"...Holmes "was perhaps the first special librarian of which there is record." It seems clear from the Canon that Holmes kept three permanant files. First in importance was his casebook, or diary, containing only the records of his own cases. Independent of these were the commonplace books and the index of the biographies. Into the commonplace books Holmes pasted press cuttings about incidents arresting his attention, including items from the agony column...Holmes' ceaseless gathering and filing of new cuttings would make the commonplace books awkward if not impossible to keep in alphabetical order, and this necessitated the index of biographies, an alphabetical cross-reference showing where to find items in the commonplace volumes ."-Annotation Baring-Gould
The Musgrave Ritual
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The Master's memory is green in the mind of young Josie Renkwitz. My granddaughter loves to play find the clues and make the deduction. Though only five years of age, she is fascinated by the Holmes mystique.
The next generation of Sherlockians is already awaiting our efforts to introduce Holmes and Watson to them. Josie watches the video Sherlock Hound in Tales of Mystery.
The partners and Moriarty are introduced with excellent animation and understandable plot lines. The chance to put on the deerstalker, tote the pipe and magnify the clues never fails.
The statue (left) is the one commisioned by the Sherlock Holmes Society of London. It stands outside of the Baker Street tube station, but is actually located on the Marleybone Road side of the station.
A wax tableaux (right) in the Sherlock Holmes Museum, which is actually a couple of doors down from 221B. There are several rooms, each with its own tableau. This one is, of course, from our namesake story.
Your attention is drawn to the photograph on the right. On the left is Sherlock Holmes in disguise as John Sherwood, noted journalist; in the centre is Mrs.Hudson dressed up as Dr. Debbie Clark, administrator at the Maryland School for the Deaf; at the right is a rather long-in-the-tooth Mycroft Holmes sporting a beard and spectacles in imitation of Paul Churchill, semi-retired Latin teacher. Why these people would disguise themselves as they have is a matter of some conjecture. They were appearing at a recent gathering at the Howard County Public Library for An Evening With Sherlock Holmes for young people and their keepers. Perhaps they went incognito to avoid detection by Moriarty's henchmen. Mycroft seems to be pointing out something important, maybe the fact that their disguises are too transparent!
The Master Discourses In the photograph at the left, Mr Holmes addresses the youngsters about his principles of never guessing and of asking questions to arrive at truth. The kids responded with enthusiasm to Mr. Holmes' advice and went out to seek justice, truth, and wisdom. One young lady saw through the disguise completely and said that the REAL Mr. Sherwood doesn't smoke a latakia mixture but prefers a bubble-pipe blend, so it must have been the actual Sherlock Holmes!!
Photos of the Baker Street Irregulars
Holmes, Hudson and Heavy