The Baker Street Journal

Australia and Sherlock Holmes is the third title in The Baker Street Irregulars' International Series, which brings the best non-fiction Holmesian writing from around the world to a larger audience.  The history of Australian Sherlockians can be traced back over 100 years to a photograph of a group of miners printed in The Strand Magazine in 1904.

Australia and Sherlock Holmes captures the distinctive Sherlockian voice from Down Under. Editors Bill Barnes and Doug Elliott provide context for, and an introduction to, Sherlock Holmes in Australia.  They gathered materials written between 1959 and 2007, mostly from News from the Diggings and The Passengers' Log.  These incisively written scholarly essays includes two pieces about the larger-than-life Richard Hughes, an Australian journalist who made one of the scoops of the (last) century by obtaining the first interview with the Cambridge spies Burgess and Maclean. (Hughes was a real-life inspiration for novelists John le Carré and Ian Fleming.)  Popular culture is well represented by a piece covering Sherlock Holmes films conceived but never filmed, and accompanied by delightful, apocryphal movie posters.  Well-reasoned papers link both Watson's childhood and the speckled band snake to Australia; a fine, perhaps definitive essay addresses "The Gloria Scott."

There is much more in this volume attesting to the continuing remarkable popularity of the great detective around the globe, and particularly in Australia, and the creative whimsy with which Holmesian scholars play "The Game."

208 pages, hardcover, January 2009

Table of Contents

GENERAL EDITOR'S PREFACE
by Michael F. Whelan

PART 1: INTRODUCTION
Sherlock Holmes in Australia
by Bill Barnes and Doug Elliott

PART 2: CONAN DOYLE IN AUSTRALIA
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in Australia
by Alec H. Chisholm

Segregation of the Queen
by Arthur Williams

PART 3: SHERLOCK HOLMES IN AUSTRALIA
Dr Watson and Mr Hughes
by Arthur Williams

Down with Confucius, Lin Piao - and Sherlock Holmes
by Richard Hughes

My Father Knew Sherlock Holmes
by Dick Hughes

A Pearl of a Passenger
by Arthur Williams

PART 4: THE AUSTRALIAN CONNECTION
A Fresh Bite at the Speckled Band
by Philip Cornell

New Light on Watson's Childhood
by Dr Michael Duke

Bluey's Carbuncle
annotated by Neil P. Hillcrop

A GLORious Mystery
by Rosane McNamara

Dr Watson, Dracula and the Royal Australian Navy
by Arthur Williams

PART 5: DOWNUNDER PONDERINGS
The Rah- Rah Boys
by Bill Barnes

Black Jack Press
by Bill Barnes

Just a Thought: The Reichenbach Note
by Mark Doyle

Professor Coram's Research
by Dr Michael Duke

Thomas Arnold, Tom Brown and Sherlock Holmes
by James Eedle

James or John, the Watson Enigma
by Kerry Murphy

The Solitary Cyclist Rings a Little Bell
by Alan Olding

A Penny for Your Thoughts
by Alan Olding

A Study in Portraits
by Robert Veld

The Curious Case of the Phantom Films
by Philip Cornell

APPENDIX: AUSTRALIAN SOCIETIES

CONTRIBUTORS

About the Series
The Baker Street Irregulars, the literary society focused on Sherlock Holmes, publishes The International Series to bring more exposure to the best Sherlockian scholarship from around the world.

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