Winter 2023 BSJ

The Winter 2023 Baker Street Journal includes these articles:

The Editor’s Gas-Lamp.

Will the real Grand’mère Vernet Please Stand Up?
by Katherine Karlson.

Watson’s Black Dog
by Michele Jankowski.

Arthur Conan Doyle, Science, Spiritualism
by David Leal.

A Tale of Two Agathas
by Thomas Joyce.

He Must Have Been a Sherlockian
by Michael Barton.

Corpulence in the Canon: Beyond Stereotypes
by Anna Brindisi Behrens.

I Hear of Sherlock—Over There!
by R. Justin Tolomeo.

The Commonplace Book.

Baker Street Inventory.

Letters to Baker Street.

“Stand with me here upon the terrace…”

Index to Volume 73.

Whodunit?

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The Editor’s Gas-Lamp

“A singular set of people, Watson”
by Dan Andriacco, Editor

Dan Andriacco, Editor, The Baker Street Journal

The famous observation from John Bennett Shaw that the only thing necessary for a Sherlockian society is two Sherlockians and a bottle— and in an emergency you can dispense with one of the Sherlockians—is amusing, memorable, and untrue. The second Sherlockian is at least as important as the bottle.

Our shared obsession has always been, well, shared. Reading the Canon may be a solitary activity (unless you do it aloud with your friends, as I did in my college years), but theorizing, kvetching, and arguing about it is a communal one. Doing this in print allows present-day Sherlockians to engage with other enthusiasts across the decades, propounding new views and disputing established ones. That has always been and remains a critical function of this irregular Journal. For almost 90 years, however, like-minded devotees of the world’s first consulting detective have also enjoyed gathering with each other in person. Unlike Mycroft Holmes, most Sherlockians (and Holmesians) are quite clubbable. The proof of that lies in the hundreds of Sherlockian groups across the globe, many but not all of them scions of the Baker Street Irregulars.

Such sodalities have always been important. Volume 1, Number 1 of the BSJ carried reports from “The Scion Societies,” which included the Speckled Band of Boston, the Scandalous Bohemians of Akron, the Five Orange Pips of Westchester County, the Scowrers of San Francisco (with its Molly Maguires auxiliary), and an apology for a lack of report from the Hounds of the Baskerville (sic) in Chicago. The Scandalous Bohemians of Akron are no longer with us, but many more groups are.

Sherlockian societies pull together members based on shared geography, profession (lawyers, psychiatrists, geologists, librarians, pharmacists), other avocational interests (coins, wine, P.G. Wodehouse), or pleasures (smoking, eating oysters, reading at the beach), or other shared allegiance (Masons). They may meet monthly, almost monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, bi-annually, or annually for lunch, dinner, or two-hours of discussion in a public library. Some groups now meet only virtually, a new way of being in person that creates the possibility of worldwide membership. Meetings may have a speaker, a quiz, both, or neither. Many offer toasts and conclude with a reading of “221B,” but some don’t. Extracurricular activities annually or occasionally may include a horse race, a field trip, a film festival, or a conference with speakers.

The joy of being a Sherlockian is multiplied when shared with others, and there are many roads to Baker Street. If you can’t find a group that suits your interests or your location, then start one. Every scion needs a founder.

The Editor’s Gas-Lamp, Winter 2023, Vol. 73, No. 4.