Author: Chips

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On September 8th…

September 8, 1889: Victor Hatherley lost his thumb about 2:00 am. (ENGR)

Holmes, Watson, Insp. Bradstreet, an unnamed plain-clothes man, and Victor Hatherley took the train to Eyford. (ENGR)

Dr. Becker’s house, where Col. Lysander Stark was counterfeiting half-crowns, burned down. (ENGR)

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On September 7th…

September 7, 1903: Holmes and Watson first meet Prof. Presbury. (CREE)

September 7, 1889: Col. Lysander Stark visited and hired Victor Hatherley. (ENGR)

Victor Hatherley took the train from London to Eyford arriving, about 11:15. (ENGR)

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Weekly Forum #35: The Definition of Canon

There are no On This Day events recorded today or tomorrow, but on the Hounds website, messages are flying back and forth about the definition of the term “Canon.” What follows is a definition that I agree with totally. The message is from Esmeralda, a fellow member of our group:

One definition of Canon among many similar ones is: a collection or list of sacred books accepted as genuine. “The formation of the biblical canon”

The books published under the name of Arthur Conan Doyle, good and bad, are Canonical. Any Holmes works put out under other names, however good, cannot by that definition be Canonical.

The word was originally used to describe those early religious works gathered together under the name “The Bible” — other books, even if written at the same time on the same subjects, are apocrypha, not Canon.

The best fanfic, films, TV shows, and pastiches can never be Canonical, whatever else they may be. The worst story about Holmes published by ACD (and we can argue forever about which that is) is, like it or not, Canonical.

Of course we can use words to mean what we want them to mean, but in that case, don’t they become meaningless?

Comments, fellow Watsonians?

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Jody Baker and Dr Watson’s Pictures

There are no more events for the rest of the month, but I would like to leave you with the following writing. It was written by a Sherlockian of note who co-founded the only Scion society recognized by the Baker Street Irregulars in a nursing home. Known as Inspector Baynes in his postings, he was Jody Baker in real life. His postings and the gazettes he published are really some of the best around. I will post some more about Jody and his wonderful Sherlockian wife, his soulmate, but for now here is his incomparable style:

Dr. Watson’s Pictures of Devonshire Countryside [HOUN]

Dr. Watson, with pen for a brush and his words for his paints,
pictures for us vivid landscapes of the Devonshire countryside.

*******

“The journey was a swift and pleasant one… In a very few hours the
brown earth had become ruddy, the brick had changed to granite, and
red cows grazed in well-hedged fields where the lush grasses and more
luxuriant vegetation spoke of a richer, if a damper, climate.”

*******

“Over the green squares of the fields and the low curve of a wood
there rose in the distance a gray, melancholy hill, with a strange
jagged summit, dim and vague in the distance, like some fantastic
landscape in a dream. “

*******

“The wagonette swung round into a side road, and we curved upward
through deep lanes worn by centuries of wheels, high banks on either
side, heavy with dripping moss and fleshy hart’s-tongue ferns.
Bronzing bracken and mottled bramble gleamed in the light of the
sinking sun. Still steadily rising, we passed over a narrow granite
bridge and skirted a noisy stream which gushed swiftly down, foaming
and roaring amid the gray boulders. Both road and stream wound up
through a valley dense with scrub oak and fir.”

*******

Those Hounds, among us, who think of Watson as a dunce or a dullard
(as depicted by Nigel Bruce, in days of yore) may want to pause and
reflect upon Watson’s writings.

Respectfully,
Inspector Baynes