Trenches: the War Service of Sherlock Holmes Info Sheet
Trenches: The War Service of Sherlock Holmes A Facsimile of the Partial Original Manuscript of "His Last Bow" by Arthur Conan Doyle with Annotations and Commentary on the Story and Studies of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle and World War I
Edited & introduced by Robert Katz, MD, BSI and Andrew Solberg, BSI
Order it at: www.bakerstreetjournal.com
288 pages, 10" x 7" hardcover, December 2017 With the manuscript reproduction plus 48 b&w illustrations
Contributor Biographies
Phillip Bergem, BSI (“Birdy Edwards”) lives in Andover, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis, and is a civil engineer with the Minnesota Department of Transportation. He has been a member of the Norwegian Explorers of Minnesota since 1993 and received his BSI Investiture in 2012. Phil has self-published pamphlets on The Strand Magazine and the family history and writings of Arthur Conan Doyle, contributed articles to The Baker Street Journal, the Arthur Conan Doyle Newsletter and Birthday File, Passenger’s Log, Canadian Holmes and the Friends of the Sherlock Holmes Collections Newsletter, has co-edited four books for the Explorers and is currently editor of their newsletter. This is the seventh of the Baker Street Irregulars Manuscript Series to which he has contributed. Phil is an Anglophile who lived in England during his teenage years and is proficient in both British and American English, a skill he finds useful when annotating Holmes.
John Bergquist, BSI (“The King of Scandinavia”), retired from a career as a writer and editor in the corporate world, is associate publisher and production editor of Baker Street Irregulars Press. He has long been active in the Norwegian Explorers of Minnesota, having served as co-leader of its study group and as editor of its newsletter, Explorations, and of its Christmas Annual. He serves as Vice President of the Friends of the Sherlock Holmes Collections at the University of Minnesota, his alma mater, and is on the editorial board of its newsletter. He also is a member of The Speckled Band of Boston, the Sherlock Holmes Society of London, and other scions.
Peter Calamai, M.Bt., BSI (“The Leeds Mercury”) graduated from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario with a B.Sc. (Physics) and extensive experience in student newspapering. That led to more than 45 years in Canadian daily newspaper journalism. A long-time resident of Ottawa, Calamai last year moved to Stratford, Ontario, home of Canada’s largest repertory theatre. He received the BSJ Morley-Montgomery award in 2012. In 2014, he was made a member of the Order of Canada in recognition for his science journalism and championing of adult literacy.
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Catherine Cooke, MA, ALCM, FCLIP, BSI (“The Book of Life”) received an MA in Library and Information Studies from the University of London and is a Fellow of The Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals. She is Joint Honorary Secretary of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London and a member of ASH (“An Idler of the Empire”). She lives in London and manages computer systems and the Sherlock Holmes Collection for Westminster Libraries. She won the BSJ Morley-Montgomery Award for 2005.
Ross E. Davies, BSI (“The Temple”) received a BA from Washington University and a JD from the University of Chicago. He lives in Washington, DC, associates with the Red Circle in that city, and teaches law at George Mason University. The standard epigraph in his course materials is “nothing clears up a case so much as stating it to another person.” Most of his Sherlockian writing has had legal or cartographical angles, or both. He edits The Green Bag (which describes itself as “An Entertaining Journal of Law”) and its satellite publications (www.greenbag.org), and operates a website devoted to Sherlockian toasts.
Maria Fleischhack holds an MA in British Studies and Egyptology and published her PhD thesis on the Representation of Ancient Egypt in Victorian Fantasy Fiction. She works as a lecturer at the Department of British Studies at the University of Leipzig, Germany. Maria has taught several classes on detective fiction, Sherlock Holmes and Holmes-adaptations. She has previously published in the Baker Street Journal and has written a German introduction to Sherlock Holmes titled “Die Welt des Sherlock Holmes.” As a member of the Baker Street Babes, she reviews Sherlock Holmes pastiches and records podcasts on all things Sherlock Holmes with the other Babes.
Andrew G. Fusco, BSI (“Athelney Jones”) was invested in 1972 and is the current General Editor of The Baker Street Irregulars Manuscript Series; this volume is the seventh under his tenure. The first was So Painful a Scandal, published in 2009. Mr. Fusco’s first published Sherlockian work appeared in The Baker Street Journal in 1969, and he has been an avid student of the Canon, commentator and collector for more than 50 years. A practicing attorney in Morgantown, W.V., he has served as informal legal adviser to the last three leaders of the BSI. He is a member of numerous Sherlockian societies, including The Scion of the Four, in which he has served as Commissionaire since 1971. Significantly, he was invested in the Hounds of the Baskerville (sic) directly by Vincent Starrett in 1973.
Clifford S. Goldfarb, LLM, M.Bt., BSI (“Fordham, the Horsham Lawyer”) received a BA in Arts and a JD in Law from University of Toronto and an LLM from the London School of Economics. He is a former Meyers of the Bootmakers of Toronto, and Chairman of the Friends of the Arthur Conan Doyle Collection at the Toronto Reference Library. His Doylean writings include Investigating Sherlock Holmes: Solved & Unsolved Mysteries (with Hartley R. Nathan) and The Great Shadow: Arthur Conan Doyle, Brigadier Gerard and Napoleon. He is counsel to the Toronto law firm of Gardiner Roberts LLP, specializing in charitable and non-profit organizations and has published extensively in the area.
Patricia Guy ASH (“Mlle. Vernet”), BSI (“Imperial Tokay”), graduated with a double major in Art History and Communication Arts from a lackluster university in Kansas and a few years later did a year’s stint in Graduate School at the University of Arizona, where she studied Chinese Art History. She can still tell a Han from a Ming at 50 paces. Then her universe expanded. She has worked in the
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wine trade in New York, London, Paris, Verona, Champagne, Bordeaux and the South of France, and studied oenology and viticulture at Plumpton College and blind-tasting for three years with Master of Wine, Maggie Mc Nie. She wrote Bacchus at Baker Street and edited (with Kate Karlson) Ladies, Ladies: Women in the Life of Sherlock Holmes and has contributed to the Baker Street Journal, the Serpentine Muse and Return to the Reichenbach for The Sherlock Holmes Society of London, as well as to other essay collections. She founded the ASH scion society: The Assorted and Stradivarious of Verona. Patricia has lived in Verona, Italy, since 1991, where she writes about wine, Italy, culture and books for magazines and websites. She reviews for Publishers Weekly.
Robert S. Katz, MD, BSI (“Dr. Ainstree”) graduated from Haverford College and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and specializes in Pathology. He is the Founder of The Epilogues of Sherlock Holmes, current Headmastiff of The Sons of the Copper Beeches, “Billy The Page” in The Baker Street Irregulars, and a member of The Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes (“Dr. Jackson”). He has co-edited four previous books for BSI Press: The Wrong Passage, Irregular Stain, and Nerve and Knowledge (with Andrew Solberg), and Out of the Abyss (with Steven Rothman and Andrew Solberg). Now retired from active practice, he lives in Morristown, NJ.
Michael H. Kean, PhD, BSI (“General Charles Gordon”) is “Cartwright” of the Baker Street Irregulars and has served as the Co-Publisher and Acquisitions Editor of the BSI Press. He is a member of numerous Sherlockian societies from coast to coast and has been an officer of his local group, The Diogenes Club of Carmel-by-the-Sea, for over thirty years. Kean received a BA from Penn State and an MA and PhD from Ohio State. A retired publishing industry executive, he lives in Pebble Beach, CA.
Michael A. Meer, Dr. iur., LL. M. (NYU), BSI (“The Englischer Hof”) lives and works in Switzerland as a lawyer in intellectual property matters and related corporate transactions. He is a member (and former chairman) of The Reichenbach Irregulars (the Sherlock Holmes Society of Switzerland) and of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London. While he actually prefers Sauternes over Tokay (except, maybe, if it came from Franz Josef’s special cellar at the Schönbrunn Palace), his long-lasting enthusiasm for all things Sherlockian and Doylean is not likely ever to get corked.
Glen Miranker, BSI (“The Origin of Tree Worship”) retired from Apple Computer, where he was Apple’s Chief Technology Officer (Hardware), and now lives in San Francisco. His collection includes first editions, manuscript material, artwork, association copies, ephemera, recordings, canonical writings, pirated editions, the definitive collection of Charlie McCarthy (as Sherlock) tea- spoons, and a notebook where Arthur Conan Doyle scribbled the words, “Killed Holmes.” Glen is a member of The Friends of Irene Adler, The Speckled Band of Boston, The Scowrers and Molly McGuires and a founding board member of The Baker Street Irregulars Trust. Glen has given many talks about book collecting, Sherlock Holmes, and Arthur Conan Doyle to the Grolier Club, the Roxburghe Club, the University of Minnesota Library, and the Toronto Reference Library, among others.
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Hartley R. Nathan, Q.C., M.Bt., BSI (“The Penang Lawyer”) received a BA at the University of Toronto (Arts), an LLB at Osgoode Hall Law School and an LLM at University College, London. He was Mr. Meyers of the Bootmakers of Toronto on two occasions and is a member of the Sons of the Copper Beeches. He is the author of Who Was Jack the Ripper and is the co-author (with Clifford S. Goldfarb) of Investigating Sherlock Holmes: Solved & Unsolved Mysteries. He is a partner in the Toronto law firm of Minden Gross LLP where he practices corporate law. He was made a Queen’s Counsel in 1982. He is the author of several legal texts and has published numerous Sherlockian articles.
Rebecca Romney is a rare book dealer at Honey & Wax Booksellers. Rebecca was hired by Bauman Rare Books in 2007 to help launch their Las Vegas gallery. There, she sold rare books ranging in price from $50 to $500,000, including first editions of The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Adventures and The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes and more. She began managing the gallery in 2010, and a year later she started appearing regularly as the “rare book specialist” on the History Channel’s television show Pawn Stars. She is the co-author (with novelist JP Romney) of Printer’s Error: Irreverent Stories from Book History, published in March 2017 by Harper Collins. She published her first Sherlockian article in the Baker Street Journal’s Winter 2015 issue, entitled “The Skeptic’s Guide to Sherlock Holmes.”
Greg D. Ruby discovered Sherlock Holmes and coin collecting when he was in the fifth grade. A life-long native of Maryland, Ruby is a meetings and event-planning consultant. He is active in more than a dozen Sherlockian groups. He is the founder and Gasogene of two different groups – The Sherlockians of Baltimore and The Fourth Garrideb, the only group of Sherlockian coin collectors. He also currently serves as the Commissionaire of the Six Napoleons of Baltimore. In addition to many articles in the numismatic press, he has been published in Irene’s Cabinet and The Watsonian.
Andrew Solberg, MHS, ASH (“Professor Coram”), BSI (“Professor Coram”) received a BA in Philosophy from Brandeis University and an MHS in Health Planning and Administration from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. He lives in Maryland and operates a strategic planning consulting practice for healthcare providers. He has been a healthcare regulator and an adjunct faculty at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. He has published more than 25 Sherlockian articles, including a Morley-Montgomery Award winning article in 2003 (with Donald K. Pollock). He has co-edited four previous books for Baker Street Irregulars Press: The Wrong Passage, Irregular Stain, and Nerve & Knowledge (all with Robert Katz) and Out of the Abyss (with Robert Katz and Steven Rothman). He is also the Chairman of the Board of The BSI Trust.
Marina Stajić, PhD, ASH (“Lady Frances Carfax”), BSI (“Curare”) earned her undergraduate degree in Chemistry from University of Novi Sad, Yugoslavia and subsequently her doctoral degree in Forensic Toxicology from the University of Maryland. She frequently visited Sarajevo and its environs. She is a member of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London, an honorary member of The Sherlock Holmes Society of France (“Mme Fournaye”) and a member of several BSI scion societies. Dr. Stajić retired form her position as Director of Forensic Toxicology of the Office of Chief Medical Examiner, City of New York. She lives in Manhattan with her fabulous felines Altamont and Sigerson.
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Randall Stock, BSI (“South African Securities”) is a product marketing consultant in Silicon Valley, and has presented papers at Harvard and the University of Minnesota on Conan Doyle rarities. He has contributed chapters to eight other Sherlockian books, including six prior manuscript histories, and produces a website, The Best of Sherlock Holmes
Nicholas Utechin, BSI (“The Ancient British Barrow”), and Hon. Member of The Sherlock Holmes Society of London, has been plowing Sherlockian furrows in print since 1966. Ten years later, he became Editor of The Sherlock Holmes Journal, surviving in the role for 30 years. Now retired from working in radio (mainly for the BBC), he enjoys expanding his collection in occasionally curious directions - such as an original sign (4 x 3 1/2 ft.) that hung outside the Sherlock Holmes pub off Trafalgar Square in London for many years. His wife Annie is not a Sherlockian, but understanding.
E.J. Wagner, BS graduated from New York University and is a crime historian, writer and performer of suspense stories. She was founder and moderator of the annual Forensic Forum at Stony Brook University’s Museum of Long Island Natural Sciences. Her work has been published in the NY Times, Lancet, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, and The Smithsonian, among many others. Her book The Science of Sherlock Holmes won the Edgar Award for best bio/critical work in 2007. She is a member of ASH (“The Record of Old Cases”), The Priory Scholars, The Cave Dwellers, The Sherlock Holmes Society of London, the Author’s Guild and NEAFS (the Northeastern Association of Forensic Sciences.) She served as consultant on forensic history for “Sherlock Holmes: The International Exhibition.” She lives on the North Shore of Long Island.
Burt Wolder, ASH, BSI (“Third Pillar from the Left”) received a BA in English from New York University. As a teenager, a letter he wrote to Julian Wolff referred him to Steve Clarkson, who later brought him to his first BSI dinner in 1973. He was invested in 1988. He is a member of The Cornish Horrors, The Speckled Band of Boston, The Sons of the Copper Beeches, the Sherlock Holmes Society of London, and other scions. In 2004, he re-established the Three Hours for Lunch Club, which meets annually in New York in memory of Frederic Dorr Steele and irregularly elsewhere. He is Editor and Co-Host of I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere, the first podcast for Sherlock Holmes devotees, and Trifles, a weekly podcast on Holmes’s cases. A specialist in international communications and corporate speechwriting, Burt lived in Brussels and London as a public relations and marketing executive for AT&T before deciding to pursue lifelong interests in science and healthcare. He is chief marketing officer for EMSI, a medical information services company.
Tamar Zeffren, ASH (“Your Extensive Archives, Watson”), BSI (“The London Library”) is an archivist in the New York area. She is the Archival Collections Manager at JDC, the world’s leading Jewish humanitarian aid organization. A Baker Street Babe, she sits on the faculty of the Priory Scholars and also volunteers for the BSI Trust. She received a BA in English literature and medieval history from Barnard and a MA in archival management from NYU. She is certified as a Digital Archives Specialist by the Society of American Archivists.
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Table of Contents
General Editor’s Foreword and Preface to the Series Andrew G. Fusco vii Pages Floating Upon the East Wind: Co-Editors’ Introduction Robert Katz and Andrew Solberg 1 Manuscript Facsimile of “His Last Bow” with Transcription and Annotations by Phillip Bergem 5 Setting the Stage for a Bow: Talk of War, Automobiles and More Phillip Bergem 71 Making “His Last Bow”: Its History and Manuscript Randall Stock 79 Manuscript Facsimile of “Ypres September 1915” with Transcription and Annotations by Phillip Bergem 93 Conan Doyle’s Poetic View of Ypres Michael H. Kean 109 European Complications of the Utmost Moment Marina Stajić 119 August 1914 — Mycroft Holmes and Pre-War European Diplomacy Ross Davies 127 Holmes and the Politicians 1912: “His Last Bow” Hartley R. Nathan 137 Tinged with Foresight? Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as Prophet of the First World War Catherine Cooke 147 Sherlock Holmes in the Trenches Glen Miranker 159 From Chicago to Buffalo to Germany: Altamont and Irish Secret Societies Burt Wolder 179 Your Old Service — Watson after “His Last Bow” Peter Calamai 187 Germany and Germans in the Canon Maria Fleischhack 193 The Sporting Spy’s Last Bow E.J. Wagner 199 Propaganda – The Secret War Service of Arthur Conan Doyle Clifford S. Goldfarb 205
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“Playing the Game” and the Truth about “His Last Bow” Michael A. Meer 215 Aftermath: Holmes and Watson after November 11 Nicholas Utechin 223 What! Tokay! Patricia Guy 231 “So the last will be first, and the first will be last” Rebecca Romney 237 Holmes and Watson in the Great War: The Decorated Duo of Rathbone and Bruce Greg Ruby 245 “Some Distant but Glorious End”: Further Resources and Research Tamar Zeffren 259 Appendix: Original Illustrations for “His Last Bow” by Frederic Dorr Steele 265 The Usual Suspects: Contributors 269
About the BSI Manuscript Series The Baker Street Irregulars, the literary society focused on Sherlock Holmes and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in cooperation with leading libraries and private collectors, publishes The Manuscript Series to bring to the public facsimile editions of manuscripts and other documents relating to Sherlock Holmes and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, with insightful commentary by talented Sherlockian and Doylean writers. Trenches is the twelfth volume in this series.
Other BSI Publications The BSI also publishes the International Series, the History Series, The Baker Street Journal, and select non-series works. All of these can be ordered at our website.
http://www.bakerstreetjournal.com
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