July 2025 - some finds at Denny's

On the weekend I went to Denny Dobry's open house, to celebrate the closure of his 221B study, and to look over the books and items being sold. Along with books, there was an opportunity to buy one of the few items from the study not being donated to the University of Minnesota library.

A summary of the day with lots of photos of the study will be posted soon, but I also wanted to make a short post showing a few things I picked up at Denny's.

--------

The first item is one of three bound Strand Magazine volumes I picked up on the day. Two had no Doyle content, but I've added them to the collection. 

The third is Volume 5, containing quote a few stories from the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. The volume is not in amazing condition at all, but I was attracted to a lovely chain of provenance.

The book contains a bookplate from the Marquis of Donegall - Edward Chichester, 6th Marquess of Donegall. He was a dashing journalist, and editor of the Sherlock Holmes Journal. He famously owned a copy of the 1887 Beeton's. 

Along with the bookplate, pasted on the facing page is a curious document to retain: a fform letter from the Lord Great Chamberlain to the Marchioness that she has not been successful in the ballot to obtain seats for the 1953 opening of Parliament. Why was this pasted into the copy?

What makes this copy more fun, is a provenance slip. The Marquis died in 1975. The provenance slip states "This book was given to me in about 1990 by Jim Hallett of the Scandalous Bohemians of Akron, Ohio. I am passing it, as a gift from Jim Hallett, to my friend Bill Vande Water, BSI. Signed by Hugh T. Harrington BSI, November 3, 2014."

So the may passed from the Marquis of Donegall (up to 1975), to Jim Hallett (up to 1990), to Hugh T. Harrington BSI (up to 2014), to Bill Vande Water BSI (passed beyond the Reichenbach 2024), to me in 2025 via Denny Dobry's parnassus on wheels. That's pretty cool!

----------

I'd been looking for these three items below -and was pleased to find them all at once. Picklock Holes was one of the first Sherlockain pastiches, published in Punch Magazine.  The initial series of stories were re-published in the 1970s, then a second series of stories (1903) and one final story in 1918. These also were re-published in the 1970s. And so, the 'Picklock Holes Canon' is distributed across three small publications, as each series/article was identified independently.

The author, R.C. Lehman, (Rudolph Chambers Lehmann (1856 – 1929)), was an English writer, and politician in the House of Commons from 1906 to 1910. That means he was not a sitting politician when he wrote the first two Picklock series (pre 1910) and then the final story (1918). He was a major contributor to Punch magazine for many decades.

On the last story, it's a wonderful title - 'His Final Arrow' is a direct response to 'His Final Bow', and picked up almost instantly that it may now have been the verb 'bow' but the noun from 'bow and arrow'. Absolutely brilliant. 

Publications details, left to right:

Title: The Adventures of Picklock Holes

Softcover (there were 250 copies published in hardcover with a dustjacket also)

Publisher: Aspen Press (Colorado), 1975

Title: The Return of Picklock Holes

Softcover, with introduction by Brian R. MacDonald 

Publisher: Magico Magazine (NY), 1980

Title: His Final Arrow

Softcover, with introduction by Brian R. MacDonald 

Publisher: Magico Magazine, 1980

----------

The next item is, on its face value, a copy of the Sherlock Holmes Journal, published by the Sherlock Holmes Society of London. This edition was published in 1987, to celebrate the centenary of Sherlock Holmes, and therefore the centenary of 'A Study in Scarlet'. This is an outstanding volume, and I wish I'd known about it to cite it when I wrote my recent article on Doyle's 1885 letter. 

The edition includes a deep analysis of the locations in London, an summary of Doyle's life at the time of writing the book, and an overview of the early editions of Study in Scarlet that were published.

Publications details:

Title: The Sherlock Holmes Journal ; 1887-1987 ; A Study in Scarlet Centenary Special

Softcover

Publisher: Sherlock Holmes Society of London (London), 1987

----------

The next item has been on my list for quite a while! The Oxford Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Short Stories in 9 Volumes shipped in a handy box. Along with the canon, each volume contains a series of notes in an appendix. I've heard from Sherlockians that use these volumes as their 'reading copies' that the binding is not strong and that pages detach.

Publications details:

Title: The Oxford Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Short Stories in 9 Volumes Hardcover in dust jackets

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1993

----------

I LOVE THIS POSTER. I found it against a wall behind a bookshelf, it's a thick card poster, and the corners are bumped, but it's a poster for what we now might call the 'Sherlockian Saturdays at the Pratt', or the  'Saturday With Sherlock Holmes' program at the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, MD.

So when was this poster from? There's so much detail, but there's NO YEAR! For an answer, I turned to the current organizer of the Pratt event each November:

"It is during the early years, as it is advertising the earlier two-day event format. This was changed to a one-day meeting in 1996. I Googled which years had November 10 as a Saturday since 1980, and it came up as 1984, and 1990. So, it was either of those two years. However, William Donald Schaefer (fine print at the bottom of the poster) was the Mayor of Baltimore from 1971 to 1987. So, the answer is...drumroll...1984."

Thanks Andy!