The Parish Magazine No. 15
The Parish Magazine No. 15 is the newsletter of the The Arthur Conan Doyle Society published in january 1997.
The Parish Magazine No. 15
THE PARISH MAGAZINE is The Arthur Conan Doyle Society's twice-yearly collection of news, views, reviews, and all that is interesting in the world of Arthur Conan Doyle. It is the outlet for responses to and discussion of articles which appeared in the previous year's ACD - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society, and members' comments are welcomed.
ISSN 1350-2190
THE PARISH MAGAZINE
is edited by
Christopher Roden & Barbara Roden
© 1997: The Arthur Conan Doyle Society
All individual copyrights retained by the authors.
No part of this publication may be reproduced without permission of the editors.
The views expressed in articles in The Parish Magazine are those of the respective contributors and not necessarily those of the editors.
All editorial correspondence should be sent to:
- The Arthur Conan Doyle Society
- P.O. Box 1360
- Ashcroft
- British Columbia, Canada VOK 1A0
Printed by Kall Kwik Printing, Watergate Street, Chester, UK.
THE PARISH MAGAZINE
ISSUE NUMBER FIFTEEN: JANUARY 1997
Important Information
By the time this issue of The Parish Magazine reaches you, we shall be winging our way across the Atlantic towards our new home in Canada. Our intention is to continue operating the Society from there, though a full reassessment will take place in a year's time when we shall be better aware of any practical difficulties which may arise.
The Society's new address is:
- P.O. Box 1360
- Ashcroft British Columbia
- Canada VOK 1A0
and all correspondence should now be sent to us at that address.
Our telephone and fax numbers until 20 February 1997 are:
- Telephone: (250) 453-9779
- Fax: (250) 453-9772
Please do not use those numbers after 20 February when the following come into force:
- Telephone: (250) 453-2045
- Fax: (250) 453-2075
We shall be contactable by e-mail virtually as soon as we arrive in Canada and our new e-mail address will be advised with the next Society mailing. We shall advise those members with whom we are in regular e-mail contact as soon as the new facility is available. Over the next few months we are also hoping to develop a Web page for the Society. Further details will be available in due course.
We hope to be fully operational within two months, but of course we are in the hands of our removal company to a certain extent. Please bear with us in the meantime if it should take a little longer than usual to reply to your letters.
The 1996 issue of ACD is scheduled to appear in late April/early May and will be mailed out to you as soon as it is available. We shall be examining postal costs very carefully to ensure that members benefit from the best rates available. The 1997-8 Subscription Renewal Notice will be mailed with the Journal.
Christopher Roden & Barbara Roden
You Tell Us, Quite Categorically, That The Society Is OK As It Is!
The response to the survey, which was mailed with the September issue of The Parish Magazine, was overwhelming, with an unexpected 60% response. Indeed, at the time of writing, odd responses are still being received. There was absolutely no doubt as to the feelings of the majority.
- 1. Members are satisfied with their membership of the ACD Society.
- 2. Members are happy with the way in which the Society is operated.
- 3. A formal committee is not favoured by members.
- 4. Members are happy with the frequency, content and size of the Society's publications and do not wish to see the Journal become less formal.
- 5. Members feel that the Society and its publications adequately fulfil the rôle which was announced in 1989.
- 6. Members are happy to see the Society continue under the informal organisation which has existed since 1989.
Naturally, it was pleasing to us to receive so positive a response to the survey and, where there was an occasional view which differed from the majority, it was helpful that additional comments generally accompanied the survey. Such comments were important in helping to assess whether any particular action needed to be taken.
Of course, not everyone agrees one hundred per cent with what the Society seeks to achieve. John Whitehead (Munslow, Shropshire) commented as follows:
- 'I will not be completing your questionnaire because, like most referenda, it seems to me to pose the wrong questions. If the Society has failed to attract more than three hundred members worldwide, the reason may be that it seeks to elevate the writings of Conan Doyle above their class. The Editorial in the current Parish Magazine gives the show away in two of the aims it seeks to promote.
- 'Firstly, what on earth has Doyle to do with Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey? The idiotic notion seems to have got around that, if the Dean and Chapter can be pressured into permitting yet another tablet to be put up there, the writer concerned has somehow acquired Brownie points. Secondly, the wish to obtain 'academic recognition' for Doyle's work is to invite the kiss of death, as witness the new Oxford edition of the Sherlock Holmes stories, which seems to be totally misguided-indeed, in its ponderous annotation to be quite daft.
- 'I do not believe that Doylee's non-fiction qualifies for survival. Of his huge output of fiction only a relatively small proportion is still worthy of attention-most of it is unashamedly magazine trash. And even his best novels and stories (about which I believe there is a general consensus) do not aspire to rank with serious adult fiction, for they are addressed to 'the boy who's half a man or the man who's half a boy'.
- 'The golden core of his work should be treated as glories of juvenile fiction ranking with or even above King Solomon's Mines and The Prisoner of Zenda. Let the Society promote it as such and, for heaven's sake, keep the academics out of it.'
How many other members agree with Mr Whitehead's viewpoint? Do members feel that Conan Doyle is not of sufficient stature to be considered worthy of a place in Poets' Corner, for instance? Please write and let us know. Viewpoints will be published in the next issue of The Parish Magazine.
Alan Atkinson (Glossop, Derbyshire), a fairly new member, obviously sees things in a different light:
- 'I have been a member for only just over twelve months. As far as quality of service, i.e., material and attention, set against cost is concerned, I can only say that I am highly delighted.
- '...The fact that the 'academic tone' is a deterrent to higher membership sounds fine to me. I feel that standards drop too easily these days, whether it be from mass interest or over exposure. I am not, by any means, suggesting an intellectually elitist and pompous approach-I consider myself an ordinary person who wishes to see maintained the levels of commitment and competence already achieved by a hardworking and dedicated few.'
Vinnie Brosnan (Oceanside, California) wrote as follows:
- 'It amazes me that some should feel it is necessary to pick apart the management of the Society. I would assume the primary reason for anyone joining the Society is because he or she has a sincere desire to spread interest in the life and works of ACD. The beautifully produced printings of A Regimental Scandal and The Blood-Stone Tragedy are only two proofs of the Society's endeavours in which every member can take some pride.
- '... I doubt that the academic tone of the Journal acts as a deterrent to new membership. New members do not join out of curiosity or social benefit. Rather, their interest in ACD has been perked and there is a desire to learn more about him. If the academic tone of the Journal was unbearable, you would have a definite problem with the current members not renewing, and I doubt if this is the case. I find the tone of the Journal varied, reflecting the different style and approaches of the contributors.... As for value, I know it's a bargain. The quality of the paper and printing is excellent and the content is always of a high standard. As a fan of ACD, I, for one, am grateful.'
Mark Chadderton (Bournemouth, Dorset) commented:
- 'The ACD Journal is the highlight of my year, and I look forward to this coming over any other Doylean/Holmesian publication — how on earth you can ask whether we think it takes too long to read is beyond me. I would welcome it being a hundred times bigger (and without any Holmes articles)!'
And John Comstock (Pendleton, New York) also values the Journal:
- 'I love the Journal — my idea of perfection would be that it were a monthly — same size, same scholarly articles-as an admirer of Conan Doyle the material it presents is exactly what I want.'
Dr Zakaria Erzinclioglu (Eversden, Cambridge) also lent support:
- '... I see no reason to complicate matters by setting up a committee, which can only make the administration of the Society's affairs more cumbersome. Also, I believe it would be a great mistake to make the Journal less formal; its strength lies in its scholarly nature.'
From Cameron Hollyer (Toronto):
- ... The Journal is excellent and the fact that it is book length certainly does not detract from its value. One can read as much as one wishes and go back to it at will.
- 'There are enough Sherlock magazines as it is. Who can collect them all — much less read them all? It is fitting that one magazine should be devoted to the true author — Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his career and many works.'
Finally, our very good friend, Owen Dudley Edwards, FRHistS, FSA (Scot) (University of Edinburgh) sent us a personal statement which is reproduced below. We have no compunction in saying that without Owen's very considerable contribution to the Society over the past seven years we would all have been considerably worse off and certainly less informed than we are now. We should like, publicly, to thank Owen for that valued contribution, and for the following words:
- 'The foundation of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society, of its Journal ACD Journal and its accompanying light newssheet The Parish Magazine, may claim to be a turning-point in Arthur Conan Doyle studies in the way that Sir Rupert Hart-Davis's edition of The Letters of Oscar Wilde transformed Wilde scholarship and Wilde's own status in scholarly assessment in the early 1960s, in the way that Professor David Daiches transformed Stevenson scholarship with his seminal study in the late 1940s, in the way D.H. Lawrence's Studies in Classic American Literature in the early 1920s transformed scholars' appreciation of Herman Melville. All of these were very different enterprises, functioning at very different angles of observation and engagement to the subject, using very different techniques and implements as their work required. But however much we may reverence Hart-Davis as an editor, Daiches as a critic, Lawrence as an artist, to all we must pay another, and for all of them an identical tribute: the results of their achievements require us to salute each of them as an enabler. Because of what they have done, their subject now attracts new forms of respect, new ways of wisdom.
- 'When The Oxford Sherlock Holmes was in the making, this is the term with which its commissioning editor Michael Cox of Oxford University Press defined the achievement of Christopher Roden through The Arthur Conan Doyle Society and its resultant publications. It is a pleasure now to associate the name of his wife, Barbara Roden, with his own, having particular regard to her international sense, her consistently positive approach where at all possible, her enthusiasm and her vital humour, but the foundations were firmly laid before her advent although her more recent presence in the co-direction of Society and journal have coincided with the consistent improvement of their conferences, occasions, memorabilia, commemorations, and above all increasingly varied and valuable publications.
- 'Their work has formed the sun around which the proliferating planets, asteroids, comets, meteors and satellites have brought their individual forms of life, liveliness, and light. However different our interests and attitudes on ACD, it seems certain the overwhelming bulk of the specialist scholars on ACD would have to agree on that. And such a tribute must also acknowledge the essential part borne by David Stuart Davies in the Society's and journal's foundation and early lives. No doubt contributors such as the present writer may also take mild plaudits, with the proviso that the diplomacy and forbearance frequently required of the Rodens in curbing our mutually destructive instincts has ensured the Society's survival and increasingly constructive productivity where, left to ourselves, we would long since probably have reduced it to self-eroding factions.
- 'Comparisons will inevitably be made with other societies seeking to give some form of consolidation to the perpetuation of the name of a major literary figure, although, as I have indicated, the Rodens' achievement requires measurement by a finer yardstick. And the success of most of these societies, whatever their primary interest (often not particularly literary in themselves) is almost invariably associated with individual persons, operating with whatever titles: Sir Angus Fraser for Borrow, the Revd Dr Ian Boyd, CSB, for Chesterton, Professor Dan H. Laurence for Shaw, J.R. Hammond for Wells, Dr Eileen Stewart for Buchan and so forth. Sometimes, as with the Steinbeck Society, this is so much the case that even when apparently firmly grounded in a major university it does not long survive the loss of its progenitor.
- 'I have no doubt that the removal of the Rodens from The Arthur Conan Doyle Society's direction would be absolutely disastrous to it and to Conan Doyle scholarship in general. Under their enthusiastic and wise guidance, the growing stature of ACD's reputation has been visible and seemingly inevitable.
- 'But if we should imagine that it would continue with the dropping of our wise pilots, we would quickly learn our folly. The society would collapse into trivialisation, or else become the prey of special interests whether (as in my own case) the Roman Catholic, or else the Spiritualist, the Sherlockian, the Tory, the purely commemorative, or whatever: ACD's Celticism, Saxonism, historicism, contemporaneity, politics, feminism could all become means by which he would be pulled to pieces, claimed for rival sides, and left a prey to the ignorant ridicule so readily offered when scholarly foundations disintegrate.
- 'These injudicious champions', as Dr Watson termed Professor Moriarty's brother, seem as ambiguous in their motivation as did that shadowy figure, but there can be no doubt of the comparable injustice of their enterprise.
- 'Christopher and Barbara Roden have done an incomparable service to Conan Doyle scholarship, and their altruism and devotion, together with their efficiency and far-sightedness, appears virtually unique in the annals of commemoration. It is so seldom the hearts are equal to the heads, or the other way round if you prefer either the dedication is unmatched by practicality, or the element of self-seeking benefits the organizer more than the subject. Here we are superbly in harmony in our Society's leaders, editors, enablers.
- 'To end their direction of our Society and its publications would be to strike as maleficent a blow at the name and work of Arthur Conan Doyle as the work of the Rodens has been beneficent. The injudicious critics should realise now that to persist in their carping, whatever its alleged intent, is to proclaim themselves Conan Doyle's enemies. As for the Rodens, they should heed Conan Doyle's words: 'Do your best / Hang the rest!'
We shall be announcing some minor organisational changes in due course. However, for the time being, we're pleased to announce that it's business as usual!
Notes and News
A number of recent publications will doubtless be of interest to readers of The Parish Magazine. It is hoped to include reviews of the following books in the 1996 issue of ACD:
From Rosemary Jann, as part of Twayne's Masterworks Studies series, comes The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: Detecting Social Order (Twayne, New York; 1995) ISBN: 0-8057-8384-9.
The University of Michigan Press has recently published The Secret Marriage of Sherlock Holmes and Other Eccentric Readings by Michael Atkinson, a book about reading more than about Sherlock Holmes, in which the author discusses how much more there is to be gained from alternative readings of the Holmes stories.
Sherlock Holmes: Victorian Sleuth to Modern Hero, which we are still awaiting, appears to be a collection of essays published by Scarecrow Press.
A most intriguing title has just been published by McFarland. We're waiting with great interest to see just what is included in Scott Allen Nollen's Sir Arthur Conan Doyle at the Cinema: A Critical Study of the Film Adaptations.
Cliff Goldfarb's long-awaited The Great Shadow: Arthur Conan Doyle, Brigadier Gerard and Napoleon was to have been published by Simon & Pierre in November. This detailed study, which has a wealth of information on the stories and stage adaptations of ACD's Gerard tales, will now be published by Calabash Press in June 1997.
Calabash Press has also announced the second, third, and fourth titles in the new series The Case Files of Sherlock Holmes. 'The Speckled Band' appears in February, 'The Dying Detective' in June, and 'The Blue Carbuncle' in October. Other titles scheduled by Calabash Press for the new year include The Baker Street File, the first widely-available version of the book produced for use by actors and production staff working on the Granada Television Sherlock Holmes series. The original format of this book is supplemented with an Introduction and Notes by Michael Cox, who was so instrumental in Granada's success. Calabash Press may be contacted at P.O. Box 1360, Ashcroft, B.C., Canada VOK IAO.
In December, St Paul's Bibliographies issued Julian Symons: A Bibliography, which details all of this Society's first President's major work. The entry for each major title is supplemented by Julian's own notes. Particularly interesting are the notes which accompany the entry for A Three Pipe Problem.
- ... But, although this early Holmes worship stayed with me through the years, it was accompanied by an admiration for other work by Holmes's creator. I became perhaps unwarrantably annoyed by what seemed to me the tendencies of the various Sherlock Holmes societies to denigrate Conan Doyle at the expense of Sherlock, as in the pretence that Conan Doyle was merely the agent through which the masterpieces were brought into print. I said something of this in Bloody Murder, and enlarged on it when invited to speak to the British Sherlock Holmes Society. They received my strictures with perfect politeness, but there is no doubt that they gave offence, and it was in an attempt to make amends that I not only removed the remarks from later editions of the book, but also embarked on a book not about Sherlock Holmes, but about an actor who when confronted with some puzzles tries to solve them by Holmesian methods. ...
Julian Symons: A Bibliography has a preface by H.R.F. Keating and a Personal Memoir by Julian Symons. It costs £40.00 and the ISBN is 1-873040-31-8 (UK) and 1-884718-22-1 (U.S.A.).
Tyne Theatre & Opera House (Westgate Road, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Tel: (0191) 261-1725) will stage The Return of Sherlock Holmes, a Middle Ground Theatre Production, directed by Harry Landis, from 17-22 March 1997. It is hoped that there will be a special Sherlockian event during the course of the play's one week run.
Tangled Web Audio (1063 King Street West, Suite 133, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada L8S IL8, Tel: (519) 442-5010; e-mail <[email protected]>) has released two further sets of their splendid recordings of Edward Hardwicke reading Sherlock Holmes stories. Tales of Betrayal and Tales of Avarice contain three adventures per set. This time around the stories are: 'A Scandal in Bohemia', 'Silver Blaze', and 'The Adventure of the Copper Beeches'; 'The Priory School', 'The Red-Headed League' and 'The Blue Carbuncle'. All highly recommended.
If you would like to receive catalogues of Victorian and Edwardian fiction, you should contact Richard Beaton, Second-hand and antiquarian books, 11a St John's Terrace, Lewes, East Sussex BN7 2DL. (Telephone (01273) 474147.) Please mention the ACD Society when contacting Mr Beaton.
The manuscripts of The Sign of the Four and The White Company were auctioned at Sotheby's, New York in early December. They realised $519,500 and $85,000 respectively (including premiums). To date, the purchaser of The Sign of the Four has not been disclosed. We are pleased to note, however, that The White Company now resides in the safe hands of Society member Dr C.F. Kittle of Chicago, to whom we send our heartiest congratulations.
And a very nice copy of the rare first edition of Conan Doyle's Mysteries and Adventures, part of the A.E.R.M. Stevens Collection, went under the hammer at Sotheby's in London on 17 December. Prices were generally high at that event, with Mysteries and Adventures achieving a hammer price of £1,650. For those who are interested in these things, a copy of the first edition of Bram Stoker's Dracula, whose centenary it is this year, realised an ex-premium price of £3,400!
Finally, Lasting Impressions, the twenty-fifth anniversary celebrations of The Bootmakers of Toronto in June 1997, looks set to attract a large attendance. A number of people have asked whether it might be possible to arrange an informal gathering of ACD Society members during that event. Well, we'd like nothing better. Let us know if you are going to be in Toronto, and when you intend to arrive and depart-and we'll see what can be arranged. Members may be interested to know that, as part of the Lasting Impressions programme, Michael Doyle of Vancouver will be presenting a paper on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle which will be responded to by Christopher Roden. We'll look forward to seeing you in June.
| Sherlock Holmes and Conan Doyle
Regular catalogues issued of first editions, recent publications, magazines and ephemera. If you are not an existing customer please send 4 1st class stamps (UK), or $3 cash or 41RCs (overseas) to: Forbes Gibb, 29 Falkland Street, Hyndland, Glasgow G12 9QZ |
The Parish Magazine Post-Bag
In which members are invited to write with queries, or to express their views on items which have appeared in previous publications.
Responding to the review of The Annotated Lost World in ACD Journal 6, Roy Pilot (Dearborn Height, Michigan) writes:
... Of course I cannot leave this correspondence without a word of thanks for your review of The Annotated Lost World. We appreciated your comments. When Al and I embarked on this project our aim was to produce a work that first of all had not been attempted and secondly, and more importantly, to offer a work that would initiate further discussion and debate, not so much on its merits, rather on the whole subject of Doyle's involvement with Professor Challenger and the place of The Lost World in relation to his other writings. I noted with interest your reference to MacInnes' work (a copy of which I own). We did not refer to it primarily because much of what he said had already been covered in earlier material that we used. The conversion rate that you pointed out was a publisher's error and will be corrected in (hopefully) the next edition (I had sent the correct conversion which corresponded to your figure-somehow that figure was reversed by the editors!).
Al and I were pleased how the book turned out-we know that Steve Doyle and Mark Gagen spent a great deal of time with it and we are receiving some very nice comments on not only its contents but its production as well.
I have gathered so much material that I intend to publish further comments on the Berg material. I managed to photograph the entire manuscript of The Lost World held by the Berg collection and intend, at some point, to reproduce it. I have found some interesting material in the manuscript that differs from the published version: for example, in the manuscript our young Irishman is referred to as James H. Malone (not E.D.); Challenger lives at, in one paragraph, 46 Ennsimore Park, W. Kensington, in another paragraph, 40 Ennsimore, W, while the published version lists his address as simply Enmore Park, Kengsington, W.
There is much work to be done and hopefully I can come up with comparisons and completion of the task before I get too much older!
With respect to the Wilfrid Dalziel copy and his posing as Challenger, I knew about its existence when I met with Richard Lancelyn Green in November of '95 at the John Bennett Shaw Symposium held in Minneapolis. At that time Richard had just acquired the volume at auction and we discussed the acquisition at some length. Unfortunately, we were at press at the time and could not insert a comment on its existence. Again I stress that as new information is gathered it is my hope that it will be brought forward and published for the betterment of all of us who study Arthur Conan Doyle and his works.
J. Victor Hamilton (Holywood, Co. Down, Northern Ireland) writes:
May I proffer a minor footnote to Catherine Cooke's fascinating article on Masonic connections (Notes from a Lumber Room, September 1996)?
The murder case referred to on page 25 was the trial in March 1912 of Frederick Henry Seddon and wife for the murder of their lodger, Miss Barrow. The judge was Mr Justice Bucknill. Seddon was defended by the great Marshall Hall. Mrs Seddon was acquitted. Seddon was convicted.
I quote from Marjoribanks's Life of Sir Edward Marshall Hall (London, 1929, pp. 309-10):
- ... knowing the judge to be a zealous Freemason, [Seddon] made it clear to the judge that they belonged to the same brotherhood, whose members bind themselves solemnly to help each other through life, and especially in extremity. 'I declare,' he concluded, 'before the Great Architect of the Universe, I am not guilty, my lord.'
Marjoribanks goes on to describe how this appeal utterly unnerved the judge, who had the greatest difficulty in mastering his emotions sufficiently to proceed with the pronouncing of the death sentence.
It would appear from John Dickson Carr's biography (p. 239) that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had discussed the Crippen case with Sir Edward Marshall Hall. But there would have been little to discuss about Seddon, who was palpably guilty.
Chris Redmond (Waterloo, Ontario) raises the matter of an interesting area for future study:
R. Dixon Smith, writing (in the September 1996 issue) about The Great Shadow, draws attention to 'its vivid description of the Battle of Waterloo'. That battle was, as we know, something of a preoccupation for Arthur Conan Doyle, who returned to it in other Napoleonic novels, to say nothing of the Brigadier Gerard tales and of his play Waterloo, based on the short story 'A Straggler of '15'. One is tempted to see him mocking himself just a little in the Sherlock Holmes tale 'The Six Napoleons', where it is suggested that the criminal must be 'a man who had read deeply about Napoleon' with deleterious effects on his sanity.
Waterloo is not only a historical turning-point but a cultural phenomenon of some interest. I have the privilege myself of living in a city that bears its name; this region of Ontario was settled shortly after the Napoleonic Wars, and there are other place-names in the immediate area that are drawn from its lore, including Wellington County and the villages of Arthur and Wellesley. The University of Waterloo, where I am employed, once used 'Meet Your Waterloo' as the slogan for an open house, and I think not everyone was conscious of the irony, although meeting one's Waterloo is unquestionably an English idiom for disaster that follows hubris. Sherlock Holmes himself used the expression in 'The Abbey Grange': 'We have not yet met our Waterloo, Watson, but this is our Marengo, for it begins in defeat and ends in victory.'
Waterloo may be the most famous battle of all history, but it is by no means the only one to have entered into consciousness with a meaning that goes beyond its military significance. Like a number of other battles before and after it-Culloden and Gettysburg come to mind in particular-it is remembered as a conflict between parties that were, to borrow a phrase from 1066 and All That, respectively 'wrong but wromantic' and 'right but repulsive'. Hence we think of 'Waterloo' as a French loss, rather than as a British and Prussian victory. A prominent researcher from the University of Waterloo was once asked, by a colleague who studied his name-tag at an international conference, 'Why would anyone name a university after a great defeat?' (The inclination to see such a conflict from the losers' point of view does not seem to apply to battles of the 20th century, although there is some tendency now to remember the bombing of Hiroshima in that way. Perhaps, in general, the wars of the present century are both too ideological and still too close to us.)
Some of our readiness, and Arthur Conan Doyle's readiness, to remember Waterloo from the French point of view may be attributed to the greatest, and one of the earliest, descriptions of it in fiction: the several chapters that tell the story, with glory and pathos, in Victor Hugo's Les Miserables. That novel was published in French in 1862 and translated into English in the same year. While I am not aware of any direct evidence that Arthur Conan Doyle ever read it, it seems powerfully likely that he did, and was influenced by it. A useful study is waiting to be done by someone whose French and whose historical knowledge both are much better than my own of the degree to which Hugo's description of Waterloo set the agenda both for ACD's historical writings and for the understanding of Waterloo in the English-speaking world ever since.
| From The Newest Name in Sherlockian / Doylean Literature
Calabash Press The Case Files of Sherlock Holmes to be followed in February 1997 by The Speckled Band BENDING THE WILLOW Forthcoming publications: The Baker Street File The Great Shadow For details of these, and other forthcoming titles, contact: |
The Gap on the Second Shelf (IV)
R. Dixon Smith
XI. An Actor's Duel, and The Winning Shot.
London: John Dicks, 1894. White paper covers, titled red and black.
Following George Newnes's publication of The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes on 13 December 1893, Conan Doyle's sales figures soared. To capitalise on his popularity, John Dicks, the proprietor of Bow Bells, decided to publish 'The Actor's Duel' and 'The Winning Shot', the two Conan Doyle short stories to which he held rights, as a little pamphlet. 'The Winning Shot' had appeared in the 11 July 1883 number of Bow Bells, 'The Actor's Duel', its title changed to 'The Tragedians', followed on 20 August. Dicks found 'The Winning Shot' without difficulty, but 'The Actor's Duel' could not be located, as it had been retitled. What he selected, then, was 'A Palpable Hit' (Bow Bells, 19 September 1883), which bore a similar plot, but which had not been written by Conan Doyle.
The Actor's Duel, and The Winning Shot was published during the week of 7-14 July 1894, with ten drawings by C.P. It is an incredibly rare little booklet, and very few Doylean completists have a copy in their collections. But as only one of the two stories it contains was written by Conan Doyle, only 'The Winning Shot' is of interest here, and that, fortunately, has been reprinted twice. It was collected-together with 'The Tragedians', the tale Dicks failed to locate-in The Unknown Conan Doyle: Uncollected Stories (Secker & Warburg, 1982), edited by John Michael Gibson and Richard Lancelyn Green, and as The Winning Shot: A Textual Reproduction of the Original 1883 Bow Bells Publication (Sherlock Publications, 1995), with an introduction and annotations by Philip Weller, this edition reproduces the original illustration that accompanied its appearance in Bow Bells.
XII. Round the Red Lamp: Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life
London: Methuen, 1894. Red ribbed cloth, titled gilt. First U.S. edition: New York: D. Appleton, 1894. Heavy maroon buckram, titled silver and gilt.
Contents: 'Behind the Times', 'His First Operation', 'A Straggler of '15', 'The Third Generation', 'A False Start', 'The Curse of Eve', 'Sweethearts', 'A Physiologist's Wife', 'The Case of Lady Sannox', 'A Question of Diplomacy', 'A Medical Document', 'Lot No. 249', 'The Los Amigos Fiasco', 'The Doctors of Hoyland', 'The Surgeon Talks'.
The stories in this collection had been suggested by Jerome K. Jerome, editor of The Idler, who was looking for a series to rival the Sherlock Holmes adventures in The Strand Magazine. But Jerome sensed that the series, initially titled 'In a Doctor's Waiting Room' and then 'Tales of a Physician's Waiting Room', would prove too strong for the public taste, and he published only three of the tales he had been sent. The others ran in Black and White, Gentlewoman, Blackwood's Magazine, Illustrated London News, and Harper's Monthly Magazine. Conan Doyle later adapted two of them, 'A Straggler of '15' and 'A Question of Diplomacy' for the stage (as Waterloo and Foreign Policy, respectively).
Methuen published Round the Red Lamp in book form on 23 October 1894, in an edition of 6,000 copies. The second impression, also issued that month, was a Colonial issue, in both cloth and paper. The U.S. edition from D. Appleton appeared the following month, and Bernhard Tauchnitz published the Continental edition in January 1895.
Laurence Hutton's review in Harper's New Monthly Magazine (April 1895) confirmed Jerome's squeamishness:
- It is a collection of fifteen short tales of professional experience, told Round the Red Lamp, by a group of physicians and surgeons. 'The Red Lamp', the author explains, is the usual sign of the general practitioner in England, and it casts, in nearly all these instances, a dazzling glare upon Dr. Doyle's pages which is sometimes trying to the eyes and the nerves. An expression of one of the story-tellers as applied to a story told by somebody else, that it is 'creepy', seems to fit most of the stories in the book.
A first edition of Round the Red Lamp, while somewhat costly, is fairly easily obtained. Its stories, moreover, have been reprinted numerous times, twelve of them in The Conan Doyle Stories (John Murray, 1929), nine in Doctors: Tales from Medical Life (Greenhill Books, 1988) and all fifteen in the cumbersomely titled Conan Doyle's Tales of Medical Humanism and Values: Round the Red Lamp (Krieger, 1992).
XIII. The Parasite
Westminster: A. Constable, 1894. Dark blue ribbed cloth, titled gilt. Light green ribbed paper covers, titled dark blue. First U.S. edition: New York: Harper & Brothers, 1895. Dark grey cloth, titled gilt.
This early science-fiction novel of witchcraft and mesmerism, concerning a lecturer in medicine at Edinburgh and his involvement with Miss Penelosa, a vampiric mesmerist, is an early expression of the interest in paranormal phenomena that first manifested itself when Conan Doyle was practicing medicine in Southsea and which would command much of the author's attention throughout his life.
Constable had commissioned Conan Doyle to supply a short novel to inaugurate their new line, The Acme Library. After serialisation in Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper from 11 November 1894 to 2 December 1895, with illustrations by H.W., and in Harper's Weekly from 10 November 1894 to 1 December 1895, with illustrations by Howard Pyle, Constable brought the book out on 3 December 1894. The Acme Library was not a success; in 1897 they reissued the unsold sheets in canary-yellow cloth with no mention of The Acme Library. Harper & Brothers issued the U.S. edition the same month and used the Pyle illustrations.
Nearly a century later Stephen Knight wrote in Meanjin (July 1981):
- The short novel The Parasite is little known and very hard to get hold of. Largely because Doyle suppressed it; it had only two early reprints, in quite small runs, and one U.S. edition. Doyle dropped it from the impressive list of publications that faces the title page of his books. . . . The disorderly and compulsive force of sexuality reeks and smokes through the writing: it's a brilliant piece of imaginative work, reaching into the dark underside of masculine confidence and domination.
While not as difficult to find as Knight indicates, neither the English nor the U.S. first edition turns up now all that frequently, and both are fairly, although not prohibitively, expensive. The English first is an attractive little book, the U.S. first even more so. There are few modern reprints, apart from its inclusion in The Edinburgh Stories (Polygon Books, 1981), edited and introduced by Owen Dudley Edwards (but this too is out of print and somewhat difficult to find), and Dracula's Brood (ed. Richard Dalby, Equation, 1989). This gap on your shelf may remain hard to fill.
XIV. The Stark Munro Letters:
Being a Series of Sixteen Letters Written by J. Stark Munro, M.B., to His Friend and Former Fellow-Student, Herbert Swanborough, of Lowell, Massachusetts, during the Years 1881-1884.
London: Longmans, Green, 1895. Dark green cloth, titled gilt. First U.S. edition: New York: D. Appleton, 1895. Heavy maroon buckram, titled silver and gilt.
Conan Doyle began writing his semi-autobiographical novel of a young medical doctor while in Switzerland in 1893, and completed it in January 1894. Jerome K. Jerome accepted it for The Idler, where it was serialised from October 1894 to November 1895, with illustrations by George Hutchinson. It is for the strong semi-autobiographical element of Conan Doyle's relationship with Dr George Turnavine Budd that the book is of most interest today. In an interview with Bram Stoker, which ran in the New York World on 28 July 1907, Conan Doyle referred to it as 'a book which, with the exception of one chapter, is a very close autobiography'. Once Dr. Budd is substituted for Dr. James Cullingworth, a very clear picture emerges of the author's youth and early medical practice, a fact that has not escaped the attention of his biographers.
The Stark Munro Letters was published by Longmans, Green on 5 September 1895, with a print run of 7,500 copies. The Colonial issue was released the same day, D. Appleton published the first U.S. edition four days later, in an edition of 9,000 copies, and the Continental edition appeared in Leipzig from Bernhard Tauchnitz the same month.
Stephen Knight isolated Conan Doyle's central theme, the fear of selfish greed, in Meanjin (July 1981)
- The real drama in the novel lies in the struggle between Munro, the image of the young Dr. Doyle, and James Cullingworth. Based on a man Doyle knew well, Cullingworth is vigorous, confident, manic. He's full of ideas to make money, a ruthless aggressive doctor-businessman. ... He and Munro are medical partners, but they fall out and Cullingworth tries to ruin Munro. ... Doyle... had only just lived through a similar crisis. As he was writing that novel he was rich with money from the Sherlock Holmes stories, a series he felt to be a money-grubbing venture, an improper use of his own impressive powers.
First editions of The Stark Munro Letters are expensive but fairly easy to obtain. The novel was reprinted on so many occasions-Longmans, Green included it in their Silver Library line for years that attractive reprints are abundant, from John Murray's cheap Pocket edition of 1924, attractive in its dustwrapper, to Gaslight Publications' 1982 reprint another gap that is easy to fill.
XV. The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard
London: George Newnes, 1896. Scarlet ribbed cloth, titled gilt. First U.S. edition: New York: D. Appleton, 1896. Heavy maroon buckram, titled silver and gilt.
Contents: '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 the Marshal Millefleurs', 'How the Brigadier Played for a Kingdom', 'How the Brigadier Won His Medal', 'How the Brigadier was Tempted by the Devil'.
This first collection of memoirs by the irrepressibly humorous Napoleonic soldier, originally serialised in The Strand Magazine from December 1894 to December 1895, was begun in late 1894, for the author read the first yarn he completed during his American lecture tour that year. Most of the rest of them were written in Davos, Switzerland.
George Newnes published the book on 15 February 1896, in an edition of 7,500 copies. This was preceded by Longmans, Green's Colonial issue on 27 January 1896. The U.S. edition was published by D. Appleton on 8 March 1896, and Bernhard Tauchnitz put out the Continental edition the same month. All were very successful.
Some years later Andrew Lang, writing in Quarterly Review (July 1904), accorded it high praise:
- The best of the author's tales of times past, we have little doubt, are collected in the volume of The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard. This gallant, honest, chivalrous, and gay soldier represents a winning class of Frenchmen of the sword, with a considerable element of sympathetic caricature.
If Beyond the City represented Conan Doyle's most humorous novel, The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard and its 1903 successor, Adventures of Gerard, are indisputably his most hilariously comedic short stories. The Newnes first edition, while fairly expensive, is well worth obtaining, for its handsome scarlet ribbed cloth makes it a prize worth owning. Attractive reprints are almost too numerous to list, from John Murray's Cheap edition of 1912-very striking in its beautiful dustwrapper — to the John Murray and Jonathan Cape 1976 reprint, issued to match their then-recent Sherlock Holmes Collected Edition. Arguably the most desirable edition, however, is the 1995 Owen Dudley Edwards-edited omnibus from Canongate Classics, The Complete Brigadier Gerard: The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard, The Adventures of Brigadier Gerard. Even if you own the first editions, this book belongs on your shelves for the sake of Edwards's introduction alone.
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On The Island
(In the Steps of The Unknown Conan Doyle)
Laurence Price
One of the first books by Arthur Conan Doyle that I read was The Unknown Conan Doyle-Essays on Photography (1982), a collection of articles written by him that had been published in the British Journal of Photography between 21 October 1881 and 30 October 1885.
An essay I particularly enjoyed was 'A Day on the Island', his account of a photographic outing with a friend to the Isle of Wight in the early spring of 1884. This was published on 25 April 1884, while he was still a young doctor living in Southsea.
While on holiday this year on 'The Island' I decided that I would try and retrace the route of Conan Doyle's excursion of over 110 years ago...
Together with his friend, Johnson 'of London', the latter 'clad in a fearful and wonderful Ulster', Conan Doyle set off from Portsmouth aboard the appropriately named paddle steamer Victoria to the island so beloved by that formidable monarch. From the Solent they observed the island's 'undulating wooded hills, and the towers of Osborne peeping above the trees on the extreme right', both views transferred to the plates of the two eager photographers. They duly arrived at the pier head of Ryde pier.
Ryde pier is a very long one...
Indeed it still is, and remains the main entry point onto the island. The steam tramway is, however, long gone, although the island's main railway commences there, running south until it terminates at Shanklin. Ryde itself is a decidedly hilly town, well provided with bookshops, but there remain no horse-and-trap agencies, large or small. Instead there are labyrinthine one-way street systems to confuse the modern motorist. By contrast, Conan Doyle and Johnson engaged an open carriage for the day.
The route east out of Ryde takes one past a noisy fun fair and amusements along the sea front, until the road rises steeply out of the town, where views of open countryside and 'splendid seascapes' still reward the traveller.
Brading is a pleasant little spot...
Following the busy A3055 south one soon arrives at Brading, where Conan Doyle and Johnson made their first main stop. Brading still retains something of its former charm, mainly because of its pleasing Thirteenth century church, with its unusual west tower raised up on open piers, and the old town hall next to it. Regrettably, the Sixteenth century building adjoining them, and now in use as a Wax Museum, has been colourwashed a garish pink, with even gaudier pink shutters.
The Roman villa, its mosaics and remains, the main reason for Conan Doyle's halt (and which had been excavated three years before in 1881) are now housed and 'protected' in an ugly corrugated iron building-a real blot on the landscape! In hindsight, Conan Doyle's quarry description would seem more desirable. From the villa the two companions travelled on to Shanklin.
Curious features on the scenery...
Curious features still abound in the landscape in the vicinity of Brading, but the monoliths that Conan Doyle described are not prehistoric and seem nothing more than relatively recent monuments and obelisks.
Most impressive is a huge monument on nearby Culver Down, south-east of Brading, erected in 1849 to the memory of the Earl of Yarborough, an Admiral and founder of the Yacht Club.
About three miles from Ventnor...
On arrival at Shanklin old village, Conan Doyle was directed to a wicket gate opposite a large inn. The wicket gate is gone but the reason for the halt is still there. The beautiful Shanklin Chine remains as 'fairy-like' as ever-waterfalls, trees, ferns, and rare plants are tastefully floodlit at night. Conan Doyle might well have approved of the underwater PLUTO (Pipeline Under The Ocean) of World War II vintage, which carried petrol down the Chine and across the English Channel to France, at the time of the D-Day landings in June 1944.
The old village is heavily commercialised and full of gift shops, although it appears a bazaar was established as far back as the 1860s. Our two photographers wended their way to Ventnor...
Commend me to the 'Crab and Lobster'...
Sadly, Ventnor's imposing Crab and Lobster Hotel' metamorphosed into the 'King Charles the First Hotel' in 1955, but its glory days are past and it is currently boarded up and derelict. Only constructed five years before Conan Doyle's visit, no more coffee or excellent fare is served from its once elegant rooms; no 'pampered and enervated photographers' can sit by its open windows, sampling the summer breezes and the perfume of exotic flowers. But if so minded, one can still fall out of a front door on the High Street, and fall into the sea, in this steepest of English seaside towns.
The carriage was discarded and the train taken back to Ryde...
One can no longer discard a carriage, or any other vehicle, to catch a train from Ventnor, through the tunnel under St Boniface Down. The line has been dismantled to as far as Shanklin. There it is possible to travel the 8.5 mile electrified section of line back to Ryde pier, which now uses ex-London Transport tube stock.
Up to December 1996 one could still have travelled in genuine Victorian carriages pulled by antiquated tank engines, similar to the ones Conan Doyle would have ridden on in that far-off spring of 1884. Such past glories, however, can still be re-lived on the Isle of Wight Steam Railway-but, like so much else in the late Twentieth century, much has gone forever that once was familiar to Conan Doyle and his generation.
Yet such is the atmosphere of this lovely island that the modern visitor is still able to sense something of the old world charm that the young Arthur Conan Doyle must have experienced on that memorable photographic outing over a century ago.
Notes from a Lumber-Room
Catherine Cooke
About the time I am writing this, a new Sherlock Holmes play is touring the country: Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure at Sir Arthur Sullivan's by Tim Heath. The flier reads, 'The renowned sleuth and his colleague are invited to present two of their best-known adventures as part of a Gala Evening at the home of the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan, and find themselves embroiled in an exploit of more sinister design ... 'I know an optical illusion when I see one', quips Holmes. But does he? Who, in the audience, has the murky past? A tale of love and fear, ruthlessness, revenge, blackmail, murder and scandal-with a touch of operetta!' From what I hear of the play, the promised operetta is not Gilbert and Sullivan, but it is well worth seeing. Holmes is played by Miles Richardson, who I believe is the son of Ian Richardson, himself a more than passable Holmes.
Having not yet seen it, I cannot, of course, review it here, but it did put me in mind of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's own adventure at Sir Arthur Sullivan's. In this case it was not at Sullivan's home, but at what can be legitimately regarded as 'his' theatre, the Savoy, built in 1881 by Richard D'Oyly Carte, specifically for the performance of the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. The theatre was, incidentally, the first public building in London to be lit by electricity, thus avoiding the very high fire risk of other buildings. In October 1890 Gilbert quarrelled with D'Oyly Carte over the costs of staging The Gondoliers and particularly, it seems, over a bill for £500 for new carpets. Sullivan sided with D'Oyly Carte, and the partnership foundered. Though the pair were to collaborate again in two more operettas, Utopia (Limited) in 1893 and The Grand Duke in 1896, things were never the same. Between 1897 and 1903 D'Oyly Carte staged works by other composers, including in 1893 Jane Annie, with music by Ernest L. Ford and a book and lyrics by J. M. Barrie and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Conan Doyle touches on the subject in Memories and Adventures:
- 'Barrie and I had one unfortunate venture together, in which I may say that the misfortune was chiefly mine, since I had really nothing to do with the matter, and yet shared all the trouble. However, I should have shared the honour and profit in case of success, so that I have no right to grumble. The facts were that Barrie had promised Mr. D'Oyly Carte that he would provide the libretto of a light opera for the Savoy. This was in the Gilbert days, when such a libretto was judged by a very high standard. It was an extraordinary commission for him to accept, and I have never yet been able to understand why he did so, unless, like Alexander, he wanted fresh worlds to conquer. On this occasion, however, he met with a disastrous repulse, and the opera, 'Jane Annie', to which I alluded in an early chapter, was one of the few failures in his brilliant career.'
It seems that D'Oyly Carte, having negotiated a reconciliation between Gilbert and Sullivan, one which would lead to Utopia (Limited), needed something to fill his theatre in the meantime. He seems to have been trying out the possibility of pairing J. M. Barrie with Sullivan. Barrie was a successful playwright, known for producing good dramatic 'situations' on stage and for writing well in his novels. Things did not go according to plan. Barrie, according to Conan Doyle, had suffered a bereavement in the family, fell ill while he was working on the commission, and sent an urgent telegram to Conan Doyle asking for help. In fact, he suffered a total nervous breakdown in February 1893, probably brought on by the knowledge he could not possibly cope with the commission, his opening night being less than three months away. He does not seem to have consulted D'Oyly Carte about bringing in a collaborator.
When he arrived, Conan Doyle found the first act written but the second merely sketched out. John Dickson Carr chronicles a conversation between Barrie and Conan Doyle in an amusing style, but one which does not seem all that likely given the circumstances:
- 'What's it about?' he asked Barrie. 'What's the plot?'
- 'Well, the background is Oxford or Cambridge; I don't say which. The scene is a girls' school.'
- 'A girls' school?'
- 'Yes; a seminary. The two heroes, one an officer in the Lancers and the other an Oxford undergraduate, get into the bedroom floor of the seminary....'
- 'Good God!'
- 'No, no, there's nothing in the least offensive about it. The undergraduate,' continued Barrie, with a chuckle which illuminated his face, 'is pursued by the Proctor, with two 'bulldogs'. The Proctor hides in a grandfather clock, and sings a duet with the schoolmistress....'
Well, I suppose a plot about a young man, born on leap day, being apprenticed as a pirate because his nurse misheard the word 'pilot', sounds a bit unlikely when you try to explain it briefly.
Conan Doyle agreed to help and examined the work:
- My heart sank.... The only literary gift which Barrie has not got is the sense of the poetic rhythm, and the instinct for what is permissible in verse. Ideas and wit were there in abundance. But the plot itself was not strong, though the dialogue and the situations also were occasionally excellent.
Very much a curate's egg, in fact. Conan Doyle set to and wrote the lyrics and much of the dialogue for the second act, but he had to work to the already determined plan. He did his best, but was not happy with the result. Neither, as we shall see, were the critics.
Sullivan had already refused to write the music; presumably he had already seen Barrie's draft. He suggested an old pupil of his, Ernest A. Claire Ford.
The kindest comment about Jane Annie suggests that Barrie was working in the new mode of the theatre in the 1890s, where the plot was thin enough to allow established stars to be brought in from the music halls to do their 'turns' and to allow various spectacular dances and the like to pad the evening out to the required length. This was not what the Savoy audiences were used to. Much of the information for these notes is taken from the 1993 article on Jane Annie by Selwyn Tillet, published in Utopia Limited by the Sir Arthur Sullivan Society. His comment on Conan Doyle's contribution is interesting:
- ... the second act (significantly more Doyle's work than Barrie's) has to modern eyes a kind of Monty Python quality. The possibilities of a spectacularly extravagant production and a stage awash with brass bands, puppy dogs, and two sorts of cross-dressing reveal in Conan Doyle unforeseen comic talents of no mean order. Unfortunately this was not quite the Savoy style either.
The second act was in fact set on a golf course. Golf was at the time a peculiarly Scottish sport and the setting can no doubt be put down to Barrie. Conan Doyle, however, put numerous golfing metaphors, terms and puns into his text, most of which were completely lost on the predominantly English audience.
Jane Annie ran for fifty performances, during which time no less than four versions of the libretto were published, each with more desperate revisions than the last. The published vocal score follows none of them completely. Originally intended to open on 8 May 1893, the first night was actually the 13 May, which was Sullivan's birthday. Tillet puts the delay down to an incredible and unprecedented bit of work on Barrie's part, where he took some of the best lines out of the spoken text and made them into marginal notes purporting to be the comments of one of the characters, the ten-year old page Caddie. The part was taken by the twelve-year old Harry Rignold, experienced beyond his years, being from the third or fourth generation of an old theatrical family. These comments had to be read by the audience as the production unfolded, necessitating the house lights being left up. It is not recorded what those of the audience who could not afford the book thought about this arrangement, but the critics took a dim view of it.
Many of the critics seemed at a loss to understand what had gone wrong, given those involved. The Pall Mall Gazette (15 May) is a good example, Jane Annie is a disappointment. It is quite unworthy of the two eminent names... Mr. Barrie's rare humour, rare tenderness, rare power of character-drawing; Mr. Conan Doyle's high spirits, picturesquesness, and unflagging readiness and resource as a story-teller-What had become of all, of any, of these qualities?... one good sketch and some humorous annotations do not make a comic opera.' The Sporting Times (27 May) suggested a reason, 'Messrs Barrie and Conan Doyle have thoroughly exemplified how not to do it... they have left the beaten track to which they have become accustomed and have strayed into a jungle, in which they have hopelessly lost their way.' Vanity Fair was not alone in thinking that Conan Doyle might have done well to bring in a certain Mr. Holmes: 'Their principal character would at least have had the advantage of being popular before that curtain went up, and his great solo song with dance — 'I'm an Amateur Impossible Detective', would have been nightly received with thunderous applause.' But Conan Doyle had already sent Holmes over the Fall of the Reichenbach, even if his public did not yet know it.
Ford did not escape either: witness The Whitehall Review (20 May): 'Of Mr Ernest Ford's music there is little to be said beyond that fact that it affords here and there evidences of an acquaintance with the resources of the orchestra'.
Not all reviews were damning, however. The Times (15 May) felt the departure from tradition worth trying, though it was not certain it would succeed. The plot was good enough, it felt, but the dialogue lacked the brilliance of Gilbert. 'The piece was received with unqualified demonstrations of favour, and it may be expected to run until the ladies of the chorus shall have learnt to hold their golf-clubs a little less like walking sticks, and until the college caps of the students shall have lost their very unrealistic condition of preternatural neatness. This is not the reception most sources indicate; The Times seems to have been trying to be kind.
The piece came off at the Savoy on 1 July. Later that month it went on tour to Newcastle, Manchester, Bradford and Birmingham. The final performance was on 26 August. No revival has ever been attempted or seems likely ever to be.
Conan Doyle expressed his feelings: 'What I hate about a failure like this is that you feel somebody's backed you, and then you've let him down.'
Two lasting things did, however, come out of the fiasco. W. S. Gilbert, reconciled with Sullivan, was working on Utopia (Limited) at the time. He reused the characters and relationships of Miss Sims, the Proctor and the 'bulldogs' from Jane Annie in that operetta, and allowed a few other influences in as well. Better known among Sherlockians is J. M. Barrie's funny little parody, surely one of the favourites in the genre. Barrie had recovered his health and his sense of humour, and sent the work to Conan Doyle in friendship and sympathy.
- 'Allow me,' said Mr. Holmes, with some of his old courage. 'You want to know why the public does not go to your opera.'
- 'Exactly,' said the other ironically, as you can perceive by my shirt stud.' He added more gravely, 'And as you can only find out in one way, I must insist on your witnessing an entire programme of the piece.'
- It was an anxious moment for me. I shuddered, for I knew that if Holmes went, I should have to go with him. But my friend had a heart of gold. 'Never,' he cried fiercely, 'I will do anything for you save that.'
- 'Your continued existence depends on it,' said the big man menacingly.
- 'I would rather melt into air,' replied Holmes, proudly taking another chair. 'But I can tell you why the public don't go to your piece without sitting the thing out myself.'
- 'Why?'
- 'Because,' replied Holmes calmly, 'they prefer to stay away.'
- A dead silence followed that extraordinary remark. For a moment the two intruders gazed with awe upon the man who had unravelled their mystery so wonderfully. Then, drawing their knives—
- Holmes grew less and less, until nothing more was left save a ring of smoke which slowly circled to the ceiling.
- The last words of a great man are often noteworthy. These were the last words of Sherlock Holmes: 'Fool, fool! I have kept you in luxury for years. By my help you have ridden extensively in cabs, where no author was ever seen before. Henceforth you will ride in buses!
- The brute sank into his chair aghast.
- The other author did not turn a hair.
The Parish Magazine Reviews
by Christopher Roden & Christopher Redmond
THE WINNING SHOT
by Arthur Conan Doyle
Annotated and with an Introduction by Philip L. Weller
Sherlock Publications, 1995; 54pp (large format (A4) card covers); £10;
ISBN 1-8737230-20-3
THE CASE FILES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE MUSGRAVE RITUAL
Edited by Christopher Roden & Barbara Roden
Calabash Press, 1995; 167pp; Hardback £16.99 (US$26.50), Paperback £10.99 (US$17.00);
ISBN: (Hardback) 1-899562-15-X, (Paperback) 1-899562-16-8
Considering the Past, Present and Future
I hope you will excuse my closing this issue of The Parish Magazine with a few personal thoughts written shortly before our departure for Canada.
The last few weeks have been a hectic time, but there has still been an opportunity to consider events, recent and not so recent. It's surprising how memories come flooding back when one is sorting through material that has to be packed for shipment or cast aside as no longer needed.
'The Past is a Foreign Country,' wrote L.P. Hartley in his Prologue to The Go-Between, 'they do things differently there'. I wonder whether, given the time over again, I would have done things differently. I wonder whether there would be an Arthur Conan Doyle Society, or if I would have found other things to occupy my time. My guess is that things would be exactly the same, for some things just have to be done: some goals have to be achieved.
It's just over eight years since ideas for the Conan Doyle Society began to take shape, and things have come a long way since then. What prompted me to action in the first instance was a desire to learn more about Conan Doyle-more, at any rate, than I could find from the material that was available to me at that time. Since then it has been a pleasure to come into contact with a great many people who share my interest in Conan Doyle and who, like me, wanted to know more. For it is that thirst for knowledge of our subject that in turn helps our knowledge to grow. As we talk to more and more people, new insights are revealed and factual material becomes available. And as our knowledge develops, so we find that more and more people are prepared to sit down to bring that material together in the form of articles, which in turn stimulate even more thought and new ideas.
I was fortunate to live in Britain while the Society was in its early stages; fortunate to be close to locations where Conan Doyle grew up and spent his life. Fortunate, too, in forming friendships and working relationships with people like Richard Lancelyn Green and Owen Dudley Edwards, who, in their own individual ways, have given me so much in recent years. I feel now that I am fortunate in another way, too: the move to North America will open up new possibilities for my own work on Conan Doyle. Little did I think, when Barbara and I were preparing the Society's edition of Western Wanderings in 1993, that I would so soon be in a position to devote some of my own time to tracing ACD's footsteps across Canada-particularly the time those footsteps spent in Western Canada: for that is what I hope to be able to do.
Far from being a foreign country, the past, for me, is blending with the future. I am sure that I shall soon feel as much at home in Canada as I do in England; I hope that I shall get to know America before too long-I already have many friends there.
As far as the ACD Society is concerned, the past, present, and future are one and the same: whatever country I am in, I shall try to ensure that people are aware, or become aware, of the work we are all doing to keep green the memory of ACD; and I am confident that, given time, many of them will be joining us and sharing the interest which we have in the man and his works.
Christopher Roden
Lasting Impressions
The City
Toronto, Ontario: A city like no other. Safe, clean and accessible. A vibrant multicultural mecca with countless unique attractions — including the Metropolitan Toronto Library's Arthur Conan Doyle Collection.
The Venue
The Arts and Letters Club in historic St. George's Hall, situated in the heart of the city, steps away from excellent public transit and a variety of affordable accommodation.
Your Hosts
The Bootmakers of Toronto, for 25 years the senior Canadian Sherlockian society. When in Canada, Sir Henry Baskerville buys footwear made exclusively by The Bootmakers of Toronto.
The Program
Presentations and entertainments by Canadian and international Sherlockians, with many opportunities to meet with old friends and make new ones in a comfortable, informal atmosphere.
To join our growing mailing list, write:
Lasting Impressions,
30 Elm Avenue, #210,
Toronto, Ontario
Canada M4W 1N5
Registration and program information will be available by Autumn 1996
Lasting Impressions
A Weekend Symposium to celebrate
Sherlock Holmes
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
and
The Silver Anniversary
of
The Bootmakers of Toronto
June 26-29, 1997
Arts & Letters Club
Toronto, Ontario
Canada
- Article courtesy Christopher Roden, founder of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (1989-2003).
