One interesting Sherlockian item I recently picked up from the local library is a book by Martin Fido entitled The World of Sherlock Holmes. It's a nicely illustrated hardcover book that is going to make a neat addition to my Sherlockian library. There's no earth shattering new research in the book or anything like that, but it has a decent amount of basic info about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his famous character, and it's all presented quite nicely. I found it pretty cheap on Amazon.com, so it should be on its way soon!

OK, confession time: I happen to be fascinated by a website called Frock Flicks, wherein costume experts review actors and films/TV shows that feature period costume, with often hilarious (and sometimes fairly profane) commentary. From time to time, I check in with the site to see what they've said about this or that period drama. 
Of course, they have been known to tackle Sherlock Holmes from time to time. So, for your enjoyment, here is a link to their article about a few of the costumes from Granada's television adaptation of Sherlock Holmes, featuring the marvelous Jeremy Brett as the Great Detective...

Recently, I've been acquiring a few volumes in Leslie Klinger's annotated version of the Holmes canon entitled The Sherlock Holmes Reference Library. (I did a post on this collection a couple weeks ago.) I encountered a little problem with a third party Amazon seller when I ordered The Sign of Four, that I think demonstrates one challenge that can make public domain works so tricky in this modern world.

A simple Amazon search will find all kinds of editions of Sherlock Holmes very quickly. The problem is, the description of any individual volume does not always match the edition for which you are searching. When I ordered the Klinger edition of The Sign of Four, it showed not only a picture that matched that edition, but even had the correct publication number, including ISBN. Imagine my surprise, then, when I received a very small, cheap reprint with absolutely no annotations. I finally got the situation worked out, but ended up having to order a new copy for several dollars more. I've noticed a similar problem in the past when I was trying to find individual volumes of The Oxford Sherlock Holmes. What you search for doesn't always match what comes up. I've also experienced similar confusion with versions of Shakespeare (another public domain classic).

The thing with public domains works is, anyone can reprint them and sell them at a pretty good profit. And there's little in the way of control of information that is available from online booksellers (Amazon isn't the only seller with whom I've experienced this problem in the past). So if you're looking for Sherlock Holmes editions on the Internet, be as careful as you can to be sure you're ordering the right one. Sometimes, even when all the info matches, you still get the wrong one, as I did with The Sign of Four. Don't get me wrong, I am very pleased that it is so easy to find books online, but with public domain works, there are some unique challenges. Happy shopping!

One of my favorite sketch comedy shows is out of Brigham Young University's byuTV, a show called Studio C. They did a parody of the BBC's Sherlock in a sketch a few years ago. I wonder if they know how uncomplimentary A Study in Scarlet was to Mormons?

According to Brad Keefauver (Sherlock Peoria), February 6 is the date on which "The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter" begins. The adventure begins with an enigmatic telegram, which reads:

The "three-quarter" referred to in the title is a player on a rugby team. Godfrey Staunton is missing, and Sherlock Holmes, despite his lack of expertise in the real of "amateur sport" is on the case to find him. You can read the story (and listen to it) HERE.

 A couple weeks ago, I wrote a brief review of the 2018 film Sherlock Gnomes, and animated take on the legendary detective (as well as a sequel to an earlier animated feature, an animated version of Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet, called Gnomeo & Juliet). Shortly after I wrote that review, I offered to expand it a bit and submit it to I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere. They posted my expanded review today. I've copied it below.

​Several years ago (in 2011, to be exact), when my older daughter was a lot smaller, we watched a fairly humorous children's film adaptation of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, entitled Gnomeo and Juliet. I remember how, as a five year-old, she was entertained, and there were enough tongue-in-cheek Shakespeare references to keep me interested as well.

As you can imagine, the “star-crossed lovers” do not take their own lives at the end, as the target audience would likely find such a thing a bit traumatic. Still, the animation was pretty good, the soundtrack was fun, and there was a very entertaining bit with Patrick Stewart as a statue of the Bard himself.

In March 2018, a sequel to Gnomeo and Juliet was released, this time a spoof on Sherlock Holmes: the title of this new gnomish adventure was—you guessed it—Sherlock Gnomes. The film is part sequel, involving the characters of Gnomeo and Juliet in new adventures, but it is also (of course) a spoof of some of our favorite Sherlock Holmes characters. In fact, the film starts out with a funny little bit where a few gnomes argue about which story they’ll tell next (“Game of Gnomes! Or The Gnome Ranger!”).  

Sherlock Gnomes (voiced by Johnny Depp) is a garden gnome detective (that is, a detective who happens to be a garden gnome), who is sworn to protect all of London's garden gnomes. He finds himself pitted against his old archenemy, Moriarty: a sort of "Bob's Big Boy" type of pie mascot (don't ask). 

Sherlock is a kind of self-absorbed character, who doesn't treat his sidekick Watson with the respect he deserves. Of course, this is a subject that has been explored in other Holmes films and spoofs. (The Holmes/Watson relationship in the Guy Ritchie films, or the spoof Without a Clue, both spring to my mind.)

Their paths cross those of Gnomeo and Juliet, who are attempting to improve the garden of the house they’ve just moved to, when their fellow garden gnomes are abducted by the evil Moriarty. Or are they? Sherlock Gnomes hears of that abduction and many more around London, and…the game is afoot!

Honestly, I found the film pretty entertaining. Depp was not the best Holmes I've ever seen (well...heard), while Chiwetel Ejiofor voices Watson with great subtlety and dignity. There were all kinds of goofy nods towards the Sherlock Holmes canon: Doyle's Doll Museum, Wisteria Lodge Florist Shop, a grating with "221B" on it, while Sherlock and Juliet encounter a "fierce" pug dog, which Mr. Gnomes calls "the Hound owned by the Baskervilles."

One character even delivers the entertaining line, “No ship, Sherlock!” And of course, there's the obligatory deerstalker cap, Inverness cape, and magnifying glass.

In a little homage to the BBC's Sherlock, perhaps, Mr. Gnomes occasionally retreats into a "mind palace" of sorts, with a completely different style of animation for those sequences (it looks like black and white cel animation, although I suspect it is still done mostly with computers). One little animation detail that I thought was odd: Sherlock Gnomes has a tiny little white beard on the tip of his chin! I think this was probably the only bearded Holmes I’ve ever seen on film. Not that a beard that small is really deserving of the name...

The voice cast is a panoply of celebrities: James McAvoy (Gnomeo), Emily Blunt (Juliet), Michael Caine (Lord Redbrick), Maggie Smith (Lady Bluebury), Mary J. Blige (Irene), and many more. Even Ozzy Osbourne has a brief role, as a somewhat befuddled ceramic fawn.

The animation is quite high quality, and the aforementioned "mind palace" sequences were bizarre and fun. The story is packed with enough action and silly humor to keep children entertained, while there are enough pop culture references sprinkled throughout to keep adults from being completely bored.

As mentioned above, Sherlockians will no doubt be amused by canonical references here and there. The plot as a few fun little twists, so the movie isn’t as predictable as some animated feautres can be. As a Holmes fan, I found it enjoyable enough, if not incredibly brilliant. The film only received a 28% on film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, but I've seen much poorer films with higher scores.

If you have young children, you could do a lot worse. Or if you’d simply like to indulge in 90 minutes of innocent fun, it’s worth a few laughs. Oh, and did I mention that most of the soundtrack is made up of Elton John songs? (One of the film companies that produced the film was founded by Elton John, so it’s no surprise.)

I would give the film 4 Calabash Pipes on a 5-Pipe scale.

As I was re-reading A Study in Scarlet recently (while listening to Stephen Fry's excellent audio book of same on Audible.com), I remembered how confused I was when I first read the novel and encountered Part II, which takes place mostly in America, a few decades before the main part of the story begins. Apparently I was not the only reader to encounter this confusion as this paper aptly demonstrates...

This is an interesting little article I just discovered on Medium.com: When Arthur Conan Doyle Killed Sherlock Holmes. Now, every Sherlock Holmes fan, I assume, has heard or read the story of how Sir Arthur Conan Doyle got so sick of writing the Holmes stories, that he decided to "kill" his creation by having him plunge to his presumed death at the bottom of the Reichenbach Falls (in "The Final Problem"). I initially assumed that this article would just be a basic recap of that story. Instead, the author uses Doyle's assumptions about the value of his non-Holmes writing to make a point about how we rate our own work. She writes about something called "the Dunning-Kruger Effect," and shares this quote from Wikipedia:

She sums it up thus: "In other words, mediocre people tend to be more confident and overrate their abilities." I'm sure many of us have encountered this tendency in everyday life. It's an interesting point, and relating it to Doyle's decision to kill off his most famous character is an intriguing take on the concept.

A few years ago, I did a series of posts where I discussed the Top 5 actors who, in my opinion, have played Sherlock Holmes the best. A couple weeks ago, I promised to re-think that list. And now I have. This time, I shall present all of my Top 5 in one post, rather than stretching it out into five different posts. I realize many Sherlockians will disagree with this list, but at the moment, it's where I stand. First, here is my original list:

And now I shall revise that list, and explain my reasons for each ranking...

#5. Ronald Howard
I no longer have Basil Rathbone on my Top 5 list, even though he was Sherlock Holmes for many fans for several decades. Having watched the Rathbone/Bruce films, and comparing them to the TV series from the 1950s, I find Ronald Howard's portrayal quite superior to Rathbone's. He's a younger, bouncier Holmes, with much more of a sparkling sense of humor. He may have been just a bit too handsome to play Holmes, but overall, I find what he brought to the role to have been much more impressive than Rathbone's portrayal. Moreover, his Watson, played my Howard Marion Crawford was quite good, one of the earlier performances to buck the Nigel Bruce trend of playing Watson as a bumbler.