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THE DISTRICT MESSENGER The Newsletter of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London Roger Johnson, Mole End, 41 Sandford Road, Chelmsford CM2 6DE no. 134 14th September 1993 A direct link with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was severed in late July by the death at 83 of John Murray VI , chairman of Conan Doyle's own publishers. Older members of this Society may recall him attending the occasional annual dinner and contriving to look dignified while wearing a hideous tartan dinner-jacket. They don't make publishers like Jock Murray any more. Another notable loss to our world has come with the death of Charles Merriman , one of the senior members of the Society, which he served with quiet distinction in various capacities before age and ill-health obliged him to retire from the centre stage. He was an authority on the Dartmoor of Sherlock Holmes, and was invested into the Baker Street Irregulars in 1963 with the canonical honorific of "Colonel Hayter". The tradition is upheld by Charles' sister Shirley Purves. Judge S. Tupper Bigelow , one of Canada's (and the world's) leading Sherlockian scholars, died in June. Among his many accomplishments, he had been Chairman of the Ontario Racing Commission, "and an early promoter of various runnings of The Silver Blaze on both sides of the border,” adds Peter Blau. Stewart Granger , remembered as a peerless heart-throb by older movie-goers, and as a silver-haired patriarch by those of the television age, died recently. BBC TV wisely chose to pay tribute by showing his superb swash-buckler Scaramouche instead of reviving his ill-judged stab at portraying Sherlock Holmes in Universal's 1972 Hound of the BaskervillesBaskervilles. The Sherlock Holmes Society of London is having a special First Day Cover produced by Covercraft to mark the issue of five 24p stamps depicting scenes from the Holmes stories. The cover will feature all five stamps on a specially designed envelope, which has a reproduction of the Paget illustration for "The Final Problem", showing the struggle at the Reichenbach Falls, and a smaller picture, in colour, of Holmes reading a note. The stamps will bear a special day of issue postmark (12th October) applied to the covers by the Royal Mail. The Society's logo is also included in this exclusive production. Price is £5.00 per cover to members, £6.50 to non-members (overseas applicants should add £1.00 per cover for airmail postage). Orders must be accompanied by a sterling postal order or cheque (drawn on a British bank), payable to Covercraft and sent to them at P.O. Box 432, Beckenham, Kent BR3 3SZ. Allow at least 14 days for delivery after the date of issue. Those qualifying for the lower price should state that they are members, or put the initials S.H.S. on the outside of their envelopes. The British Philatelic Bureau (Edinburgh EH3 5TT; phone 031-550 8900) offers First Day Covers with a choice of postmarks: either the Bureau itself or London N.W.1 - the postal district encompassing 221B Baker Street. The charge per cover is £1.77 to inland addresses or £1.51 to overseas addresses (no VAT!), and the closing date for First Day Covers is the 12th October. The BPB also offers the five stamps in a Presentation Pack (no. 241) at £1.50, and a set of postcard-sized colour replicas of the stamps at £1.05 the set. Overseas collectors note: they take plastic (Access/Mastercard or Visa). As promised, Val Andrews' new Sherlock Holmes novella is now out, and like his very first (TheThe Wood Green Empire Mystery by "W. Lane") it involves the great detective with the world of magic and illusion, a subject on which the author is an authority. Sherlock Holmes andand the Egyptian Hall Adventure (Breese Books, 164 Kensington Park Road, London W11 2ER; £4.95) is very nicely produced, in strong card covers. The Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly housed the world-famous conjurers Maskelyne & Cook (later Maskelyne & Devant). John Nevile Maskelyne and David Devant play important roles in this tale of theft and murder in the theatre, which begins with the conjuror Cyrano and concludes with the sudden appearance of someone of whose existence we had not been told - though we should have been able to deduce it! Signed copies are available direct from Val Andrews (1 George Court, 67 Willoughby Lane, London N17 OQZ) at £4.95 post-free, or $10.00 overseas airmail. Signed copies may also be had of Sherlock Holmes and the Greyfriars School Mystery at £6.50 or $12.00 overseas airmail (see DM 133). June Thomson's third volume of Holmes stories appeared yesterday. This is The Secret Journals of Sherlock Holmes (Constable & Co. Ltd, 3 The Lanchesters, Fulham Palace Road, London W6 9ER; £13.99). June Thomson is an experienced and successful writer of detective stories, creator of the Essex policeman Inspector Finch (Inspector Rudd in the U.S.A., for reasons too complex to go into); this may or may not have some bearing on the excellence of her Holmesian apocrypha. As with The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes each case derives from one of Dr Watson's tantalising hints: these seven tales relate the truth about the peculiar persecution of John Vincent Harden (spelt here as Hardern), Colonel Warburton's madness, the Addleton tragedy, the Dutch steamship Friesland, the mortal terror of old Abrahams, the Smith-Mortimer succession, and the colossal schemes of Baron Maupertuis. It's fun to have Holmes and Watson encountering the great and famous, in the tradition set by Nicholas Meyer, but June Thomson's stories particularly appeal because they are so like Sir Arthur's own. As a bonus, there's a discussion of the identity of the second Mrs Watson. Brimax (c/o Reed Distribution Services, Northampton Road, Rushden, Northants. NN10 9PU; phone 0933 410511; fax 0933 410321) publish children's books. A couple of weeks ago they published The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The book costs £7.99, and contains only five stories! So why bother with it? Because it's beautifully presented, that's why, and particularly because almost every second page is devoted to a deliciously accurate and atmospheric illustration in full colour by Eric Kincaid, whose images derive from the work of Sidney Paget without imitating it. If you can't find it in your local bookshop, you can buy it direct from Reed Distribution Services, at £7.99 plus £2.50 postage (£3.00 surface mail overseas). They'll accept credit cards. Quote the title and the ISBN 0861129725. Dr Watson Books (P.O. Box 1888, London E3 5PJ) have published a facsimile of the extremely rare 1888 Ward Lock edition of A StudyStudy In Scarlet. This was the first separate publication of the seminal Sherlock Holmes story, and is especially notable for the six illustrations by the author's father, Charles Altamont Doyle. Great care has been taken to achieve an exact reproduction of the Bodleian Library's copy. The Presentation Edition is limited to 100 numbered copies each in dust-wrapper and morocco-covered slip-case (£150.00 or $225.00 each). The Special Edition is limited to 500 numbered copies, each in dust-wrapper and cloth-covered slip-case (£38.00 or $57.00 each), All prices include postage world-wide. (Philip Weller tells me that Dr Watson Books will refund 10% of the price to the buyers of the first 10 copies of the Presentation Edition and the buyers of the first 100 copies of the Special Edition.) Sherlock Publications are the sole agents for Ronald B. De Waal's momentous The Universal Sherlock Holmes outside the United States and Canada. This definitive bibliography will incorporate the full contents of Ron De Waal's two previous volumes, plus the 10,000 new items compiled since their publication. Future additions will be produced as supplements. The new work will comprise 5 volumes, approximately A4 size, with a total page count of about 1500. The final price depends on the number of advance orders received before 1st December 1993 for distribution on or shortly after 15th January 1994, but will not exceed the equivalent of $100.00 + postage. The Universal Sherlock Holmes will not be available through bookshops. To order, send a deposit of £20.00 sterling per copy (cheques to Sherlock Publications) to 6 Bramham Moor, Hill Head, Fareham, Hants. PO14 3RU. The Franco-Midland Hardware Company will celebrate the centenary of "The Stock-broker's Clerk" by offering First Day Postcards directly mailed to applicants; the specially designed cards will have all five of the new Sherlock Holmes stamps franked to indicate posting in a mail-box in Corporation Street, Birmingham, near the offices of the original Franco- Midland Hardware Company. Cards are £2.00 each or $4.00 for anywhere in the world. The FMHC' s Company Bond no. 002 is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes and Freemasonry by Robert T. Runciman, a revised reprint of an article that first appeared in Ars Quatuor CoronatorumCoronatorum (see DM 127). I'm reminded also that the FMHC's newsletter, The NewNew Baker Street Pillar Box no. 15, features "Sherlock Holmes & Some Astronomical Connections" by Bradley Schaefer, reprinted, from The Journal of thethe British Astronomical Association (see DM passim ). For information about these and other products of Sherlock Publications and the FMHC (including Christmas cards designed by Maria Lockley, and a limited number of models of the Company's Ford Model T van) write to the Bramham Moor address above.

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