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The Sherlock Holmes Journal is published twice a year, usually in June and December.
It is the official voice of the Society and contains its transactions, news and reviews, letters and editorial notes. It is also home to the most erudite scholarship, publishing learned articles from Holmesians world-wide who have something to say on any aspect of Sherlock Holmes and his world. It has been appearing without a break since the first issue in May 1952. If you’re missing back issues of the Journal, check what’s available from the Society’s shop at https://sherlock-holmes.org.uk/shop/archives/journal-archive/. There are issues back as far as 1972, for just £3.00 each!
The Summer 2025 issue is now out!
You can download the book reviews here:
I Am an Omnivorous Reader – SHJ Summer 2025
The front cover background is an illustration by Frederic Dorr Steele for “Shoscombe Old Place”.
Editorial: “An Impending Change of Government”
* The Journal‘s new Commissioning Editor, Mark Jones, introduces himself and states his firm belief that Sherlock Holmes was a proud Yorkshireman – as is Dr Jones.
Editorial Notes:
* At the Baker Street Irregulars’ Annual Dinner in January, our esteemed Honorary Treasurer Judi Ellis was invested into the BSI as”The Carlton Club”. Earlier that Day, our distinguished Swiss member Michael Meer won the Morley-Montgomery Award for his article on the 1893 “Examination Paper” in the Winter 2024 Baker Street Journal. And the previous day, our invaluable Meetings Secretary Catherine Cooke won the ACD Society’s Lifetime Service award.
* On Valentine’s day, the P.G. Wodehouse Society – our friendly rivals in the annual Victorian Cricket Match at West Wycombe – launched the World of Wodehouse podcast.
* In August, Ben O’Keefe’s award-winning Adventures of the Improvised Sherlock Holmes will make its tenth appearance at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
* … and there’s more!
“Untangling the Skein” by Matthew D. Hall
* The author’s researches reveal previously unpublished facts relating to the creation of A Study in Scarlet.
“Physician, Heal Thyself: Kipling’s ‘The House Surgeon’ and Arthur Conan Doyle” by Mark Alberstat
* In November 1894, Conan Doyle first visited his friend Kipling in Vermont. Years later, their game of golf, played over frozen ground, inspired a rare and unusual story.
“’Two Old Hounds Like Watson and Myself’ – Victorian Canophilia and Sherlock Holmes” by Ron Levitsky
* “While dogs in the Sherlockian Canon are a popular topic for study, many of these studies are catalogues identifying the various canines in the Canon. This article seeks to explain the importance of dogs in Victorian society and, consequently, how this love of dogs influenced Sherlock Holmes and his relationship with Dr Watson.”
“The Afterlife: Holmes in New York and Ancient Egypt” by Daniel Friedman, Eugene Friedman and Robert Brier
* “Sherlock Holmes’s death at the Reichenbach Falls and his subsequent resurrection in ‘The Adventure of the Empty House’ remain two of the most famous moments in detective fiction. Yet, during the Great Hiatus, Holmes was far from absent from the eyes of his devoted readers. For those who mourned the loss of their hero, pastiches and parodies became a way to keep his spirit alive.”
“Three Adventures of Sherlock Holmes with the Pinkerton National Detective Agency” by Ross E. Davies
* Among other curious facts, we learn that the first US publication of The Valley of Fear has Birdie Edwards – alas Jack McMurdo – working for the ‘Bretherton’ detective agency. Also, that there is currently a senior officer of the Pinkerton agency called Birdie Edwards…
Transactions, by Laura Sparks, Giles Phillips and Mark Jones
* On the 14th November 2024 at Queen’s Gate House, the Annual Film Evening bergan with a video message from Matthew J. Elliott, who had devised the programme but unable to be present. First we saw a clever reconstruction of The Second Stain, one of the missing episodes from the 1968 BBC TV series with Peter Cushing and Nigel Stock. Next was an unplanned addition to the programme: Fixed Point: The Life and Death of Sherlock Holmes, made during lockdown and shown as a tribute to the late and greatly missed David Stuart Davies. The main feature was The Case of Marcel Duchamp, a full-length British feature from 1984, in which Holmes & Watson break their retirement to consider the life and work of the French artist. As with Duchamp’s own work, one wonders whether the film should be taken seriously. Or is it all an elaborate joke?
* On the 11th January this year, thanks to our sponsor Gareth Bacon MP, the Annual Dinner – officially dubbed A Turkish Delight – was held as usual in the Members’ Dining Room of the House of Commons. The Guest of Honour, Andrew Finkel, is an award-winning journalist based in Istanbul; he is also the author of a novel, The Adventure of the Second Wife, inspired by the last great Ottoman Sultan’s fondness for the chronicles of Sherlock Holmes. The second speaker was Dr Mark Jones, the Journal‘s new Commissioning Editor. During the evening, the Chairman announced that the Society’s Merchandising Officer Paul Gillings was this year’s winner of the Tony Howlett Award for outstanding service, and that Roger Johnson was now an Honorary Member of the Society.
* The May Weekend began on the 22nd, at the Wellington Hotel with the AGM, followed by the presentation by Mark Jones of the Tony & Freda Howlett Literary Award to Mlle Laurence Pernet for her excellent article “Shaving Sherlock” in the Autumn 2024 issue of The Baker Street Journal. Then it was time for Stephen Wallace to chair a question-and-answer session with Nicholas Briggs, Jonathan Barnes and Ken Bentley of Big Finish audio productions, which plans to add to its already impressive list of Holmesian plays.
* Next day members and guests could enjoy afternoon tea in the Great Court of the British Museum, and the day after that there was the opportunity to explore parts of Baker Street Station that are rarely accessible to the public. Finally, on Sunday the 25th, a group of 15 or so followed Richard Burnip on a walking tour called Sherlock Holmes Goes Home, through parts of Marylebone that Holmes, Watson and Conan Doyle knew well. Richard is a guide for the famous London Walks company, and a long-time member of our Society. Starting in Oxford Circus, the route took in the hotel where Conan Doyle and Oscar Wilde were commissioned to write stories for Lippincott’s Magazine, the house where Dr Conan Doyle waited for patients who never materialised, the corner where Holmes was nearly run down by a furiously driven two-horse van, the art gallery that has thirty paintings by Holmes’s great-uncle, the site of the true Empty House, and so many other places of interest, before finally reaching Baker Street.
“A Hiatus in India” by Calvert Markham
* A necessarily brief summary, with a selection of attractive photos, of the Society’s long-considered two-week pilgrimage. A full – and fully illustrated – account is in hand.
(There are photographs of these and others of the Society’s events in our Flickr gallery at https://www.flickr.com/photos/shsl/albums/.)
“It Seems to Me” by Auberon Redfearn
* “Much is made nowadays of the potential value of ‘artificial intelligence’. Does this phenomenon have any direct reference to the Sherlock Holmes canon? Or perhaps the other way round?” Our wittiest columnist investigates.
“It Is With a Heavy Heart…” Obituaries by Roger Johnson and Mark Jones
* A fuller tribute to the late writer and researcher Kelvin I. Jones than we could provide in the last issue, and farewell to two more of our members: Oscar Ross, co-founder of The Crew of the S.S. May Day (The Sherlock Holmes Society of Northern Ireland) and Bob Griffiths, whose remarkable experiences in the Royal Artillery should be properly recorded. Farewell also to Harold “Tyke” Niver, who was known to thousands for his portrayal of William Gillette at Gillette Castle in Connecticut, with his wife Teddie as Helen Gillette.
“I Am an Omnivorous Reader”
* Book reviews by Paul M. Chapman, Ross E. Davies, Roger Johnson and Mark Jones.
“Wigmore Street Postbag”
* Letters to The Sherlock Holmes Journal.
