The Spring 2021 Baker Street Journal includes these articles:
The Editor’s Gas-Lamp.
Conan Doyle’s Questing World
by Andrew Lycett.
The Finer Points of Pterodactyl Combat: Lessons Learned from the SS Friesland Affair
by Don Arp, Jr.
“The oaths and secrets of this brotherhood”: The Real Red Circle
by Rob Nunn.
The Doubleday Omnibus Edition: “The Madman’s Sherlock Holmes”
by Russell Merritt.
A Rather Important Beeton’s Clarification
by Nicholas Utechin.
A Story for Which the World May Be Prepared: The Firesign Theatre and Sherlock Holmes
by Luke Poling.
The Commonplace Book.
Baker Street Inventory.
“Stand with me here upon the terrace . . .”
Whodunit?
* * *
The Editor’s Gas-Lamp
“The sunny side of the street”
by Steven Rothman, Editor
The world has been swept by the “cold and bitter” wind that Holmes forecast in “His Last Bow.” After more than a year, we appear to be through the worst of the pandemic, though life has yet to return to anything resembling what it was. Many cities still are far emptier than they had been pre-pandemic, as are roads, trains, and planes. The papers are filled with grim reports of abandoned offices. Indeed, more than Holmes’s wartime prediction, we seemed for too long to be living in a scenario taken from Professor Challenger’s Poison Belt, with miles of life just stopped—buses left in the streets, cars abandoned near curbsides; even the birds didn’t dare to chirp. But with effective vaccines we are beginning to peer out at Holmes’s “cleaner, better, stronger land.”
Soon, Sherlockian life, too, will return to its old form, with in-person meetings, dinners, and toasts. Laughter and singing will once again be ours. But perhaps we will also keep a vestige of these strange, lonely days. It is easy to imagine the preservation of hybrid meetings, where friends from afar can address us, or we can choose to enjoy a portion of the fun of being “in the room where it happens.” This new method will allow many more to enjoy Sherlockian study and camaraderie, making new friends ’round the globe. It is easy to imagine large numbers hearing the Baker Street Irregulars’ Distinguished Speaker or the Sherlock Holmes Society of London’s Richard Lancelyn Green Lecture. Such once-inconceivable audiences will enable us all to “hear of Sherlock everywhere.”
The Editor’s Gas-Lamp, Spring 2021, Vol. 71, No. 1.
Learn More
Latest BSJ News & Issues (covers & contents)
FAQ- BSJ Frequently Asked Questions
Read a Free PDF of a Full Issue of the BSJ
About the BSJ (overview page)
The Baker Street Irregulars 