I like to think I’m fairly proof against magazine sales offers. Outside of our little Sherlockian journals, I don’t think I’ve subscribed to an actual mainstream magazine since Psychology Today, back in my psych-major college years. Many a subscription salesperson has pitted their skills against me in a battle of wills over the years, and I’ve always held fast. And that perfect record almost gave way this past week, thanks to a simple Google search.

Still dealing with the after-effects of Michael Dirda’s Langdale Pike talk last Friday in Minneapolis, I was passing time considering that fellow whom my own BSI investiture has forever linked me to, William Winwood Reade. Unlike Dirda’s Langdale Pile, data about Reade, while somewhat obscure, is readily available even to a diletante scholar like myself.

Most data one encounters about Reade revolves around his book  Martyrdom of Man, which Sherlock Holmes recommended and is still popular today in certain circles. Less often, one finds bits about Winwood Reade as an African explorer, and I found one such article in the on-line archives of Harper’s New Monthly Magazine. There, I was teased by thumbnail versions of an 1864 article on another Reade book, Savage Africa. Seeing that the Harper’s archives went back as far as 1850, I did what any Sherlockian would do and put “Sherlock Holmes” into the site’s search utility.

The results were of interest: An 1893 review of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. An article from 1951 called “Diggings in Baker Street.” A review of Peter Haining’s The Sherlock Holmes Scrapbook from 1975. Searching for Conan Doyle yielded still more bits. Yet none of the pages were actually accessible to the casual browser without signing up for a subscription to Harper’s Weekly for $16.97 (as well as adding one more cursed log-on name and password to one’s life!).

I suspect that 1893 review is reprinted somewhere in my Sherlockian library, should I ever get the energy to did it up, and since I actually have a copy of Savage Africa, I’m sure I can content myself in reading that until a copy of the 1864 article comes up through other means. But for a moment . . . just a moment . . . Harper’s Weekly almost lured me in with their easy on-line content. As we get lazier and lazier about going to our local libraries, I have a feeling such traps will be catching more and more of us.  Time for a good Sherlockian to start doing research calisthentics to keep those skills in tone!

Your humble correspondent,

Brad Keefauver