I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere

“Children, my dear boy, children.” [GREE]  Parenting is a mystery to everyone — even to Sherlock Holmes. That's the premise of the books brought to us by author Arye Dworken and illustrator Mike Weinreb. Eleanor and Alistair Holmes are lucky enough to have Sherlock Holmes for a father, but Holmes isn't quite as sure of himself at home as he is at work. This is the recurring theme that Dworken firs...

“see how beautifully the spring works” [STUD]  The world of Sherlock Holmes enthusiasts is alive and blooming! It is the spring, after all. And with such a season of renewal, we see continued interest and growth in activities and interests around Sherlock Holmes. A number of Sherlockian conferences and gatherings are happening, all around the country. Individual Sherlockians (namely, our listeners...

“there is nothing more stimulating” [HOUN]  The latest entry in the BSI Press Professions series is a sequel: Stimulating Medicine: More Nerve and Knowledge: Doctors, Medicine, and the Sherlockian Canon . What makes it even more interesting is that it was developed during the pandemic.  Bob Katz, BSI ("Dr. Ainstree") and Andy Solberg, BSI ("Professor Coram") joined forces for the sixth time, and j...

“Well up in belladonna, opium, and poisons generally” [STUD]  There's a large number of Sherlock Holmes stories that involve poisons or toxins. Once you begin to tally them up, you may be surprised, as was our guest in this episode. Marina Stajic, BSI ("Curare"), ASH ("Lady Frances Carfax") has written and presented extensively on Sherlock Holmes and poisons. Her chosen profession makes her the id...

“fitting subjects for this series of sketches” [REIG]   One of Burt's and Scott's great interests is music. When it converges with the world of Sherlock Holmes, it becomes all the more interesting. Joshua Harvey lives at that convergence and has some wonderful stories to tell about his history with music, with Sherlock Holmes, and with Patrick Gowers, the composer of the score of the Granada/ITV S...

“the fruit of my leisured ease, the magnum opus” [LAST]   What happens when Sherlock Holmes faces off against forces of the supernatural? Well...nothing. At least nothing in the Canon. But unleash the creative minds of Brad Keefauver, BSI ("Winwood Reade") and Rob Nunn, BSI ("Elementary") and 17 creative Sherlockian authors and you've got The Monstrum Opus of Sherlock Holmes: A Compendium of Horro...

“our visit to The Haven” [LION]   The latest in the BSI Manuscript Series from the BSI Press is The Haven Horror. If that reference isn't immediately recognizable, it's not surprising; it's a phrase taken from “The Adventure of the Retired Colourman,” which comes at the tail end of the Canon. Phil Bergem, BSI ("Birdy Edwards") joins us to talk about this volume in his new role as editor. Phil has...

“Holmes gave me a brief review of what had passed” [THOR]   The 2023 BSI Weekend has come and gone, and it was filled with plenty of food, friends, and frivolity. We provide a glimpse of what we saw — including a number of our listeners and guests — and put it in context for you. Far from being inside baseball, this episode is a look at what makes Sherlockians tick and why we place so much value i...

“enter the sacred domain to-night without fear” [SHOS]   When the #FreeSherlock movement began a decade ago, there were 50 of the original 60 Sherlock Holmes stories in the public domain in the United States. And now, when January 1, 2023 rolls around, "The Veiled Lodger" and "Shoscombe Old Place" will be the final two stories no longer under copyright. To mark this occasion and the final episode...

“a strange and wild life” [STUD]   How often have you come across a phrase in the Sherlock Holmes stories that you're not familiar with? Or just a general concept, such as the cost of items and what it was like to live on a pension?  Author Liese Sherwood-Fabre discovered a number of questions as she was researching her series of books The Early Casefiles of Sherlock Holmes. So, in gathering her r...

“duly considered and scientifically handled” [HOUN]   The Baker Street Irregulars Press follows the success of its Professions Series (previous titles covered medicine, the law, the military, and education) continues with My Scientific Methods: Scient in the Sherlockian Canon. The editor, Dana Richards, BSI ("The Priory School") shares with us not only his interest in puzzles and the science behin...

“You can go to blazes!” [3STU]   The Devil's Blaze: Sherlock Holmes 1943 is the follow-up novel to Robert J. Harris' highly-acclaimed first novel, A Study in Crimson: Sherlock Holmes 1942. Fans of the Basil Rathbone / Nigel Bruce films will recognize the setting, as Holmes and Watson are in wartime London and prominent figures in science and the military are bursting into flame and being incinerat...

“a child has done the horrid thing” [SIGN]   Bonnie MacBird, BSI ("Art In the Blood") is back with her fifth Sherlock Holmes novel. This time, we're treated to a Christmas tale in What Child Is This?, where we encounter a kidnapped three-year-old and a missing son of an aristocrat, with Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson, and Heffie O'Malley at the center of it call. Bonnie shares her writing process wit...

“Each daughter can claim an income of £250” [SPEC]   Well, this managed to sneak up on us. It's the 250th episode of I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere. Now in our 16th season, we've managed to accumulate a significant catalogue of discussions and interviews since our first show in 2007. We reminisce on some of the highlights of episodes since our centennial, including a few clips that represent what w...

“conversation through the length and breadth of England.” [SILV]   In August 2022, we lost a towering figure in the world of Sherlock Holmes fans. Nicholas Utechin, BSI ("The Ancient British Barrow") passed away. Nick joined The Sherlock Holmes Society of London in 1966 at the tender age of  14. Ten years later, he began a 30-year run as editor of The Sherlock Holmes Journal. Nick was made an Hono...

“That and a toothbrush are, I think, all that we need” [SPEC]   What if you could stay in a Victorian-themed home with plenty of Sherlock Holmes-inspired elements? Don't answer just yet. What if you could stay in such a place and had to solve a mystery before you left? That's what Ken and TamiKai Frazier have developed in this unique house in San Antonio, Texas, to delight people who love puzzles,...

“some interest to finish” [DANC]   We live in an age when Sherlock Holmes audio productions are more prolific than ever. For listeners of a show like I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere, that is excellent news indeed. And for fans of Big Finish Productions, there are plenty of stories from which to choose, both new and old. Big Finish executive producer, writer, composer, and actor Nicholas Briggs and w...

“One of the most precious public possessions of the empire” [BERY]   At the end of July 2022, the Baker Street Irregulars held a conference in upstate titled "Sherlock Holmes and the British Empire." That itself isn't news (although we did promote the original date of the event), but what is news is the breadth and depth of presentations that were given there. Half of our intrepid reporting team a...

“Now, then, listen to this” [SIGN]   Earlier this month, Audible and Treefort Media released a ten-part podcast, Moriarty: The Devil’s Game, written by Charles Kindinger and starring Dominic Monaghan, Billy Boyd, Phil Lamarr, Adam Godley, and Lindsay Whisler, with a special appearance by Curtis Armstrong. The story takes what we know from the traditional Holmes-Moriarty archrivalry and turns it on...

“Maybe you collect yourself” [EMPT]   Many Sherlockians are collectors. Most of those collect books or related written material. But collectors are an interesting breed, as widely varied as the general population. Peter Eckrich and Rob Nunn discovered this fact as they set out to put together The Finest Assorted Collection: Essays on Collecting Sherlock Holmes. In essays written by 27 Sherlockians...

“I may be on the trail in this matter” [BERY]   There are a number of Sherlock Holmes tours one can take in and around London. But for the true fan, tracking Holmes's steps by foot is incomparable. Stephen Browning has written On the Trail of Sherlock Holmes to take us on seven separate walks around London and an eighth outside the city. But the book goes far beyond simply being a set of maps and...

“the very foundations of revealed religion” [GOLD]  Image credit: Wikimedia Commons - CC BY-SA 2.0 Thanks to two decades of digital expansion, you can now find fandoms pretty much everywhere across the internet. And you can find a fandom for just about anything. We invited Allison Broesder to join us to discuss her ongoing work on foundational fandoms, tracing certain kinds of fanfic as far back a...

“How did you word your inquiries?” [STUD]   Sherlock Holmes has lived a rich life beyond the 60 stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. A much fuller life, in fact. When Michelle Birkby chose to write about the world of Sherlock Holmes, she took a different approach: what if, she wondered, we were to experience Victorian London through the eyes of two very capable women — two women deeply conne...

“a turn which neither of us could have anticipated” [REIG]   D. Martin Dakin’s A Sherlock Holmes Commentary is one of the more important contributions to Sherlockian scholarship. In it, he discussed the entirety of the Sherlock Holmes canon, plus two apocryphal tales. But Dakin also acknowledged that he was probably missing the discovery of scholarship that had happened prior to his time. Bruce Ha...

“this comic interlude” [3GAB]   Sherlock Holmes has appeared in comic strips for nearly a century and in comic books for almost as long. And the comics industry is a multi-billion dollar enterprise, having spawned movies, television shows, and large-scale conventions. So isn't it time that someone chronicled Sherlock Holmes's appearance in comics? Johanna Draper Carlson has done just that with her...