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by The Hounds of the Internet Karen Welbourn writes: Subject: How did you get "hooked"? A close friend of mine suggested HOUND. Once read, I was addicted and greedily devoured the rest. Shortly thereafter, same friend noticed an article in the paper of a local celebrity - Leslie Marshall, Baker Street Irregular. We called, we met, we communicated. Along with Leslie, we became part of the first five "pips" of THE PLEASANT PLACES OF FLORIDA. Twenty-five years later, my friend has moved away, Leslie is with Elvis, and I've recently become one of The Last Court of Appeals, who now handle PPoF. So be wary out there! What goes around comes around! -(the writings of) Tang-ying Methinks on another occasion when this very question came up, I may have recounted the tale of the infamous summer of 19--, when I was but 11 years old. That summer was spent visiting Grandmother, in a small town in Newfoundland (yes, alas, I am of Newfie stock "Ah yes, I remember it well...." Hooked on Holmes? I remember my brother watching the television series with Ronald Howard, and then Basil Rathbone in "The Scarlet Claw" (my favorite non-canonical movie). That was enough to "hook" me. My brother gave me a copy of "The Complete Sherlock Holmes" when I was about 12. I think he was hoping I'd quit stealing his books.
Now I have a modest collection of
Sherlockiana and made a pilgrimage last year to London to visit
as many SH places as I could fit in a trip that was only four
days. I gave my son a omnibus that was not the "complete" and
heard complaints for days. He is now hooked and also a member
of the Austin, Tx Sherlock Holmes Society.
Scotland Yard My introduction to Sherlock Holmes was almost by accident. I learned that a friend's mother had front row centre subscription seats for the O'Keefe Centre in Toronto (now the Hummingbird Centre). I told her that if her mother ever wanted to sell tickets, for any show, I'd buy them. Several months later, her mother told me she had tickets she was willing to sell. They were for the play "Sherlock Holmes" starring Robert Stephens. In preparation for the play, I picked up the Study in Scarlet, The Sign of the Four, the Valley of Fear and The Hound of the Baskervilles. After the play, I found a copy of the complete short stories. I read one on the way to work on the bus, one at lunch, one on the way home from work and another before bed. I was definitely hooked. I was disappointed when I completed the short stories, because I thought that was it! Little did I know.... I found the Sherlock Holmes scrapbook and in it learned about organized Sherlockian groups. I couldn't believe anyone would take it that seriously. I dropped in to see the Conan Doyle collection at the College St. branch of the Toronto library. The curator, Cameron Hollyer was not there, but I found a brochure about a Sherlock Holmes workshop to be held at the University of Notre Dame by someone named John Bennett Shaw. The workshop happened to be when I had some time off, so off to South Bend I went. It was there that I first realized how wonderful the world of Holmes and Watson were and it was there that I met some of the most amazing people I had ever met. Since then, I've had much more fun than I deserve, and developed many truly special friendships, which more than anything else, is why I love the game so much. Bob Coghill (coghill@INFORAMP.NET) Fellow Hounds, It seems particularly appropriate as we begin to read "Study in Scarlet" to recount how I was hooked on the Canon. It began in the wilds of Scotland where I went from the United States as a young boy to live with my mother. My parents had been divorced and my Mother had recently remarried a Scottish psychiatrist. To me he was intimidating indeed. He was a huge man, taciturn in the way of many Scots. He had a formidable temper, of which I was aware, but from which I had never suffered. As well as being a physician, he was a writer of some note, having just published a successful book about his experiences doctoring the sailors of a Scandinavian whaling fleet. He decided to pursue a career as a writer and moved my Mother to the Scottish Borders. They lived in Tweedsmuir, Peebleshire, at the end of a deep glen, three miles up a dirt track accessible only by land rover, fording the burn numerous times and passing through seven heavy wooden gates which had to be lifted open by hand. Down the burn the nearest house was 3 miles away. In every other direction it was many miles over high almost impassible "hills" to the nearest habitations. Above the house up the glen was a great peat bog of many thousands of acres (reminiscent of Grimpen Mire). The house itself was a three room shepherd's cottage of stone built at least 200 years ago and with neither electricity nor a telephone. That first summer I arrived from boarding school, a lonely, confused little boy. As you might imagine, I viewed my stepfather with considerable suspicion. On his part, he had had little experience with children, and was, no doubt, uncertain as to how to deal with an apprehensive and standoffish new stepson. During the first two days he made some clumsy attempts to ingratiate himself with me, all failures which only served to confirm my suspicions. On the second evening, as I was preparing to go to bed, my stepfather handed me a copy of a heavy book of well over 1000 pages. Its dense type and lack of pictures only confirmed my initial impression that this was yet another inappropriate offering by this strange and aloft man who clearly had no clue how to deal with young boys. Nonetheless, I dutifully carried it under my arm the 100 or so yards to the little hut my Mother had had built to serve as my bedroom. I had no intention of reading it, but finding that I had left behind my other book, and neither wishing to trug back through the cold, dark night, nor having any desire to confront my stepfather again that evening, I resigned myself to reading it. Turning on the gas light, I climbed into bed and started the first chapter - "Mr. Sherlock Holmes". That night I finished "Study in Scarlet" and began "The Sign of Four" before falling asleep as the coleman lantern sputtered into darkness. I was captivated, reading the canon through twice that summer and reread it many times since. I have before me now the very book I opened that night so many years ago. It is a little battered and the spine is falling off but I love it for it reminds me of what my stepfather did for a lonely, confused little eleven year old boy to help him get through that difficult summer. I will always be grateful to him for giving me the tools to build a small romantic chamber in my heart where it will always be 1895.
Detective Wilson Hargreave, NYPB Recently, many of the Hounds have explained how and why they became hooked on the Master. Now for my turn: When I was a cadet at the Wilmington, NC Police Dept. working midnights, I used to bring something to read. One evening, I had checked out Baring Gould's "Annotated Sherlock Holmes" from the UNC-Wilmington library and brought it to work. I had probably read other tales in the Canon because I have been a bookworm all my life. For some reason, this really hooked me on Holmes. I was fortunate later that my brother went to UNC-Chapel Hill. He purchased a copy of Baring Gould's volumes and a three volume set of the first American edition of the Canon at a bookstore in Chaepl Hill called Keith and Martin, since renamed as the Bookshop. Since that time, 19 years ago, I have become a Sherlockian fanatic. I have worked to increase my Holmes library with first editions and numerous other Holmes related writings and items. I have been lucky to attend a Sherlock Holmes weekend at UNC-Chapel Hill and several meetings of the Clients of Sherlock Holmes in Philadelphia. I have also been lucky enough to go on-line with this fine group of Sherlockians on the Internet. My spouse doesn't quite understand my fascination with Holmes but she is a good sport and puts up with it. If not, I don't think I could afford the child support. I figure that if this is my only vice, I can't be all that bad. Besides, look at the diverse group of people worldwide that I get to correspond with about the Canon. Thanks for letting me state my reasons for my interest in the Master.
Ed Gibson Hello Hounds, Once upon a time when I was but a wee lad of seven, I had finished a book called Encyclopedia Brown Takes the Cake. I had solved every single case and was looking for a new challenger. My school librarian recommended "Match Wits with Sherlock Holmes" a book with two mysteries "The Adventure of the Gloria Scott" and "The Red-headed League" Hah! Sherlock! What a stupid name! I thought. Then I read the book. He beat me! He acutally beat me! I had to face this worthy oppenent again. This time I got the Oxford Sherlock Holmes. Though I did not understand all those stories I cherished them all.
**************************************************************************** Marian Poller@netvision.net.il\ I may have the record as the longest lurker on this list as out of ignorance I didn't feel I had anything to contribute. But yesterday I finally received my set of the Oxford Sherlock Holmes just in time to read STUD with everyone. (and what a joy it is too). I learned about the set from this list having never laid eyes on it until yesterday. My intro to Holmes was when I was 13 and at girl scout camp. One of my fellow campers became friendly with me and afterwards invited me to her home where she handed me the Doubleday ed and told me to return it when I finished but that she would not be able to talk to me again as her mother, a virulent anti-Semite, had forbidden her to talk to me. I was living in a small village with no library and all my books came from the state library and were ordered by title or if I liked an author, all the works. So a book was for me the finest gift I could receive. It took me 3 months of pure delight curled up in an old chair in my room, until I finished the entire volume. And now once again, only this time with friends as I feel I know many of you from your postings and I am enjoying the communal reading. Marian Poller@netvision.net.il From: John Baesch To: INTERNET: HOUNDS-L@LISTSERV.KENT.EDU Subject: Apologia Pro Vita Mea Sherlockiana This was written on a train between Philadelphia and New York with an anthology of C.S. Lewis' writings as a seatmate. Because this is e-mail you will not be able to discern the differences between the tangent track, the station stops and the points as in the will of Jonas Oldacre. Perhaps it is simply providential that I joined the Hounds of the Internet in the week when the question was posed, "WHY ARE YOU INTERESTED IN SHERLOCK HOLMES?" The last word will not be said on that subject until the last Sherlockian takes their last breath. Here, however, at this time and lace is my answer to the question, "Why I like Sherlock Holmes." The Holmesian canon is basically a textbook on friendship. C.S. Lewis writes eloquently of friendship in the long essay, "The Four Loves." BTW, the other three are Affection, Eros, and Charity. Don't we hear Watson's echo of Plato, "the best and wisest," when C.S. Lewis writes, "In a perfect friendsihp, this Appreciative love is, I think, often so firmly based that each [friend] feels, in his secret heart, humbled before [the other]. Sometimes he wonders what he is doing there among his betters...." Doesn't Holmes echo this same sentiment in DEVI thus: "I owe you both my thanks and an apology. It was an unjustifiable experiment even for one's self, and double so for a friend. I am really very sorry." C.S. Lewis values friendship particularly because it is the least necessary of the four loves. None of us could have been conceived without Eros or matured without Affection on someone's part. Some people live long lives without knowing friendship. The Sherlock Holmes stories give us a model and an example. Further, I personally believe that it was not for nothing that two of the greatest spiritual writers of this century, Ronald Knox and Dorothy Sayers, also wrote about Sherlock Holmes. Returning to Lewis, he wrote in the same essay, Friendship arises out of companionship when two or more of the companions discover that they have in common some insight or appreciation which the others do not share and which 'till that moment each believed to be his own unique treasure (or burden). The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, 'What? You too? I thought I was the only one.'" DOES ANYBODY ELSE RECOGNIZE THEMSELVES HERE? Now in this great company of friends, we Sherlockians are afforded the opportunity to have delicious fun in three distinct ways which, taken as a whole, strike me as unique to the interest in Sherlock Holmes. 1. There is something extraordinarily delightful in getting intensely serious about something intrinsically silly. Dorothy Sayers ("The game must be played with all the solemnity....) and Ronald Knox (Sherlockismus) taught us that in their Sherlockian writings. Our venerable brother, "The Empty House," writes that he was criticized at work for reading "kid's stuff." Yes, the Sherlock Holmes stories are kid's stuff; they are also the stuff of eternal youth. I could be wrong but, I'll bet The Empty House's critic never had a friend in the way C.S. Lewis envisioned it. 2. The love of Holmes is not gender specific or restrictive as so many specialized interests tend to be. Oh sure, there are still some occasional dinners in the remotest corners of civilization where the aborigines restrict attendance to a single sex, presumably because of lavatory limitations or some such reason, but you could no more restrict the love of Holmes, THE GAME, to a single gender than you could fit the raging sea into a teacup (Cf Augustine, De Civitate Dei). Unlike so many specialized hobbies or social groups, the love of Holmes, THE GAME, attracts everybody. 3. Finally, by attracting such a large number of enthusiasts, THE GAME has enriched my life beyond measure for every person who comes to a love of Sherlock Holmes brings along their own unique and abundantly diverse personalities, their own unique selves. Here come a wide range of ages, interests, and occupations. Here, rich mingle with the poor and you can't tell the difference. Here the professor meets the farmer; the teenager meets the pensioner. And all come together as equals. That's THE GAME. It's more than good food and drink though there's plenty of that and I enjoy it. It's more than 140 varieties of ash from the cigars and pipes 'though the smell is as sweet as frankincense.' It's the game. That's why I play the game. Sherlockianus sum. I AM a Sherlockian. Cardinal Tosca |