The Parish Magazine No. 11
The Parish Magazine No. 11 is the newsletter of the The Arthur Conan Doyle Society published in august 1994.
The Parish Magazine No. 11
THE NEWS MAGAZINE OF THE ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE SOCIETY
ISSUE NUMBER ELEVEN: AUGUST 1994
Editorial
Reference to Sherlock Holmes during the meetings at the Society's Toronto Convention were usually prefaced with good-humoured phrases like 'the name I shouldn't mention', or 'Sh! you know who'. But, of course, Sherlock Holmes was mentioned by his full name on more than one occasion and rightly so. The Arthur Conan Doyle Society has always paid attention to the Holmes of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. A great number of members were Sherlockians or Holmesians before they took a deeper interest in Conan Doyle — 'that was like following the brook to the parent lake' is, perhaps, how Holmes would have viewed that particular progression and many, whilst remaining Sherlockians, now appreciate that a greater understanding of the literature of Sherlock Holmes can be gained from a deeper study of Conan Doyle's life.
Writing in his new book on Sherlock Holmes (reviewed in this issue), Pierre Nordon has this to say about the Society:
- [The Society] does not banish the detective, but it is above all a literary society, the first to my knowledge which, following the example of other literary societies, devotes itself to the man and the whole of his work.
Nordon summarises the chief difference between The Arthur Conan Doyle Society and the Sherlockian societies — but it does not end there. 'The Game' — the belief that Holmes and Watson really existed and that Conan Doyle was Watson's Literary Agent — does not have a place in the work of this Society, which was not founded simply to become another outlet for the tongue-in-cheek pseudo-scholarship which already fills more than enough journals.
Sherlockian Higher Criticism is a pleasure to read when it is done well, but it is noticeable that more and more Sherlockian articles are adopting the 'new approach' — new for Sherlockians at least: that of considering events in Conan Doyle's life and incidents in his other writings, which may have influenced the particular Sherlock Holmes story under consideration. Naturally this is an approach we applaud the more so if it makes available new information regarding Conan Doyle.
The Editorial in the most recent Canadian Holmes (Summer 1994) went out of its way to emphasise that the creator is not ignored in that particular publication. In Britain, The Northern Musgraves have always placed high emphasis on Conan Doyle's contribution and held a special Conan Doyle meeting earlier this year. Sadly, a major publication which has always produced important contributions to Doylean studies, Baker Street Miscellanea, is soon to disappear: we can only hope that those who produced such worthwhile material on Conan Doyle will seek alternative outlets for their work.
Yet, despite this noticeable shift in emphasis, die-hards continue to label the Doylean approach 'boring'. When we were planning the Toronto Convention last year, we were told by the head of the Baker Street Irregulars that he did not consider a Conan Doyle event would attract much interest. Had he been one of the ninety-two people at the Convention, he may have considered there was reason to admit he was wrong: those present could certainly not be described as 'boring' or 'lacking in interest'.
Fortunately, such thinking is becoming less prevalent. Our Society is working well with many Sherlockian groups, recognising that we complement each other and have much to offer each other. We are delighted that our good relationship with The Bootmakers of Toronto, The Northern Musgraves and The Sherlock Holmes Society of London has enabled us to celebrate major events together in recent months.
One participant in Toronto questioned whether there was any animosity between The Arthur Conan Doyle Society and the Sherlockian societies. We were able to respond with a categoric 'No!'. There is no competition between our respective groups: why should there be? If anything needs to be done, it is that we work even closer together, ensuring that we provide what members need and arranging our calendars so that our respective activities do not work to the detriment of us all by offering too much, too often, to too few people. However absorbed we may be in our field of interest, there is a danger of over-kill — and we need to avoid that at all costs.
Christopher Roden
Notes and News
SOTHEBY'S in New York held an auction of fine books and manuscripts on 10 June 1994 which included, as Lot 57, a large quantity of Conan Doyle material described as a 'highly important and extensive collection of letters and memorabilia, including notable discussions of his literary work, with references to Sherlock Holmes.'
The collection comprised over one hundred and ninety letters and cards by Conan Doyle, all but twenty-one entirely autographed and signed, and from a number of different locations including Undershaw, Hindhead, Windlesham, South Norwood, Edinburgh, Paris, Naples, Davós-Platz, New York, Cincinnati, Chicago, Detroit, and Washington.
- The catalogue noted that... literary work by Doyle is discussed in various of the letters. There is a fine discussion of his "new book" The Lost World ("... If I can keep up to the level of the first 12000 words, which I have done, it will gladden your heart. I have never had such a kick off. One is haunted by the fear that it may drop, but do what it will, it will be a great scrawl full of big thrills..."). In 1899 he comments on his autobiographical A Duet ("it must work out its own salvation or be for ever damned. I have a strong minority of critics upon my side...").
- 'He writes elsewhere of such works as The Great Shadow ("a 50,000 worder" which he recommends to Bram Stoker in 1892), Micah Clarke, The Magic Door [sic] ("... a chatty guide to literature for a young man "), Before my Book Case ("a little literary Causerie"), The Parasite ("a 20,000 word story which promises pretty well"), The Ring of Thoth, A Physiologist's Wife ... as well as related matters such as the revising of proofs, publishing arrangements, and lectures...
- 'Yet other letters relate to Doyle's work for the stage. He writes to Frohman about his total involvement in the production of this "boxing play 'The House of Temperley" (and sends him in 1909 a detailed list of suggested changes for his dramatization of The Tragedy of the Korosko, The Fires of Fate. He complains to Irving about the omission of his name as author of the "little play" that Irving was producing, and writes to solicit his interest in his play Brother Robert ("... I am not usually sanguine but I am convinced that it will succeed as a play (and cost nothing to produce)... the chief female part is that of a sound & disappointed woman of 45. There is a good part for you, a kind of Vicar of Wakefieldy Doctor...").
- 'Letters on other matters include a rare example of a prescription written by him (for Sir John Robinson in 1898) during his early period as a medical practitioner.'
Other material offered for sale in this Lot included one of Conan Doyle's cartes-de-visite; another card signed by him; the menu for the Ladies Dinner given by the Authors Club (with Conan Doyle as Chairman) on 20 May 1901 (just after his return from the Boer War), signed by both ACD and Mrs Humphrey Ward; and a card for his Psychic Bookshop.
The price range suggested by Sotheby's was $125,000 $175,000. Peter Blau reports in his Scuttlebutt that the highest bid was $70,000, and the lot was not sold.
WODECRAFT PRESS announces the publication of Scream for Jeeves, a parody by P. H. Cannon, illustrated by J. C. Eckhardt. We quote from the publisher's blurb: 'P. G. Wodehouse and H.P. Lovecraft never crossed paths in their lifetimes, and yet in some ideal realm of the spirit these two geniuses one of humour, one of horror — might have pooled their pens to produce such tales as: "Cats, Rats, and Bertie Wooster", "Something Foetid" and "The Rummy Affair of Young Charlie". Since both authors admired Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, it comes as no surprise that in this last episode Bertie and Jeeves resort to enlisting the aid of one "Mr Altamont, of Chicago". Rounding out the volume is a lengthy commentary, "The Adventure of the Three Anglo-American Authors: Some Reflections on Conan Doyle, P. G. Wodehouse, and H. P. Lovecraft".
Scream for Jeeves is available from Necronomicon Press in a trade paperback (US$7.50) or hardback (US$20). Necronomicon accepts plastic. and may be contacted at PO Box 1304, West Warwick, Rhode Island, USA, 02893.
STEPHEN BOTTOMORE (27 Roderick Road, London NW3 2NN) is currently writing a book about the early years of the cinema, from around 1895 when the first film shows took place, up to the First World War when cinema was well established. Part of his book will examine the reaction of important artists and writers to the early films, and any contacts they may have had with the medium. He is looking for any references, even minor ones, in correspondence etc., or allusions to the author's fictional characters visiting the cinema or commenting on it. Stephen asks anyone who can offer information on any mentions made by Conan Doyle to contact him at the above address.
FINLAND is the latest addition to countries in which The Arthur Conan Doyle Society is now represented and with good cause. Raimo Nikkonen, editor of the science fiction magazine PORTTI, has sent copies of the issues dated 1/1992 and 1/1994. In the first of these, there is a lengthy section (p.92-128) dealing with ACD, Sherlock Holmes and, more particularly, Professor Challenger, who is highlighted in a well-illustrated article by Petri Salin. There is also an excellent bibliographical section. Petri Salin is again at work in the second issue mentioned, with an article devoted to Sherlock Holmes, which mentions many of the publications currently available in Britain — including our own ACD and The Parish Magazine. PORTTI is a beautifully produced publication, sadly available only in Finnish. Anyone interested should contact Raimo Nikkonen, Peltokatu 25-27 C57, 33100 Tampere, Finland.
SCOTTISH BOOK COLLECTOR is edited by Society member Jennie Renton and offers a splendid variety of articles related to Scottish authors and the book scene generally. The most recent issue (June-July 1994) has articles on Robert Louis Stevenson exhibitions, the Golden Years of Scottish Cricket, and Witches in Scottish Literature. ACD has featured in articles in the past and, more recently, the February-March 1994 issue carried a lengthy contribution from Owen Dudley Edwards on The Oxford Sherlock Holmes. Single issues cost £1.50, an annual subscription (six issues) £10 (£13.50 for Europe; £15 or US$30 for U.S. and Canada). Write to Scottish Book Collector, 11a Forth Street, Edinburgh EH1 3LE for further details.
CANONGATE AUDIO has two collections of Conan Doyle tales on tape available. Tales of Terror (reviewed elsewhere in this issue), read by Clive Champney and Robert Trotter, includes 'The Brazilian Cat', 'The New Catacomb', 'The Leather Funnel' and 'The Case of Lady Sannox'. There are two cassettes in this set (ISBN 1-85968-010-0) and the cost is £7.99. The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard, read by Martin Heller, is a four cassette set (total playing time 5 hrs 46 min) (ISBN 1-85968-009-7), featuring 'How the Brigadier came to the Castle of Gloom', 'How the Brigadier slew the Brothers of Ajaccio', 'How the Brigadier held the King', 'How the King held the Brigadier', 'How the Brigadier took the field against Marshall Millefleurs', 'How the Brigadier played for a Kingdom', 'How the Brigadier won his Medal', and 'How the Brigadier was tempted by the Devil'. Your local audio store should be able to obtain these sets for you, but in case of difficulty contact the distributors, Albany Publishers Distribution Ltd., at 32 Finlas Street, Cowlairs Industrial Estate, Glasgow G22 SDU. A full catalogue of items offered by Canongate Audio is available from Canongate Audio at 14 Frederick Street, Edinburgh EH2 2HB.
THE EXPLOITS OF BRIGADIER GERARD, with an Introduction by Owen Dudley Edwards, is also available from Canongate in paperback (ISBN 0-86241-341-9), priced £4.95. Canongate tells us that the companion volume, The Adventures of Gerard, will be available later this year.
CRIMINAL CONVICTIONS (Peter Owen, hardback, £17.95 (ISBN 0-7206-0873-2) has crime writer Nicholas Freeling taking what, at first glance, appears to be a somewhat wide-of-the-mark look at the crime novel. ACD features along with Stendahl, Dickens, Conrad, Kipling, Chandler, Sayers and Simenon. Owen Dudley Edwards will be taking a closer look at Freeling's views in his review for the 1994 issue of ACD.
We'll also be taking a closer look at Sherlock Holmes: The Major Stories with Contemporary Critical Essays, edited by John A. Hodgson and published in Britain by Macmillan (Paperback, £6.99, ISBN: 0-333-60893-3). The same book was published in North America a short time ago by St Martin's Press.
CHRIS REDMOND tells us in his latest newsletter that some people in North America seem to be experiencing problems obtaining copies of his Sherlock Holmes Handbook, which we reviewed in ACD (Vol.4). Such problems can be easily resolved by sending your Visa or Mastercard number to Dundurn Distribution (PO Box 1000, Niagara Falls, New York 14302). What could be easier? In Britain, the Sherlock Holmes Handbook can be obtained from Dundurn Distribution, 73 Lime Walk, Headington, Oxford OX3 7AD, or from, the Sherlockian and Doylean specialists, Rupert Books, at 59 Stonefield, Bar Hill, Cambridge CB3 8TE (Tel: 0954 781861).
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS has announced a November publication date for the World's Classics edition (paperback) of The Oxford Sherlock Holmes. The nine volumes of the hardback set published last year have undergone further revisions and will be published, complete with Frederick Dorr Steele illustrations on the covers, at £3.99 per volume. Oxford has kindly donated a set for us to offer as a prize to the winner of the special quiz featured elsewhere in this issue. (And, as a bonus, there's a second quiz in this issue, too.)
ALSO coming from Oxford in November is the first anthology of historical fiction for over fifty years. The Oxford Book of Historical Stories (£17.99; ISBN: 0-19-214219-4), edited by Michael Cox and Jack Adrian, travels in time from pre-history and the ancient Greeks to Regency bucks and Edwardian suffragettes, by way of medieval Europe, the English Civil War, and the French Revolution. Conan Doyle is represented by 'How the Brigadier played for a Kingdom'.
The Commemorative Plaque in Upper Wimpole Street
In the December 1993 issue of The Parish Magazine it was announced that the Society had agreed to sponsor a Westminster Green Plaque to be erected at 2 Devonshire Place, the building which, at the time, we thought — and we had ACD's word for it — was where ACD established his oculist's practice and where he worked and wrote for a brief period in 1891.
All the plans were laid. The plaque was commissioned and City of Westminster had prepared invitations to the unveiling ceremony and the reception which was to follow it. Everything was progressing smoothly until a number of Society members joined the Northern Musgraves Sherlock Holmes Society for their meeting in Huddersfield on 27 March 1994.
Catherine Cooke was one of the guest speakers at that meeting and, during her talk on ACD's connections with London, she briefly mentioned 2 Devonshire Place and the fact that there were some confusing references to 2 Upper Wimpole Street. A coincidence, perhaps?
Alarm bells rang with Richard Lancelyn Green, who was also at the meeting: did the 2 Devonshire Place address not conflict with contemporary references to 2 Upper Wimpole Street? Could it be that ACD had provided misleading information when he wrote Memories and Adventures?
Fervent activity ensued during the next few days. Rating records, directories, and anything else that related to Devonshire Place and Upper Wimpole Street, for that brief period in 1891, were consulted in an effort to resolve the matter. Dame Jean Conan Doyle was consulted and she arranged to make an unprecedented consultation of the Conan Doyle Biographical Archives in an effort to turn up references to either address: to no avail. Pierre Nordon, who had access to the biographical material in the 1960s, was consulted: he, too, was unable to shed light on the matter. It was discovered that one William Wallace, oculist, was the occupant of 2 Upper Wimpole Street in 1892: surely this was too much of a coincidence for him not to be the successor to ACD?
All the evidence marshalled during those few days at the end of March pointed to one conclusion: 2 Devonshire Place was the incorrect location. A clue to the possible reason for ACD giving that address was given by ACD himself in a letter he wrote to Joseph Marshall Stoddart on 6 March 1890, shortly after he had completed The Sign of the Four
- By the way it must amuse you to see the vast and accurate knowledge
- of London which I display. I worked it all out from a post-office map.
It seems that what probably happened was that ACD's memory had become somewhat rusty on the subject by the time he came to write Memories and Adventures in 1922. To pinpoint the location, he almost certainly consulted a street map of London and it is interesting to note that, on many maps, Upper Wimpole Street, which is the extension of Wimpole Street before that street merges with Devonshire Place, is not named at all. Certainly, as ACD wrote: 'I found suitable accommodation ... at the top of Wimpole Street', but that accommodation was in Upper Wimpole Street and not Devonshire Place.
Interestingly enough, since the unveiling, Malcolm Payne of the Conan Doyle (Crowborough) Establishment has advised us that there is a map in the Establishment's archive which was actually used by ACD. As if to confirm our theory, that map has no mention of Upper Wimpole Street. (See 'News from Crowborough' in this issue).
Three highly important pieces of primary evidence support our decision to site the plaque at 2 Upper Wimpole Street:
- 1. The manuscript of 'A Scandal in Bohemia' (called 'A Scandal of Bohemia' by ACD) is signed: 'A Conan Doyle. / 2 Upper Wimpole Street / London W.' This manuscript is now held by Texas University.
- 2. A letter to Dr Reginald Ratcliff Hoare, under whom ACD had served as a medical assistant in Birmingham, was written on headed notepaper from 2 UPPER WIMPOLE STREET. W. The letter is part of a large collection of correspondence to various members of the Hoare family and is held in the Berg Collection of the New York Public Library.
- 3. The signature book of the Capital and Counties Bank, 125 Oxford Street, London, records the transfer of Conan Doyle's bank account from the Landport branch. His London address is given as '2 Upper Wimpole St. W.' The signature book is held in the archives of Lloyds Bank, who kindly provided the Society with copies in 1989.
The plaque was unveiled on Sunday 22 May — ACD's birthday and the Society's fifth anniversary as part of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London's 'Back to Baker Street' festival. Some one hundred and fifty people turned out in the only sunshine of a very wet weekend to see Dame Jean Conan Doyle perform the unveiling ceremony. On behalf of the Society, Christopher Roden gave the following address:
- 'Five years is a relatively short span of time, but in the five years since its founding, The Arthur Conan Doyle Society has achieved many of its early ambitions. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is now more widely discussed than has been the case for many years; he is being recognised as the author of many fine works besides the Sherlock Holmes stories; and his books are slowly finding their way back into print.
- That the Society could host its first North American Convention in Toronto, just two weeks ago, and that the event should succeed in attracting over 90 attendees, says much for the appeal of the Society's work, and for the popularity of ACD himself.
- The Society is dedicated to furthering knowledge of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and to promoting awareness of his life and works. The commemorative plaque, which will be unveiled shortly, is the first in London to bear his name alone. We sincerely hope that the plaque will stimulate many more people to acquaint themselves with the great man in whose honour we are here today.
- Thirty-four years is a very long time in a life which was as full as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's. During that time, between the years 1891 and 1923, he served as a doctor in the vilest conditions of the Boer War, and lived through and saw some of the action of the First World War. In those years, he visited North America on four occasions and Australia once; he fought to right injustice in the cases of George Edalji and Oscar Slater, he put forward innovative ideas for the defence of our country and our troops — many of which were adopted; he was a campaigner for the reform of the Divorce Laws; he stood for Parliament twice, and, of course, after 1918, he devoted his whole existence to the Spiritualist cause. As the committed advocate of Spiritualism, he was often derided and accused of gullibility: it says much for the moral courage of the man that he never shied from his belief, nor wavered in his purpose.
- With so much going on in those thirty-four years, we can perhaps understand why Sir Arthur's memory had become a little hazy by the time he settled down to write his autobiography in 1923. At the remove of thirty-four years, a particularly active thirty-four years, it is hardly surprising that the address he held for only a few months in 1891 should be a little unclear.
- The consulting rooms where he set up his oculist's practice in 1891 were certainly at the top of Wimpole Street, but not at 2 Devonshire Place, as he wrote in his autobiography. A short period of frenzied activity at the end of March has led us to 2 Upper Wimpole Street, and it was here, we now know, that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote the earliest Sherlock Holmes short stories while waiting for patients who never came.
- In all truth, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was not a man of London: born in Edinburgh, with his early medical practice in Southsea, he stayed in the City for only those few short weeks in 1891. Sherlock Holmes, likewise, is no more a product of London than was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: Holmes was conceived in Southsea and was, initially at least, a product of an Edinburgh background. Yet it is with London that we all associate Conan Doyle's finest fictional creation, and it is fitting that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle should be commemorated at the house in London where the body of Sherlock Holmes had true life breathed into it.
- The wording on our plaque is simple, saying merely that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Author, 1859-1930, worked and wrote here in 1891. Quite naturally, this has led to our being asked why there is no mention of Sherlock Holmes. Indeed, our determination to have only Conan Doyle's name on the plaque has led some to describe the decision as 'perverse'.
- But is it so wrong to want to draw attention to the author himself, in a City where so many other authors' commemorative plaques are unhindered by the names of their various creations? And should we not take a certain pride in the knowledge that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's reputation is now being so sufficiently recognised that the name of Sherlock Holmes becomes superfluous?
- ACD has been commemorated through his creation for too long. His wider world his other creations and his many fine works are equally worthy of recognition. The name of Sherlock Holmes will survive for many years yet we want to be sure that the name of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle does not get forgotten along the way.
- It is a great pleasure to us to have resolved the problem of the address in time for the unveiling to take place during the Sherlock Holmes Society of London's 'Back to Baker Street' festival, which began on Friday evening.
- Our societies have much to offer one another and we already work as closely as we can. Doyleans, of course, already have an appreciation of Sherlock Holmes. We hope that, in time, Holmesians will come to appreciate more of our interests too.
- Devonshire Place? Upper Wimpole Street? An elementary problem, my friends. If we can help you to find the long-lost 221B Baker Street, we shall be only too glad to be of help!
- On behalf of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society, I should like to thank the Westminster Green Plaque co-ordinators for giving us the opportunity to sponsor the plaque at 2 Upper Wimpole Street. Words of thanks are also due to Richard Lancelyn Green and Catherine Cooke for the part they played in helping to resolve the true location of Conan Doyle's consulting rooms.
- May I close by expressing the hope that those who see the plaque in years to come will take the time to discover that great man who was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
- And now, I should like to ask Dame Jean Conan Doyle to unveil the plaque on behalf of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society.'
The unveiling ceremony received good press coverage, with Toronto's Globe and Mail carrying a photograph of Dame Jean standing in front of the plaque. The Times carried the same photograph and a few explanatory lines. Richard Lancelyn Green tells us that the following papers also carried reports: Western Morning News (Plymouth), Birmingham Post, Southern Daily Echo (Southampton), Greenock Telegraph, East Anglian Times (Ipswich), South Wales Echo, Liverpool Echo, Colchester Evening Gazette, The Daily Telegraph. In addition there was an announcement of the event in The Independent. BBC Radio 2 News covered the event and conducted short interviews with Dame Jean Conan Doyle and Christopher Roden. Their report, with interviews, filled a three-minute slot in news broadcasts on the evening of 22 May.
Dr Paul Simpkin, the present occupier of the rooms at 2 Upper Wimpole Street, attended the unveiling ceremony and introduced himself to us. When the many photographers had finished their work, Dr Simpkin invited Dame Jean, Catherine Cooke, Charles Foley, Barbara Roden and Christopher Roden to view the rooms. It was a fulfilling sensation to stand in the room above Upper Wimpole Street and, shutting everything else from one's mind for just a moment, imagine ACD sitting behind his desk, reaching for his pen, and writing the few words: 'To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman.' Thus was a legend born: the first Sherlock Holmes short story appeared in the Strand Magazine in July 1891. The Society is delighted to have been able to ensure that the author of that story, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, will be remembered whenever people pass the door of 2 Upper Wimpole Street.
The Society wishes to thank a number of people whose generous donations assisted in meeting the cost of the commemorative plaque: James Beales, Vincent M. Brosnan (Sherlock in LA), Evelyn Byrne, Dame Jean Conan Doyle, Joseph J. Eckrich, The Franco-Midland Hardware Company, Barbara & Christopher Roden, Martin Shone.
As a celebration of the unveiling of the plaque, the Society has produced a special booklet, Conan Doyle of Wimpole Street. The booklet tells the story behind the commemorative plaque and details previous efforts to erect a plaque to ACD in London. The main essay is written by Richard Lancelyn Green and the booklet has an Introduction by Christopher & Barbara Roden, photographs by Catherine Cooke, and an Afterword by Anthony D. Howlett of The Sherlock Holmes Society of London. An advertisement, with details of how to obtain the booklet, appears elsewhere in this issue.
The ACD Society Lapel Pin
Many members have queried whether the Society's lapel pin in still available. We are pleased to advise that the pin, in either sterling silver or gold-plated form and featuring the ACD logo on a black field, may still be obtained direct from the manufacturer, Roger Worland, at 49 Bouldrewood Road, Benfleet, Essex SS7 SUA.
The cost of the pin is:
- Gold-plated: £25.20
- Sterling Silver £26.20
- (Prices include postage and packing)
Through the Magic Door: Toronto 1994
Barbara Roden
Despite the best efforts of Canada Customs to upset arrangements for the Society's Toronto convention before it started, 'Through the Magic Door' was a tremendous success. Ninety-two Doyleans from five countries (Canada, the United States, England, Australia and Japan) gathered in the Hotel Plaza II from 29 April to 1 May to attend the Arthur Conan Doyle Society's first North American meeting; held, fittingly, in the only Canadian city ACD visited during his 1894 trip to North America.
It's doubtful that Conan Doyle had the same problems with Customs that we did. By the time our flight arrived, three hours later than expected, we were hot and tired and wanted nothing more than to get to the hotel and collapse. However, the Canadian Customs officials had other ideas, and viewed our two cartons of convention material with suspicion. Perhaps they had never heard of ACD, and suspected that such titles as Western Wanderings and Conan Doyle of Wimpole Street could prove injurious to the moral health of Canadians. It took some smooth-talking on our part, and the production of a letter from Canada Customs giving our cartons a clean bill of health, to persuade the officials in Toronto to let us in without having to empty the cartons first.
As a welcome home to Canada after a year and a half away it was not auspicious, but we reasoned that events could only go up from there: and we were right. Hotel Plaza II proved to be an excellent choice of venue (many thanks to Doug Wrigglesworth, who looked it over for us and gave it the thumbs up). The staff were friendly and helpful in the extreme, the facilities were first-rate, the food was delicious and plentiful, and the hotel itself was in a marvellous location: half a block from the Metropolitan Toronto Reference Library on Yonge Street, where part of the weekend was to be held.
The event got off to an unofficial start on Thursday 28 April, when Christopher, my parents and myself, and Catherine Cooke met more than a dozen Bootmakers of Toronto for dinner. It was a wonderful chance to meet with friends, and Christopher, who was making his first visit to Toronto, was able to start putting some names and faces together. Earlier in the week we met with Greg Kelly of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, who whisked us away to the CBC studio to record some questions and answers for use in a documentary about Conan Doyle that was broadcast on CBC radio in July.
On Friday the assembled Doyleans met to begin the weekend officially, and for many people the first contact with the Society was with Heather and Bill Hacock from Vancouver, who had volunteered to man the registration desk (thanks, Mom and Dad!). The convention began with the reading out of several messages of goodwill from people who were unable to attend: Dame Jean Conan Doyle, Owen Dudley Edwards, Julian Symons, Richard Lancelyn Green, Edward Hardwicke, Pierre Nordon, Geoffrey Stavert, and Malcolm Payne all sent greetings. Then it was straight into the first talk, 'ACD and ME', an amusing and interesting personal account by Dr Alvin E. Rodin which told of his researches into Conan Doyle's life and works.
Prior to the evening's coffee break, Christopher and I unveiled two new Society publications. The first was Conan Doyle of Wimpole Street, a booklet telling the story behind the commemorative plaque honouring Conan Doyle which was unveiled on 22 May at 2 Upper Wimpole Street, London (for more information about the booklet, see page 29). The other publication was Western Wanderings, ACD's account of his 1914 trip to North America. The long article by Conan Doyle has not been printed since 1915, and was a fitting publication to mark the Society's fifth year and its first North American visit.
The first evening was rounded off by a thought-provoking talk by R. Dixon Smith, which looked at ACD's attitudes towards women and feminism, particularly as expressed in his early novels Beyond the City and A Duet, with an Occasional Chorus. It was concluded that while ACD did not go far enough in advocating the equality of women, he went further than many men of his day were prepared to.
On Saturday morning the papers continued, with Roy Pilot announcing, during the course of a talk about The Lost World, that the annotated version of the novel being prepared by himself and Al Rodin was scheduled to be published this year. Michael Homer, who spoke after Roy, discussed Conan Doyle's attitudes to North America, and suggested some interesting lines of future research which could be carried out by those who wished to discover more about the author.
A third Society publication was launched on Saturday morning: this time it was The Future of Canadian Literature, which contained the text of a speech which ACD made to the Canadian Club of Montreal during his 1914 visit. A copy of the twelve-page booklet was given to each person attending the convention.
The delegates were then shepherded, via a convenient underground shopping mall, to the Metropolitan Toronto Reference Library, which houses one of the most extensive public collections of ACD's work in the world. The Conan Doyle materials usually live in a special room on the top floor of the library, but for this occasion a few choice items had been brought downstairs to a meeting room. The star attraction was undoubtedly the notebooks in which Conan Doyle wrote the only draft of his unpublished play Angels of Darkness, that strange quasi-Sherlockian work which features Watson but not Holmes.
Attention then switched to the three speakers, who were there to discuss the triumphs and tragedies of being in charge of a Conan Doyle collection. All three were well-qualified to speak on the subject: Catherine Cooke is curator of the Sherlock Holmes collection at the Marylebone Library in London; Cameron Hollyer was founding curator of the Toronto collection; and Victoria Gill took over from Cameron on his retirement and will be guiding the collection into the next century. It was a fascinating session, but perhaps best summed-up by Jon Lellenberg, who said that he hated visiting libraries, as the sight of all those books he didn't own depressed him.
Lunch back at the hotel was followed by a talk by Thomas Tietze, who looked at two of Conan Doyle's later and often-neglected, books: The Maracot Deep and The Edge of the Unknown. Donald Redmond concluded the afternoon's proceedings with a far-from-trifling discussion of some of the trifling points in ACD's works.
The events of Saturday evening began with a little behind-the-scenes drama: the affair of the missing cufflinks. However, Hotel Plaza II came to the rescue, and the concierge supplied a grateful Christopher with a suitable pair of cufflinks to be used for the duration. Before dinner I gave a reading of Conan Doyle's poem 'The Athabasca Trail', which was inspired by his visit to my home province of British Columbia during his 1914 visit. Then it was on to an excellent dinner, which was punctuated by three toasts: Dr Frederick Kittle to Arthur Conan Doyle; Clifford Goldfarb to Conan Doyle's enduring characters; and Michael Doyle to the Arthur Conan Doyle Society. This last toast was replied to by Christopher, who also accepted two Bootmakers mugs which were presented by Dave Dunn, Meyers (or President) of the Bootmakers of Toronto. Following dinner, Chris Redmond discussed the relationship between Sherlockians and Doyleans in an entertaining talk which was not without its serious side.
Saturday evening finished off with a very special event: an appearance by none other than Conan Doyle himself. ACD, in the guise of actor/writer Mark McPherson, entertained the participants with a forty-minute presentation adapted from his one-man play. Those who have seen Mark's full play about ACD will be interested to know that he has now extended it to take in more of the events in Conan Doyle's life.
Sunday morning kicked off on a distinctly lighter note. The Arthur Conan Doyle Society made a presentation to the Bootmakers of Toronto, to record the Society's visit to the city and acknowledge the Bootmakers' help in organising the weekend. The presentation took the form of a cheque, which enabled the Bootmakers to purchase an appropriately Victorian reading lamp for the Conan Doyle Collection at the Library. This was followed by a talk in which Christopher and I recounted (briefly) the history of the ACD Society, discussed the events which had brought us to Toronto, mentioned some of the highlights (and lowlights) of the first five years, and read out some of the correspondence we've received. A letter which innocently inquired whether or not there was such a thing as a Sherlock Holmes Society brought a good deal of laughter.
The final paper of the weekend was delivered by Ely Liebow, who discussed Harry Houdini and Arthur Conan Doyle. The Spiritualist careers of both men were recounted, and it was concluded that the two men, who on the face of it seem so dissimilar, actually had much in common. There was time for Ely to have a quick cup of coffee before he was seconded to appear in the weekend's final event: a panel discussion chaired by Jon Lellenberg, with Catherine Cooke and Michael Coren as the other two members of the panel. Michael, who is currently working on a biography of Conan Doyle, said that his researches have shown him that ACD was one of the best products of Empire of his time and era. He called Conan Doyle the quintessential working writer, and said that the literary establishment has a difficult time considering ACD seriously, because he wrote books that lots of people actually read.
The end of the panel discussion marked the end, sadly, of Through the Magic Door. Thanks were given to the speakers, for giving generously of their time and knowledge; to Hotel Plaza II, for its exceptional efforts throughout the weekend; to Doug Wrigglesworth and Nancy Henry Thorpe, for helping with arrangements in Toronto; to the Metropolitan Toronto Reference Library, and to Heather and Bill Hacock, for all their help with the weekend's administration. And of course thanks were extended to all the participants, without whom the weekend would not have been the success it was. Then all that was left to do was pack everything up, ring for the bellman, and collapse into the comfortable leather seats of the stretch limousine which was waiting to take us to the airport. Our arrival in Toronto may have left something to be desired, but our exit was splendid: a fine ending to a fine weekend. Now it's time to start planning for 1995!
ACD — Booker Prize Winner 1894?
The Times of 2 June carried the news that Britain will have two Booker Prizes this year — one for 1994 and one for 1894. Six judges, including Victoria Glendenning and Melvyn Bragg, will be reading the best offerings of a century ago, and the winner will be announced at the Cheltenham Festival in October. The Times says:
- The retrospective prize was the idea of Ion Trewin of Weidenfield & Nicolson. It grew from a conversation with one of last year's Booker judges, Professor Gillian Beer, at the prize-giving dinner. Says Trewin: 'I was wondering what would have won a hundred years ago. We thought it would be fun to arrange.' Trewin refuses to divulge the short list, but it must surely include The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling, Anthony Hope's The Prisoner of Zenda, George and Weedon Grossmith's Diary of a Nobody, George Moore's Esther Waters, and The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Dickens's biographer, Peter Ackroyd, says the prize should be shared between Moore for 'literary brilliance' and the Grossmiths, for 'literary permanence'. It was, he adds, 'a remarkable year for the creation of popular mythologies.'
One has to wonder whether the Diary of a Nobody has quite the literary permanence of Sherlock Holmes. We'll await the result with interest.
ACD and Alfred Perceval Graves
A brief note by Clifford Jiggens
A reference to Arthur Conan Doyle's care in researching his historical novels is contained in the autobiography of Alfred Perceval Graves, To Return to All That (1930).
Graves was the father of Robert Graves, and was himself a minor literary figure, publishing many volumes of poems and other works. At the time he met Conan Doyle, Graves was employed as Inspector of Schools for West Somerset, an area ACD visited while preparing to write Micah Clarke.
Graves numbered among his own literary friends in Taunton Mrs Prideaux, wife of a writer of law books and herself a poet. In his autobiography, Graves wrote:
- Mrs Prideaux entertained Conan Doyle while he was going over the ground which his hero Micah Clarke was to traverse, with that care he has always taken to know the country where he lays his romances. I remember his telling me that if, as I proposed to him, he ever wrote a novel on 'The Wild Geese', the Irish who fled to the Continent after the famous siege of Limerick, he would have to read at least a hundred books on the history of the subject, and spend a couple of years following their footsteps in Ireland and abroad.
Editor's note: It is interesting to note that 'The Wild Geese' may have come about as a result of this meeting with A. P. Graves.
ACD: Poet?
Chris Redmond's 'Supper at Waterloo' column (The Parish Magazine, March 1994) brought forth the following comments from Malcolm Payne of the Conan Doyle (Crowborough) Establishment:
- As a poet I was most interested in Chris Redmond's 'Supper at Waterloo'. What he says of the two dialect poems is quite true. In some of ACD's other works he is writing fairly well as a poet of his time, but he does not compare with the greats. His poem 'The Guns of Sussex', written at Windlesham, has a marvellous atmosphere in which one senses every essence of the time. I feel one writes as poetry that which one cannot express better in prose; this poem illustrates the maxim.
- It is quite possible that one who does not understand every nuance of certain English dialects would not know just how scan holds the metre in such poetry. ACD was a student of etymology; the rhythm of dialect differs from the normal language, as does colloquial. What appears to be a certain number of feet to a line in a stanza can be increased or lessened in dialect. To this end, one should not comment on such poetry, however well one can define poetry in classic language, unless one has a full knowledge of the dialect used.
Society Merchandise : Watch Prototypes
A prototype of an ACD Society watch has recently been produced for our consideration. Available in both ladies' and gentleman's version, the watches have a gold casing and leather strap and are battery operated. The face has the ACD silhouette in red, with the wording 'The Arthur Conan Doyle Society'.
Production of the watch depends entirely on demand and we need some idea of how many members would be interested in purchasing watches. The probable price is US$35 (£22.50) plus postage and packing.
Please let us know if the production of such a watch is of interest to you, but do not send orders or payment at this stage.
Notes from a Lumber-Room
Catherine Cooke
'A man should keep his little brain attic stocked with all the furniture that he is likely to use, and the rest he can put away in the lumber-room of his library where he can get it if he wants.' — 'Five Orange Pips'
Not so much notes from a lumber-room this time, as notes from a hotel just round the comer: The Sherlock Holmes Hotel in Baker Street. At the end of May the Sherlock Holmes Society of London held their 'Back to Baker Street' Festival in honour of Holmes's return to London after the Great Hiatus. On Tuesday 24 May members gathered at the Sherlock Holmes Hotel to do battle with the Oscar Wilde Society.
The debate went well, though, since the Oscar Wilde Society is relatively new and small, its members were out-numbered by something like 10:1. The works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle are of greater enduring popularity than those of Oscar Wilde' was the point at issue. Welcoming the members of the Oscar Wilde Society in particular, chairman (of the debate and of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London) Philip Porter emphasised that the works of the two authors were being discussed, not the authors themselves nor the authors' lives. He sketched in the background of the debate: the well-known meeting of Wilde and Conan Doyle at the Langham Hotel for the dinner hosted by J. M. Stoddart of Lippincott's Monthly Magazine, a publication with the unusual policy of printing a complete novel in each issue. He also mentioned one other meeting between the two, when Wilde asked if Conan Doyle had seen A Woman of No Importance. When Conan Doyle confessed that he had not, Wilde replied, 'Ah, you must go; it is wonderful — it is genius.'
Margaret Bird, opening for the motion, reiterated the ground rules for the evening, concentrating on the popularity not the merit of the works, and not on the authors themselves. She pointed out how Americans had promoted both authors at the start of their careers, and how they had continued to promote them ever since. Only by understanding why the work of Conan Doyle had endured could a reliable forecast be made for the future. Interest and Imagination, she felt, would have been Conan Doyle's own answer to this question. Like Robert Louis Stevenson, Conan Doyle would often use the first person to give immediacy to his writing, fusing the reader into the story and exciting his interest. Conan Doyle was a master of the spoken word, a skill probably learnt listening to his mother tell stories. Mrs Bird referred to Conan Doyle's simple and straightforward narrative style and compared it with Wilde's much more literary and less accessible style. Conan Doyle was easy to read aloud, but with Wilde's novels it was much harder to get the breathing and inflections right. As evidence of this she cited the number of talking books now available of Conan Doyle's works. In translation, too, Conan Doyle's writings worked, while those of Wilde often lost most of their wit and brilliance, even though this did not in any way question their literary merit or their brilliance.
Opposing the motion, Mrs Gulliver pointed to the names of the societies: on the one hand one named for only one character, on the other one dedicated to the whole of an author's output: was Holmes perhaps one character in search of an author? In the case of Oscar Wilde there was a whole spectrum to consider, from fairy tales, through novels to plays. Conan Doyle's detective fiction had been researched in detail, but what of works like The White Company or Micah Clarke: what did the average man in the street know about Brigadier Gerard? Probably that he was a race-horse! Yet Conan Doyle valued these works above the Sherlock Holmes stories; he had wanted to do away with Holmes. She explained to the floor that The Oxford Illustrated History of English Literature made no reference to Conan Doyle, while making no less than seven to Wilde: the only Doyle in the index being Richard Doyle. Older people remember Conan Doyle: Wilde was becoming more popular as time passed. One could hardly blame the author if translators had made a poor job of their work, nevertheless, Wilde had been translated into many different languages. She closed in drawing attention to Wilde's influence on others, such as Gilbert and Sullivan and Richard Strauss, and the frequency with which he was quoted.
Richard Lancelyn Green, seconding for the proposers, brought a case of artifacts and a veritable barrage of statistics with him. What was the nature of popularity? They did not deny that Wilde was a great epigrammist, but 'si momentum requiris, circumspice'. The Sherlock Holmes Hotel opened in 1970 and advised guests to settle down with the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. How many hotels ask their guests to read Oscar Wilde? Indeed, the whole of Baker Street was evidence of the popularity of Sherlock Holmes: the tiles at the station, the train that was named for Holmes. Having referred to the numerous plaques to Conan Doyle or Holmes, he wondered why there was no plaque to Oscar Wilde or Jack Worthing at Victoria Station. The Sign of the Four sold 250,000 copies in three years; Keats when a bestseller sold some 800; in the 1890s a bestseller sold some 5,000 8,000 copies. The Holmes stories were breaking records. The Penguin edition of the early 1980s sold 7,000 copies in the first three days, while the recent Wordsworth paperback editions were the most successful in the series. Wordsworth had in fact told him that in April The Picture of Dorian Gray sold 3,000 copies; The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes 6,000. The Kaiser had a Sherlock Holmes book on his yacht, while Marshal Tito, Boris Yeltsin and the Sultan of Turkey admitted to enjoying the stories. Holmes even appeared in computer games and on CD-ROM and Laserdisk, and The Lost World had recently appeared in this last format, too.
The opposing seconder, Mr Clutton, a self-confessed and avid reader of Sherlock Holmes, wondered why the proposers kept harping on Holmes: they were debating the whole corpus of the men's work where was the rest of Conan Doyle's output? The two were writing at the same time, but Holmes remained locked in the 1880s while Wilde spoke to us still. A brief quotation from A Woman of No Importance served to illustrate his point: 'The Prime Minister is ruining the country. I wonder his wife lets him.' He demonstrated how much more relevant and rounded Wilde's characters were, particularly his female characters. Violet Smith and Mary Sutherland were cardboard and inter-changeable. Conan Doyle was also very lax in his writing: in 'The Red-Headed League', for instance, he gave the season as autumn, yet referred to 27 April as 'two months ago'.
Some two dozen remarks were made from the floor. One pointed out that the speakers were misleading us: the Holmes stories were by Watson, not Conan Doyle. Another remarked that in the scholar's edition of The Encyclopaedia Britannica, Sherlock Holmes's name was capitalised as a living person; Wilde's characters were dead. Attention was drawn to Wilde's passionate concern for social reform. In Japan, it was reported, the Holmes stories sold in their millions; The Picture of Dorian Gray only some 3,000 copies. J.R.R. Tolkien, we were reminded, had once argued that, for a writer to reach permanent importance, it was necessary for his works to achieve the level of deep myth; Holmes had achieved this. Wilde's Selfish Giant was at once cited as his contribution to deep myth.
One person pointed out that Conan Doyle forecast the Channel Tunnel and wondered whether Wilde ever made any similar forecast. The number of Wilde plays currently in production was drawn to our attention, as was Wilde's ability to write simple language to read aloud when he wanted to, such as in the case of the fairy stories. One 22-year-old objected to the remark made earlier that the older generation enjoyed Holmes: at her place of work nearly every one knew of Holmes; the works of Wilde were far less well-known. It was pointed out that the exclusion of Conan Doyle from The Oxford Illustrated History of English Literature proved the motion Conan Doyle was 'popular' and therefore distrusted by the literary establishment. One person admitted to having been bored by some of Conan Doyle's non-Sherlockian novels, and felt that only Holmes was worth anything. The extent to which Conan Doyle was quoted, and misquoted, was referred to. A suitable topic for further study was raised, though with the admission that it was nothing to do with the point at issue: the Irishness in both authors' work. One member of the Oscar Wilde Society felt that they were playing away, and cited buildings such as the Cafe Royal, the Wilde Theatre in Paris and countless restaurants and boutiques as Wilde's monuments. Another person made an impassioned plea for the Chair to accept abstentions: if one has a high regard for both authors, why take sides — we should be much poorer if we had to dispose of one or the other. One librarian from a listening library in a school teaching English remarked that tapes of Wilde's works were more in demand than those of Conan Doyle. Another comment from the floor drew attention to Conan Doyle's social concerns, such as Divorce Law Reform.
Summing up for the opposition, Mrs Gulliver expressed pleasure that the whole corpus of Wilde's work had been addressed and again drew attention to the preponderance of material on Holmes. Also summing up, Margaret Bird quoted one of the opposing speakers back at them, 'the works of Arthur Conan Doyle aren't as popular as those of Oscar Wilde, except of course Sherlock Holmes'. Holmes was the most popular fictional character. She reminded the floor that Conan Doyle's work included Sherlock Holmes, and popularity was being debated, not literary merit. She drew attention to Holmes on television: this character and the work of Conan Doyle had permeated our whole culture.
The vote was then taken, with the result: 47 for, 17 against with 7 abstentions. The motion was declared carried.
Much was said about Sherlock Holmes at the debate. How differently might the discussion have gone had it been between the Arthur Conan Doyle Society and the Oscar Wilde Society? It would, for one thing, have dispensed with that early remark about the different attentions of the two sides. What do members think? Journal editors are usually in search of correspondence. Perhaps we could address some of the issues raised from our slightly different viewpoint?
Available now from the Society:
Western Wanderings
A very small number of the Society's special reprint of Western Wanderings, with an Introduction by Christopher & Barbara Roden, is still available. Limited to one hundred and fifty numbered copies, 80pp and casebound in buckram with a protective acetate dust-jacket, the book is illustrated with six photographs from Conan Doyle's 1914 tour of North America and has a new bibliographical note by Richard Lancelyn Green.
Order now to avoid disappointment.
Prices, including postage and packing:
UK £19.50; Europe £20.00; USA $33; Canada $45; Rest of World £22.50
The Future of Canadian Literature
A special reprint of Conan Doyle's address to the Canadian Club of Montreal was presented to all those who attended the Society's Toronto Convention in May.
Only six copies of the limited edition of one hundred and twenty five numbered copies now remain.
The Future of Canadian Literature is a twelve page booklet, bound in white card covers, with an Introduction by Christopher & Barbara Roden.
Prices, including postage and packing:
UK £8.00; US $13; Cdn$18
The Curious Incident of the Missing Link: Arthur Conan Doyle and Piltdown Man
by Douglas Elliott
Douglas Elliott's fascinating study of the suggestions that Conan Doyle may have been involved in the Piltdown forgery was first published by the Bootmakers of Toronto in 1988.
It has been difficult to find in Britain for some time, and we have been fortunate in obtaining a small number of copies for British members.
The 36-page illustrated booklet, with an Introduction by Dr A.E. Rodin, costs £5.00 including postage. Would North American members who require a copy please contact The Bootmakers of Toronto, 47 Manor Road West, Toronto, Ontario, Canada MSP IE6.
All of the above mentioned publications are available from the Society at Ashcroft, 2 Abbottsford Drive, Penyffordd, Chester, UK, CH4 0JG
ACD at Davos
Malcolm Payne has raised doubts about the photograph of ACD which was published on page 88 of the 1993 Journal. He writes:
I feel this photo is not ACD at Davos, but another gentleman. Maybe a contemporary, such as Jerome K. Jerome, or even one of the Brangers. I felt there was much against it:
1. It looks wrong, but this does sometimes happen, often due to lens foreshortening.
2. ACD would never appear with a handkerchief on show, either in top pocket or cuff, an idiosyncratic point often commented on by local staff [at Crowborough].
3. The percentage measurements do not add up; the man on the photo is 50% from crown to waist; and, logically, 50% from waist to sole. Other photos of ACD taken around this time show him to be c.65% from sole to waist; c.35% from waist to crown. Head/skull percentages do not agree. Figure 11, showing ACD on skis, reveals ACD to have much longer legs than shown on this photograph. The gentleman in the photograph would appear to be around 5'9".
Editor's comment: The first time I saw that particular picture was when Dame Jean Conan Doyle sent me a photocopy of it. Dame Jean had noticed it as it had been printed in a book entitled The Cresta Rum 1885-1985 (Henry Melland, London, 1985), a history which Roger Gibbs had put together for The St Moritz Tobagganing Club. My initial reaction was that I would not have instantly recognised the picture as being one of ACD, but that may have been due to the photograph having been quite heavily re-touched. The acknowledgments in Roger Gibbs' book indicated that the photograph had been provided by the Davos Library.
However, the problem does not end there. Adrian Conan Doyle also used the photograph in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: A Centenary 1859-1959, which used photographs from the family's collection. It may be that this particular photograph was provided by a third party, but there is nothing in that book to indicate that the picture came from an outside source.
News from Crowborough
Malcolm Payne
For the first time we had some of our newly-constituted Associate Members attending our AGM on the evening of 'The Birthday', 22 May. We were most thrilled to receive, through two of these A.M.s, Desmond Tyler and Mimi Langley, the good wishes and greetings sent via them by Dame Jean Conan Doyle, who had passed on these messages for our AGM while attending the unveiling of the plaque at 2 Upper Wimpole Street. Both ardent supporters of our Establishment, since its formation in 1989, Desmond and Mimi were our very first visitors in The Conan Doyle Room. It is most fitting that they should now be Associate Members.
Earlier in the day of 22 May we had held our simple annual wreath-laying ceremony at the Arthur Conan Doyle Memorial on Terrace Montargis in Crowborough. Our President, Marian Yates, ably carried out the wreath-laying, Bruce Hands read a new poem on Sir Arthur, 'A Worthy Knight in Sussex Sanctum', and the eulogy was spoken by Founder Malcolm Payne. As usual, the wreath was of fresh Spring flowers, a circlet of bright and pungent freesias in a riot of shades and colours, set off by star-shaped chrysanthemums. After the showery but warm time on the Terrace we adjourned to The Conan Doyle Room for coffee, and an excellent social time was had by all. A new water-colour portrait of Sir Arthur, by our Founder Member, Mervyn Hathaway, was much admired.
When wanting to site the plaque in Upper Wimpole Street, Arthur Conan Doyle Society experienced a slight hiccup in the identification of 2 Upper Wimpole Street as the actual site of Sir Arthur's surgery when he opened the premises to establish himself as an eye specialist. We have a map of London actually used by Sir Arthur as a reference during his residence in Crowborough. This map is dated 1906, and shows Devonshire Place (which leads into Upper Wimpole Street): one is left with the impression that the whole street carries this title, when in fact the lower end should have been marked as Upper Wimpole Street. It is most probable that either this or a similar map was used by Sir Arthur and his secretary Major Wood in order to name the street when writing Memories and Adventures.
Our new 'Arthur Conan Doyle Research File/Birthday Newsletter' has been exceedingly well received, and we have had a number of requests to supply it to non-members. I am sorry we cannot do this, but if you wish to apply to us for Associate Membership (£10 or $20, cheques made out to 'ACD Memorial Fund'), you will automatically receive a copy. It has up to 100 pages and weighs 350g, so the Newsletter title is something of a misnomer. We also still have copies of the monograph Recollections of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle at £5.25 ($12), including postage and packing (cheques payable as above).
Contents of the 'Research File' are multifarious, but all refer to Sir Arthur, his life and writings. The articles, cuttings and photo reproductions are unique, as is the format of a Victorian Scotland Yard file.
We are most grateful to Barbara and Christopher Roden for allowing us the facility for this news, and feel our two organisations sincerely complement one another. Their massive task of organisation for the recent conference in Toronto was rewarded by its being a huge success, and we congratulate them on this and all else they do to raise awareness of the man who was A.C.D.
The A Study in Scarlet Quiz
There was a good response to the quiz which appeared in the March issue of The Parish Magazine. However, only two all-correct answers were received, the final winner being Patricia Moreau of Winnipeg. Pat's prize, a copy of Dr Watson Books' facsimile of the first book edition of A Study in Scarlet came as a pleasant surprise. 'I had forgotten all about it,' she wrote. 'Glad now that I entered.' The ten correct answers were as follows:
- 1. 1880
- 2. 11 shillings and 6 pence
- 3. 1123
- 4. Blue
- 5. A small revolver
- 6. Edinburgh
- 7. Keswick
- 8. An article in The Daily Telegraph
- 9. Sub-lieutenant
- 10. Little George Street
Cast your own Hound and win!
Yes, one lucky member of the Arthur Conan Doyle Society will win a copy of Edward F. Kelley's Sherlock Holmes: Screen and Sound Guide (reviewed on page 24). All you have to do is cast a big screen, big budget version of The Hound of the Baskervilles with the actors of your choice, then describe (in one hundred words or less) why a major Hollywood studio should produce the film.
First, pick the actors. The roles we want cast are those of Holmes, Watson, Sir Henry, Dr Mortimer, Stapleton and Beryl Stapleton. You don't have to give your reasons for casting the actors you choose, but remember that money is no object: if you feel that Tom Cruise is suitable for one of the roles, don't let his multi-million dollar salary put you off.
Then, when you have your cast assembled, you have to pitch the movie to a major Hollywood studio. Bearing in mind that Hollywood executives like things kept short and snappy, there's a one hundred word limit on this section. Try to make your pitch as punchy, dynamic and persuasive as possible.
Submissions will be judged, completely subjectively, on their originality and effectiveness. The judges will be Christopher Roden, Barbara Roden and David Stuart Davies, who knows a thing or two about Holmes on film. Entries should be sent to the Society to arrive no later than 30 November, the winner will be announced in the April Parish Magazine.
Good luck!
Reviews
by David Stuart Davies, Barbara Roden & Christopher Roden
TALES OF TERROR
by Arthur Conan Doyle
Canongate Audio 1994 (originally issued by Schiltron Audio Books, 1990); 2 Cassettes: 2hr 21min; £7.99; ISBN: 1-85968-010-0
'The Brazilian Cat', 'The New Catacomb', 'The Leather Funnel', 'The Case of Lady Sannox' read by Clive Champney and Robert Trotter
- Read Review, by David Stuart Davies
TOUT CE QUE VOUS AVEZ VOULU SAVOIR SUR SHERLOCK HOLMES SANS JAMAIS L'AVOIR RENCONTRÉ
by Pierre Nordon
Le Livre de poche (Librairie Generale Française, 6 rue Pierre-Sarrazin, 75006 Paris), 1994;
124pp + index; c.£5.00; ISBN: 2-253-94199-9
- Read Review, by Christopher Roden
SHERLOCK HOLMES SCREEN AND SOUND GUIDE
by Gordon E. Kelley
The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1994; xiv + 316pp; £37.50; ISBN 0-8108-2859-6
- Read Review, by Barbara Roden
THE FOLIO SOCIETY SHERLOCK HOLMES
The Complete Novels: A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of Four, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Valley of Fear.
The Folio Society, 1994; £80.00 (available only from The Folio Society, 202 Great Suffolk Street, London SE1 IPR)
- Read Review, by Christopher Roden
FRANCE IN THE BLOOD
A Practical Handbook of French Holmesian Culture with Some Observations
Edited by Philip Porter & Catherine Cooke
The Sherlock Holmes Society of London, 1993; 92pp; £10.50, Europe £11.50, North America
US$18, Rest of World £13.50 (prices include postage and packing); ISBN: 1-873771-02-9
BACK TO BAKER STREET
An appreciation of Sherlock Holmes & London
Edited by Roger Johnson & Jean Upton
The Sherlock Holmes Society of London, 1994; 100pp; £11.50, Europe £12.50, North America US$21.50, Rest of World £14.50 (prices include postage and packing);
ISBN: 1-873771-03-6
Both publications are available from The SHSL's Merchandising Officer, Mrs Lynne Godden, Apple Tree Cottage, Smarden, Ashford, Kent TN278QE.
- Read Review, by Christopher Roden
Also Received:
SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE RAILWAY MANIAC by Barrie Roberts (Constable, 1994; £14.99; ISBN: 0-09-473040-7)
Mycroft Holmes persuades his younger brother to investigate two, unexplained, catastrophic train derailments, which have caused the deaths of more than forty people. Why would a criminal wreck an express train?
A strange astronomer, the German Intelligence Service, and a Russian yacht in the port of Aberdeen: these are just some of the problems Holmes encounters in his investigation to find the most homicidal lunatic in Britain. What is it that draws both King Edward VII and Mycroft Holmes from London for a meeting in Scotland?
All is revealed in the denouement, which, in fact, re-writes 'His Last Bow'. On this occasion, I can forgive the author the liberty he takes. Sherlock Holmes and the Railway Maniac is both a well-paced pastiche and an enjoyable read.
THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF CHARLOTTE HOLMES by Hilary Bailey (Constable, 1994; £14.99; ISBN: 0-09-473330-9)
Hilary Bailey, Constable tell us, has published three acclaimed novels about life on Notting Hill, including The cry from street to street, a re-telling of the Jack the Ripper story from Mary Kelly's point of view.
Sadly, she has now turned her attention to Charlotte Holmes, the younger sister of the more-famous Sherlock and the only-slightly-less-famous Mycroft. Charlotte, like Sherlock Holmes, is a scientific detective and has her own laboratory at the bottom of the garden of her pretty cottage in Chelsea. She is a New Woman, Oxford-educated and progressive in her views — she also has Mary Watson as a friend.
I always wondered what Mary got up to when Watson was off on a case with Holmes!
Your 1994 Journal
As usual, there will be a splendidly varied selection of articles and reviews in the 1994 issue of ACD - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society.
All of the major papers presented at the Society's Toronto Convention will be published, together with a special section devoted to ACD and Cricket. In addition, we have an exciting new article on 'The Terror of Blue John Gap' from William A. S. Sarjeant and Dana Batory, reviews of the latest books, and all the regular features of ACD.
Members are reminded that Letters to the Editors, on topics arising from articles in either ACD or The Parish Magazine, are welcomed, as are contributions, photographs, illustrations, and suggestions for future features. It helps us enormously if submissions are made on floppy disk (3.5" or 5.25") accompanied by a print-out of text. We can handle most word-processor output, but please check with us if in doubt.
We plan to have the 1994 Journal ready in December and hope to despatch it either just before Christmas or early in the New Year.
Competition: The Oxford Sherlock Holmes
Win a set of The Oxford Sherlock Holmes' for answering ten simple questions
Yes, the Oxford Sherlock Holmes will be issued in November in the World's Classics paperback series at £3.99 per volume.
Completely revised for paperback publication, the Oxford Sherlock Holmes offers the most up-to-date text available. Each volume has an Introduction and a set of explanatory notes.
What did the critics say?
'Here it is at last, the definitive edition, in nine volumes, of all the Sherlock Holmes stories.'
Julian Symons, The Sunday Times
'For the Holmes addict, there are learned introductions, copious notes, chronology, appendices and bibliographies on a scale to satisfy even the most fanatical'
Paul Johnson, Daily Telegraph
'A splendid piece of publishing'
John Cross, Sunday Telegraph
Why not try out your knowledge of Sherlock Holmes?
You could be the lucky winner
The Arthur Conan Doyle Society has a set of the new paperback edition to present as a prize to the winner of our quiz.
Send your answers to the following ten simple questions, to arrive not later than 30 November. The winner will be the first set of correct answers drawn on that date. Good Luck!
1. Which detective was involved in the Molesey mystery?
2. In which investigation did a bank book reveal several large cheques made out to Mr Cornelius?
3. We all remember the dog in the night-time, but in which story did Holmes say that 'a dog reflects the family life"?
4. Who advertised himself as being able to provide estimates for Artesian Wells?
5. Who 'retired from business at the age of sixty-one, bought a house at Lewisham and settled down to rest after a life of ceaseless grind"?
6. In which story did Holmes send the following note to Watson: Am dining at Goldini's Restaurant, Gloucester Road, Kensington. Please come at once and join me there. Bring with you a jemmy, a dark lantern, a chisel, and a revolver?
7. In which story were Harraway, Tiger Cormac, Carter and the brothers Willaby members of a committee?
8. Which newspaper reported: 'Mysterious Business at Upper Norwood"?
9. Where did the Amateur Mendicant Society hold its meetings?
10. Who was apprenticed to the firm of Venner & Matheson?
Send your answers to 'Oxford Competition',
The Arthur Conan Doyle Society,
Ashcroft, 2 Abbottsford Drive,
Penyffordd, Chester, U.K., CH4 0JG
- Article courtesy Christopher Roden, founder of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (1989-2003).
