Sprachen Sie Deutsche?
By Don Hobbs

Richard Kiederle is a German Sherlockian I know because of his interest in non-English translations of the Canon. At the time, Richard had a website and it was through his website that I was able to first contact him.  Another Sherlockian, Takahiko Endo of Tokyo, had emailed me and asked if I knew about a Sherlock Holmes translation in Eskimo. I was unaware of such a translation and it intrigued me enough to look at Richard's Website and email him.

Richard knew who I was and immediately wrote me back and answered all of my questions regarding the translation, which was in Inuit. We have since stayed friends and traded many books with one another. Professionally, Richard works as a tutor  in math, English, and physics.  One of his students, Miss Julia Spegel, decided that she want to visit Texas. Naturally, Richard suggested she contact me. I invited her to spend some time in our home to get to know Texas and Texans.

Last Tuesday Julia arrived in Texas where the temperatures hovered around 98 degrees F. The short walk from the terminal to my car was like walking through an oven. Julia later told me that she had read about the August temperatures in Texas but somehow the text did not quite prepare her for the oppressiveness of the heat. This is one of the mildest summers in more than thirty years. There has only been one 100 degree day this summer. We would normally have had at least twenty-five by now. I couldn't bring myself to tell our German guest this bit of meteorlogical trivia.

 Julia is from Augsburg, in the Bavarian region of Germany and she arrived bearing gifts from the region. She brought us a Bavarian  weather house and three lovely old German editions of the Canon. One of the books is listed in The Universal Sherlock Holmes by Ron De Waal as C2957 - Neue Abenteuer des Doktor Holmes. Another of the books was listed as C2924 -Abenteuer des Doktor Holmes: 9 Detektivgeschichten. These lovely books along with a very early edition of Späte Rache that is not listed in De Waal were a present from Richard. According to the accompanying note he explained that the early German translations confused Holmes and Watson's  roles resulting in the adventures and the new adventures of Doctor Holmes.

Julia is not a Sherlockian and she declined my offer to let her read any of my German editions. Her one and only trip upstairs to my library brought a brief smile to her but I feel this was more out of respect for her tutor Richard than it was any kind of impression with my collection. So it was understandable that she did not think much of my oohing and awing over the latest treasures to my collection. Julia will be staying with us for fifteen days. Maybe it will be enough time to convince her to read at least one Sherlock Holmes story.  I doubt it will be enough time to get acclimated to the Texas heat.

This and a million other reasons is why I love being a Sherlockian!

Happy Collecting!!