The Galactic Sherlock Holmes
By Don Hobbs

Many years ago I visited The Library of the late John Bennett Shaw. I was so awestruck that I could ramble on for many pages about everything I saw there. Sitting in front of John while he sat behind his big desk was like sitting in Santa’s lap at Christmas time or getting an autograph from your childhood baseball hero. Anyone who had the experience of visiting Fort Union Drive in Santa Fe, New Mexico will understand what I speak of. When one entered The Library, the wall to the left was the most impressive. This is where the foreign language editions resided.

Ever since my initial visit, I have held a fascination for foreign translations of the Canon. What stuck in my mind so vividly was the fact that I had a Spanish edition that John did not have in his massive collection (I was able later to find another copy and sent it to John). The seed was planted that here was an area of collecting where I could excel. Since that time I have been able to succeed in putting together a collection of non-English translations, which may not surpass John’s but at least I hope would impress him.

I have been lucky enough to discover Albanian, Asturian, Basque, Inuit, Malayalam, Scots Gaelic, Friulian, and Rumansch translations, to name but a few, that John did not own. I do not mean to be braggadocios. I am merely pointing out that the field of non-English translations of the Canon is so vast that even the great John Bennett Shaw did not discover everything out there.

With all of this being said, I would like to make the following proposal. I would like to offer membership to The Maniac Collectors. This scion society of the Baker Street Irregulars was the first International Sherlock Holmes collector’s society. The membership fee will be $15. Membership is open for any Sherlockian interested in non-English translations of the Canon. Members will receive a CD of “The Galactic Sherlock Holmes”. The CD is in PDF format and consists of a reformatted, updated, and corrected portion of the foreign language portion of The Universal Sherlock Holmes by Ron De Waal (the Sacred Writings only) and nearly 1,000 NIDW (Not In De Waal) entries. All of the NIDW entries and many of the De Waal entries have the cover illustration beside the entry.

I am continually adding to The Galactic Sherlock Holmes database and plan to update the CD each January and July. Members will receive a new CD each time they are produced. Members will be encouraged to send in entries from their own collection, so these too can be added. Entries should include a scan of the book’s cover, the title, publisher’s name, city of publication, the translator’s name if given, illustrator’s name if applicable, and the contents. I will add contributors’ names to the database so they can get the credit.

I hope this is something that will interest the non-English collectors out there and stimulate people to go out and find new translations of the Canon.

Happy Collecting!!