Sherlock Holmes C O L L E C T I O
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March 2006 D S O F N Volume 10 Number 1 E T I H R E F Sherlock Holmes COLLECTIONS “Your merits should be publicly recognized” (STUD) Contents Chronicling “Generous Donations” n The Hound of the Baskervilles, it was noted of Sir Charles Baskerville that “His Chronicling “Generous generous donations to local and county charities have been frequently chronicled Donations” in these columns.” We have the pleasure of highlighting four generous donations, I as unique as the donors themselves, in “these columns.” 1 Lee Karrer Not snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night, or even 100 Years Ago the failure of their home’s central air conditioning system 2 could keep Lee and Katie Karrer from the completion of their journey from Omaha, NE to Minneapolis one hot Friday morning last July. Lee had wanted to visit the 50 Years Ago Sherlock Holmes Collections for some time, and it seemed 3 this would be the day until their air conditioning system failed. Five hours (and a large repair bill) later, Lee realized the library would be closed by the time they arrived in Dorothy Stix Donation Minneapolis. He called Curator Tim Johnson and was happy to hear some good news. Lee wrote “Tim Johnson 4 was good enough to stay after 5:00 pm on a Friday night to take receipt of the gift and allow me to finally see the Photo courtesy of Lee Karrer From the President Collection – it was wonderful!” Lee Karrer 4 Lee, who is the Finance Director for the Archdiocese of Omaha, began reading Sherlockian pastiches about twenty years ago and enjoys searching bookstores for Musings material to add to his collection. His attraction to Sherlock Holmes mirrors his profession: “logic as their core premise” in addition to the “strong characters and strong 4 relationships.” He wrote that he didn’t start out “to be a collector as I always intend to read what I buy – which is unfortunately quite a bit. I was looking for a good home for a first gift and I knew by reputation that the U of M fit that bill. I specialize in pastiches An Update from as the Sherlockian world is too vast and one has too little time to take it all in, unless the Collections you are John Bennett Shaw. I did not know him, but would have liked to have visited 5 him at his home.” The listing of Lee’s donation of his collection covers almost five pages and reflects his twenty year passion for obtaining pastiches. Included are well-known and lesser-known pastiches, Acquisitions including those authored by Val Andrews, Lloyd Biggle, Carole Nelson Douglas, David Stuart 7 Davies, Philip Jose Farmer, Denny Martin Flinn, Mark Frost, L. B. Greenwood, John Hall, Gerard Kelly, Laurie King, Larry Millett, Glen Petrie, June Thomson, and M. J. Trow. Although Lee never had the opportunity to visit John Bennett Shaw’s home, their books now Remembrances reside together in the vaults of the Sherlock Holmes Collections. 8 Continued on page 6 Friends of the Sherlock Holmes Collections 1 “Forerunners of Sherlock Holmes” Gaboriau’s M. Lecoq and Wilkie isn’t accompanied by the name of the Collin’s Sergeant Cuff. author. Index to The Strand Magazine, by Geraldine Beare, neither lists the These men of extraordinary deductive author’s name nor includes the article prowess pre-dated Sherlock Holmes in the subject index under Sherlock who went on to even greater success Holmes. The article, illustrated by than Cuff, Lecoq, Dupin and even 100 H.(Harold) R. (Robert) Millar, a fre- Zadig. The article concludes with: YEARS AGO quent contributor to the magazine, traces the roots of the detective who Not very long ago a writer in one of In the days preceding Christmas of succeeds in solving a crime through the weekly papers declared that the 1890, newsstands in Great Britain deduction. It begins: detective in literature is passing to added a new monthly magazine to decay. It may be doubted, however, their sales racks. The Strand Magazine Sherlock Holmes has achieved that whether, so long asdeduction exer- was founded by George Newnes rarest of all reputations in literature, cises its fascination, he will ever dis- (1851-1910) who had already experi- for he has become a symbol of a appear from the pages of fiction. enced publishing success with his vital force in the language, and has The processes on which he works magazine Tit-Bits and was midway taken his place among the small are, as we have seen, of the most through his membership in Parliament band of men who are types of their remote antiquity, and they have not as a representative of Newmarket. H. calling. For anyone to be described lost their fascination yet. Greenhough Smith (1855-1935) held as Sherlock Holmes is for all the the position of editor for their new world to understand that he is an Tur ning to page 113, we find “Totems monthly fiction magazine, which was individual gifted with an extraordi- for Famous Authors” by Stephen aimed at a mass market and achieved nary sense of logical deduction, the Hallett. He writes “In devising a crest popularity by publishing illustrated ability to reason clearly from cause or coat of arms the Herald’s College works of famous writers, and selling to effect, or from effect back again commonly makes symbolic allusion to for a relatively low price. to cause, and to arrange a series of some principal achievement in the given facts in their ordered new armour-bearer’s career…Why Charles Prepolec, in his website sequence for the elucidation of a should not this excellent practice pre- “Sherlock Holmes Baker Street Dozen”, mystery. Brilliant creation as he was, vail in the literary world?” Hallett felt noted that “Sherlock Holmes and The however, Sherlock Holmes stands that the practical side of this would be Strand Magazine have been irrevocably forth as another example of the the reading public’s ability to identify linked since a fateful July in 1891 saw famous dictum, ‘There is nothing an author by his or her totem, thus the first publication of A Scandal in differentiating the author from others 1 new under the sun.’ Bohemia within its pages. A happy bearing the same or similar names. union that brought together the magic Our unnamed author goes on to state of Arthur Conan Doyle’s words with that “the process of drawing deduc- Hallett’s article states “at a literary sym- the splendid illustrations of Sidney tions from established facts was as old posium recently, a number of novelists Paget, creating the model of Holmes as the sun, and the application of the set about devising totems for them- that would influence generations to principle to literature had fascinated selves and their friends.” Illustrating come. Right up until Conan Doyle’s writers from the earliest ages.” He (or the article are the totems for Rudyard death in 1930, he was a regular and she) cites the Eastern fable as one of Kipling, Thomas Hardy, J. M. Barrie, J. frequent contributor to the magazine, the oldest forms. The Persian book K. Jerome, H. G. Wells, and George which featured not only his Holmes Nigaristan by Muin-al-din Juvaini was Bernard Shaw, to name several, tales but also a wealth of his other written in 1335 and features the char- although it isn’t noted which novelists short fiction and serialized novels.” acter Zadig. From his home on the did the drawing. He wrote “At first The July 1906 issue was no exception, Euphrates borders, Zadig “acquired a blush it would seem as if a pair of and opened with Conan Doyle’s Sir sagacity by means of which he discov- handcuffs would be the most fitting Nigel on page 3. Apparently a story ered a thousand differences where totem for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, if penned by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle other men saw nothing but uniformi- one remembers only the brilliant wasn’t sufficient for the readers of the ty.” The article describes a number of Sherlock Holmes stories; but Sir magazine; on pages 50-56 there is an Zadig’s successful deductions and Arthur has hopes of being best article titled “Forerunners of Sherlock relates how Edgar Allan Poe had “the remembered in another and more clas- Holmes” and Conan Doyle himself is first application of the idea embodied sic vein, of which “The White one of the subjects of “Totems of in these stories” in his creation C. Company” and “Sir Nigel” are exam- Famous Authors,” pages 113-115. Auguste Dupin, followed by Emile ples. Certainly “The Song of the Bow” Continued on page 5 2 Friends of the Sherlock Holmes Collections writers from S. S. Van Dine to Sax Investigator as well as the early Rohmer, Earl Derr Biggers, Van Wyck Sherlock Holmes stories for The Mason, Carolyn Wells, Erle Stanley Strand, and his pictures of Hewitt Gardner and Ellery Queen. Among my resembled his portrait of Mycroft guides were the anthologies edited by Holmes. The similarity of their initials Howard Haycraft and Ellery Queen seemed providential. What if? So I and a history of the genre written by wove my theory that Sherlock Holmes’ 50 Haycraft. In one of the libraries I found brother had been a private detective in YEARS AGO the Irregulars’ 1948 edition of “The his younger days. I quickly wrote my Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle” first draft in pencil in a small notebook MYCROFT HOLMES: bound in blue, edited by Edgar W, and later typed it up on my 1920s PRIVATE DETECTIVE Smith and containing an introduction Remington Portable (revising it as well) REVISITING A CONCEPT by Christopher Morley.