~ Sherlock Holmes Weeks at Tip the Wink ~

this is the 190th in my series of forgotten or seldom read books

Sherlock Holmes by Gas-Lamp edited by Philip A. Shreffler, Fordham University Press, 1989 hardcover – essay collection

The subtitle of this book is “Highlights from the First Four Decades of The Baker Street Journal”

The Baker Street Journal, for over fifty years, has been the primary forum for speculation on things Holmesian and Sherlockian since it’s founding, and has contained more “writings on the Writings” than any other journal. This anthology of essays spans forty years and the list of authors is extremely varied. Edgar Smith, founder of the journal, Vincent Starrett, Christopher Morley, William Baring-Gold we would expect to find in such a volume. But here too are Ellery Queen, Fletcher Pratt, Basil Rathbone, T.S. Eliot and Poul Anderson. It is clear that the body of work Sir Arthur Conan Doyle gave us referred to as The Canon is truly fascinating to very many people.

From reminiscences of first meetings with Sherlock Homes to poetry, analysis of the Hound’s true nature to a very in-depth discussion of what really occurred at Reichenbach Falls on May 4, 1891, these essays are fascinating. They may well give you the urge, as they have given me, to pull that volume (or volumes, depending on what you have) by Conan Doyle off the shelf and spend some time re-reading or perhaps reading for the first time (what a treat!) the stories and novels featuring Holmes and Watson. These many essays show the sometimes surprising depth of Holmesian scholarship, often with fascinating results.

Highly recommended!