Published in: Journal

The Sherlock Holmes Journal, Winter 2024

Author Roger Johnson

Published on: January 21, 2025

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 Winter 2024 issue is now out!

You can download the book reviews here:
https://sherlock-holmes.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/I-Am-an-Omnivorous-Reader-Winter-2024.pdf

The front cover background is an illustration by Tom Tanaka for his article “Box and Cox”.

Editorial: “An Impending Change of Government”
*    In 2007, having completed a remarkable 30 years, Nicholas Utechin gratefully handed the editorship of the SHJ to Roger Johnson, who was five years his senior. Now, after a mere 18 years in the post, Roger prepares to retire in favour of a younger man. From January 2025, the Commissioning Editor will be the internationally respected Dr Mark Jones.

Editorial Notes:
*    After seven years, Holmes’s favourite restaurant, Simpson’s in the Strand, is still “temporarily closed”. It is due to re-open some time in 2025.

*   In August, our American friend Michael Homer BSI wrote from County Kerry in Ireland, where he and his wife Nancy attended the funeral of Nancy’s mother. The old lady very much enjoyed the stories of Sherlock Holmes, so it’s curiously appropriate that the family plot is very close to those of families named Doyle and Moriarty.

*   Another of our American chums, Glen Miranker BSI, reported that he, his daughter Emily – also BSI – and Emily’s son Leo all attended the Golden Anniversary of the Sherlock Holmes Collection at the University of Minnesota. In 2020, Leo was made a member of the Speckled Band of Boston – three months before he was born!

*   … and there’s more!

“Appearance Matters” by John McNabb
*   Professor McNabb examines the famous – or notorious – deerstalker cap, which is never named as such in the canonical stories. The “fore-and-aft” depicted by Sidney Paget is just one of several variants, though it’s the one that best suits the great detective.

“Box and Cox: Asmodeus, Lame (Boiteux) Devil’s Roof-Lifting – Doyle’s Web of Allusions” by Tom Tanaka
*    A sequel to the author’s earlier articles: “Holmes is Box; Watson is ‘James’ Cox” and “Nostradamus, Milton, Wilde, Homer – Doyle’s Web of Allusions”

“The Confused Secret: A Reception Historyu of the Country House in ‘The Boscombe Valley Mystery’ and Two Twentieth Century Adaptations” by Dan Street
*   An assessment of the changes in the reader’s, listener’s and viewer’s perception of the English country house over the decades.

“The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans and the State of British Submarine Warfare Development in 1895” by Dr Daniel J Benny
*    The Royal Navy was indeed developing plans for an advanced engine-propelled submarine in 1895

“He Has Certainly a Very Marked Influence” by Greg Darak
*    Sherlock Holmes declared that Mobieur Lecoq, the French police detective created by  Emile Gaboriau in the 1860s, was “a miserable bungler”, but his opinion was not shared by Arthur Conan Doyle.

“Arthur Conan Doyle, The Langham, Sherlock Holmes and MX Publishing” by Steve Emecz
*    The proprietor of MX Publishing tells how his small company came to publish its first Holmes-related book. Thanks to Eliminate the Impossible by Alistair Duncan, MX has since published well over 500 Holmesian titles. 

“The Sherlock Holmes Society of London vs the ‘Gold Bats’ of the P.G. Wodehouse Society” by Paul Gillings
*    For the first time, the two teams were playing cricket (to the laws pertaining in 1895, of course) for a tangible award: the splendid Grits Trophy, commissioned by the Sherlock Holmes Society of London as a posthumous tribute to our late member, Nicholas Utechin, BSI. The first winners were the Gold Bats, who handed the cup back to the Sherlock Holmes Society of London for safe keeping.   

“‘One of Our Great University Towns’ – The Society’s Trip to Oxford” by John McNabb
*    A few have have argued for other universities, but the general consensus is that Holmes, whether or not he completed his degree, studied at either Oxford or Cambridge. This past September, for the first time since 2011, the Society descended upon Oxford, and, rather unusually, the Controversity – as Nick Utechin dubbed it – was hardly mentioned. Members stayed at the magnificent Christ Church College, whose lovely chapel is also the city’s cathedral. Features of the weekend included entertaining lectures, boating on the Isis, a Dorothy L Sayers/Lord Peter Wimsey walk, a visit to the Pitt Rivers Museum, and lunch at The Chequers.

“Silent Sherlock: The Return of Eille Norwood” by Roger Johnson
*    From 1921 to 1923 Eille Norwood played Holmes in 45 short and two feature-length films, but until recently, it was generally believed that only half a dozen or so of the series  still existed. In fact the BFI has prints of every one. and has begun a restoration project. During the BFI’s London Festival in October, the initial results – three of the short films – were shown at Alexandra Palace, with live musical accompaniment. It was a triumph!

Transactions, by Laura Sparks and Roger Johnson
*    On Thursday the 23rd May at the Wellington Hotel in Pimlico, following the AGM, David Houle gave an intriguing illustrated talk called “Disjecta Membra”, in which he described the tragic family background of the Holmes brothers. Whether or not one believed in his thesis, the historic items in his photographs were very impressive. 

*    The following day we visited Bow Street Police Museum, housed in what was formerly London’s most famous Police Station. Next door, within the same building, was the Magistrates’ Court, now a luxury hotel. Although Court no. 2 is now used for hotel functions, its original purpose is easily recognisable. Our visit also included a very interesting guided walk around the local area, including Drury Lane, Covent Garden and Bow Street itself.

*    On Saturday, members gathered in the “spying room” at the Morpeth Arms, near Vauxhall Bridge, where games-designer Dave Neale introduced us to a wide variety of Holmesian board games. There was something for players of almost any age or ability. Over a hearty lunch buffet, the landlord told us about the pub’s fascinating history – and then it was time to divide into two teams and test our own ability as members of Holmes’s Baker Street Irregulars.

*    We rounded off the weekend on Sunday, at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich, beginning in the Undercroft Cafe with “The Naval Treat Tea”, an entertaining quiz, and an no less entertaining reading from “The Naval Treaty”, by the actor Jonathan LeBillon. The Old Royal Naval College is a UNESCO heritage site, and it’s become one of the world’s most popular filming locations – including for Guy Ritchie’s two Sherlock Holmes films.

*    On the 17th October, we returned to the Wellington Hotel for  the annual Richard Lancelyn Green Lecture, given by Proessor Sarah Wise whose topic was “The Blackest Streets of Conan Doyle’s London”. She transported us back to Victorian times via Charles Booth’s famous “Poverty Maps”. Thanks to Booth and his team of social investigators, we have a clear and accurate idea of what life was really like for the populace of London in Holmes and Watson’s time. “Not unlike Holmes himself, Booth had a methodology, framework of discovery and system of cross-referencing to fill in his data gaps… He charted the multilayered mysteries of London and attempted to put a kind of order into the chaos of the capital.”   

(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
*     “It is sometimes considered to be helpful to insert so-called ‘trigger warnings’ into literary texts in advance of passages that may cause readers of exceptionally delicate sensitivity undue anxiety or distress.
      “Disclaimer: The Publishers hereby disclaim all responsibility for any unpleasant outcome to readers who have failed to ensure they are medically robust, following failure to obey trigger warnings. (Signed) Fordham, McFarlane and Sutro, Solicitors-at-Law, acting on behalf of the publishers of a trigger-warning-fortified edition of Mr Sherlock Holmes’ Adventures in the Strained Magazine…”

“It Is With a Heavy Heart…” Obituaries by Roger Johnson
*    Those we have lost include four notable actors: Donald Sutherland, who in 1979 played the spiritualist medium Robert James Lees in Murder by Decree, with fellow-Canadian Christopher Plummer as Sherlock Holmes; Barbara Leigh-Hunt, who in 1974 was the handsome, malicious Madge Larrabee to John Wood’s Holmes in Frank Dunlop’s superb revival of William Gillette’s play Sherlock Holmes; Dame Maggie Smith, Dora Charleston in Neil Simon’s Murder by Death (1976; a final scene with Keith McConnell and Richard Peel as Holmes and Watson was cut) and in 2018 the voice of Lady Bluebery to Johnny Depp’s Sherlock in Sherlock Gnomes; and Timothy West, who was Watson to John Moffatt’s Holmes in Sherlock Holmes vs Dracula on BBC Radio 4 in 1981; and in 2002 he was the Colonel, also on Radio 4, in The Madness of Colonel Warburton, the first of Bert Coules’ Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes with Clive Merrison.
*     Others we have lost, less famous but no less valued, are Anne Jordan, Stephen Almaseanu, Dr Wladimir Bogomoletz and Kelvin I Jones.

“David Stuart Davies” 
*    Eight of his friends pay tribute to an outstanding Holmesian scholar, playwright, author and humorist, who died in August.

“I Am an Omnivorous Reader”
*    Book reviews by Catherine Cooke, Herman Reichenbach and Roger Johnson.

“Wigmore Street Postbag”
*    Letters to The Sherlock Holmes Journal.