Sherlock Holmes Alpha Omega

The other night my son and I attended the 20th anniversary meeting of the Epilogues of Sherlock Holmes, a Scion Society of the Baker Street Irregulars, based in Chatham, NJ.  We have not been members for 20 years--only about three--but there was a terrific turnout of members new and old and a fine evening was had by all.

Sydney Paget's famous imagining of Sherlock Holmes

The evening's subject was the beginning and the end of Sherlock Holmes.

Bob Katz, the moderator, sets the discussion subject for each meeting: two of the Sherlock Holmes stories as penned by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle--er, I mean as penned by Dr. John H. Watson and brought to publication, with some slight editing, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  On this night, for the anniversary of the Epilogues' second decade, Bob chose the very first and last chronoligical and canonical stories of the detective: A Study in Scarlet (1886) and His Last Bow (1917).  The internal story lines place the events described in each story in the years 1878 and 1914, respectively.  There are numerous stories published after 1914, collected in The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes (1927), and there is the lesser-known novella, The Valley of Fear published in 1915; but both these volumes collect adventures that took place years before publication, and years before the events related in his His Last Bow.

In some respects the stories are completely dissimilar.  Separated by years A Study in Scarlet tells the story of the first meeting of Holmes and Watson, as told by Watson in the first person, as all but four stories in the Canon are related, and sets into motion the settings and tropes that will be a part of the stories, in one form or another, throughout their long run.


His Last Bow is not even a mystery.  It's a patriotic coda penned to let the British public know that Holmes had ended his retirement, had temporarily put aside the beekeeping in Sussex, and was re-united with his Watson to take on the "Hun" and all other threats to the Crown.  It is also told from an omniscient point-of-view--one of only two stories written entirely in that perspective, although large sections of A Study in Scarlet and the The Valley of Fear also temporarily depart from Watson's voice to provide substantial exposition.   It is of interest to some scholars that both are set in the western territories of the United States (Utah and California, respectively).

And yet, between these two stories every other Canonical adventure of the world's first consulting detective and his Boswell can be found.  One remarkable thing about these two bookends is that, as someone at the Epilogues meeting noted, almost everything we know about Watson and most of what we know about Holmes is laid out in the first story.  By the second story, which takes place 30 years later, the characters are older but largely unchanged.  This has been noted by some critics of the Sherlock Holmes tales as literature: that Sherlock Holmes is a catalog of details (including a list of attributes that Watson lays out in the first story) not an actual human being.   He doesn't ring true as a person to such critics.

That said, there are likely millions of people in the world who delight in treating the stories as if they were actual records of real cases---"the Canon."  The core activity of the Baker Street Irregulars, and its many loosely affiliated "scion societies," has been since the days of founder Christopher Morely to meet and debate the inconsistencies of the stories as sometimes conflicting historical records.

There is also a subset of people who doe believe Sherlock Holmes to be a real person.  Hence the thousands of letters that used to show up at the Abbey National Bank's headquarters in London, at 221 Baker Street.   That address did not exist in Sherlock Holmes time and once the street was extended, and a building occupied the famous address, it began to receive letters from all over the world requesting information and help from Sherlock Holmes.  So much so that the Abbey Bank appointed a "secretary to Sherlock Holmes" to keep track of an if need be answer the correspondence.

The bank vacated the location in 1999 leaving free the address, and the mail drop was inherited by the Sherlock Holmes Museum, a distinctly commercial operation opened in 1992 down the busy thoroughfare at 231 Baker Street.

It's possible many of the people I've met at Sherlock Holmes functions over the years--even some of them at the Epilogues--believe in their heart of hearts that Sherlock Holmes was a historical figure but it's safe to say that he majority are simply indulging in the great game of Sherlockian Scholarship.

Oliver Wendel Holmes, Sr., the essayist and father of the Supreme Court justice, said we are all tattooed with the colors of our tribe while we are still in the cradle.

Someone at the Epilogues meeting described Sherlockians as a tribe.  But fan tribes are more self-selecting.   Or are they?   When I was growing up my dad knew of and liked the Sherlock Holmes movies as he liked all the old movies of his youth but as far as I know he was not an aficianado of the literary Holmes.  I came to Holmes through the movies and I do credit hours spent with my father watching the Late Show for my love of old films.

And my dad and mom bought me my first complete set of the stories, The Doubleday edition in two volumes on my 13th Christmas.  I have multiple editions, now, collected over the years but my dog-eared Doubleday volumes are still my reading copies.

The version of "The Canon" in widest modern circulation.

I'm not sure about my son.  He would have come upon Holmes himself but he certainly received his first exposure to the world of Baker Street through me.  And I gave him his first copy of the Canon, a one-volume reprint of the Doubleday edition, when he was 13.  Three years later he's a pretty good Sherlockian.

It's also a bonus for me to experience with him, vicariously, the one thing I can no longer do as he wends his way through the 60 stories: read them for the first time.



The interesting thing about the Tribe of Sherlock Holmes is that it was assembled before there was an internet, is still world-wide and interconnected and, at its core,  predominantly literary.  While many people come to Sherlock Holmes through the films the tribe of Sherlock Holmes predates these adaptations--predates cinema itself.   Films act as a feeder, bringing new enthusiasts to the stories.  I enjoyed Robert Downey's take on Sherlock Holmes (as "action hero") and look forward to the new BBC production (due this October) set in contemporary London, featuring a smart-phone wielding Holmes and a Dr. Watson who records their adventures in blogs, rather than in accounts to The Strand magazine.  (Suggesting he has successfully monetized the internet.)

In their own way, these two takes on Holmes and Watson are no more revolutionary than earlier Holmesian portrayals.  The older films, particularly the Universal ones, were frequently "action films" and the Canon itself has intermittent bouts of violence.  And Holmes has been updated, successfully, before to the "present day" as in the WWII films in which Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce took on the Nazi menace, starting with The Voice of Terror, which borrowed character names and the rousing, patriotic closing speech from His Last Bow.

"There's an east wind coming, Watson."
"I think not, Holmes. It is very warm."
"Good old Watson! You are the one fixed point in a changing age. There's an east wind coming all the same, such a wind as never blew on England yet. It will be cold and bitter, Watson, and a good many of us may wither before its blast. But it's God's own wind none the less, and a cleaner, better, stronger land will lie in the sunshine when the storm has cleared."

Vincent Starrett famously and artfully stated that part of the appeal of Sherlock Holmes is that it is "always 1895."  I think that implies that we all read Holmes to escape from the present--a present that we may be ill-equipped to handle.  There may be some truth to that--all popular entertainment is an escape from something.   Though Holmes has always been and continues to be adapted for later renderings it's true that for the purest of Sherlockians, Holmes riding to the scene of a crime in anything other than a hansom cab produces a jolt akin to replacing the chariot race in Ben-Hur with Nascar.

But for fans of all stripe there remains the question of why, almost 125 years after the first published case and 84 after his last, so many people, all over the world, meet to debate, discuss and discover ever new variations on a very old theme.

What is the most significant constant, from A Study in Scarlet to His Last Bow?  That Holmes is still brilliant, invincible, and that he still gets his man?  Or is it because steadfast and true, John H. Watson is still by his side?  That must be it.  It's apparent in the first words of the speech quoted above: "Good old Watson!" The storm is coming but I am confident I can face it with my friend by my side.

We talk about the "Sherlock Holmes stories" but they are properly the "Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson stories."  The two stories in which Watson is absent have never felt right.   I can't think of team in leterature that is so indivisible:  even Batman (stretching literature, here) doesn't seem as forlorn without Robin.   Don Quixote and Sancho Panza may be equally so perfect a pair but that is only in a single story (though possibly the greatest story ever told).

Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce in their most famous roles

Even when the films play fast and loose with the literary portrayal of Watson, more often than not making him a buffoon, they never dispense with the doctor (which belies the notion that he only exists in the printed page to tell us the story) and the friendship is preserved.  See the warmth still evident in the portrayal of Nigel Bruce in even his most comically divergent turns with Basil Rathbone's Holmes.

It is friendship.  A friendship that transcends the ages that links every Sherlock Holmes story from A Study in Scarlet to His Last Bow; from William Gillette's Sherlock Holmes (play, 1899 and film, 1916) to Robert Downey's Sherlock Holmes (film, 2009).  It links Christopher Morley to the present-day "Wiggins," or head of the Baker Street Irregulars, Michael Whelan.  Some unnamed 13-year old in 1890's London, to another in 1930's Shanghai, to Bob Katz in Queens receiving his copy of the Canon as a bar mitvah present.  And to my son receiving his copy from his dad three years ago.

The duo per Sydney Paget

So here's to absent, present, and future friends of the Epilogues of Sherlock Holmes of northern New Jersey.  Happy 20th anniversary.  You've accomplished much for such a young organization.