A Study in Sherlock
Last weekend I went to a truly inspirational limited-run exhibit. I’ve tweeted and talked about how Sherlock Holmes was formative to me as a reader and a writer, and so it was pretty much mandatory that I visit Sherlock Holmes in 221 Objects. (In case you missed the reference, 221B Baker Street is where Holmes and Watson lived.)
The exhibit was at the Grolier Club in Midtown Manhattan, and featured Holmes story drafts, original first editions, signed copies, and other memorabilia. Through these artifacts, I got to see the growth of both the Sherlock Holmes canon and the authorial life of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. For example, the collection included these handwritten manuscript pages of The Hound of the Baskervilles:
Very few of these manuscript pages are known to exist, as they had been pieced out and separately given to various associates or sold to collectors. Seeing even just a couple of these pages was so awe-inspiring; it felt very close to a religious experience for me.
There were more complete manuscripts of stories from The Return of Sherlock Holmes, like these pages:
The Adventure of the Priory School, from The Return of Sherlock Holmes
The Adventure of Black Peter, from The Return of Sherlock Holmes
The Adventure of the Dancing Men, from The Return of Sherlock Holmes
The Dancing Men notes were particularly exciting to see (directly above); I instantly loved that story when I first read it as a nerdy kid who was into codebreaking and cryptography.
The exhibit also had art pieces, such as illustrations that accompanied the stories and serialized sections of the Holmes novels as they appeared in magazines like The Strand:
The quirkiest thing about this exhibit is the display of numerous pirated versions of Holmes books. Around the turn of the prior century, copyright laws existed but were harder to enforce; it was no surprise that Doyle’s works-- being a hot commodity—spawned a lot of knockoff editions.
What’s also interesting are the pulpy covers that graced these pirated copies, shown directly above. The photos, though eye-catching, had absolutely nothing to do with the stories. Like, there wasn’t a horse scene in Red-Headed League, nor was there a femme fatale looking character in Study in Scarlet.
Finally, the exhibit featured Conan Doyle artifacts from around the time that he was writing the Sherlock Holmes books. I saw letters to his literary agent about the sale of certain stories, inscribed copies of his books, and this copy of a speech he once delivered at the Authors’ Club, discussing in part his decision to kill off Holmes (which he later retconned):
Perhaps my favorite Doyle item in the exhibit is the “Norwood Notebook” where the author jotted down his story ideas and various other musings. (I once had a similar notebook, but writing longhand was sometimes unwieldy, so now I rely on the Notes app on my phone. This notebook is basically Doyles’ Notes app.)
Some of the bullet points made it into the Sherlock stories, some are more general. I’d like you to take note of the penultimate paragraph of this page, which has become my biggest takeaway from the entire exhibit:
It reads “Converge your whole soul on to the tip of your pen”.
I don’t know if that was meant to be part of a story, or whether that was a reminder Doyle was telling himself. Maybe both. Either way, reading that line gave me a jolt, as though the author himself were speaking those words directly to me, urging me to write with such intense passion. It’s a worthwhile command, and I’m so glad I got to read those words. I think it might be my new mantra.
Image credits: All photos from my phone.