Back to SherlockPeoria front page    October 13 , 2002    Back to The Maniac Collector's Archives

An International Affair

The beauty of the world is that it is constantly spinning. This cosmic force finds its way into all aspects of our lives, even the collecting of Sherlockiana.

While collecting, I have not only gathered many interesting and rare books; I have also gathered many wonderful Sherlockian friends. One such friend is Gabriele Mazzoni of Empoli, Italy. He is a Sherlockian friend and fellow collector who introduced me to La Domencia del Corriere - The Sunday Courier. This wonderful, very large format Italian magazine has been published weekly since the 1890s. There are many issues that feature stories from the Canon.

Recently on e-Bay, I noticed several issues up for auction. I placed my bid and won the auction. I made the necessary arrangements and bought the issues. The person I bought them from lives in Venezuela, Argentina and he is selling Italian magazines with stories of an English dectective to an American living in Texas - whew! The same day that the magazines arrived, I received an long expected package from Spain.

The package from Spain was 9 volumes of Basque Sherlock Holmes.The books were Sherlock Holmes en Istorioak 1 (Elkarlanean-2001) ISBN 84-8331-377-4 {TWIS, SPEC, SILV, FINA}; Sherlock Holmes en Istorioak 2 (Elkarlanean-2001) ISBN 84-8331-564-5 {EMPT, NORW, DEVI, CREE, SHOS}; Sherlock Holmes eta itsas tratatua (Elkar-1994) ISBN 84-7917-421-8 {NAVA}; Sherlock Holmes bi kasu berri (Elkar-1996) ISBN 84-7917-566-4 {SILV, CROO}; Lauron Seinalea (Elkaranean-1998) ISBN 84-8331-320-0 {SIGN}; Sherlock Holmes Zirrborro Eskarlata (Itzulpena-1989) ISBN 84-87484-01-8

{STUD}; Sherlock Holmes Abenturak 1 (Itzulpena-nd) ISBN 84-87484-27-1 SCAN, {REDH, IDEN, BOSC, FIVE, TWIS}; Sherlock Holmes Abenturak 2 (Itzulpena-nd) ISBN 84-87484-28-X {BLUE, SPEC, ENGI, NOBL, BERY, COPP}; and Sherlock Holmes en Abentura Berriak (Susaeta-nd) ISBN 84-305-8481-1 {SPEC, FIVE, TWIS, BLUE}.

I said the long awaited package from Spain because these books took more than 70 days to arrive. I promptly sent an e-mail to another collector of non-English translations of Sherlock Holmes,Takahiko Endo, who lives in Tokyo, Japan. Ironically enough, he had ordered the same 9 Basque editions and was also awaiting on their arrival. Also included in Takahiko's reply was a web address of still another collector of Sherlock Holmes translations. This person lives in Germany and on their website, there is a picture of an Inuit translation of The Hound of the Baskervilles!

This really got me excited and I started firing off e-mails and doing web searches left and right. I decided the best place to look for an Inuit translation would be in book sellers in Canada. I went to ABEBOOKS.COM and found listings of more than 100 Canadian book sellers. I also sent e-mails to Peter Blau, Peter Calamai, and the Toronto Reference Library. Nobody seems to have ever heard of an Inuit translation however some anonomous Sherlockian collector in Germany has a copy. Well, sort of. They state on their web page that they only have a photostatic copy of the book. The title of the book is Basjkervillekut Kingmerssual and it was reportedly published in 1961 or there abouts. It seems like if copies of this book actually existed, someone before now would of heard about it.

One of the Canadian book sellers did suggest that I visit sherlockpeoria.net because they listed many very interesting foreign language editions of Sherlock Holmes! The book seller and I had a good laugh when I wrote back explaining that the books featured on that site were from my own collection.

I have written to the webmaster at http://www.geocities.com/Eureka/Gold/9770/interlib.html to get more information concerning the Inuit translation. I also was able to provide them with information on many other non-English editions that were available. This might turn out to be a win-win situation for both of us. There several very nice editions listed there including a great looking The Hound of the Baskervilles in Esperanto that I have never seen before. They list Slovak and Slowak as different languages. This, they state, was due to the fact that when the Slowak was published Chechia and Slovakia were still one state. I have the book listed as Slowak but it still looks like Slovak to me - whew!

Well maybe I should have titled this piece "As the Sherlockian World Turns". I will probably circumnavigate the globe, elcetronically several more times before I get the real answer to whether or not the Inuit translation exists. Stay tuned and enjoy the spin.

Happy collecting!