The Sherlock Holmes Journal is published twice a year, usually in June and December. It is the official voice of the Society and contains its Transactions, news and reviews, letters and editorial notes. It is also home to the most erudite scholarship, publishing learned articles from Holmesians world-wide who have something to say on any aspect of Sherlock Holmes and his world. It has been appearing without a break since the first issue in May 1952.
The most recent issue, Winter 2012, contains the following articles, as well as the usual reviews and letters:
EDITORIAL: “THIS IS AMUSING, THOUGH RATHER ELEMENTARY”
A look at the new television series Elementary, which places Holmes in present-day New York and gives him a “sober companion” named Joan Watson. Better news is that the classic 1965 BBC TV series with Douglas Wilmer and Nigel Stock is at last available on Region 2 DVD – but you’ll have to order it from France.
EDITORIAL NOTES
In 1906 a Music Hall double act called “Conan and Doyle” appeared on the same bill as the Carina Sisters.
The revelation that Sherlock Holmes has an even more brilliant brother was not welcomed by all.
Fifty years ago The Hound of the Baskervilles was dramatised as a serial for Czechoslovak Radio.
David C Kupfer contributes a neat Sherlockian sonnet: “The Game’s a Football with the Eyes of Texas”.
One of the eighty Olympic and Paralympic mascots sited around London during the Games was “Sherlock Wenlock” in Regent’s Park, at the top of Baker Street.
The Society’s newsletter, The District Messenger, is thirty years old and still active.
We mourn the loss of our American member John Weber, winner of the 2012 Tony & Freda Howlett Literary Award for his masterly book Under the Darkling Sky: A Chrono-Geographic Odyssey Through the Holmesian Canon.
THE EVOLUTION OF THE COPTIC LANGUAGE, by Alexian A Gregory
Did Sherlock Holmes study the language when he investigated the case of the two Coptic Patriarchs? Professor Coram certainly did when he prepared his analysis of the documents found in the Coptic monasteries of Syria and Egypt.
WAS SHERLOCK HOLMES A BAYESIAN? by William Hunt
Consciously or not, Holmes appears to have followed the system of logical confirmation devised in the eighteenth century by the Revd Thomas Bayes.
ALWAYS 1947 by Nicholas Utechin
1947 was a banner year for Holmesian scholarship, with the publication of important books by Jay Finley Christ, Pope R Hill, James Keddie Jr, and Guy Warrack.
“FULL SPEED AHEAD, ENGINEER!”
The Society’s memorable trip downriver in the wake of the Aurora.
TRANSACTIONS by Carrie Chandler
After the formal business of the AGM John Culme treated us to a fascinating talk, with musical highlights, about the police and detectives in Victorian popular entertainment. Equally enlightening and exciting was the Richard Lancelyn Green Memorial Lecture, given by martial arts expert James Marwood. With the help of his colleague George Stokoe he explained and demonstrated just what Baritsu – more properly “Bartitsu” – actually was.
RETURN TO REICHENBACH by Audrey Jones
In which Mrs Hudson takes up her pen to recount the extraordinary adventures of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London on its seventh Great Swiss Pilgrimage.
WHO USED THE HAT-STAND AT 221B? by Tina Martin
Ms Martin draws some interesting inferences from the curious arrangements in Mrs Hudson’s house.
SHERLOCK HOLMES – A STUDY IN FEAR reviewed by Roger Johnson
Nicholas Briggs returned to the stage in a new play based on “The Final Problem”.
PURE SWANK? By Nick Dunn-Meynell
The author looks again at the deadly motives of Josiah Amberley and compares him to another notorious murderer, Dr H H Holmes.
IT SEEMS TO ME… by Auberon Redfearn
“The Sexploits of Sherlock Holmes”. Enough said?
SOME ASPECTS OF FUEL TECHNOLOGY by Clifford Jones
Three pithy and pertinent essays from Dr Jones’s forthcoming book The Sherlock Holmes Stories and Combustion Science, available from the author at HYPERLINK “mailto:j.c.jones@eng.abdn.ac.uk” j.c.jones@eng.abdn.ac.uk.
“I AM AN OMNIVOROUS READER”
Book reviews by Carrie Chandler, Nicholas Utechin, Jean Upton and Roger Johnson.
WIGMORE STREET POSTBAG
Letters to The Sherlock Holmes Journal.
“THERE CAN BE NO QUESTION AS TO THE AUTHORSHIP”
Contributors to this issue of The Sherlock Holmes Journal.
For more information about the journal, contact:
The Sherlock Holmes Journal
Roger Johnson
Mole End
41 Sandford Road
Chelmsford
CM2 6DE
e-mail: rojerjohnson@yahoo.co.uk