The Sherlock Holmes Review's Last Bow

By Brad Keefauver

For a Sherlockian, it’s sometimes very hard to accept things at face value. The family curse turns out to be a dog with phosphorous paint on its face. The legacy of a Garrideb or red-headed man turns out to be a plot to get under someone’s house. And a dying or dead detective . . . well, they’re never quite as dead as they seem. And to those attending The Sherlock Holmes Review’s fifth symposium, “Our Last Bow,” on November 21-23, there was not so much a feeling of standing on the terrace as the impression of looking over the falls at Reichenbach. It’s hard to have a wake without a corpse, and there were definitely no dead bodies at this weekend in Indianapolis.

For those of you who haven’t heard, The Sherlock Holmes Review is about to cease to exist after ten years of giving Sherlockians a much-needed modern take on the Sherlockian scene. Interviews with Granada television producer Michael Cox, actors Jeremy Brett and Peter Cushing, and writer/director Nicholas Meyer highlighted the publication’s run, especially grand achievements when one considers that The Sherlock Holmes Review was based in Indiana. The reason for the Review’s demise is, quite happily, that the publishers have moved on to a larger venture: taking over David Hammer’s Gasogene Press.

But any excuse for a Sherlockian symposium is a good excuse, and the only head hanging low and sad-looking at this symposium was that of Sherlock Holmes on the cover of the program book.

When it comes to symposiums, you’ll find that there are good and prompt and attentive Sherlockians . . . and then there is this commentator. Due to road construction and an unexpected change in time zones (Indiana just doesn’t seem “Eastern” to me), my companion and I stumbled into the symposium fifteen minutes into Patricia Ward’s defense of Dr. Watson. Already skulking about from our tardiness, I soon discovered Pat Ward was giving me a new reason to skulk: she was organizing a Watson Anti-Defamation League and whipping the crowd into a “Let’s save Watson!” frenzy. As the sort of Sherlockian scholar who has delighted in spreading rumors about the doctor for years, I began to await the words “There’s one of the blackguards now! Get him!” Luckily, my false beard and neatly pressed suit served as an excellent Philip Shreffler disguise . . . well, until the former editor of The Baker Street Journal turned up to deliver the next talk, at which time I had to claim to be Stapleton from The Hound of the Baskervilles.

After some asides on deconstructionism, Philip proceeded to recount the course of published Sherlockian scholarship: its history, its glories, and the fact that we now have a ton of it coming at us. As he continued to discuss the relative quality of modern scholarship, I almost started to relax — my mistake. Philip began to speak of Sherlockians as “devotees,” as he has in the past, contrasting the Sherlockian personality with the less refined comic-book-fan mentality. I like comics as much as the next guy, but having been to a comic book convention or two and seen the fans that lurk there, well . . . I wasn’t jumping up to disagree. But then, in the course of his comments, Philip tossed out an off-hand slam on Trekkies.

Casting a sideward glance toward the lifelong Trekkie sitting next to me, I quickly doffed my false beard and suit, opting for a less Shreffler-esque disguise. No need getting accidentally koshed in the hall before I sold any back issues of The Holmes & Watson Report in the dealers’ room.

After the break, and a brisk run on said Report back issues, we were treated to a Basil Rathbone retrospective by Terence Faherty and a feminist view of Holmes by Marcia Caudell and Yvonne DeTar. A closeout auction of items from the back shop of The Sherlock Holmes Review soon followed. Original art, cover pasteups, and a complete run of the journal found new homes as a good deal of money was collected for both the final issue of The Sherlock Holmes Review and the Dr. Watson Fund.

Steven Doyle, founder of The Sherlock Holmes Review, followed the auction with a presentation on Sherlock Holmes and Jack the Ripper, covering all the theories, the speculated encounters, providing ample material for one’s own speculations on what really happened between the legends of order and chaos in the late 1880s. But as enjoyable as his talk was, Steven really has to be given credit for bravely taking the warm-up act spot; for no matter how well he did, the day’s highlight was going to come right after him.

Though the name might not be familiar to you, Michael Atkinson has done quite a service for Sherlockiana in the past year. His book The Secret Marriage of Sherlock Holmes and Other Eccentric Readings won an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America and garnered more praise than any bit of Sherlockian writing in recent memory — outside the Sherlockian community as much as in. He’s a very readable writer, and his ability to look at the Canon from a multitude of angles is the sort of thing that inspires as well as entertains. Not having read his book prior to the symposium, I fully expected Atkinson’s reputation to be a bit overblown, and that we would wind up sitting through an hour of some painfully dull lecture by a non-Sherlockian lit professor, as sometimes happens at Sherlockian workshops. Boy, was I wrong.

Michael Atkinson, it turns out, is not only a decent writer, but quite an engaging speaker as well. Even though a goodly share of his talk was read directly from his book, you only knew it because you were watching him do it. And the non-read portions of the talk were even better, whether an anecdote of how he first encountered Sherlockians or an unplanned debate on deconstructionism with Philip Shreffler.

It was a terrific conclusion to the symposium’s program, and the banquet of the Illustrious Clients that followed, with all its remarkably good food and entertainments, seemed like the celebratory parade after the big game. Unlike many symposiums, those put on by The Sherlock Holmes Review have always made the after-banquet room party as an official part of the program, which meant the festivities went on into the night, concluding with a breakfast epilogue the next day.

During the banquet, a petition was presented to Steven Doyle and Mark Gagen, Steven’s co-publisher, requesting that the Indiana symposiums continue with or without The Sherlock Holmes Review. Given that Sherlockian publishing will continue in that neighborhood, I have no doubt that the symposiums will as well.