Episode 305: That Ghastly Face

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 1 (00:31):
I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere, Episode three hundred and five,
that ghastly face a.

Speaker 3 (00:38):
Head of sherlocket very well since Julie gave as drumming man.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
In a world where it's always eighteen ninety five, It's
I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere. A podcast for devotees of
mister Sherlock Holmes, the world's first unofficial consulting detective.

Speaker 3 (01:00):
I've Heard of You Before, Holmes, The Medland Holmes, The
Busybody Homes, the Scotland Yard, Jacket Office.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
The Game's afoot As we interview authors, editors, creators, and
other prominent Sherlockians on various aspects of the great detective
in popular culture.

Speaker 4 (01:22):
As we go to fess, sensational developments have been reported.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
So join your hosts Scott Monty and Bert Walder as
they talk about what's new in the world of Sherlock Holmes.

Speaker 5 (01:38):
Time.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
I'm Mill Curtis. This is I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere.

Speaker 3 (01:46):
Now Here are your hosts, Scott Marty and Bert Walder.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
Well, thank you, Bill Curtis, and welcome to I Hear
of Sherlock Everywhere, the first podcast for Sherlock Holmestead Ots
Where It's all Ways eighteen ninety five. I'm Scott Monty,
I'm Bert Wolder and Bert you got a lovely vase?

Speaker 2 (02:07):
Oh no, no, they named that book after me.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
I hardly think so.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
I was very proud.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
No, no, no, I'm you probably missed my reference there
because I didn't say it accented enough and sounding enough
like Dom Delawise. But that was from a scene in
Sherlock Holmes's Smarter Brother. Do you remember that one? I?

Speaker 2 (02:34):
Well, I remember Sherlock Holmes a Smarter Brother, and I
remember Don Delauise.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
Do you remember who played Professor Moriarty in that?

Speaker 2 (02:40):
Oh?

Speaker 4 (02:40):
Sure?

Speaker 1 (02:41):
Leo mccurrn, Yes, and Leo mccerrn is in the study
of the opera singer played by Dom Delawise, and he
grabs a vase off of the mantelpiece and is holding
it over his head, ready to smash down on Delawise's head,
and Delawasee turns and he already tries to play a
cool and says.

Speaker 4 (03:04):
You.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
Carry the one.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
Yes, oh so many, so many good outtakes in that film,
not enough to make an entirely good film, but cult
wise it's fun to uh just enjoy the shore.

Speaker 4 (03:24):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
Well, we have some snippets of a conversation today with
Ira Metetski, editor of the latest bs I Press manuscript
series book. It's the Manuscript of the Blanched Soldier. I
was going to fill us in as to how that
came about and this very different kind of story and

(03:49):
it's fascinating commentary. So we're looking forward to that. Meanwhile,
if you would like to listen to the show ad
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We are available on Patreon and substack. We have links
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(04:11):
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our supporters, we do have bonus content in the form
of Sherlockian News. We have a segment that we cover

(04:31):
every month looking at various items that have come to
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(04:54):
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(05:16):
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(06:02):
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(06:46):
appreciate this free offer from MX Publishing, our longtime sponsor
and friend of the program, be sure to visit their
entire website at MX Publishing dot com. Ira Bradmtetsky BSI

(07:13):
is a New York City Sherlockian whose interests include get
Ready for It, the publication and bibliographical history of the Canon,
canonical manuscripts, law in the Canon, Sherlockian society, history and traditions,
and Doulian and Sherlockian poetry. His articles have appeared in
The Baker Street Journal and other Sherlokian periodicals, and in

(07:37):
seven previous BSI Press books, including Upon the Turf, Horse
Racing and The Sherlockian Canon, which he co edited. He
received the BSI's Morley Montgomery Award in twenty twenty for
his BSJA article another Sherlockian myth, debunked, Time to Turn
the Paget. He's a member of several science societies, including

(07:58):
the Sons of the Copper Beaches, Sherlockean's of Baltimore, and
the Six Napoleons. He's a regular contributor to and former
canonical Annotations editor of the Baker Street Almanac, and is
a frequent presenter at Sherlockean conferences. He's practiced law in
New York since nineteen eighty seven. Iira Matetsky, welcome back

(08:21):
to I hear of Sherlock everywhere.

Speaker 4 (08:23):
Thank you glad to be here.

Speaker 1 (08:25):
Excellent. Well, we'll get past all the regular perfunctory stuff,
since everybody's already heard that from you. I am curious
as we open this latest BSI manuscript book that ghastly face.
Your introduction brings a little more light into the world

(08:47):
of BSI manuscripts, and it starts with some postcards and
letters from the mid nineteen forties. You want to set
the stage for our listeners because I think it's a
background for the manuscript series in general.

Speaker 4 (09:04):
Well, long before there was a BSI Press manuscript series,
or before anyone had thought about preparing facsimiles of manuscripts,
the first step was to know which of Arthur Conan
Doyle's handwritten manuscripts had survived and where they were. Obviously,
you can't have a manuscript series without manuscripts. And what

(09:26):
I had discovered years before I had any connection with
the manuscript series. I was doing some research at Lilly
Library in Indiana, and this was before THESI and the
BSI archives were moved to Indiana. I was doing some
completely unrelated research, and I came across this correspondence in

(09:48):
the papers of an old irregular named David Randall, who
had had received a letter inviting him to see if
he could prepare a census of which manuscript survived and
where they were. It was originally a suggestion that Vincent
Starrett had made to Edgar Smith, then the head of

(10:11):
the BSI, and Edgar forwarded it to David Randall, who
acted on it, and the first manuscript census, so to speak,
appeared in the old series of the BSJ and I
had just made a copy of this postcard in this letter.
I shared it with a couple of friends and forgotten

(10:32):
about it. Then about seven years later it fell to
me to write an introduction to this book. And before
I said, you know, thanked all the contributors and surveyed
what was in the book. I said, you know, this
might be a good opportunity to share this little bit
of background to the readers who are obviously interested in

(10:53):
the history of what we know about manuscripts, and so
little extra bonus there.

Speaker 2 (11:00):
Yeah, it's a terrific bonus. It does offer a lot
of insight and one of the things I wanted to
ask you to talk about on that theme is why manuscripts?
You know, it occurs to me that among our listeners,
you know, we might have folks who are not whose
eyebrows don't go up when they say, oh boy, a

(11:21):
Conan Doyle manuscript because they haven't really thought about it.
You know what the manuscript might show. Why is examining
the manuscript interesting? What you might learn from it? Can
you talk a little bit about that, about, just at
the very high level, just the why of an attraction
of manuscripts?

Speaker 4 (11:41):
Sure, I think there's always an interest in how a
well beloved series of works get to be created and
get to get to be published. And once we step away, however,
temporarily from the convention that doctor Watson wrote the manuscripts,

(12:04):
and if someone wants to presume that these are doctor
Watson's hands and not doctor Conan Doyle's hands, be my guest,
you know, how did these stories come to be written?
They came out of a man's head and were written
on paper and then were revised. Some manuscripts have a

(12:26):
lot of handwritten changes visible as the thought process continues,
whether it's characters named or the plot goes down about
blind alley, and so a few sentences are crossed out
or editorial changes are made in pencil on the draft.
But you can see differences between even how the original

(12:50):
story appeared and how it might have been changed slightly
or otherwise before it was sent along to the Strand magazine,
and then evolved further into what became what became the
version that appeared in the Strand, and then in the
books published in the UK, what appeared in whoever the

(13:11):
American publisher's version was, and so we can look for variations.
It's always thrilling to hold in one's hand the actual
original of the manuscript. Some of them were in libraries
or archives, others are held by you know, private collectors

(13:31):
and a lot of us. I mean, this is a
series that was around long before I became involved in
organized sherlock in activity, so I'm certainly not the only
person who enjoys looking at this. The other thing that
everyone notices, everyone who looks at one of these manuscript's
comments on is how clear and readable Arthur Conan Doyle's

(13:55):
handwriting is that the punchline is always especially for a doctor.
But these manuscripts are clear. You can you could read
the story by reading the manuscript, and then in addition
we provide a transcription, We provide notes that Phil Bergham
prepares on differences between the bag manuscript as handwritten, the

(14:17):
manuscript as revised, the manuscript that appeared the story that
appeared in England, the story that appeared in America. And
there's always, i should say always, there's often fodder for
speculation about what changes were made, why they were made.
And so there's the manuscript itself as a collectible object,

(14:39):
and there's tracing the manuscript into into the final story.

Speaker 1 (14:47):
Yeah, I'm convinced that Conan Doyle did not practice medicine
because handwriting was too good.

Speaker 4 (14:54):
There's pet Peter Blough. Peter Blough did uh did point
out to the one the one, and this is true.
The one area where Conan Doyle's handwriting is less than
less than perfect is that is a tends to look
like an O and vice versa. And and Peter did

(15:17):
take that fact and provide an alternative explanation to a
mystery about the blue carbuncle. But that's a little off Colors.

Speaker 1 (15:25):
We know where you're going with that. For those of
you who didn't catch that inference, just look up Goose's crop.

Speaker 2 (15:32):
Goose's crop. Yes, yes, say I right, go ahead.

Speaker 4 (15:38):
I was just with that exception. You know, the handwriting
is very clear, and we have about half of the
manuscripture about half of the story survive, and so we
don't have all of them, but we try to work
with all the ones we can find.

Speaker 2 (15:56):
Yeah, that's what I was going to ask you to
comment on the number of extant man And it's generally
thought that what it's really the last half, isn't it
of the cases of Sherlock holmes that generally exist in
manuscript and it's the front half if you want to
look at it that way, and that are less extant
missing that.

Speaker 4 (16:16):
Is, that is absolutely correct to a first approximation. The
leading the leading scholars on the manuscripts and where they are,
and not just where they are, but where they've been
and the provenance of them are are Peter Blough and
Randall Stock. In particular, Randall's Best of Sherlock website has

(16:37):
the census of all the manuscripts that we know to
exist today, and Randall of course writes an essay about
the provenance and the form of each manuscript, including including
in this current book roughly, as you say about the
general rule is that everything that was written after the

(16:59):
Grand Hut Great Hiatus. The manuscripts typically survived because Conan
Doyle by that point knew that they were collectible and
insisted that they'd be returned to him and sold them
or donated them more, auctioned them for charity, or did
whatever he did with them. There are a couple of exceptions.
We don't have Bruce Partington, we don't have Wisteria Lodge,

(17:22):
and from your episode six or seven years ago when
you talked about the book Trenches which covered his Last Bow,
we only have about half the pages there. But those
are the only exceptions. Pretty Much everything in the Return
the Case Book is Last Bow, the Valley of Fear.
All those manuscripts survive. Conversely, pre the Hiatus, very little survives.

(17:48):
Sinophore does because it was preserved in the Lippencot files.
A scandal in Bohemia is around the Greek Interpreter, is
around the Speckled and is supposed to be around, although
no one knows exactly where it is. It's somewhere in
Greater Chicago. But if anyone knows where it is, please

(18:09):
please let Peter or Randall and me know. Yeah, And
then of course the Hound of the Baskerville's is a
special case, with some of the pages surviving. As most
of your listeners probably know, that manuscript was dispersed and
used as a promotion. Pages were put in the windows

(18:30):
of bookstores with an advertisement Sherlock Holmes is back. And
so some of the pages survived, many did not.

Speaker 1 (18:40):
That's that's the saddest one, I think. So this manuscript
in particular is different than most. It is one of
the two that is written by Holmes himself, but not
the manuscript of the story. And and Conan Doyle took

(19:00):
great care to have this manuscript bound. This was toward
the end of his career. This was one of the
last stories, and it appeared in a different magazine. Then
we are typically used to hearing Sherlock Holmes appearing in
and yet I think five stories appeared in Liberty magazine.

(19:22):
You want to talk a little bit about Liberty and
its impact.

Speaker 4 (19:26):
Yeah, I think you've made two important observations there. One
is that from you know, within the canon, this is
one of only four stories that wasn't written by doctor Watson,
one of only two stories that wasn't written by by
that was written by Sherlock Holmes himself. In terms of
the publication history. The last six Sherlock Holmes stories appeared

(19:58):
in Liberty, which was an American general interest magazine comparable
to a few of the other the few of the
other large magazines of the day. There's a line that
I quote my introduction from one of the Marx Brothers films.
I think it might have been The Coconuts where Carraucho Marxist.

(20:19):
There's nothing like Liberty except Colliers in the Saturday Evening Post.
But Conan Doyle. Conan Doyle, as we all know, had
said about six times, I am done with with Sherlock Holmes.
I don't want to write anymore Sherlock Holmes stories, but

(20:42):
kept returning to the character, and in nineteen twenty six,
probably to raise funds for his spiritualist interests, he agreed
to write six stories which appeared in the UK in
the Strand magazine, like everything else in the US, in Liberty,
which was a relatively new magazine. It had started in

(21:05):
nineteen twenty four by the proprietors of the Chicago Tribune.
And the conventional wisdom has always been that Conan Doyle
must have been fairly desperate for money to have agreed
to write six more stories, and six stories which, by

(21:25):
general consent are not all necessarily at the tip top
of the quality rankings for the home stories. I recently
came across in some papers at the Library of Congress
some evidence that Conan Doyle had actually signed a contract
back in nineteen twenty two for another Sherlock Holmes book,
for which at that time he'd only had two stories written,

(21:48):
and so he must have contemplated writing more even as
early as that. And of course these six stories, along
with six earlier stories from the twenties, wound up in
the Case Book of Sherlock Holmes, the last, the last
of the books.

Speaker 1 (22:06):
Now, one of the things that we associate with these
later stories, in particular, certainly from the return on, is
the wonderful illustrations by Frederic Dorr Steele and Bert. I'm
going to turn my attention to you, because you are
our resident Frederic dor Steel expert. However, it wasn't just

(22:30):
Steel that illustrated this story. It's another artist by the
name of Howard Elcock, who provided some lovely illustrations. And
you do Elcock justice by going beyond just this story.
What can you tell us about this fascinating illustrator.

Speaker 2 (22:51):
Well, his life was fascinating. When I was asked to
write about Elcock, I knew very little other than but
like most readers, other than what I had seen in
terms of his illustrations. And the joy of doing this
kind of writing, in this kind of essay. And it's

(23:11):
nice that we've got time to do it because the
process here, you know, you know, it takes some months
to pull all these things together, involves a lot of research,
and many of us just find that highly enjoyable, digging
around and learning. So you go from knowing virtually nothing
except the name at the bottom of an illustration to

(23:32):
finding out about his life. Well, the short summary is
that it turns out he was born in an artistic
family in Glasgow, and this was at a time of
revolution in art, you know, sort of the start of
Art nouveaux. His father was a key figure in a
glass company that produced klutha glass which was very innovative.

(23:55):
It's held in many museums and it precursed really the substance,
the line, the color, the shapes of Art Nouveau and
his mother, it turns out, was part of a very
artistic family. She'd gone to the Glasgow School of Art,
and as he matured he followed her footsteps into the
Glasgow School, went to London in the nineteen twenties, began

(24:17):
to get some commissions because of his work, including a
magician's manual turned out to be a lovely story. He
was retained by a fellow who published an annual survey
of book, a huge book about magic guy named Goldston,
and produced some amazing illustrations and cartoons, and he went

(24:38):
on to become a very very popular illustrator, as it
turns out, in the nineteen twenties in England for many publications,
including The Bystander, which sent him to all sorts of
exotic locations Sam mourtz Khan the resorts where he did
amazing paintings of Monte Carlo and the scenes. He had

(24:59):
a great palette, very exciting colors. He also did posters
for automobile publications and adopted and mirrored a palette that
had been used for sort of wonderful scenes, evocative scenes

(25:19):
of the English countryside. And then he traveled a great
deal in his life and along the way, he developed
some uh you know, one might say pequa. His ego
probably took over and and he developed some theories about
color and art and life and health that gave him

(25:44):
some interesting and eccentric experiences. In his later years, he
became an American citizen. And you know that's that's I'm
not doing justice to the story because I would like
people to read read the essay. It's really quite remarkable.
He became apparently at one point a faith healer. He

(26:07):
developed systems that were used by interior decorators and designers.
He also fought for a while that he could classify
personality based on artistic shapes and so on, and he led,
I would say, quite a remarkable life.

Speaker 4 (26:25):
When we decided it was Bob Katz, who was the
co publisher at b SI Press at the time, and
you Soldberg and John Burquist play that role. Now. Bob
invited me to edit this book, and we sat down
and made a list of likely contributors, and we immediately

(26:49):
focused on burd as someone who could do justice to
Elcock's career. The context is that while Frederic dor Steele
illustrated this story and the other stories and Liberty Magazine,
the UK. The Strand magazine was always looking for illustrators.

(27:11):
The iconic Holmes illustrator with the stand in the Strand,
Sidney Paget, had died in nineteen oh eight, and after
that there were a number of different British artists who
did this illustrations for the Strand. Walter Paget, Sydney's brother,
did one, and Harry Rountree did Want and Ball and

(27:32):
twyl and Holiday, and Howard Elcock illustrated seven of the
Sherlock Home stories in the Strand magazine. And yet relatively
little is known by Sherlockean's about him, which can no
longer be said now that we have Bird's essay.

Speaker 1 (27:51):
Yeah, it was really I thought a well done mini
biography of Elcock and the illustrations that you chose Bert
to give us a sense as to Elcock's u range.
I think we're quite compelling, you know, certainly the black

(28:12):
and white illustrations sketches that we see from the Sherlock
Holmes stories. But then again, these wonderful pieces that you
say were inspired by his travels to sam Maritz and
Monaco and all the rest, and his automobile advertisements and

(28:32):
some of them here are in color. But I know
you had you were working with quite a library of images,
and you've you've generously volunteered to make those available to
our Patreon and sub stack listeners.

Speaker 2 (28:53):
Oh yes, I would love people to have an opportunity
to see the actual art and all these things. It
took a very long time to restore them because the
scans and the copies that exist are challenging to work with,
and particularly in his bystander illustrations, these are two page spreads,

(29:14):
and so putting it together, putting these things back together,
balancing the colors, restoring the illustrations as best we can,
is always a bit of a challenge, and I love
people to really see them. And you know, it's his
imagination that the joy of this and the reason why
illustrators like Freddie Steele are so important, and Elcock and
Frank Wiles, who's another great Sherlock Holmes illustrator. The reason

(29:37):
why this is important is that the author sits down
and imagines the scene, puts it on the page, the
reader reads it, and it goes into the hands of
an illustrator who's we've got to look at the text,
is the first one to see the text other than
the editor, So you get the illustrator, you know, is
the first one looking at it, and it's the illustrator
who has to say, you know, where are the moments

(29:58):
of drama and what's the process? How do I get
this idea on the page? And how can I make
a drawing with personality and atmosphere. And that's what characterizes
the work of the great illustrators like Freddie Steele, but
also Charles Adams and Walt Kelly and Al Hirschfeld, you know,
people who had this genius of putting these things on

(30:19):
the page. And Elcock's stuff is some of it is
very comic and very dark, and he captured a unique
ability to capture the excitement of the nineteen twenties in
England and it's just something to see some of some
of these works brought back.

Speaker 1 (30:38):
Yeah. Well, like we said, we will make those available
with a link for our Patreon and Substack subscribers. Just
check the show notes for that for more information and
to get access yourself.

Speaker 4 (30:53):
Ira.

Speaker 1 (30:53):
Beside the physical manuscript itself, the physical illustrations that we
have to look at, there are of course some wonderful
essays and analyzes included in that ghastly face, and I
was pleasantly surprised to see just what a range of

(31:21):
topics they were. Can you maybe highlight some of them,
maybe some that stood out to you or grabbed your
attention as you were editing?

Speaker 4 (31:32):
Happy to do that. I've already mentioned. We've already mentioned
the transcription and notes from Phil Bergham, which are a
regular feature, followed by Randall Stock's essay about the history
of the story and the manuscript, and my piece on
Liberty Magazine and Bert's article about Howard Elcock. Two questions

(31:57):
that Sherlockians always ask about a Sherlock Holmes story is
when it took place the chronology aspect, and where it
took place the geography aspect. And so we have a
piece by Katherine Cook trying to locate Tuxbury Old Park
in Tuxbury Hall where the action of the Blanch children

(32:18):
took place. I think she pins it down well. As
I said in the introduction, she did all of a
job with it. The Blanche Soldier is not a difficult
story chronologically. The narrator indicates the date on which the
events took place, and unlike many of the other stories

(32:41):
there are, that date actually works, so don't have a
lot of speculation about what year the story took place in.
So but the chronologically interesting thing about this story is
the reference to doctor Watson's second wife, and Bruce Harris,
well known chronologist and also one of the newest classic

(33:04):
irregulars as of a couple of weeks ago. So congratulations
to Bruce writes his theory, shares his theory about who
the second missus Watson was, a theory that I won't
spoil here, but suffice it to say that I was
not and never will be prepared. We then move on

(33:26):
to Bert. I think you mentioned earlier that this is
one of only two stories that Holmes is the narrator of,
and so Andy Solberg has a piece about Sherlock Holmes's
performances of the narrator and was he in fact the narrator.
We then changed gears a little bit and we moved
to the background of the story, the evident British Sherlockean

(33:50):
and Doyley, and Paul Chapman has a story about as
a chapter rather about Arthur Conan Doyle and the Boer War,
which of course is the background for this story. Doctor
Marilyn McKay who's a dermatologist as well as a Scherlocke
and writes about dermatology and Sherlock Holmes obviously a key
focus of this story. Mary al Caro, whose academic specialties

(34:16):
include plague literature, gave a talk a few years ago
at the Sons of the Copper Beaches about whether the
leprosy he referred to throughout the Adventure of the Blanche
Soldier was actually you know, leprosy at the time was
a devastating disease, but she speculated on whether it might

(34:36):
be code for something even darker, and so she's adapted
that into an excellent chapter in this book. Monica Schmidt,
who is a a therapist and medical health professional, writes
one of her chapters about psycho psychopathology in the In

(34:57):
the canon. The joke with Monica's that anytime she reads
a story is she will she will diagnose the characters,
and anytime she's in a room with some of us,
she will diagnose the Sherlockians. And so she writes. She
writes about Godfrey Emsworth's mental health issues in addition to
his physical issues, speculating about what whether he had what

(35:22):
the day we would call PTSD, post chromatic distress, a disorder,
or some other some other medical illnesses were winding up Shortly,
Jim Webb accepted our invitation to write about the whole
case book and the question of whether these stories are real.

(35:43):
People have speculated that some of the stories in the casebooks,
some of the less highly regarded stories, might not actually
be true and authentic canonical accounts. As horrible as that
might be. To contemplate some Jim speculator on that Shana Carter,
who I might mention, is another of the newest class

(36:06):
of bakerstreeta regulars, So congratulations also to Shana, writes about
the Shana has an interest in addition to being a
Sherlockian in horror and those types of stories, and she
writes about uncanny elements some extraordinary nightmare. And finally, another
eminent British Sherlockean and Doyley and Mark Jones, known to

(36:31):
many for his podcast and as the new editor of
the Sherlock Holmes Journal from the London Society, writes about
Conan Doyle's other non Sherlockian short stories after World War One,
in addition to writing the twelve stories of the casebook,
as well as his non fiction spiritualist publications and about

(36:54):
the war. Doyle wrote several other interesting works of fiction
throughout the night twenties, and so Mark Mark winds up
the book with a fairly thorough discussion of those. So
we start with the blanched Soldier, and people would say,
a bland soldier is not my favorite story. How can
you spin a whole book out of it? But when

(37:15):
you take inspiration from it, and when you branch out
in every direction, there's plenty of material to work with.
And if it's possible for the plant Soldier, I would
suggest it, it's possible for any of the sixty stories.

Speaker 1 (37:32):
Iirall, what was the biggest surprise for you as you
spent more time with this book?

Speaker 4 (37:40):
Nothing is immediately coming to mind. I think the biggest
surprise was a few years ago was finding that we
actually could get the manuscript to publish. For many years,
the New York Public Library, which holds which is where
this story is located, along with a couple of the
other was not willing to share the fact similies of

(38:06):
the stories for whatever reason. And then one year, I'm sorry,
one day I discovered and I talked about this on
a previous episode of this podcast, when I was on
with Ross, we were discussing the Norwood Builder book. One
day the librarian assured me that that had changed and
we were able to get copies of the manuscript of
The Norwood Builder and the Devil's Foot, And this one

(38:30):
had to wait a little while because it was still
under copyright, But a couple of years later they shared
this one, which of course made these volumes possible. And
this book is titled. All the books are titled after
a line in the story, so that ghastly Face is

(38:50):
a quotation from the story when the face is seen
through the window. But I had originally proposed a title
based on the last line of the story, which would
also describe my reaction when the library agreed to copy
all these for us, that joyous shock.

Speaker 1 (39:14):
That's great. Well, I remember an email exchange with you
last year. I gave you maybe a dozen different selections
of phrases from the story, and you had a just
an embarrassment of riches to choose from as far as
book titles go.

Speaker 4 (39:34):
Yeah, my initial bearing in mind again that this is
one of the few, the few pieces for one of
the two cases that Holmes rights, he just says at
the beginning. You know, doctor Watson has always suggested that
I write up an experience of my own, and I
had proposed an Experience of my own as a possible

(39:56):
title for the book, emphasizing the homes, and was pointed
out that that probably wouldn't wasn't specific enough. We went
with another title, which I'm very happy with, but I
recycled that and used it as the title for my introduction,
because although I've contributed to a few of these books,
this was my first time I got to edit one,

(40:17):
and so I was at an enormously fun time wading
through and enjoying this experience of my own. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (40:29):
Yeah, Well, I think the work product is certainly exemplary
of that, and we would encourage everyone to go to
the BSI website and check out under the BSI Books
section the table of contents and ordering information for that

(40:52):
ghastly face. I think, Ira, you've done an admirable job
of running through the contents here without giving away too much.
And there's to me, it's just as you said, the
book itself of the manuscript is probably better than the
story itself, and I think that is it stands as

(41:14):
a testament to your leadership and bringing together this wonderful
team of writers, creators, analysts and you know, Sherlockians all
to contribute.

Speaker 4 (41:25):
To this well. And let me also just think in
addition to the contributors I mentioned Bob Katz who initially
invited me to edit, to edit the book, Andy Salberg
and John Bergquist, who are the co publishers who saw
it through with me. Andy Fusco is the series editor

(41:48):
for the Manuscript series and has been for a long time.
And ultimately credit for the Manuscript series goes to Michael
Keene and Les Klinger who helped who helped get it started.

Speaker 1 (42:00):
It's a wonderful series and we are all the better
for all of them being involved in certainly for you.
So thanks again Ira for joining us here on I
hear of Sherlock everywhere.

Speaker 4 (42:12):
Happy to be here.

Speaker 2 (42:25):
It was a great experience work you're talking with Ira
about the book. It was a great experience working with
him as an editor, and it's interesting when you think
about his description of the contents, how lucky this community
is to have people of such specialties such that when
you come up with an editorial agenda for a book

(42:48):
like this, you can assign these things to people who
have the you know, the experience and the knowledge and
who can really bring something to it by putting their
professional expertise into it. And I'm very pleased to be
part of this. It's a great project and it's just
very pleased to make a contribution to it.

Speaker 1 (43:09):
Yeah. Well, it shows, it really shows, and I think
the again, the level of professionalism and expertise is deep here.
And I was again very pleasantly surprised at what I
found for a story that to me is lackluster or
at least not as one of that interesting stories in

(43:31):
the cannon. I mean, if you're going to take the
two stories that Sherlock Holmes wrote, The Lion's Maine and
the Blanche Soldier the Lion's Maine all day long, no question.
So this was just chock full of insights and you know,
bits of information that I don't think we had before.

(43:52):
I mean, even to understand the pay that Conan Doyle
got for submitting this manuscript to Liberty Magazine and how
they paid in per word, you know, and the translation
to current day funds, how much he would have been

(44:13):
paid in total from both the UK and the US
rights fantastic information right, things that I don't think we
really spend a lot of time thinking about.

Speaker 2 (44:25):
Yeah, very true.

Speaker 1 (44:29):
It's a chance of listening with your correspondent, Madeline Keimyonez.

Speaker 5 (44:36):
Hello everyone, I'm Madeline Kenyons and today I'm here to
talk about the Watsonian Weekly. The Watsonian Weekly is the
Johnny Swantson societies. Look at your week just passed and
your week ahead. Like Johnny Swantson, we might get a
few dates wrong, we might misplace our war wound. But
if you're into Watson his writings in random possibly connected bits,

(44:59):
here's a whole lot of Watson for you. Okay, I
couldn't do better to introduce you to the show than
to give you the basic version of the intro itself.
Brad Keith Fouver has been running this show weekly ever
since May of twenty nineteen. Also, it is the official
podcast of the John N. Twohnson Society, which is independent,

(45:19):
online and international. Brad doesn't do it alone, however, there
have been a multitude of segments over the years featuring
a variety of bullpups or Society members, including Rob Nunn,
Paul Thomas Miller, Margie Duck, Sandy Cozen, Heather Henson, and
me and now I'm realizing that I've been a correspondent

(45:40):
with the show for four years. Holy cow, Okay. The
show also regularly features the voices of other members and
non members alike. Because the monthly meetings on Zoom are
usually recorded, it's a nice way to catch up if
you've missed a meeting, or to relive a fun time.
The once Onion Weekly is a show that is always evolving.

(46:02):
After all, it's focused on Watson, who doesn't exactly make
himself the most present first person narrator in history and
thus doesn't make it easy on us. Segments have included
Words of the Week, Watson's of the Week, book, buying
bees Hats, interviews, and Clark Russell's Fine Sea Stories, which
spoiler alerts, are actually really weird. Bred also sometimes records

(46:27):
at conferences and at two two one bcon for a
little extra fun and flavor. But what has currently taken
over the Watsonion Weekly is the Bullpups and Company segment,
where Brad, Heather and I talk about the latest episode
of the Sherlock and Co. Podcast. Yes, I do a
lot of podcasting about other podcasts, so recommendations for a

(46:50):
meeting recording. I'm going to go with September thirtieth, twenty
twenty four, when several bullpups had to cast their ideal
how to the Baskervilles movie for an event recording April seventeenth,
twenty twenty three, Shenanigans at T two woodbcun that might
revolve around asking too much of a sleep deprived Paul

(47:10):
Thomas Miller. Sorry Paul. As for the rest, I don't know.
It's a big podcast at this point, and most episodes
don't exactly have themes. The older episodes are shorter if
you're curious enough to start from the beginning. Once we
started reviewing Sherlock and Co. Is when they get along regularly.

(47:32):
But even then, it's only around an hour per episode,
and that's well not it. But that's all we got
time for catch later.

Speaker 1 (47:50):
Somebody is having way too much fun, and it's us.
We're the beneficiaries of all of this. I don't think
we could have picked a better person than Madeline to
be our correspondent. She clearly loves to podcasts, to podcasts
about podcasts about podcasts, of Sherlock Holmes of very meta. Well,

(48:24):
you may remember that a couple of episodes ago we
replaced the Sherlockian News segment with the Learned Societies, which
is a look at goings on in the world of
Sherlock Holmes. Societies we may refer to them as science societies,
which is an official designation that the group has been

(48:47):
recognized by the BSI, but it's all immaterial at this point.
We just want to let you know where you can
find information about goings on perhaps in your community, and
somehighlights that we see going on from the Sherlockian Calendar,
So why don't we start there at Sherlockian Calendar dot com.

(49:10):
This is something that is managed by Ron Fish, or
recent investitued member of the Baker Street Irregulars. And if
you have an event locally that is going on and
you would like Ron to put it on the calendar,
all you have to do is reach out to him
via the link there and he will add it to

(49:32):
the feed. So what do we see that's up and
coming in the next month, or so.

Speaker 2 (49:38):
Bert, well, in the next month, there's a lot of
things happening between now and the end of the month
of February, including some things happening today February fifteen, which
as you're listening to this, you've probably missed the Norwegian
Explorer Study Group and the Nashville Scholars of the Three
Prime Problems luncheon meeting. But you've got hopes for the future,

(49:58):
I suppose. And later in the month, in tomorrow in Australia,
the Sherlock Holmes Society of South Australia is having an
afternoon tea.

Speaker 1 (50:08):
That's actually today in Australia.

Speaker 2 (50:11):
Oh that's right, it's today. Well you missed that too, folks.
Spoiler learning, I'm sorry. And the Sound of the Baskervilles
in Federal Way, Washington is having a luncheon meeting, and
there are plenty more things going on. Watson's Tin Box
of Ellicott City and Rochester Row is meeting. Also the
Harpooners of the Sea Unicorn.

Speaker 1 (50:33):
So that's a virtual meeting. It's worth calling out there.
There are a number of us, these local groups that
do virtual meetings that anybody can participate in, regardless of
your geography, and Harpooners of the c Unicorn is one
of those.

Speaker 2 (50:48):
Yes, good point, and there are two more in the
month of February. Boot Makers of Toronto of a virtual
meeting on the twenty second, and the Afghanistan Perceivers of
a virtual meeting on the twenty seventh, and Denny do
Ree's mechanicsburg PA group, the White Rose Irregulars meets on
the twenty second in person. And also Paul Hartnett's Middlesex

(51:08):
Constabulary meets in Monroe Township, New Jersey on the twenty sixth.
So February turns out to be a busy month for Sherlockey.

Speaker 1 (51:15):
I had a lot to squeeze into a short month. Yeah,
and of course we round the calendar. We flipped the
page into March, and we've got five miles from anywhere,
which is out in Colorado, I believe. But that's a
virtual meeting as well. You can check that on their

(51:35):
Facebook page. Steve Mason running the Crew of the bark
lone Star. He is one of the faces and movers
and shakers behind the Legion of Zoom. You may have
heard us do an episode with the Legion of Zoom.
Steve is running the Crew of the bark lone Star
virtual meetings as well. Also out in Denver, doctor Watson's

(51:58):
Neglected Patients is having it's luncheon meeting on the second,
and of course, the first Wednesday of every month in
New York is traditionally known as Ash Wednesday, with the
Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes gather. You can contact Shana Carter
for more information about the March fifth Ash Wednesday. You

(52:22):
have dinner with the Tankerville Club in Cincinnati. Their Facebook
page has information there. Goodness, we've got the parallel case
of Saint Louis having a meeting on the eighth. The
Red Circle of Washington, DC is also having a meeting
on the eighth, as well as the dinner meeting of

(52:42):
the Dog Street Irregulars in Williamsburg, Virginia.

Speaker 2 (52:51):
And plenty more things going on, in particular in Baltimore.
This Sherlockean Invitational Weekend is March fourteen to fifteen, with
a number of things going on. A dinner Friday, March fourteenth,
at seven o'clock at the Maryland Club. The Sherlockians of Baltimore,
also known as the Sobs. Sherlockians of Baltimore, have a

(53:14):
luncheon meeting the next day on Saturday, the fifteenth, at
one pm. And then there's more. Let's see what else
is going on Saturday morning, the fifteenth, for those Incline,
there's a breakfast meeting of the Sherlockians of Dubious Memory,
and after the luncheon, the SOB's luncheon, there'll be a

(53:36):
gathering of the Black Pearls of the Borges, which is
the Baltimore chapter of Spode Sherlockeans Preventing Oysters destroying the Earth.
So all of this is it's a big deal and
you can find out more by going to Sherlock Baltimore
dot com.

Speaker 1 (53:53):
That is a lot of stuff. Well, there are more
going as on in Michigan, Illinois, Tennessee, Minnesota, Washington State,
oh And of course Dayton, Ohio with the big Dayton
Conference coming up. You can check out all of the

(54:14):
information about these events and more at Sherlockian Calendar dot
com and we'll have a link to that in the
show notes. If you know of a Sherlockian meeting that's
going on that we need to know about, or that
Ron needs to know about, just reach out to us.
The comment that I hear of Sherlock dot com, well

(54:43):
those dulcet strains means that it's only one thing. It's
time for the econonical couplet.

Speaker 4 (54:51):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (54:51):
It's everyone's favorite sherlockean quiz program on the air, where
we give you two lines of poetry and ask you
to identify which Sherlock Holmes story we happen to be
talking about. The Last time we were here, we left
you with this clue. The cigarettes were by Ionites. Holmes

(55:14):
settled this one with the utmost ease.

Speaker 5 (55:19):
Bert.

Speaker 1 (55:20):
I should know better, but I'm still going to ask
you which story is this?

Speaker 2 (55:27):
Oh, so many things go on in the cases of
Sherlock Holmes in rooming houses, and Holmes in this case
is confronted by or approached by a person who's rented
a room to someone, but the person in the room
never appears. Their face is always covered. Well, Holmes discovers
it's actually someone who served ten years in prison because

(55:49):
of a jailed burglary that resulted in being put in
the slammer. And that's the case Watson called the Adventure
of the Jailed codure like that that's good?

Speaker 1 (56:08):
Ah, No, No, that wasn't it. I know it's a shocker. Well,
as usual, we turned to Eric Decker's to help us
out of this jam. He says, I've got it. This
is the story where Holmes is being targeted by the
world's most extravagant assassin who kills his marks with a
pistol made of precious metal, even his Holmes attempts to

(56:30):
solve a murder. It's the story Watson called the Adventure
of the Golden Gun, except I think I confused it
with a James Bond movie, which is an easy mistake
to make. Instead, it's the Adventure of the Golden Poncene. Yes, Eric,
you did get it after all, the Golden Poncene, or

(56:52):
if you are like twelve year old Scott reading this
story for the first time, the Adventure of the Golden
pince Nez.

Speaker 4 (57:01):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (57:01):
Well, we had quite a few entries this time around,
very healthy entry system here, and we're going to go
ahead and give the prize wheel a big spear. Figure
out exactly who it is that we're going to award
our prize to you, and it looks like it is

(57:24):
number thirty one. Oh, I like that, lucky thirty one,
and that means our winner is Philip Mindon. Philip, Congratulations.
We will have a copy of Sherlock Holmes and the
Empire Builders off to you once that is published. Well,

(57:49):
this time around, we have a big prize. This is yes,
you guessed it. It is a copy of that ghastly
face from the BSI Press. For a valuable entry in
our prize, faults here and it will be given to
the person who solves this correctly and whose name we
choose at random. The most flint hearted reader utters yelps

(58:15):
when told of what afflicted tadpole phelps. If you know
the answer to this episode's canonical couplet, put it in
an email addressed to comment and I hear of Sherlock
dot com with canonical couplet in the subject mind. If
we select your name at random from all of the
correct responses, you'll win. Good luck. Well Bert, we've done

(58:42):
it again. Hooray despite all predictions. Hard to believe.

Speaker 2 (58:50):
It's amazing, isn't it.

Speaker 4 (58:51):
I know.

Speaker 1 (58:54):
Well, we've got another episode coming up in short order.
Because this is February means our next episode will not
drop on the thirtieth of the month, because there is
no thirtieth of the month. Should we drop it on
March second instead?

Speaker 2 (59:13):
Sure? Why not?

Speaker 1 (59:15):
No listeners, because you are so dedicated. This is the
month where we give you content early on February twenty eighth.
Who will we be talking to Well, we'd love to
tell you, but we don't even know yet. It's one
of our biggest held secrets. In the meantime, you feel

(59:37):
free to look over our show notes, follow us on
whatever platform you choose to listen to podcasts on. Could
be YouTube, could be Spotify. Heck, you could even ask
your smartphone speaker to play our latest episode wherever it is.
We ask you to share it with other people and
bring together this community of Sherlockians worldwide. Meanwhile, this is

(01:00:03):
the extremely local Scott Monty.

Speaker 2 (01:00:08):
And I am right next door. I'm Bert Wolder.

Speaker 1 (01:00:11):
And together we say, of the James, Oh, the games
of the foot. I'm afraid that in the pleasure of

(01:00:34):
this conversation I am neglecting business of importance which awaits me.

Speaker 3 (01:00:42):
Thank you for listening. Please be sure to join us
again for the next episode of I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere,
the first podcast dedicated to Sherlock Holmes.

Speaker 2 (01:00:56):
Goodbye and good luck, and leave me to be my
dear fellow. That is sincerely yours, Sherlock Hunt

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Episode 305: That Ghastly Face

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