Author: Chips & Selena

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Watson Goes To Mars

When NASA’s Perseverance rover landed on Mars, it brought along Watson and Sherlock. Or WATSON and SHERLOC, anyway.

The Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals has a nickname: SHERLOC. Mounted on the rover’s robotic arm, SHERLOC uses cameras, spectrometers, and a laser to search for organics and minerals that have been altered by watery environments and may be signs of past microbial life. In addition to its black-and-white context camera, SHERLOC is assisted by WATSON, a color camera for taking close-up images of rock grains and surface textures.[…]

Dr. John H. Watson was Holmes’ partner in solving mysteries. WATSON the camera assists SHERLOC as it helps solve mysteries about life on Mars.

With its camera sidekick WATSON (Wide Angle Topographic Sensor for Operations and eNgineering), SHERLOC even has a modern version of the hand-lens magnifying glass used by the classic British detective!

NASA Science
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A Dickensian Tidbit: The Answers

Last week, Chips asked:

In my readings, I have found two editors working together who came up with 3 possible connections between Dickens and Sherlock Holmes and/or Arthur Conan Doyle.

One connection involves a quote.

Of the other two, one requires some comparisons and the other requires a visit from the Afterlife. 

Illustration by Sidney Paget for The Strand, 1904

The answers are:

The quote, from The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton (CHAS): “Charles Augustus Milverton was a man of fifty, with a large, intellectual head, a round, plump, hairless face, a perpetual frozen smile, and two keen gray eyes, which gleamed brightly from behind broad, gold-rimmed glasses. There was something of Mr. Pickwick’s benevolence in his appearance, marred only by the insincerity of the fixed smile and by the hard glitter of those restless and penetrating eyes.”

The comparisons, from the entry for February 7 in A Curious Collection of Dates: Through the Year with Sherlock Holmes, by Leah Guinn and Jaime N. Mahoney: “Sherlockians can also thank Dickens for Bleak House‘s Inspector Bucket, the first police detective in English literature who, in his various investigations, provides the template for Inspector Lestrade and every policeman who consults the detective at 221B.”

The visit from the Afterlife, also mentioned in the same entry: During at least two seances Arthur Conan Doyle attended, Dickens’s spirit allegedly made contact and said that Drood (of his unfinished The Mystery of Edwin Drood) was not dead, but he still didn’t provide the answer to the mystery.

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A Dickensian Tid Bit

From a photograph by Gurney, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

February 7th 1812: Charles Dickens was born.

In my readings, I have found two editors working together who came up with 3 possible connections between Dickens and Sherlock Holmes and/or Arthur Conan Doyle.

One connection involves a quote.

Of the other two, one requires some comparisons and the other requires a visit from the Afterlife.

Any one care to submit answers ?

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What’s Wrong with a Deerstalker Bike Helmet?

“Chips” writes to share a tidbit from an article written by Russ Bengtson for Complex (in 2013, but it was shared on the Hounds of the Internet recently).

In 11 Bike Helmets You Should Never, Ever Wear, Bengtson includes:

The Sherlock Holmes

You know why Sherlock Holmes could get away with wearing a deerstalker cap? Because it was the 1800s, he did cocaine, and he was A FICTIONAL CHARACTER.

“Chips” says:
 I disagree with this selection. Strongly. I have worn a Sherlock Holmes cap while riding my bike and now while riding in my wheelchair and my mobility scooter every day. And I have no ill effects. Folks tell me how dashing I look. 

“Selena” adds: I would quite like a deerstalker bike helmet. I might have to get one if I ever ride a bike again. To you cyclists out there, please do wear a helmet, no matter what style! Though if you happen to wear a deerstalker helmet, we’d love to see photos.

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A Legend

“Chips” sends in this tidbit that originally appeared in the Baker Street Journal vol. 16 no. 2 (June 1966) by Chris Redmond (JHWS “Buster”).

A LEGEND

by Chris Redmond

“The Naval Treaty” illustration by Sidney Paget for The Strand Magazine, October & November 1893.

Observe the famous profile. See the pipe—

Traditionally curved, though really straight—

On which he puffs, as men of every type

Narrate their strange experience or fate.

That famous phrase of “Elementary,

My dear Watson,” was one he never spoke;

But he is known for it in every

Discussion of him, each pastiche, each joke.

Popularly, he crawled across the rug,

In deerstalker and cape, viewing with care

Through magnifying glass each thread or bug,

Each ash or bit of mud, which he found there.

It’s fiction, or else legend—but forsooth~

Since we believe it, isn’t it the truth?

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The Oenologic Holmes

Chips writes: I read this book,  The Oenologic Holmes, by a former member and Chief Surgeon of Dr. Watson’s Neglected Patients. (He now lives in Flagstaff, Arizona, and he is in a scion group there.)

It is quite interesting even to a Coca-Cola man like me.

I recommend you obtain a copy for fascinating reading.

The author, Steve Robinson, sells copies through his eBay storefront, Wolf Mountain Books. His very appropriate username there is “Vamberry”. You can also find him through FaceBook at Wolf Mountain Books. Some of you may know first-hand what a fascinating man he is to talk to, especially about wine in Sherlock Holmes stories. This book continues that. You will enjoy it.

Selena says: That book does sound interesting. Looking through the storefront, I have fallen a little bit in love with this 1895 Lupton edition of A Study in Scarlet. That cover! Hmm, the holidays are coming up….

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On May 7th…

May 7, 1902: Holmes confronted Sir Robert Norberton at the crypt. [SHOS]

Illustration by Frank Wiles for The Strand Magazine

Someone was walking in the chapel above. It was the firm, rapid step of one who came with a definite purpose, and knew well the ground upon which he walked. A light streamed down the stairs, and an instant later the man who bore it was framed in the Gothic archway. He was a terrible figure, huge in stature and fierce in manner. A large stable lantern which he held in front of him shone upwards upon a strong, heavily-moustached face and angry eyes, which glared round him into every recess of the vault, finally fixing themselves with a deadly stare upon my companion and myself.
“Who the devil are you?” he thundered. “And what are you doing upon my property?” Then, as Holmes returned no answer, he took a couple of steps forward and raised a heavy stick which he carried. “Do you hear me?” he cried. “Who are you? What are you doing here?” His cudgel quivered in the air.
But, instead of shrinking, Holmes advanced to meet him.
“I also have a question to ask you, Sir Robert,” he said in his sternest tone. “Who is this? And what is it doing here?”
He turned and tore open the coffin lid behind him. In the glare of the lantern I saw a body swathed in a sheet from head to foot, with dreadful, witch-like features, all nose and chin, projecting at one end, the dim glazed eyes staring from a discoloured and crumbling face.

Date information provided by the volume A Day-by-Day Chronology of Mr. Sherlock Holmes, according to Zeisler and Christ, compiled and edited by William S Dorn.

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On April 30th…

April 30, 1895: Violet Smith was kidnapped. [SOLI]

Holmes threw the reins into my lap and sprang down from the cart.
“You’re the man we want to see. Where is Miss Violet Smith?” he said, in his quick, clear way.

“That’s what I am asking you. You’re in her dogcart. You ought to know where she is.”

“We met the dogcart on the road. There was no one in it. We drove back to help the young lady.”

“Good Lord! Good Lord! What shall I do?” cried the stranger, in an ecstasy of despair. “They’ve got her, that hellhound Woodley and the blackguard parson. Come, man, come, if you really are her friend. Stand by me and we’ll save her, if I have to leave my carcass in Charlington Wood.”

April 30, 1895: Bob Carruthers shot Jack Woodley. [SOLI]

His revolver cracked, and I saw the blood spurt from the front of Woodley’s waistcoat. He spun round with a scream and fell upon his back, his hideous red face turning suddenly to a dreadful mottled pallor. The old man, still clad in his surplice, burst into such a string of foul oaths as I have never heard, and pulled out a revolver of his own, but before he could raise it he was looking down the barrel of Holmes’s weapon.

 

Some date information provided by the volume A Day-by-Day Chronology of Mr. Sherlock Holmes, according to Zeisler and Christ, compiled and edited by William S Dorn.

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On April 29th…

April 29, 1902 (or thereabouts): Sir Robert Norberton gave away his sister’s pet spaniel. [SHOS]

“Jasper” in Granada’s “Shoscombe Old Place”

“When did Sir Robert give away his sister’s dog?”

“It was just a week ago today. The creature was howling outside the old well-house, and Sir Robert was in one of his tantrums that morning. He caught it up, and I thought he would have killed it. Then he gave it to Sandy Bain, the jockey, and told him to take the dog to old Barnes at the Green Dragon, for he never wished to see it again.”

Date information provided by the volume A Day-by-Day Chronology of Mr. Sherlock Holmes, according to Zeisler and Christ, compiled and edited by William S Dorn.

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On April 28th…

April 28, 1895: Holmes received a note from Violet Smith saying that she was leaving her job. [SOLI]

The Thursday brought us another letter from our client. “You will not be surprised, Mr. Holmes”, said she, “to hear that I am leaving Mr. Carruthers’ employment. Even the high pay cannot reconcile me to the discomforts of my situation. On Saturday I come up to town, and I do not intend to return. Mr. Carruthers has got a trap, and so the dangers of the lonely road, if there ever were any dangers, are now over.

Some date information provided by the volume A Day-by-Day Chronology of Mr. Sherlock Holmes, according to Zeisler and Christ, compiled and edited by William S Dorn.

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On April 13th…

… or thereabouts; the canonical date is “the early spring”.

Friedrich illustration of Violet sitting in front of the window.
Illustration by Josef Friedrich

April 13, 1890: Violet Hunter sat in the window seat for the second time [COPP]

“Two days later this same performance was gone through under exactly similar circumstances. Again I changed my dress, again I sat in the window, and again I laughed very heartily at the funny stories of which my employer had an immense repertoire, and which he told inimitably. Then he handed me a yellow-backed novel, and, moving my chair a little sideways, that my own shadow might not fall upon the page, he begged me to read aloud to him. I read for about ten minutes, beginning in the heart of a chapter, and then suddenly, in the middle of a sentence, he ordered me to cease and change my dress.”

Source
A Day by Day Chronology of Sherlock Holmes according to Ziesler and Christ by William S Dorn DWNP, BSI.

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On April 11th…

… or thereabouts, the canonical date is in “the early spring”.

April 11, 1890: Violet Hunter in window seat for the first time. [COPP]

Friedrich illustration of Violet Hunter sitting in front of the window.
Illustration by Josef Friedrich

“A chair had been placed close to the central window, with its back turned towards it. In this I was asked to sit, and then Mr. Rucastle, walking up and down on the other side of the room, began to tell me a series of the funniest stories that I have ever listened to. You cannot imagine how comical he was, and I laughed until I was quite weary. Mrs. Rucastle, however, who has evidently no sense of humor, never so much as smiled, but sat with her hands in her lap, and a sad, anxious look upon her face. After an hour or so, Mr. Rucastle suddenly remarked that it was time to commence the duties of the day, and that I might change my dress, and go to little Edward in the nursery.”

Source
A Day by Day Chronology of Sherlock Holmes according to Ziesler and Christ by William S Dorn DWNP, BSI.

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On April 8th…

April 8, 1897: Holmes and Watson arrived in Poldu Bay, Cornwall. [DEVI]

“Cove and Point” © Copyright Jonathan Billinger and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

It was, then, in the spring of the year 1897 that Holmes’s iron constitution showed some symptoms of giving way in the face of constant hard work of a most exacting kind, aggravated, perhaps, by occasional indiscretions of his own. In March of that year Dr. Moore Agar, of Harley Street, whose dramatic introduction to Holmes I may some day recount, gave positive injunctions that the famous private agent would lay aside all his cases and surrender himself to complete rest if he wished to avert an absolute breakdown. The state of his health was not a matter in which he himself took the faintest interest, for his mental detachment was absolute, but he was induced at last, on the threat of being permanently disqualified from work, to give himself a complete change of scene and air. Thus it was that in the early spring of that year we found ourselves together in a small cottage near Poldhu Bay, at the farther extremity of the Cornish peninsula.

Date information provided by the volume A Day-by-Day Chronology of Mr. Sherlock Holmes, according to Zeisler and Christ, compiled and edited by William S Dorn.

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On March 8th…

‘I’ve had bad news — terrible news, Mr. Holmes’ [illustration by Frank Wiles for The Strand magazine, 1915]
March 8, 1888: Holmes learned that Jack Douglas had been lost at sea. [VALL]

“No, I don’t say that,” said Holmes, and his eyes seemed to be looking far into the future. “I don’t say that he can’t be beat. But you must give me time – you must give me time!” We all sat in silence for some minutes, while those fateful eyes still strained to pierce the veil.

Source
A Day by Day Chronology of Sherlock Holmes by William S Dorn DWNP, BSI

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On March 7th…

Illustration by Richard Gutschmidt (1902)

March 7, 1881: Jefferson Hope’s body was found in his cell. [STUD]

He had gone to the final judgment and reunion with Lucy. One can hope that mercy ruled determination of their case. Their suffering and pain on earth was enough. -Chips

Source
A Day by Day Chronology of Sherlock Holmes by William S Dorn DWNP, BSI

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On March 6th…

Illustration by Richard Gutschmidt (1902)

March 6, 1881: Holmes tested some pills on the landlady’s dying dog. [STUD]

As he spoke he turned the contents of the wine-glass into a saucer and placed it in front of the terrier, who speedily licked it dry. Sherlock Holmes’s earnest demeanour had so far convinced us that we all sat in silence, watching the animal intently, and expecting some startling effect. None such appeared, however. The dog continued to lie stretched upon the cushion, breathing in a laboured way, but apparently neither the better nor the worse for its draught.

As we know, the second pill had a rather different effect.

March 6, 1881: Jefferson Hope was captured. [STUD]

Illustration by George Hutchinson for A Study in Scarlet (1891)

The whole thing occurred in a moment – so quickly that I had no time to realize it. I have a vivid recollection of that instant, of Holmes’s triumphant expression and the ring of his voice, of the cabman’s dazed, savage face, as he glared at the glittering handcuffs, which had appeared as if by magic upon his wrists. For a second or two we might have been a group of statues. Then with an inarticulate roar of fury, the prisoner wrenched himself free from Holmes’s grasp, and hurled himself through the window. Woodwork and glass gave way before him; but before he got quite through, Gregson, Lestrade, and Holmes sprang upon him like so many staghounds. He was dragged back into the room, and then commenced a terrific conflict. So powerful and so fierce was he that the four of us were shaken off again and again. He appeared to have the convulsive strength of a man in an epileptic fit. His face and hands were terribly mangled by his passage through the glass, but the loss of blood had no effect in diminishing his resistance. It was not until Lestrade succeeded in getting his hand inside his neckcloth and half-strangling him that we made him realize that his struggles were of no avail; and even then we felt no security until we had pinioned his feet as well as his hands. That done, we rose to our feet breathless and panting.

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On March 5th…

Illustration by Richard Gutschmidt (1902)

March 5, 1881: Stangerson found stabbed to death at Halliday’s Private Hotel. [STUD]

He stood in the centre of the room, fumbling nervously with his hat and uncertain what to do.

“This is a most extraordinary case,” he said at last – “a most incomprehensible affair.”

“Ah, you find it so, Mr. Lestrade!” cried Gregson, triumphantly. “I thought you would come to that conclusion. Have you managed to find the secretary, Mr. Joseph Stangerson?”

“The secretary, Mr. Joseph Stangerson,” said Lestrade gravely, “was murdered at Halliday’s Private Hotel about six o’clock this morning.”

Illustration by Richard Gutschmidt (1906)

March 5, 1881: An old “crone” retrieved the woman’s wedding ring advertised as “found” in the ad placed by Holmes. [STUD]

At my summons, instead of the man of violence whom we expected, a very old and wrinkled woman hobbled into the apartment. She appeared to be dazzled by the sudden blaze of light, and after dropping a curtsy, she stood blinking at us with her bleared eyes and fumbling in her pocket with nervous shaky fingers. I glanced at my companion, and his face had assumed such a disconsolate expression that it was all I could do to keep my countenance.

By Hope’s own admission, this person was not Jefferson Hope, so who was she or he? Hope took the secret with him to the hereafter. Any ideas out there?

Source: A Day by Day Chronology of Sherlock Holmes by William S Dorn DWNP, BSI

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On February 17th… The Birth of a Sherlockian Scholar

February 17, 1888: On this date, the Reverend Monsignor Ronald A Knox, one of the most eminent original Sherlockian scholars, was born. Although he was ordained as an Anglican priest in 1912, he converted to Catholicism, becoming a Roman Catholic priest in 1918, later a Monsignor. He is best known for writing the paper Studies in the Literature of Sherlock Holmes.

Cover of RONALD KNOX AND SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE ORIGIN OF SHERLOCKIAN STUDIES, edited by Michael J. Crowe
Available from Gasogene Books (Wessex Press)

If there is anything pleasant in life, it is doing what we aren’t meant to do. If there is anything pleasant in criticism, it is finding out what we aren’t meant to find out. It is the method by which we treat as significant what the author did not mean to be significant, by which we single out as essential what the author regarded as incidental. […] There is, however, a special fascination in applying this method to Sherlock Holmes, because it is, in a sense, Holmes’s own method. ‘It has long been an axiom of mine,’ he says, ‘that the little things are infinitely the most important.’ It might be the motto of his life’s work.

This paper has generated years of Sherlockian studies. It was presented to the Gryphon Club in 1911, published in The Blue Book Magazine in 1912, and republished a number of times, including in Knox’s Essays in Satire in 1928. [The link above will take you to a PDF file of the paper in Blackfriars v1 n3 (June 1920), hosted at the University of Minnesota. -Selena Buttons]

In a response to the paper, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote that “Holmes changed entirely as the stories went on” but that “Watson never for one instant as chorus and chronicler transcends his own limitations. Never once does a flash of wit or wisdom come from him. All is remorsely eliminated so that he may be Watson.” [A frankly absurd assertion! -Selena Buttons]

My source for the information on Knox’s birthdate comes from A Curious Collection of Dates by Leah Guinn (“Amber”) and Jaime N Mahoney (“Tressa”). [Additional information about the presentation and publication of “Studies of the Literature of Sherlock Holmes” and Dr Doyle’s response comes from The Ronald Knox Society of North America. -Selena Buttons]

(This post originally appeared on February 17, 2017.)