The Winter 2013 Baker Street Journal includes these articles:
The Editor’s Gas-Lamp.
Herbert Kelcey: The Forgotten American Sherlock Holmes
by John Addy.
Basil Rathbone’s Solar Pons Films
by David Marcum.
In the Island of Uffa
by Robert A. Moss .
“And It Is Always . . .” Eighteen Eighty-nine
by Michael H. Kean.
A Study in Scarlet and the Study of Mankind: Sherlock Holmes and Pope’s Essay on Man
by Anastasia Klimchynskaya.
“Capital Cases”: Sherlock Holmes, Guns, and Capital Punishment
by Nicholas Utechin.
The Search for The Baker Street File
by Soren Eversoll.
Art in the Blood
by Scott Bond.
The Commonplace Book.
Baker Street Inventory.
The French Artist
by Basil Chap.
“Stand with me here upon the terrace . . .”
The Sherlockian Societies
The Wide World of Sherlock Holmes.
Letters to Baker Street.
Index to Volume 63.
Whodunit?
* * *
The Editor’s Gas-Lamp
“Remember it well”
by Steven Rothman, Editor
The Sherlockian year was a busy one in 2013, and Sherlock Holmes was in the news and in the zeitgeist. Elementary, with Lucy Liu as its gender-swapped Watson, played out its first season and offered those who know their Canon many small presents. Sherlock filmed its eagerly awaited third series, partially placating the armies of Cumberbatch fans. Robert Downey, Jr., appears to be making a third appearance as Holmes, but Hollywood rumor mills are notoriously unreliable. Sherlockian gatherings—both conferences and cons—were held everywhere, and all were well attended.
It was also a year of extreme partisan excitement and unpleasantness. Attacks were made on “new Sherlockians.” As the Sherlockian world exists solely as a monument to one of the great friendships of literature, this was particularly unsettling. To become a Sherlockian is not to subscribe to a creed or to swear allegiance to a nation. It matters little how one reaches Baker Street so long as we all play the same game.
The year may prove also to be one of liberation. As of this writing, a judge has yet to rule on the U.S. copyright status of the character of Sherlock Holmes. This ruling will affect everyone, non-Sherlockian and Sherlockian alike, who enjoys Holmes in any medium, by deciding how frequently and easily Holmes is allowed to appear in new guises. If the experience in the U.K.—where the Canon has been in the public domain since 31 December 2000 (70 years after the death of the author)—is any guide, quality and quantity will not suffer. As the year draws to a close, let us hope that feelings of friendship and mutual respect draw our—let’s face it—very small world together once more.
The Editor’s Gas-Lamp, Winter 2013, Vol. 63, No. 4.
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