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.
If you’re missing back issues of the Journal, check what’s available from the Society’s shop at  https://www.sherlock-holmes.org.uk/shop/archives/journal-archive/. There are issues back as far as 1972, for just £3.00 each!

The Summer 2022 issue is now out!

You can download the book reviews here:
I Am an Omnivorous Reader (SHJ Summer 2022)

Editorial: “A Certain Gracious Lady”
*  In 2021, the Society celebrated its Platinum Jubilee. This year, the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth commemorate the first 70 years of Queen Elizabeth II’s reign – and the Society marks the 70th Anniversary of The Sherlock Holmes Journal.

Editorial Notes:
*  The list of honours is a long one. Jane Arnold-Forster was the 19th recipient of the Tony Howlett Award for outstanding service to the Society; and Nicholas Utechin, for his article “Extant Exhibits”, became the first two-time winner of the Tony & Freda Howlett Literary Award. In New York, no fewer than 14 new Baker Street Irregulars received the Irregular Shilling. Winners of the ACD Society’s first annual awards included Bonnie MacBird, for Modern Major Super Sleuth, created for our “Louche Lockdown Libation” last year. And there were more – many more.
*  In September, Toronto Reference Library will host Jubilee@221B, a series of events celebrating fifty years of The Bootmakers of Toronto and the Library’s  Arthur Conan Doyle Collection.
*  Anurag Ray, “Pest Removal Warrior”, offers a convincing – but largely overlooked –  reason why Dr Roylott’s “Speckled Band” turned on him.
*  Ray Wilcockson provides a neat little Valentine’s Day parody, published in the Westminster Gazette in 1896.
*  Baker Street Classics have published an attractive nine-volume edition of the Holmes canon, with a nostalgic touch.
*  George Vanderburgh’s Battered Silicon Dispatch Box press has released an updated edition of the e-SHJ –  The Sherlock Holmes Journal in electronic format, complete up to Summer 2019. For full information, contact george.vanderburgh@gmail.com.
*  In March, the Financial Times published a letter from a a former UK defence attaché in Moscow, who quoted Holmes’s prophetic words from “His Last Bow”. 

“Canonical Communications” by Dr Tim Healey
*  Codes and ciphers, typewriting, pencils and pens, telegrams and telephones, newspapers, messenger services, the Post Office… Means of communication were many and varied, and they could be very efficient.

“Sidney Paget’s Regent Street” by Tony Derlien
*  One of Paget’s most famous illustrations shows Holmes and Watson shadowing Sir Henry Baskerville’s mysterious black-bearded stalker – but why is it so curiously and subtly wrong?

“I Was Alright Until the Dust Jacket” by Mark Jones
*  Dr Jones’s boldness in travelling from England to attend the BSI’s Annual Dinner in New York was rewarded with the Irregular Shilling and the investiture of “Peter Jones”, BSI. He reports on the the Grolier Club’s exhibition, Sherlock Holmes in 221 Objects, all drawn from the amazing collection of Glen Miranker.

“The Queerest Club in London” by Ernst-Harald Mock
* Our distinguished German member investigates the Diogenes Club.

“The Adventures of Shylock Tombs” by H F Prescott
*  A gorgeous parody of “The Final Problem”, first published in 1894, in an obscure provincial magazine.

“The Sherlock Holmes Gazetteer: His Last Bow” by John Morewood
*  The mastermind behind the Society’s Gazetteer – on the website at https://gazetteer.sherlock-holmes.org.uk/ – explains all.

Watson: The Final Problem, reviewed by Heather Owen
* Both your editors caught up with Bert Coules & Tim Marriott‘s excellent one-man play at the Chelsea Theatre. (Mr Marriott is that one man.)

“It Seems to Me…” by Auberon Redfearn
*  Dr Watson diligently records the events of a day in which there were no events worth recording.

“Some Observations” by Nicholas Dunn-Meynell
*  That business of the stolen Naval Treaty was Fake News! And the dog that became the Hound of the Baskervilles had its origins even closer to 221B than Ross & Mangles in the Fulham Road.

“Transactions” by Valerie Schreiner and Roger Johnson
*  Reports on the 2021 Richard Lancelyn Green Memorial Lecture, given by Catharine Arnold; the Annual Film Evening; the Morning After that wasn’t actually “after”, because the previous day’s Annual Dinner had to be postponed; and a lively evening at the University Women’s Club on the subject of Women and Holmes.

“It Is With a Heavy Heart…”  Obituaries by Jean Upton and Roger Johnson
*  Those who have passed beyond the Reichenbach include the comedian Barry Cryer; actors Patrick Horgan, Peter Bowles and Maggie Fox; producer Beryl Vertue; and our members Allan Devitt, Cyril Millot, Edwin Van der Flaes and Bryan Stone.

“I Am an Omnivorous Reader”
*  Book reviews by Alistair Duncan, Henry Jacobson, Paul Thomas Miller, Mark Mower, Sarah Obermuller-Bennett, John Sheppard, Jean Upton and Roger Johnson.

Wigmore Street Postbag
*  Letters to The Sherlock Holmes Journal.