by Bill Peschel
Welcome to 223B Baker Street
The debut of Sherlock Holmes in the pages of The Strand magazine introduced one of fiction’s most memorable heroes. Arthur Conan Doyle’s spellbinding tales of mystery and detection and Holmes’ deep friendship with Dr. Watson touched the hearts of fans worldwide, inspiring imitations, parodies, songs, art, even erotica, that continues to this very day. Sherlock Holmes Great War Parodies and Pastiches II: 1915-1919 collects 37 pieces published during the middle phase of Conan Doyle’s life. Some were written by soldiers in the trenches, schoolboys, reporters, and other amateurs, but many professional writers turned out stories, such as Ring Lardner, John Kendrick Bangs, Carolyn Wells, and a 15-year-old George Orwell!
We’ve also included the stories’ original art and more than 300 footnotes identifying obscure words, historical figures, and events that readers were familiar with then but are forgotten today.
Peschel Press’ 223B Casebook Series—named because they’re “next door” to the original stories—is dedicated to publishing the fanfiction created by amateur and professional writers during Conan Doyle’s lifetime.
Table of Contents
Cover
Welcome to 223B Baker Street
Title Page
Introduction
How the Book Was Organized
Acknowledgements
1915
Arthur Conan Doyle’s Life to Date
Postum Ad / Anonymous
In Sheep’s Clothing / Anonymous
A Study in Handwriting / Ring Lardner
The ’Varsity Letter / Anonymous
The Adventure of the Clothes-Line / Carolyn Wells
Sherlock Holmes Solves a Problem in Publishing / Anonymous
Water, Water Everywhere and Not a Drop For Tea / Anonymous
The Death of Sholmes / Charles Hamilton
Bibliographic Bones / Frank Place
The Mystery of 2643, Pte. Chugwater / Anonymous
1916
Arthur Conan Doyle’s Life to Date
The Puzzling Adventure of the Misunderstood Monkey Business / Maxwell Bukofzer
Herlock Shomes At It Again / Anonymous
To Sir Arthur Conan Doyle / “Edward Moore” (Edwin Muir)
In Baker Street / Bert Leston Taylor
The Mystery of the Leaping Fish / Tod Browning and Anita Loos
The Model T Mystery / E. H. Soans
Narpoo Rum / Anonymous
The Adventure of the Missing Group / A.S. Reeve
An Irreducible Detective Story / Stephen Leacock
Sheerluck Holmes Deduces / J. Raymond Elderdice
1917
Arthur Conan Doyle’s Life to Date
Intercepted Communications / John Kendrick Bangs
Cherchez la Femme / Carolyn Wells
The Deep Mystery / Anonymous
The Looking-Glass / Anonymous
The Scarlet Drop / “Sir Kadaver Bonan Oyle” (“Fibulous”)
Zero! or The Bound of the Baskershires / Anonymous
Belsize as a Commentator: Sherlock Holmes / Vernon Rendall
1918
Arthur Conan Doyle’s Life to Date
The Adventure of the Lost Meat-Card / Eric Arthur Blair (George Orwell)
A Game at Chess / “E.A.G.”
The Adventure of the Shattered Boudoir Glass / “Dr. John H. Watson, M.D.” (Oliver Wells)
Sherlock Holmes and Certain Critics / Ellis G. Roberts
Watson, Once Epaminondas, Joins Deteckative Gubb / Ellis Parker Butler
The Adventure of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons / James Francis Thierry
His Final Arrow / R.C. Lehmann
1919
Arthur Conan Doyle’s Life to Date
When the Spirits Rapped / Anonymous
Baffled, Another Adventure of the Dear Old Has-Been, Sherlog Combes / Anonymous
Holmes Out-Sherlocked / W.J. McDonnell
Bibliography
About the Editor
Footnotes
Copyright Page
Introduction: Slaughter and Spiritualism
With this volume, we enter a new age in Holmesian fanfiction brought on by two major historical events.
First, Western civilization found itself in the age of world war, with battles on a scale never seen before. War was no longer fought between countries, but teams: the Allies vs. the Central Powers. Trench lines ran from the English Channel to the Swiss Alps. Conflicts raged between nations on multiple fronts across Europe and East Africa. The prospect arose of a German-Mexican alliance against the United States. With the help of airplanes, zeppelins, artillery, and submarines, war broke beyond the front lines and into civilian areas.
Then there was the new age as New Age with new beliefs and philosophies. As the casualty list grew, as more and more families grieved, people turned to Spiritualism. Cranks and con artists took advantage of the gullible and hurting, but sober scientists and well-meaning advocates—Conan Doyle especially—believed and campaigned to spread the word.
In the world of Holmesian fanfiction, the war stories appeared first. After the heady rush of mobilization in August 1914, and the realization that the troops wouldn’t be over by Christmas, Britains realized they would have to endure more than they expected. This war wasn’t fought with feints and maneuvers and dashing armies clashing on a battlefield. More powerful weapons, including the machine gun, barbed wire, gas, and artillery, created massive fronts where gains and losses were measured in yards. Casualties were high. By the end of 1915, several of Conan Doyle’s relatives had already died; nine in all by the war’s end.
So Holmes went to war. He was used as a morale builder by Conan Doyle in “His Final Bow.” Other writers adopted him to reflect on the conflict, from the dark humor needed to cope with fighting and dying at the front to the civilian experience at home. He appeared in an internment camp’s magazine as well as those published by soldiers on scavenged printing presses and paper. These “trench journals,” mostly amateurishly written and edited, created a dual message, in the code of soldier slang and military terms, that portrayed accurately and humorously their war experiences to their comrades, without being completely understood, and alarming to, the civilians at home.
The second influence on the stories appeared after Conan Doyle become a Spiritualist. He had been attending séances since his days as a young doctor in Southsea three decades before. He had investigated mediums and talked to people about the messages they had received from the great beyond. Nor was he alone in this quest. Organizations such as the London Spiritualist Alliance applied scientific methods to their inquiries. Some mediums were out-and-out frauds, caught with their hands in the ectoplasm, so to speak. Some cases—well—the best we can say is that we’ll never know for sure from the evidence left behind.
It was during this period, Conan Doyle embarked on his last great crusade, to teach us that the dead live on and have something to say to us. The public’s respect for him was so great that they were willing to listen, at least at first. The magazine and newspaper writers were much more skeptical. These stories will reflect that as well.
Bill Peschel
Hershey, Pa.
Feb. 29, 2016
P.S.: If you like this series, will you consider spreading the word about it? A review, a comment online, or a mention to another Sherlock Holmes fan would be very much appreciated. Thank you.
B.P.
How the Book Was Organized
The 223B Casebook Series has two goals: To reprint the majority of the parodies and pastiches published in Conan Doyle’s lifetime, especially rare items not readily available, and s
tories collected about a single subject, such as The Early Punch Parodies of Sherlock Holmes.
The stories in the chronological books appear in the order in which readers of the time would have seen them. This way, we can see how writers changed their perception of Sherlock as the canonical stories were published. Stories for which dates could not be found, such as those published in books, were moved to the back of the year.
Each chapter begins with a description of Conan Doyle’s activities that year. I tried to keep the essays self-contained, but some events, such as Conan Doyle’s longtime relationship with Jean Leckie, span years, and you may need to read the essays in previous books in the series to fully understand them.
The stories were reprinted as accurately as possible. No attempt was made to standardize British and American spelling. Some words have undergone changes over the years—“Shakespere” instead of “Shakespeare” and “to-morrow” for “tomorrow”—they were left alone. Obvious mistakes of spelling and grammar were silently corrected, except in certain stated cases, and solid blocks of paragraphs were broken up to aid readability.
Acknowledgements
A great effort was made to determine the copyright status of these pieces and obtain permission to publish from the rightful copyright holders. If I have made a mistake, please contact me so that I may rectify the error.
As each volume went to press, I’m reminded again of how many people helped make this series larger and better than I could have done alone. Research assistant Scott Harkless provided rare and crucial stories. Denise Phillips at Hershey Public Library worked hard to acquire the books and articles I asked for. Peter Blau generously shared the fruits of his researches. Charles Press provided me with a shopping list from his Parodies and Pastiches Buzzing ’Round Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and happily filled in the gaps with extremely rare items from his researches.
Then there are the writers whose books led the way: Otto Penzler for The Big Book of Sherlock Holmes Stories; Bill Blackbeard for Sherlock Holmes in America; Frederic Dannay and Manfred Lee (“Ellery Queen”) for their ill-fated The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes; Philip K. Jones for his massive (10,000 entries!) database of Sherlockian pastiches, parodies, and related fiction; John Gibson and Richard Lancelyn Green for My Evening With Sherlock Holmes and The Uncollected Sherlock Holmes; Paul D. Herbert for The Sincerest Form of Flattery; Peter Ridgway Watt and Joseph Green for The Alternative Sherlock Holmes: Pastiches, Parodies and Copies; The Sciolist Press, Donald K. Pollock, and the other editors behind The Baker Street Miscellanea.
By digitizing the nation’s newspapers and making them searchable, The National Library of Australia enabled me to find previously unknown parodies and research their local references so we can appreciate what was going on in New South Wales, Mudgee, and Perth.
Ian Schoenherr receives my thanks (again!) for contributing “The Adventure of the Shattered Boudoir Glass” for this volume.
Finally, my love to Teresa, wielder of the red pen and owner of my heart.
Got a parody?: If you have an uncollected Sherlock Holmes story that was published between 1888 and 1930, please let me know the title and author. If I don’t have it and can use it, you’ll earn a free trade paperback of the book it’ll appear in plus an acknowledgement inside! Email me at [email protected] or write to Peschel Press, P.O. Box 132, Hershey, PA 17033-0132.
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1915
With his characteristic gusto, Conan Doyle threw himself into supporting Britain in World War I. Rejected from serving as a soldier at age 55, he continued drilling with a volunteer unit, going on route marches and even pulling a shift guarding German prisoners of war. As he did with the Boer War, he began a history of the conflict, soliciting letters from the generals and collecting information from the newspapers. He turned his notes into a lecture, and by March, his “Great Battles of the War” tour was taking him from Scotland to London.
In May, he received a grim confirmation of his prediction that German submarines would attack ships to starve Britain into surrendering. Without warning, the Lusitania was torpedoed off the coast of Ireland. Of the 1,962 passengers and crew, 1,191 died, including 128 Americans. Propaganda branded the Germans as barbarians, and the U.S. considered entering the war. Conan Doyle was criticized when reporters inside Germany quoted military sources claiming they got the idea from him. He wrote a letter defending himself, The Strand backed him up, and the “stupid business,” as he termed it blew over.
In June, The Valley of Fear was published in book form. As in A Study in Scarlet, Conan Doyle chose to tell two stories, one a murder solved by Sherlock Holmes, and then the events leading up to it that took place in Pennsylvania decades before. The Valley of Fear disappointed some fans who wanted a novel about Holmes, not half of a two-novella package.
Meanwhile, the war brought more tragedy to the family: in July the only son of sister Mary Doyle and E.W. Hornung was shot in the head and killed. Also killed in battle was Maj. Leslie Oldham, his other sister’s husband, and Alex Forbes, the son of his wife’s sister. Conan Doyle grieved and soldiered on, writing Mary that her son “died a hero’s death” and working Oldham’s name into his history. He could take fearful comfort that his younger brother Innes and his son Kingsley were still alive. As for his mother, the redoubtable Ma’am, the death of her first grandchild was a hard blow to suffer at 78. It would not be the last.
Publications: Holmes in The Strand: The Valley of Fear (Sept. 1914-May 1915). Holmes: The Valley of Fear (June).
Postum Ad
Anonymous
Postum should be a textbook example of how you can create a demand for a product that nobody knew they wanted. Created in 1895 by C.W. Post (1854-1914), the powdered drink consists of roasted wheat, wheat bran, flour, and molasses. It has no caffeine, no fat, no trans-fats, no salt, no preservatives, and no taste anyone desired. Backed by an ad campaign that alleged that coffee damaged your health, Postum made Post a fortune, and his company eventually became General Foods. Discontinued in 2007, Postum was licensed to a health-food company, which continues to sell the product online.
Holmes: “Did you observe, Watson, the trembling hand, the lack-lustre eye, the nervous attitude, the sallow skin, the fear of impending disaster? Clearly, that man is an inveterate coffee-drinker, and—
Watson: “What he needs is POSTUM.”
In Sheep’s Clothing
Anonymous
When the 3rd University and Public Schools Battalion Royal Fusiliers moved to the front, they became one of the first to publish a unit magazine, The Pow-Wow. “Trench journals” served a number of purposes: to pass the time in an amusing way, to discuss unofficial rumors, and to poke fun at the realities of military life, as this story did in the March 5 issue. The Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment) was active for 283 years (1685-1968), and a memorial to the 22,000 men who died in World War I stands in Holborn, central London.
By a happy coincidence, Corporal Holmes and I found ourselves on picquet duty together, for we are not in the same platoon.
I need scarcely say that I have always been an admirer of Holmes’s methods, and the news that we were to fulfil that particularly responsible position of picquet to the station proved that at last the authorities had given a belated recognition of his sleuth-hound abilities.
Holmes lay back with his feet on an empty milk can, idly puffing forth volumes of smoke and platitudes. “Coincidence, my dear Watson, life is built up of coincidences.”
Two soldiers and a civilian entered the booking office. At the demand for passes, two were produced and duly inspected. The civilian, however, proceeded with his head averted, his Homburg h
at thrust far forward over his nose. He stooped to pick up his handkerchief which he had dropped near Holmes’s feet. As he did so, I saw Holmes’s eyes glitter in the darkness.
“Did anything unusual strike you about that man?” Holmes enquired at length.
“Nothing, except that he ought to be a soldier,” I replied.
“My dear Watson. He is one already,” said Holmes calmly watching the effect of his words.
Their full significance gradually became clear to me.
“Mufti?” I inquired at length. “Holmes; you amaze me.”
“You remember the Spread Eagle affair,” proceeded Holmes. “This case has many points that closely resemble it. In the first place, the young man is of military age, a very rare sight, out of mufti, in this patriotic little town. Secondly, his behaviour was decidedly suspicious, arrogant yet timorous, and not in the least the conduct of a civilian whose mind is at ease.”
“But!” I began. Holmes waved my objection aside.
“And thirdly,” he continued, “did you observe the colour of his handkerchief—khaki. I think the chain of evidence is now complete and all that remains to be done is to await the return of the law-breaker,” he concluded, relighting his pipe.
Towards twelve the malingerer returned, looking securer, having further disguised himself with a pair of blue spectacles.
“Private Jones, show your pass,” said Holmes, smiling with grim satisfaction.
Dismay and guilt were written on every line of the defaulter’s face. Once more Holmes had proved himself omniscient.
* * * * *
“How did you know his name?” I asked after the incident had closed.
