The Maniac Collector's Inbox
No. 432, September 12, 2010

Sherlockian Potpourri
By Don Hobbs

Brad and I have been churning out SherlockPeoria every week since 2002. We have produced more than 400 articles apiece since then and still it is difficult to know who is actually reading us each week. I seldom hear anything from readers. Brad will forward me anyone’s comments. The funny thing is that I have had evidence that our audience is wider than just Sherlockians.

Recently I reviewed the play A Crucifer of Blood staged at Theatre 3 in Dallas. In that review, I mentioned that I had never heard an F-bomb used in any of the Sherlock Holmes plays I have attended in the past. The following Monday, I received an email from Jonathan Small, an actor who portrayed him in the play, telling me that the F-bomb was indeed part of the script. He also informed me, well naturedly, that I had failed to mention him or his character in my review. I suppose that actors are a vain sort of creature and that checking the Internet for any mention of a production they are part of is a normal routine.

In last week’s article, Ex Libris Sherlock Holmes, I wrote about the blog Confessions of a Bookplate Junkie. In that article I lamented that I had found nothing in their archives related to Sherlock Holmes. I was pleasantly surprised on Friday night when the latest edition of their blog arrived via email. When I opened I the first item displayed was the bookplate of Vincent Starrett. Not only is our hero mentioned but they also provided a link to last week’s article. This proved my point that more than just Sherlockians are reading our little effort here at SherlockPeoria.

The Sunday routine at the Hobbs house is getting up, brewing a fresh pot of coffee and attacking the Sunday New York Times Crossword Puzzle.  I have been doing this for more than thirty years and at the risk of sounding braggadocios, I finish it each week using ink. Doing the crossword has taught me many useless factoids. In today’s puzzle, one of the clues was “The River to Reichenbach Falls” and I did not know the answer! I am sure it is not mentioned anywhere in the Canon. As I filled in the answers around it, Aare was the correct answer. I knew the river Aare from doing countless crosswords but never connected the dots.

Another Sunday morning routine is a game I play during our crossword challenge. This one involves the New York Time Book Review magazine. The high-end bookseller Bauman’s usually runs an advertisement on the back page of the Review, listing books worth the G. N. P. of some countries. I read the description of the book to Joyce and ask if she can guess the price. In today’s ad they listed a first edition of The Hound of the Baskervilles. The correct answer is $7,500. This is not very expensive for a book for sale at Bauman’s but for a copy of The Hound it is, especially one that is not pristine.

That’s all I have for this edition of Sherlockian Potpourri.

Happy Collecting!!

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Happy New Year! A Sherlockian Potpourri