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The Early Punch Parodies of Sherlock Holmes

Page 14

by Bill Peschel


  Lewis Baumer

  As part of a series of illustrations parodying literary classics and characters, Lewis Baumer has Holmes solving the mystery of the missing muff. Baumer (1870-1963) was a caricaturist who contributed to Punch for more than 50 years.

  Reproduced with permission of Punch Ltd., www.punch.co.uk.

  1911

  The Last Galley

  As the Punch reviewer explains, ACD experimented in “The Last Galley” (1910) with mingling historical fact with elements drawn from the author’s imagination. He might have had something else on his mind. One biographer wrote that the title story, about the Roman naval onslaught on an unprepared Carthage, can be read as a critique of Britain’s naval unpreparedness to an invasion.

  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle does not go altogether as a stranger into the “region between actual story and actual history, which,” as he says in the preface to The Last Galley (Smith, Elder), “has never been adequately exploited.” His book, Rodney Stone, was a clever essay in this field, giving as it did a vivid picture of the great days of the boxing ring. In his latest volume he has worked less ambitiously, though he hints at something greater to come. He gives a series of ten brief “impressions,” based on facts dotted up and down the long stretch of years during which the Roman Empire was the world. He has coloured these facts with “the glamour which the writer of fiction can give,” and he has produced a set of very readable stories which help one to form a conception of affairs as they may have existed at that time. I don’t know that it is anything against them that the glamour is in some cases derived rather from the possible than the probable. He relates, for instance, the meeting of Theodora and her son. It is generally believed that this versatile lady lost no time in removing from the sight of the world, and of her husband Justinian, all trace of so untimely a reminder of her early adventurous career. Sir Arthur, giving her a sudden access of maternal affection, rescues the boy from the very brink of the underground well to which he had been doomed, and sends him back to the monastery in Antioch whence he came. Nobody knows exactly what did happen, so this is conceivably true, but personally I doubt it. Again, he makes of Maximin a bluff, honest sort of barbarian soldier, who an hour before the thing occurred had no idea of becoming emperor. This also may be true, though for my part I put my money on the other side of the picture.

  Mr. Punch’s Gala Variety Entertainment

  Given ACD’s popularity, it seems odd that he’s barely mentioned in the coronation issue celebrating the ascension of King George V and Queen Mary. In its extensive Illustrated Programme, stuffed with caricatures, mock events and declarations of loyalty to the royal couple, the only mention of Doyle or Holmes is found in event 29:

  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle will play an exhibition three-ball (captive) match with Jack Sherlock and Mr. Holmes, late of the Education Office.

  The Great Wager

  C.L. Graves and E.V. Lucas

  Another type of article frequently used in Punch was to quote an item from the press and “solicit” responses from notable people of the day. Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949) was a playwright and poet who was given the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911.

  [“M. Maurice Maeterlinck, the Belgian writer, has wagered £80 that he will succeed in landing at New York and reaching Boston, Massachusetts, without being interviewed by American reporters.”—Daily Press.]

  M. Maeterlinck is a man of ideas, as those who have read his books and seen his plays need not be told, but even he is not above taking counsel, and in order to help him carry out his great enterprise—for £80 is a sum worth winning—he has permitted inquiries to be made of a number of persons likely to be of assistance.

  Some of the replies are subjoined.

  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: Any assistance that I can give is at the service of my confrère. Literary artists should stick together. One of the best disguises is that of the one-legged man. This is painful, as it means bending the calf of the other leg backwards against the part above the knee and pushing the result into a truncated trouser; but it can be done. No one would expect M. Maeterlinck to have but one leg. The twisted lip is useful too, but one must remember that American interviewers have sharp eyes.

  Reproduced with permission of Punch Ltd., www.punch.co.uk.

  1912

  Professor Billinger’s Downfall; or, The Extinct-Game Hunters.

  “Cunning Toyle” (C.L. Graves and E.V. Lucas)

  The same year that ACD published The Lost World, Punch responded with this parody that poked fun at highlights from the novel. The names below are take-offs of Professor Challenger, Lord John Roxton, Professor Summerlee and the reporter Edward Malone.

  Being an account of the recent amazing adventures of Professor Billinger, Lord John Kangar, Professor Winterly and Mr. Watsone of “The Daily Trail.”

  Chapter I.

  Professor Billinger, the great sporting agent of St. James’s Street, was the most extraordinary thing I ever saw; and, being both a Rugby International and a pushing journalist, I have seen a good deal. If he resembled anything it was one of those cocoanuts with eyes and beards in greengrocers’ windows; but, as a matter of fact, he did not resemble anything or anybody, except in his photograph, where his eyes remind one of those of a famous writer of detective stories. He was, as Lord John Kangar said of him, “so dooced sui generis, don’t you know.” His head was immense and shaggy and red; his arms were like Jack Johnson’s; whereas his legs recalled those of a dachshund. To these physical attractions were allied a brain of gigantic power, a colossal egoism, the worst manners in the world, horrible language and a temper like a whirlwind. Visitors to his sporting agency in St. James’s Street left either by the window or an ambulance, or both.

  This sounds unprepossessing, but since only Billinger’s agency knew where the best pterodactyl shooting and mastodon stalking were to be had, and since I had to do a little of each in order to win Gladys and satisfy the editor of The Daily Trail that I was worth my salt, I was forced to call on him. Our interview began in his office and finished in the St. James’ Park duck-pond, whither we had progressed locked in each other’s arms and rolling over and over to the complete disorganization of the traffic. But—I had secured the shooting!

  Chapter II.

  I pass over my subsequent six months in Charing Cross Hospital and come to the constituents of our party. First, there was Lord John Kangar, the famous big-game hunter, collector of bibelots, and nut. Next, Professor Winterly, Billinger’s bitter rival and a profound disbeliever in the truthfulness of his inventories. Lastly, myself, who was to write an account of everything that happened and send it every night to my paper, no matter how far away from civilization we might be, and incidentally to win Gladys. Whether or not she was really worth winning, I never quite made up my mind; but the motive has a romantic flavour.

  Chapter X.

  Judge of our surprise when, on at last arriving in the centre of South America, four thousand miles from the mouth of the Amazon (I am pledged to give no more precise particulars), we found Professor Billinger waiting for us. “Ah,” remarked Winterly with his sub-acid humour, “I thought I smelt a liar.” “You’re another,” said Billinger, and it required all the tact and physical strength of Lord John Kangar and myself, exercised for two hours, to separate them. Such contests, both of sarcastic wit and fisticuffs, were a daily occurrence. But, as Lord John, who was a master of current slang, said, “These young fellow-me-lads must be allowed their little scraps—oh, what? Dooced awkward for us, no doubt, sonny, but there it is. What ho!”

  Chapter XIII.

  Having secured a retinue of natives, we pushed on through the primeval forest, where no one except the famous travelers, Harry de Queux and William le Windt, had ever been before. We looked in vain for their bones. After many days’ travelling we reached an unclimbable cliff.

  “We’re up against it this time, no bloomin’ error,” said Lord John. Winterly was silent, but he looked at Billinger with a sardonic expressio
n that said as plainly as words, “I told you so.”

  “Unclimbable, is it?” said Billinger. “Wait a moment;” and drawing out his tobacco pouch he filled it with free hydrogen from a neighbouring geyser, attached our four saddles to it, and such was the buoyancy of the gas that we were almost instantly at the top of the cliff. I never had a more exhilarating ride. Once there, for at least five minutes Winterly ceased to jibe, such was the success of the experiment.

  Chapter XIV.

  The next thing was to negotiate the impassable gorge which separated us from the estate we were to rent; but this was easily done, and at last, after days of fatigue and danger, we were in the promised land. Having made a fire and enjoyed our supper we turned in, but before doing so I wrote my account of our desperate adventures to date and posted it.

  Chapter XV.

  It was on my way back from the pillar-box that I had the most appalling experience of my life. I met a mastodon. Trained writer though I am, no words of mine can give you any idea of the horror of this creature. At first my limbs were paralysed, but then I turned and fled. Every second he drew nearer, and but for the accuracy of Lord John Kangar’s aim I should never have escaped. And here I must say that where we should have been without Lord John I cannot imagine. Certainly not here to tell the tale.

  Chapter XVI.

  On the next day shooting began in earnest. After sighting his rifle on one of our natives, in the plain below, and shooting him clean, as being “almost certainly a bally scoundrel, don’t you know,” Lord John Kangar put up a covey of pterodactyls and brought down three; while Professor Billinger and I got one each. Billinger, I need hardly say, immediately ate his raw. Sometimes indeed he seemed hardly human, always excepting his eyes. Poor Winterly, now that the veracity of Billinger’s pre-historic game-list had been proved, was reduced to a kind of pulp and whenever he left the camp had to be carried back by one or more of us.

  Chapter XVII.

  It was on that night, again on returning from the post, that I experienced an adventure so terrible that I can hardly bring myself to write it. Suddenly I was aware of a sound like the shunting of a goods train. Knowing that there could be no train there I was naturally curious, and, peering round a tree, I saw an animal approaching which must have been sixty yards long. It was a diplodocus. My marrow froze within me and again I ran, and again nothing saved me but Lord John’s rifle. “My dear Watsone,” he said, “you really must give up these dooced postal errands. Let the bally paper do without your stuff for one day—eh, what?”

  Chapter XVIII.

  It was, I think, the next day that we completely exterminated the ape-men, or perhaps it was the day after; at any rate we killed every one—or almost every one—and then took the Tube for the plain again, Lord John having discovered the station.

  Chapter XXVI.

  Queens Hall was crowded to hear the account of our travels, Sir Henry Wood and his orchestra being banished for the night. It was evident that there was to be trouble, amongst the audience being many young women with hammers and numbers of medical students with asafoetida and whistles. Professor Billinger was our spokesman. His account of our travels excited only a languid interest, and no one was in the least moved when he liberated a young pterodactyl in the hall. But when he said, in his peroration, that he himself was unique and none but himself could be his parallel, Professor Winterly brought down the house by remarking quietly, “Question.”

  Billinger was thunderstruck. He repeated his statement and Winterly repeated his interruption. At last Billinger inquired what he meant by “Question.”

  “I mean,” said Winterly, “that you are not unique.” Billinger was speechless; he flung himself at Winterly, but forty scientists on the platform, led by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Sir E. Ray Lankester, held him back.

  “Produce your proof!” roared the audience to Winterly.

  “I will,” he said, and signed to the attendants, who at once staggered to the platform bearing an enormous box.

  “Now,” said Winterly, and opening it, he revealed the King of the Ape-men, a horrible creature exactly like Billinger, even to a cocoanut mark on his left arm.

  Winterly’s revenge was complete! Rising to the occasion, the audience seized him, Lord John and myself and carried us all round London, while poor Billinger was left with his double, bringing libel actions against the world.

  Chapter the Last.

  And what of Gladys? You will not be surprised to hear that after reading a full account of our adventure, she decided to marry a less remarkable man.

  Reproduced with permission of Punch Ltd., www.punch.co.uk.

  1913

  How Scotland Yard Detectives Are Trained

  Arthur Watt

  Arthur Watt (1883-1935) was a prolific illustrator whose life was cut short in a plane crash in the Alps.

  Students following a scent blindfolded.

  Practising the “Sherlock” Spring on a dummy.

  Hiding in corners. (A fine art.)

  Learning to detect false hair, whiskers, moustaches, eyebrows, etc., without touching.

  1914

  The Lost World

  Discouraged with the reception to his historical novels, ACD vowed that his next book would “do for the boys’ book what Sherlock Holmes did for the detective tale.” “The Lost World” (1912) introducing Professor Challenger, was inspired by Doyle’s explorer friend Percy Harrison Fawcett. While on an expedition in Bolivia, Fawcett said he had found a plateau with impenetrable forests and “monstrous tracks of unknown origins.” “The Lost World” would inspire imitators such as Edgar Rice Burroughs’ “The Land That Time Forgot” (1916) and Vladimir Obruchev’s “Plutonia” (1915), which located its prehistoric animals underneath Russia’s Siberia. The novel has been adapted for radio and movies several times, with Wallace Beery, Claude Rains, Basil Rathbone, and John Rhys-Davies portraying Challenger. Smith, Elder’s illustrated edition of “The Lost World,” now hard to find, inspired this poem-review.

  I’ve often longed to come upon

  Some giant spoor and dog the track till

  I ran to earth a mastodon,

  A dinosaur, a pterodactyl;

  But I supposed my natal date—

  However distantly I view it—

  Was several thousand years too late

  To give me any chance to do it.

  And yet Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

  Has found a man who’s penetrated

  Through bush and swamp on virgin soil

  And seen the things I’ve indicated

  Creatures with names that clog your pen—

  Dimorphodon and plesiosaurus—

  And carried home a specimen

  To silence any doubting chorus.

  In “The Lost World” the tale is told

  (Smith, Elder do it cheap) in diction

  So circumstantial that its hold

  Is more than that of common fiction;

  If you can run the story through,

  By aid of portraits when you need it,

  And not be half convinced it’s true,

  You simply don’t deserve to read it.

  The Terrors of War

  N.R. Martin

  The ongoing digitization of old magazines and newspapers has made it much easier for researchers to search the archives and come up with gold. Such is the case here, a Sherlock Holmes parody that has not seen the light of day since 1914! Nothing is known of its author, N.R. Martin.

  Published soon after the declaration of war, this extract from a longer article predicted that publishers will soon roll out “war romances” featuring unrealistic examples of stiff-upper-lip derring-do at the front lines and families back home pulling together to support their soldier sons and fathers. The omitted section of this article parodied the Clayhanger Family novels by Arnold Bennett.

  [Being privileged extracts from two of next season’s War Romances.]

  From: “The Military Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes”—


  I shrank down into a corner of the reserve trench. The fifteen inches of half-frozen mud caused my old wound from an Afghan bullet to ache viciously. I longed for some wounded to arrive—anything to end this chilly inactivity. A tall officer in staff uniform jumped into the trench beside me.

  “You are wishing yourself back in Baker Street,” he remarked.

  “How did you know?” I exclaimed. “Why, Holmes, what are you doing here?”

  “Business, my dear Watson, business. Moriarty is becoming troublesome again.”

  “But he was drowned.”

  “Far too clever to be drowned in that pool. Merely stranded on the edge like myself. But I had made England too hot for him. You can guess his name.”

  “Not the K—”

  “Watson, Watson, Moriarty was my mental equal. Now he calls himself von Kluck.”

  I was overwhelmed.

  Just then a little group of the staff arrived. I recognised amongst them the figures of General J—and Field Marshal F—, and saluted.

  “The spy in staff uniform is the third on your left, Sir,” said Holmes casually.

 

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