE CASE OF EMILY V, by Keith Oatley, originally published in Britain (Nov 93 #5), now has an American edition (New York: Pleasure Boat Studio, 2006; 384 pp., $18.00); it's an interesting psychological pastiche: the journal of a young woman who may or may not have murdered the man who seduced her, the lecture-notes of Dr. Sigmund Freud (whose patient she is), and the ac- count of Dr. Watson (after Sherlock Holmes has been retained by the British government to investigate the death of the man who may or may not have been murdered). The principal focus of the book is on Emily, but the develop- ment of the plot offers provides an out-of-the-ordinary view of a consist- ent Holmes and Watson. The new film "For Your Consideration" (screened at the Toronto Film Festi- val on Sept. 10 and released in the U.S. on Nov. 17) has a scene with Fred Willard (as "Hollywood Now" co-anchor Chuck Porter) in Sherlockian costume. Click on the gallery at or on the studio stills at . Thanks to Stu Shiffman for the news. Nov 06 #5 Cricket is both Doylean and Sherlockian, and there's Christo- pher Morley's "A Footnote on Philadelphia Cricket" reprinted in CHRISTOPHER MORLEY'S PHILADELPHIA (May 90 #4), and Simon Worral's informa- tive article "Cricket, Anyone?" in Smithsonian magazine (October); Worral doesn't mention Conan Doyle or Holmes, but he does quote Groucho Marx, who is reported to have watched a match at Lord's for an hour, and said: "This is great. When does it start?" "Harrier Angel" (a "rock remedy for the re generation") is a three-act rock musical with book, music and lyrics by Cassandra von Braun, first performed in 1995 and now available on a CD with the song "Sherlock Jones" (complete with Sherlockian allusions). The lyrics are in the album notes, and (with a sample from the song) at . You can buy the CD ($15.00) from CD Baby (5925 NE 80th Avenue, Portland, OR 97218 (800-289- 6923) . Ken Lanza spotted , which offers infor- mation about The Baker Street Irregulars, and a chance to hear their song "Reichenbach Falls" (they describe themselves as "Seattle (East-side) based Jam oriented, Funk, Rock and Chamber Pop"). Some years ago the Land Press published a limited edition of THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, with all the Sidney Paget illustrations from The Strand Magazine, a hitherto unpublished full-page portrait of Holmes by Paget, and four different custom-leather bindings (Feb 89 #2). Priscilla Juvelis (11 Goose Fair, Kennebunkport, ME 04046 is offering a copy for $2,500, and you can see a detailed description at her web-site at . Jack Palance died on Nov. 10. He began his acting career on stage in 1947, and appeared in his first film in 1950; he was twice nominated for an Oscar for his performances in "Sudden Fear" (1952) and "Shane" (1953), and he won the award for "City Slickers" (1992). And there's a Sherlockian connection (recalled by Dave Morrill): the film "Dracula Walks the Night" (reported as planned by Hammer in 1972) was to have featured James Donald (Holmes), Mi- chael Ripper (Watson), Peter Cushing (Von Helsing), Christopher Lee (Drac- ula), and Palance (Dracula's servant Macata). Alas: the report was based on a hoax press release, perpetrated by Dick Klemensen. Bonhams offered five interesting lots of Vincent Starrett material at auc- tion on Oct. 17: a copy of THE UNIQUE HAMLET sold for $1,200 (plus premium and tax), and the other four lots went unsold. You can see all of the lots at : sale 14243, lots 3371 through 3375. "Light-houses, my boy!" Holmes said (in "The Naval Treaty"). "Beacons of the future! Capsules with hundreds of bright little seeds in each, out of which will spring the wiser, better England of the future." Holmes was de- scribing the board schools built in response to the 1870 Education Act, and English Heritage says there are still 8,000 Victorian board schools stand- ing, most of them threatened with demolition as the government moves to re- place them with modern buildings, according to an article in the Guardian (Nov. 14) spotted by Tina Rhea. Many were built to similar designs, which means they're not distinctive enough to be protected, but preservationists believe that refurbishing the board schools is cheaper than replacing them. Nov 06 #6 Peter Costello's CONAN DOYLE, DETECTIVE: TRUE CRIMES INVESTIGA- TED BY THE CREATOR OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, by Peter Costello (Lon- don: Constable & Robinson, 2006; 320 pp., L7.99) (New York: Carroll & Graf, 2006; 256 pp., $15.95), is an updated and revised edition of THE REAL WORLD OF SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE TRUE CRIMES INVESTIGATED BY ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE (Oct 91 #1), and an interesting tour through Conan Doyle's "private calendar of crime" (Costello's phrase for the many cases Conan Doyle was interested in or investigated himself). Peter Barkworth died on Oct. 21. He began his acting career on stage while still a schoolboy, and went on to perform on film and television; he played Martin Hewitt in two episodes of Thames Television's "The Rivals of Sher- lock Holmes" (1971), and Colonel Ross in Granada's "Silver Blaze" (1988). Lots of Sherlockiana in the new catalog from the BBC America Shop (Box 681, Holmes, PA 19043) (800-898-4921) , including four new items: a Sherlock Holmes Umbrella ($54.98) with a silhouette of Holmes (and a suitably stormy quotation from "The Five Orange Pips"), a Sherlock Holmes Stamp and Coin Collection ($79.98) with the five British stamps from the Royal Mail in 1993 and two Victorian shillings under glass in a wooden frame, a Sherlock Holmes Ornament ($29.98) showing Holmes and Watson in a snowy scene (from "The Resident Patient"), a Sherlock Holmes Marble Coaster Set ($49.98) with Paget illustrations on four coasters hand-cut from Botti- cino marble imported from Verona. Reported: WATSON'S SAMPLER: THE LOST CASEBOOK OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, by Will- iam Watson (Portsmouth: Stagecoach Press, 2006; 246 pp., $21.99); a collec- tion of new pastiches (also available in paperback format and as an elec- tronic download) . You can also order by mail from the auth- or (35 Hope Avenue, Portsmouth, RI 02871) (401-683-1729); he can tell you what the shipping costs will be. Mary Burke reports that a "Cartoon America" exhibition in the Great Hall of the Thomas Jefferson Building at the Library of Congress (through Jan. 27) includes a Dick Tracy comic and the explanation that Chester Gould "modeled his chisel-chinned cop after Sherlock Holmes and cashed in on the popular- ity of detective stories." Visit for more information on the exhibition. Reported: RIPPER SUSPECT: THE SECRET LIVES OF MONTAGUE DRUITT (Stroud: Sut- ton, 2006; 224 pp., L18.99); the author has "uncovered a web of intriguing connections linking the eldest son of the heir to the throne, the Cambridge Apostles, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Virginia Woolf, and the cricketing legend Prince Kumar Ranjitsinhji." Walter R. Brooks' "Freddy the Pig" has appeared in Sherlockian costume in illustrations by Kurt Wiese in FREDDY THE DETECTIVE (1932), as noted ear- lier (Sep 02 #1), and on the cover, title page, and two interior illustra- tions in FREDDY AND THE MEN FROM MARS, first published in 1954; it's still in print (New York: Overlook Press, 2002; 246 pp., $23.95). The Friends of Freddy were founded in 1984, and have a web-site at and an irregular quarterly; membership costs $25.00 for two years (Box 912, Greenbelt, MD 20768). Nov 06 #7 The September issue of the quarterly newsletter of The Friends of the Sherlock Holmes Collections at the University of Minne- sota has Tim Johnson's discussion of his S'ian contributions to the univer- sity's summer continuing-education "curiosity camp", Julie McKuras' article about Emory Lee and his donation of his collection to the university, and other news from and about the collections; you can request a copies of the newsletter from Richard J. Sveum, (111 Elmer L. Andersen Library, Univ. of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455) . Sergei Petrov, the head of Moscow City Hall's Monuments Committee, has an- nounced the committee's decision that there should be a statue of Sherlock Holmes in Moscow, according to a report from Deutsche Presse-Agentur (Nov. 17); Petrov noted the continuing popularity of the Russian television ser- ies that starred Vasiliy Livanov, who earlier this year was awarded an MBE (Mar 06 #4). The statue is to be installed near the British Embassy under the auspices of the non-profit foundation Cultural Dialogue/One World. But: a different report, from Komsomolskaya Pravda (Nov. 18), showed a photograph of the statue of Holmes and Watson, and it's poss- ible that the photo (in full color) is still available at ; the statue was sculpted by Andrei Orlov, and has already been cast in bronze. Thanks to Marina Stajic for translating the report. Stockton's Pub, described as the place "where Arthur Conan Doyle wrote one of his Sherlock Holmes mysteries," may vanish into the ocean within fifty years, according to a Bloomsberg report (Nov. 16) from Happisburgh in Norfolk. The cliffs are eroding, and the government's new Shoreline Management Plan for North Nor- folk says that there is "no economic case to be made" for spending more money on defending the coast. Stockton's Pub once was the Hill House Hotel, where Conan Doyle was inspired to write "The Dancing Men". John Gilbert died in November. He was actor on stage and radio, and for a time a bookseller (he called his shop Old Actor's Used Books). He played Sherlock Holmes in a Seattle production of Paul Giovanni's "The Crucifer of Blood" in 1983, and was a fine Sherlock Holmes from 1998 to 2000 in the new Sherlock Holmes shows in Jim French's syndicated radio series "Imagination Theatre". VAMPIRE LOVES, by Joann Sfar (New York: First Second Books, 2006; 192 pp., $16.95) is a graphic-novel collection of humorous stories about a vampire named Ferdinand. Jeff Swindoll at reported on Nov. 17 that one of the stories has an appearance by Professor Bell ("who taught Arthur Conan Doyle and was the basis of Sherlock Holmes"); according to Sfar's entry at , he says there is Ashkenazi humor in his "Professeur Bell" (loosely based on Joseph Bell). Nov 06 #8 Readers with long memories may recall the bank robbers who tun- neled into a Lloyds Bank on Baker Street in 1971 and got away with L1.5 million; some of them were caught and convicted in 1973, and of course newspaper and magazine stories noted similarities to "The Red-Headed League". There were reports in 2001 and 2002 of plans for a movie, and we may see one eventually: Ken Lanza noted a report that "Baker Street" is in pre-production, with Roger Donaldson as director, screenplay by Dick Clem- ent and Ian La Frenais, and Jason Stratham as the star; filming is expected to start in the UK next year. Publicity for the film explains that "this is a story that has remained untold for over 35 years due to a government gagging order," and that no arrests were ever made (which will be news to the robbers who were convicted in 1973). John Hallam died on Nov. 14. He began his acting career on stage, and went on to a long career in films and on television, with appearances in series that ranged from "Doctor Who" to "EastEnders" and included playing Gorgiano in Granada's "The Adventure of the Red Circle" (1994). Dana Martin Batory's A BAKER STREET DOZEN+: ESSAY EXCURSIONS INTO THE SHER- LOCKIAN MYTHOS (Brooklyn: Gryphon Books, 2006; 100 pp., $16.00) collects 13 articles previously published in Megavore, The Sherlock Holmes Journal, The Baker Street Journal, and Baker Street Miscellanea, plus "Lost Echoes from the Grimpen Mire" (in which he discusses echoes from "The Hound of the Bas- kervilles" found in "The Lost World"); the publisher is at Box 209, Brook- lyn, NY 11228 . Further to the report about Liberton Bank House, where Conan Doyle lived as a child (Dec 05 #2), the Edinburgh Evening News reports (Nov. 3) that fund- raising has been completed and that work has started on moving the Dunedin School into the house; plans call for a literary garden commemorating the site's links to Conan Doyle. For Jeremy Brett fans: Lenny Picker has noted that the 1966 BBC television mini-series "The Three Musketeers" (starring Brett as D'Artagnon and Brian Blessed as Porthos) broadcast in ten 25-minute black-and-white episodes is now available on DVD ($24.98). is an interesting resource for those who want to trace their ancestors; the immigration collection now offers more than 100 mill- ion names from the records of more than 100 American port cities. Search was free through the end of November (now you need to join); there are no Garridebs on the list. Greg Darak reports that the new DVD of the film "It's Always Fair Weather" (1955) issued by Warner Home Video ($19.98) has added features that include an out-take musical number "Love Is Nothing But a Racket" that was cut from the film. Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse are in a room in a television studio where there are a lot of different costumes; they sing the song and go into a dance, putting on different hats and coats, and Kelly is seen, for about five seconds, with a large deerstalker and a pipe. The Spermaceti Press: Peter E. Blau, 7103 Endicott Court, Bethesda, MD 20817-4401 (301-229-5669) Dec 06 #1 Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press There may still space available Laurie R. King' Distinguished Speaker Lec- ture on "Meeting Sherlock Holmes" during the birthday festivities, at the Williams Club (24 East 39th Street, between Madison and Park Avenues), at 6:15 pm on Thursday, Jan. 11. $11.00 each, and since it's so close to the weekend, you should call Mike Whelan (417-293-2212) to reserve tickets. THE YALE BOOK OF QUOTATIONS, edited by Fred R. Shapiro (New Haven: Yale Un- iversity Press, 2006; 1067 pp., $50.00), is an important (and delightful) reference work; it's more up to date than BARTLETT'S FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS, and has far more emphasis on American sources than THE OXFORD DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS. There are sections on advertising slogans, film lines, and ra- dio and television catchprases, 39 quotations for Arthur Conan Doyle (all Sherlockian), a source for "Quick, Watson, the needle," and some pleasant surprises for people who only think they know the sources for many familiar quotations. And as with all good reference works, it's great fun to browse through its pages. CREATURE COZIES, edited by Jill M. Morgan (New York: Berkley Prime Crime, 2005; 311 pp., $23.95 cloth, $6.99 paper) (the cloth-bound edition is dis- counted to $5.98 at Barnes & Noble), is an anthology of all-new mysteries involving pets, with a dog in Sherlockian costume in the jacket illustra- tion by Lisa Desimini, and a search dog named Sherlock in Jan Burke's story "Lost and Found". A "reflection for the day" appears at and in the Boston Globe, and on Oct. 30 they chose "I never remember being tired by work, but idleness exhausts me completely." (from Conan Doyle) Try your hand at remembering what that's from. Spoiler alert: answer below. Clive Perry died on Nov. 11. He was a famous director in British theater, beginning in 1960 at the Derby Playhouse, and in 1995 turned to teaching, as a professor of drama and theater in Edinburgh. He was artistic director at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre in 1976 for a production of Gillette's "Sherlock Holmes" with Alan Rickman as Holmes and David Suchet as Moriarty. Stanford University's Community Reading Project has published Dickens and Conan Doyle by mail and on the Internet in serial facsimile, and their sec- ond series of Sherlock Holmes stories will run weekly from Jan. 26 to Apr. 13. There's a $20.00 fee for delivery by mail (to the U.S. only), and web access is free of charge everywhere ; click on "sherlock holmes adventures" and then on "choose an issue". Don Hobbs reports that "Gloria Scott" has been added to the Latin-transla- tion web-site at ; scroll to the end to find links to other stories translated by Stanislaus Tekieli. BARTITSU: THE MARTIAL ART OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, by Kirk Lawson (Morrisville: Lulu, 2006; $20.00); an 88-minute DVD of Lawson's recent seminar on Bartit- su, invented by E. W. Barton-Wright in 1899 and believed by many Sherlock- ian scholars to be the baritsu mentioned by Sherlock Holmes (in "The Empty House"). The publisher's web-site is . Dec 06 #2 One of the nicer aspects of the Internet is that so many things are free, including podcasts at ; they have four of the 1946 Rathbone/Bruce radio shows now, and soon will offer "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (click on "Podcast Books Now Available!" to see the books that are up and running now). Patrick Horgan reads Plato's "The Republic", Dickens'"A Christmas Carol", and Wells' "The War of the Worlds", and it will be grand indeed if he's their reader for the Canon. The Sherlockian echoes in Hugh Laurie's television series "House" have re- ceived considerable notice, and they're quite deliberate (Dec 04 #2). Al Gregory notes that a web-site at has B. E. Warne's detailed comparison of House and Holmes. Sherlock Holmes said, "I never remember being tired by work, but idleness exhausts me completely," in "The Sign of the Four". Pattie Tierney has expanded her offers of attractive "wearable art" (some Sherlockian, and some not); is the URL for her web-site, an illustrated flier is available on request (229 Hereford Avenue, St. Louis, MO 63135). The success of last April's "Springtime in Baker Street" has inspired Bob Thomalem to return to fall scheduling: "Autumn in Baker Street" is sched- uled for Sept. 1-2, 2007, at the Doubletree Hotel in Norwalk, Conn. There is a web-site at , or you can sign up for his mailing list (82 Highview Drive, Carmel, NY 10512). Andrew Gulli's "Strand Magazine" 2007 Sherlock Holmes Calendar ($16.95) has photographs, illustrations by Paget and Fawcett, and four-color artwork by Debbie Hinks. You can order from the Strand Magazine, Box 1418, Birming- ham, MI 48012 . "The calculation is a simple one," Holmes told Watson (in "Silver Blaze"), and much ink has been spilled over just how Holmes calculated the speed of the train. John Baesch spotted some correspondence in the Daily Telegraph, including a letter from Captain Nigel Calder (Oct. 28), who wrote: "If you divide 900 by the number of seconds it takes to pass between the quarter- mile markers, the result is the train's speed in statute miles per hour." Well, yes, Holmes did explain that he had noted the telegraph posts, but it is tempting to consider that he really used the quarter-mile markers, and mentioned the telegraph posts only to confuse and amaze Watson. Further to the mention of (Nov 06 #8), the 1851 and 1861 Scottish censuses have been added to the records at ; the Glasgow Daily Record noted (Nov. 30) that Alexander Graham Bell and Ar- thur Conan Doyle are among the people recorded in the censuses. "Auditioning a Ghost" is Jeannette Jaquish's one-act dramatization of Conan Doyle's amusing story "Selecting a Ghost" (1883); it was first performed in 2000, and has had other productions since then, and there's an excerpt from the script at her web-site at . And you can request a copy of the complete script by e-mail at the web-site (or send $10.00 to her at 1423 Louisedale Drive, Fort Wayne, IN 46808). Dec 06 #3 DR. JOSEPH BELL: THE ORIGINAL SHERLOCK HOLMES, by Robert Hume (Broadstairs: Stone Publishing House, 2005; 88 pp., L4.99), is an excellent biography of Joseph Bell, written for young readers; the story covers the essentials of Bell's life and career, which included much more than his association with Conan Doyle, and does it well. The publisher's address is 17 Stone House, North Foreland Road, Broadstairs, Kent CT10 3NT, England, and the book also is available from . DANCING IN THE MOONLIGHT, by David Stuart Davies (London: MDF The BiPolar Organisation; 122 pp., L14.99), is a "celebration of Jeremy Brett" based on Davies' many meetings with Brett and conversations with his friends. RAGS TO RICHES: THE CASE OF THE HIRE SHOP FIEND, by Richard Roberts (Lon- don: MDF The Bipolar Organization; 40 pp., L7.99); an amusing and nicely- illustrated book for children (the first of a series). There's an inter- esting web-site at . Both books were launched at the Marylebone Library, which has a nice web- site at ; click on "read about the events here" for details, and photographs (including one showing Edward Hardwick and David Stuart Davies). The Library also has a fine web- site at devoted to their Sherlock Holmes Collection, with a link to their on-line exhibit on Arthur Conan Doyle. The second issue (Dec. 2006) of The Solar Pons Gazette, edited by Bob Byrne and available at his web-site , offers interesting mat- erial old and new, including a look at the complete painting by Les Edwards that was cropped for the cover of Basil Copper's SOLAR PONS: THE FINAL CAS- ES (2005). The first issue's also available at the web-site. Val Andrews, who died in October (Nov 06 #1), was an accomplished author of pastiches and an imaginative plotter: SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE MAN WHO LOST HIMSELF (London: Breese Books, 1997; 112 pp., $12.95) is (according to the back cover) an account of what happens when "a distinctly unfortunate in- ventor discovers that he doesn't exist." This and many other books by Val Andrews are available at and . John Pforr reports that Alberene Royal Mail (9 Mill Alley, Box 902, Harris- ville, NH 03450) (800-843-9078) offers Sherlock Holmes pub towels ($5.95), pub signs ($16.95), chalkboards ($39.95), pub- in-a-box kits ($34.95 and $44.90), and clocks ($69.96), as well as clocks from some of the railway stations mentioned in the Canon ($69.95). Reported: THE HIGHLY EFFECTIVE DETECTIVE, by Robert Yancey (New York: St. Martin's, 2006; 288 pp., $23.95); quirky private detective Teddy Ruzak is a former security guard who "grew up hooked on Sherlock Holmes and Encyclope- dia Brown, a guy who got ejected from the police academy after failing the marksmanship tests." Stephen Kendrick's dual pastiche NIGHT WATCH (Dec 01 #5) has been reissued as a mass-market paperback (New York: Berkley, 2006; 272 pp., $6.99); Sherlock Holmes and Father Brown. MURDER MOST MERRY, ed- ited by Abigail Browning (New York: Gramercy, 2002; 384 pp., $10.99; an an- thology of 32 Christmas stories, including "The Blue Carbuncle". Dec 06 #4 SHERLOCK HOLMES AND DOCTOR WATSON: ABOUT TYPE, by Bruce Harris, has a punning and appropriate title ("ABout Type"); Harris off- ers an interesting discussion of Type A and Type B personalities, and how and why he assigns behavioral types to Holmes and Watson. 105 pp., $16.00 (plus shipping) from George A. Vanderburgh (Box 204, Shelburne, ON L0N 1S0, Canada) . Further to the report (Nov 06 #6) on WATSON'S SAMPLER: THE LOST CASEBOOK OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (Portsmouth: Stagecoach Press, 2006; 246 pp., $21.95): the author is William F. Watson, Jr., and there are four pastiches, two of them with Holmes solving macabre mysteries set in Newport, R.I. Available from , also in paperback format and as an electronic download, and from the author (35 Hope Avenue, Portsmouth, RI 02871) (401-683-1729), who can tell you what the shipping costs will be. Sherlock Holmes battles Dracula in Stephen Seitz's SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE PLAGUE OF DRACULA (Shaftsbury: Mountainside Press, 2006; 208 pp., $16.95); the book offers an interesting approach, with Holmes appropriately skepti- cal about the supernatural. is the URL for the publisher's web-site. DUBIOUS AND QUESTIONABLE MEMORIES: A HISTORY OF THE ADVENTURESSES OF SHER- LOCK HOLMES was the title of The Baker Street Journal's 2004 Christmas Ann- ual, devoted to the history of a society that was for many years XX-rated (with regard to chromosomes), and in 1991 granted full membership (and In- vestitures) to four men; I modestly refrain from identifying the only one of the four still surviving. Now the Adventuresses have decided that it is time to invite men to make ASHes of themselves by applying for membership; of course there are requirements to be met, and more information is avail- able in the winter issue of The Serpentine Muse, and at the ASH web-site at . Lesley Johnson has reported a new British film in the works: "Where There's a Will", planned by Deepwater Films, with script by David Godfrey and in- volving the Hereafter Literary Council, upon which sit "such greats as Hom- er, Dickens, Mary Shelley, Emily Bronte, Robbie Burns, Mark Twain, and Con- an Doyle." Among the actors "attached" to the film so far are Simon Callow (Shakespeare) and Michael Kitchen (Dickens); there's more information about the film at . The new issue of the Sherlockian E-Times is at hand from Joel and Carolyn Senter (Classic Specialties) with news from the Sherlockians by Invitation Only Society, and offers of Sherlockian merchandise; the newsletter's URL is , and you can request an e-mail subscription at . The Illustrious Clients of Indianapolis celebrated their 60th anniversary on Dec. 6, and issued two cacheted covers to celebrate the event, one with a photograph of those who attended the first meeting, and the other showing Howard Elcock's illustrations of the newsvendor in their story, and each of them with a stamps.com stamp displaying the society's coat of arms. $6.00 each postpaid from The Illustrious Clients (9 Calumet Court, Zionsville, IN 46077); if you order just one, make sure you indicate which one. Dec 06 #5 The Feb. 2007 issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, which will on the newsstands during the birthday celebrations, offers editor Janet Hutchings' annual tribute to Sherlock Holmes: a cover photo- graph of Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes, Jon L. Breen's reviews of S'ian books, and Steve Hockensmith's new (and amusing) Amlingmeyer pastiche. SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE LOST CASES, by Alvin F. Rymsha (Charleston: BookSurge, 2006; 176 pp., $15.99); a collection of pastiches, most of them taken from the unrecorded cases. You can read the book (and others by Rymsha) without charge at . Catherine Cooke reports that Westminster Libraries are working with artist Ian Rees on a display that will open soon at the Marylebone Library. There will be several interactive models showing scenes from the Sherlock Holmes stories, and in the meantime you can see a short (and intriguing) video at . It's an .avi file that won't run with all media players, but it works with RealPlayer. Mark Alberstat's 2007 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$14.00 post- paid, and his address is 5 Lorraine Street, Dartmouth, NS B3A 2B9, Canada. Writer and commentator William Safire was awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom this month; he has mentioned Sherlock Holmes often in his columns in the N.Y. Times and in his books. It was in SAFIRE'S POLITICAL DICTION- ARY (1978) that he credited a Sherlock Holmes story as the inspiration for phrase "smoking gun" that became so popular during the Watergate era. Neil Simon was this year's recipient of the Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, awarded Oct. 15 (the program was broadcast on Nov. 20); Simon's many credits include the screenplay for the film "Murder by Death" (1976), which is notable for the appearance of Keith McConnell as Sherlock Holmes and Richard Peel as Dr. Watson at the end of the film. If you don't remember that, there's a reason: the scene was cut from the theatrical re- lease (although Ron Haydock has reported that the longer version with the final scene was screened in theaters in Washington and Oregon). The longer version was used for the first television broadcast of the film (1979), but commercial videocassette and DVD releases use the theatrical version (I've not heard that anyone has an off-the-air recording of the 1979 broadcast). Cecil Adams' column "The Straight Dope" is widely available in print, and of course on the Internet, and he has mentioned Sherlock Holmes from time to time; Henry Hanna spotted an interesting report on "Did Sherlock Holmes Really Exist?" written in 2003 by C. K. Dexter Haven for the Straight Dope Science Advisory Board, at . Joseph Barbera died on Dec. 17. He was a pioneer in the field of animation and he collaborated for more than 50 years with William Hanna; they created film and television classics that included "Tom and Jerry", "The Jetsons", "The Flintstones", "Yogi Bear", and "Scooby-Doo". Hanna-Barbera shows of- ten had Sherlockian allusions, including "The Hound of the Scoobyvilles at Baskerville Hall" (1984) and "Scooby-Doo Mysteries: Sherlock Doo" (1985). Dec 06 #6 "The Hound of the Baskervilles" is a popular play in Britain. A new dramatization by Simon Williams (Lord Robert St. Simon in Granada's "The Eligible Bachelor" in 1993) opened at the Brockley Jack The- atre in London on Dec. 6 (running through Jan. 6, 2007); a new dramatiza- tion by David Ives is scheduled at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds, Jan. 19-Feb. 10 and at the Playhouse in Oxford, Mar. 13-17, 2007; and Clive Francis' dramatization (2004) is scheduled at the Theatre Royal in Birming- ham, Apr. 23-28, 2007. Lawrence M. Small, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, wrote in the June issue of Smithsonian magazine about plans for the new National Museum of African American History and Culture, and about a traveling exhibition called "Let Your Motto Be Resistance: African American Portraiture". His re- port was accompanied by a photograph of Henry Highland Gar- net, who was born a slave and became United States Minister to Liberia, where in 1881 he met Arthur Conan Doyle, then a surgeon on the steamer Mayumba. The title of the exhibition is taken from Garnet's writings: "Let your motto be resist- ance" appears in Aug. 1843 in "An Address to the Slaves of the United States of America". Sir Arthur Conan Doyle suffered from a form of schizophrenia, according to a story in the Sunday Times of London (Dec. 17) about Andrew Norman's AR- THUR CONAN DOYLE BEYOND SHERLOCK HOLMES, due in February from Tempus Pub- lishing. Norman, "a GP turned writer," believes that Conan Doyle's father had symptoms consistent with a form of schizophrenia, and that Conan Doyle "displayed psychotic symptoms inherited from his father." Jon Lellenberg has reported , a web-site for people who play correspondence chess; moderator Austin Lockwood acknowledges that he took the name for the web-site from "The Retired Colourman". The Night Kitchen Radio Theater broadcasts drama on XM Satellite Radio on the first Sunday of every month, and the shows are recorded in the Family Theater at the Kennedy Center in Washington. One of this year's programs was a new Sherlock Holmes case ("The Golden Tooth"), and it was grand in- deed to have a chance to watch a radio show. You can purchase the show on a CD ($14.95 postpaid); checks or money orders to The Night Kitchen Radio Theater, Box 294, Cathedral Station, New York, NY 10025. The company has a web-site at . Pipes and Tobaccos magazines has Sherlockian content from time to time; the winter 2007 issue has Marc Munroe Dion's pastiche "A Study in Smoke"; cover price is $9.95 (SpecComm International, 5808 Faringdon Place #200, Raleigh, NC 27609 . L. Frank James' AN OPENED GRAVE: SHERLOCK HOLMES INVESTIGATES HIS ULTIMATE CASE (Roseville: Salt Works, 2006; 230 pp., $14.95) has Watson accompanying Holmes, via a time machine, to the year 29 AD, and then (pursued by an Arch Druid) from Londinium to Jerusalem so that Holmes can investigate the truth of the Biblical history of Jesus Christ. He is successful, and fortunately the time machine works both ways. Dec 06 #7 Bob Newhart "may also be the only person inspired to write and create humor by the writings of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes and a man not previously associated with punch lines or hearty guffaws," according to Arthur Spiegelman in a Reuters dispatch (Dec. 13). "Crime and comedy are kind of similar," Newhart said. "You kind of hide the guy who did it until the very end and you throw out a lot of false leads." Thanks to Ken Lanza for spotting the report. Ev Herzog has spotted 50 MYSTERY CLASSICS, a five-DVD set produced by Emson with more than 62 hours of films ($19.95) available at and elsewhere; there are three Wontners, one Owen, and four Rathbones. Many Sherlockians have seen Peter Cook as Holmes and Dudley Moore as Watson in "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (1978), but that was not the first time they played those roles: there was the skit "Sherlock Holmes Investigates" in the British television series "Goodbye Again" broadcast on ITV in 1968. The script for the skit is included in GOODBYE AGAIN: THE DEFINITIVE PETER COOK AND DUDLEY MOORE, edited by William Cook (London: Century, 2004; 388 pp., L17.99), and the script for "One Leg Too Few" (about a one-legged man auditioning to play Tarzan), which Cook wrote and first performed in 1960 (it was included in "The Hound of the Baskervilles" and they performed it in London in 1989, the last time they appeared onstage together. The book has much more about Cook and Moore, and their talented comedy. The Unemployed Philosophers Guild has a wide range of interesting merchandise, including a Sherlock Holmes "Little Thinker" soft plush doll ($16.95), a Sherlock Holmes card that can be customized with sticker quotes ($3.95), and (due back in stock on Feb. 15) a Sherlock Holmes finger puppet (or re- frigerator magnet) ($5.95). Their address is 68 Jay Street #508, Brooklyn, NY 11201 (800-255-8371) . There's a new and expanded edition of THE SINGULAR ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, by Alan Stockwell, now with 17 pastiches, and some interesting plots and occasional surprises (Burgess Hill: Exposure Publishing, 2006; 256 pp., $12.95/L7.95). There's an excerpt from one of the pastiches at his web- site at . The 108th issue of The Sherlock Holmes Journal (winter 2006) has arrived, with Nicholas Utechin's farewell editorial: after 30 years in the editor's chair he's handing his over to Roger Johnson. There's much more of inter- est in the issue, including a detailed report on the Sixth Annual Cricket Match between the Sherlock Holmes Society of London and the P. G. Wodehouse Society last June. The Sherlock Holmes Society of London welcomes new mem- bers: associate members receive only The Sherlock Holmes Journal, and full members also receive notices of meetings. Prices, vary depending on where you are and on whether you're an adult or a junior, and details are avail- able from R. J. Ellis (13 Crofton Avenue, Orpington, Kent BR6 8DU England) and at the society's web-site at . Dec 06 #8 I've received by first Sherlockian spam: Candy's Export Company is seeking representatives, and they claim to be located at 14- 146 Lower Main Street, Sherlock, County Cavan, U.K. Alas, County Cavan is in Ireland rather than the U.K., and the name of the town actually is Sher- cock. The company is a well-known scammer: is a fine web-site for checking this sort of thing, but of course people who respond to such scams are unlikely to check them out first. Jon Lellenberg discovered an Irish rugby player named Conan Doyle on the Garryowen team (Conan is his given name rather than part of a compound family name). The photograph shows him being tackled in a match at Dubarry Park this year. As you can see in the second photograph, he looks much better when he's not being tackled. John Ball reported in The Baker Street Journal (Mar. 1971) about his 1970 visit to Dharamsala, where he met the Dalai Lama (then as now in exile in India) and welcomed a "brill- iant young teacher" named Jamyang Norbu into the ranks of the Irregulars. Norbu's pastiche THE MANDALA OF SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE ADVENTURES OF THE GREAT DETECTIVE IN INDIA AND TIBET (New Delhi: HarperCollins, 1999) is set in 1892 and told by Holmes' guide Hurree Chunder Mookerjee (whom Kip- ling mentioned in KIM); the book was then published in oth- er countries, and it's still in print in a trade paperback edition (2003). Ken Lanza spotted , which is the web-site for Sherlock Investigations Inc. Click on the "blogs" link to go to Sherlock's Case Files, where you will find miscellanous postings by company president Skipp Porteous. It has been a while since I mentioned : they now offer 179 Sherlockian designs (some more Sherlockian than others) on a wide vari- ety of merchandise (including mugs and T-shirts with a caricature of David Hammer). THE RAVEN LEAGUE: SHERLOCK HOLMES IS MISSING! (New York: Penguin/Razorbill, 2006; 188 pp., $10.99) is the first in a new series written by Alex Simmons and Bill McCay: Archie Wiggins, formerly a member of the Baker Street Ir- regulars, enlists three friends to form the Raven League, and their first case involves rescuing Sherlock Holmes from kidnappers and helping him foil a dire plot planned by a mysterious villain. The series is for teen read- ers (ages 8 up), and it's well-written, with plenty of excitement and atmo- sphere. The second title in the series will be THE RAVEN LEAGUE: BUFFALO BILL WANTED!, due in January. Simmons and McCay are experienced writers in various genres; Simmons is the author of the two-act play "Sherlock Holmes and the Hands of Othello" that was first performed at the Westbeth Theatre Center in New York in 1987. The Spermaceti Press: Peter E. Blau, 7103 Endicott Court, Bethesda, MD 20817-4401 (301-229-5669)