on This Day 30th March

The Adventure of the Empty House 

'Yet it was upon this easy-going young aristocrat that death came in most strange and unexpected form between the hours of ten and eleven twenty on the night of March 30, 1894.' ('The Empty House')

On This Day 24th March

Wisteria Lodge

'I find it recorded in my notebook that it was a bleak and windy day towards the end of March in the year 1892. Holmes had received a telegram whilst we sat at our lunch" Baring-Gould starts 'Wisteria Lodge' OTD 1890.

'I find it recorded in my notebook that it was a bleak and windy day towards the end of March in the year 1892. Holmes had received a telegram whilst we sat at our lunch, and he had scribbled a reply.' JF Christ date 'The Wisteria Lodge' OTD 1892.

This Month March

 The Adventure of the Red Circle

The Adventure of the Red Circle (REDC) is a short story written by Arthur Conan Doyle first published in The Strand Magazine in march & april 1911. This is the 44th Sherlock Holmes story. Collected in His Last Bow: Some Reminiscences of Sherlock Holmes.

Editions 

• in The Strand Magazine (march & april 1911 [UK]) 1 illustration by Joseph Simpson and 6 by H. M. Brock)
• in The Strand Magazine (april & may 1911 [US]) 6 ill. by H. M. Brock and 1 by Joseph Simpson)
• in The Saturday Evening Mail (20 & 27 may 1911 supplement [US])
• in His Last Bow: Some Reminiscences of Sherlock Holmes (october 1917)
• in Lectures Pour Tous (1 may 1919 [FR]) as Le Cercle rouge, 3 ill. by Richard Wallace
• in La Nouvelle chronique de Sherlock Holmes (june 1922, Pierre Lafitte Romans pour Tous [FR]) as Le Cercle rouge
• in Excelsior Dimanche No. 19 (8 july 1923 [FR]) as Le Cercle rouge, 2 ill. by Frédéric Auer
• in La Nouvelle chronique de Sherlock Holmes (september 1929, Librairie des Champs-Élysées [FR]) as Le Cercle rouge
• in Sunday Chronicle (16 march 1930 [UK]) 1 ill. by Inder Burns
• in Boston Sunday Post (3 june 1911 supplement [US]) as Masterpieces of Sherlock Holmes No. 5

Illustrations 

Chronology 

• January 1893 (Jay Finley Christ)
• 24 september 1902 (William Stuart Baring-Gould)

Filmography 

• 1994 : The Red Circle (UK). Holmes : Jeremy Brett. Watson : Edward Hardwicke.
• 1922 : The Red Circle (UK). Holmes : Eille Norwood. Watson : Hubert Willis.

Radiography 

• 1994 : The Red Circle. Holmes : Clive Merrison. Watson : Michael Williams.
• 1969 : The Red Circle. Holmes : Carleton Hobbs. Watson : Norman Shelley.
• 1931 : The Adventure of the Red Circle. Holmes : Richard Gordon. Watson : Leigh Lovell.

Historical Sherlock Holmes The Devils Foot

Historical The  Devils Foot

 'The Adventure of the Devil's Foot' (DEVI) is one of those rare cases where chronologists think Dr. John H. Watson got it right. He told us it was "Tuesday, March 16, 1897." Boom. Mic drop.

Of the 40+ chronologies I have, the agreement is solid. Fourteen people concur that the case started that day (but don't go further). Two say it lasted two days (the 16th and 17th). Three say it was from the 16th until the 18th. Three others say it was until the 19th. Six say it went on until the 20th. Another says it probably lasted until the 20th, one says it was late March, four say simply spring, and five more just agree it was indeed March 1897.

But, there's always one.

Ernest Bloomfield Zeisler says the case was April 17 - 18, 1897. Why? Well, Watson also said it was spring, and that starts March 21. Thus, the case had to be after. Zeisler uses flowers, average temperatures, and ship schedules to make a pretty strong case. (I really appreciate him finding a ship to help work all this out. A man after my own heart.) Ol' E. B. is flying solo once again, but I like his logic. It makes sense to me. He convinces me to take a closer look. I might have to go sit at the little table with him afterward.

This Month March

 The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb

This month in 1892, The Strand Magazine first published #ACD's 'The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb,' 

The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb (ENGR) is a short story written by Arthur Conan Doyle first published in The Strand Magazine in march 1892. This is the 11th Sherlock Holmes story. Collected in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

Editions 

• in The Strand Magazine (march 1892 [UK]) 8 illustrations by Sidney Paget
• in The Strand Magazine (april 1892 [US])
• in The Examiner (San Francisco) (3 april 1892 [US]) 5 ill.
• in New-York Tribune (10 april 1892 [US])
• in Baltimore Weekly Sun (30 april 1892 [US]) as Strange Adventure
• in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892-1930)
• in Glasgow Weekly Mail (7 & 14 april 1894 [UK])
• in Les Aventures de Sherlock Holmes (1902, Félix Juven [FR]) as Le Pouce du mécanicien
• in Das getupfte Band und andere Detektivgeschichten (1902, Robert Lutz Sherlock Holmes series No. 4 [DE]) as Der Daumen des Ingenieurs
• in La Vie Illustrée No. 255-256 (4 & 11 september 1903, Félix Juven [FR]) as Le Pouce de l'ingénieur
• in Scottish Border Record (6 & 13 january 1905 [UK])
• in The Sacramento Bee (29 july 1905 [US]) 1 ill.
• in The World, New York (27 august 1905 Sunday Magazine [US]) 1 ill. by Dan Smith
• in The San Francisco Call (3 september 1905 [US]) 2 ill. by Walter W. Francis
• in Le Pouce de l'ingénieur (1906, Société d'Édition et de Publications Collection Rouge No. 7 [FR]), ill. by Martin Van Maële
• Odciety Palec (The Cut Off Finger) (1908, Jan Fiszer [PL])
• in Les Premiers exploits de Sherlock Holmes (1909, Félix Juven [FR]) as Le Pouce de l'ingénieur, 4 ill. by Gaston Simoes da Fonseca
• in Sherlock Holmes (1910 & 1917, Arthur Boitte [FR]) as Le Pouce de l'ingénieur
• in Premières aventures de Sherlock Holmes (1913, Ernest Flammarion [FR]) as Le Pouce de l'ingénieur (7 ill. by Gaston Simoes da Fonseca)
• in Das getupfte Band und andere Detektivgeschichten (1920s, Robert Lutz Sherlock Holmes series No. 4 [DE]) as Der Daumen des Ingenieurs
• in Good Literature (spring 1931 [US]) 1 ill.
• in Das getupfte Band und andere Detektivgeschichten (1939, Franckh'sche Verlagshandlung [DE]) as Der Daumen des Ingenieurs
• in Lisez-moi Aventures No. 4 (1 july 1948, Jules Tallandier [FR]) as Le Pouce de l'ingénieur, ill. by Ben Mao?

Illustrations 

Chronology 

• Summer 1889, not long after my marriage (John H. Watson)
• 7 september 1889 (Jay Finley Christ)
• 7 september 1889 (William Stuart Baring-Gould)

Filmography

• 1923 : The Engineer's Thumb (UK). Holmes : Eille Norwood. Watson : Hubert Willis.

Radiography

• 1991 : The Engineer's Thumb. Holmes : Clive Merrison. Watson : Michael Williams.
• 1960 : The Engineer's Thumb. Holmes : Carleton Hobbs. Watson : Norman Shelley.
• 1959 : Le Pouce de l'ingénieur (FR). Holmes : Maurice Teynac. Watson : René Clermont.
• 1948 : The Case of the Engineer's Thumb. Holmes : John Stanley. Watson : Alfred Shirley.
• 1940 : The Engineer's Thumb. Holmes : Basil Rathbone. Watson : Nigel Bruce.
• 1931 : The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb. Holmes : Richard Gordon. Watson : Leigh Lovell.

Comics

• 2002 : The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb, by Rod Lott (writer) & Simon Gane (illustrator)

on This Day 15th March

The Sign Of Four

15 March The first separate US edition of The Sign of the Four published in Once A Week Library OTD 1891. The Sign of Four (15 march 1891, P. F. Collier Once a Week Library [US])

On This Day 8th March

 Conan Doyle Begins Writing A Study in Scarlet

According to biographer Andrew Lycett, Arthur Conan Doyle began writing A Study in Scarlet—-originally titled A Tangled Skein—on this late winter day in 1886. After cutting his novelist's teeth of The Firm of Girdlestone, he was ready, he remembered, to try "something fresher and crisper and more workmanlike." He had always enjoyed detective stories, particularly those of Edgar Allan Poe and Émile Gaboriau, and lit upon the idea of trying one of his own.

He decided to create a detective with the formidable observational skills of his former medical school professor, Dr. Joseph Bell, reasoning that if "it was surely possible in real life, ...why should I not make it so in fiction?" He also decided to give him a narrator—-an assistant bright and bold enough to keep up, but not perhaps as flamboyant as his friend. What to call them? Conan Doyle writes in his memoirs that he disliked the notion that a character's name should give away his or her personality, and so he experimented a great deal before he found the perfect fits. A surviving notebook page reveals that, in an alternate universe, we might be celebrating the exploits of Sherrinford Holmes, a philosopher and collector of rare violins in the person of a "reserved, sleepy-eyed young man" who plays an Amati, and Ormond Sacker, a veteran of the Soudan—no, make that Afghanistan. There are snatches of dialogue: "I am a consulting detective," and "What rot is this?" Lecoq is still a bungler. Some things never change.

On This Day 7th March

 Manuscript His Last Bow LAST

'Good old Watson! You are the one fixed point in a changing age.' Conan Doyle finished the MS of 'His Last Bow' OTD 1917

On This Day 5th March

 Shoscombe Old Place SHOS

Last published case of Sherlock Holmes published in Liberty Magazine OTD in 1927 – Shoscombe Old.  It, and all of the Canon, go out of copyright at the stroke of midnight on 1 January 2023. 

On This Day 5th March

Shoscombe Old place

Last published case of Sherlock Holmes published in Liberty Magazine OTD in 1927 – Shoscombe Old place

This Month March

 The Adventure of the Creeping Man

This month in 1923, The Strand Magazine and Hearst's International published ACD's 'The Adventure of the Creeping Man' as featured in Episode 25 Podcast  , Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopaedia The Adventure of the Creeping Man

The Adventure of the Creeping Man (CREE) is a short story written by Arthur Conan Doyle first published in The Strand Magazine (UK) and in Hearst's International (US) both in march 1923. This is the 51st Sherlock Holmes story. Collected in The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes.

Editions 

• in The Strand Magazine (march 1923 [UK]) 5 illustrations by Howard K. Elcock
• in Hearst's International (march 1923 [US]) 6 ill. by Frederic Dorr Steele
• in The Courier-Journal (15 march 1925 [US]) 1 ill. by Frederic Dorr Steele
• in The Sun (Baltimore) (15 march 1925 [US]) 2 ill. by Howard Frech
• in The Los Angeles Times (22 march 1925 [US]) 2 ill. by Ralph C. Criswell
• in New Orleans Times-Picayune (22 march 1925 [US]) 1 ill.
• in Philadelphia Evening Bulletin (28 march 1925 [US]) 1 ill.
• in The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (1927-1930)
• in Les Dernières aventures de Sherlock Holmes (september 1928, Albin Michel [FR]) as L'Homme qui rampe
• in Sunday Chronicle (2 february 1930 [UK]) 1 ill.
• in Dimanche Illustré No. 380 (10 august 1930 [FR]) as L'Homme qui rampe, 1 ill. by G. Dutriac

Quotes

• « Come at once if convenient - if inconvenient come all the same. » - Holmes

Chronology

• 6 september 1903 (Jay Finley Christ)
• 6 september 1903 (William Stuart Baring-Gould)

Filmography

• 1992 : Šplhající Profesor (CZ). Holmes : Viktor Preiss. Watson : Josef Somr.
• 1991 : The Creeping Man (UK). Holmes : Jeremy Brett. Watson : Edward Hardwicke.

Radiography

• 2010 : The Creeping Man. Holmes : John Patrick Lowrie. Watson : Lawrence Albert.
• 1995 : The Creeping Man. Holmes : Clive Merrison. Watson : Michael Williams.
• 1947 : The Creeping Man (aka The Strange Case of Professor Presby). Holmes : Tom Conway. Watson : Nigel Bruce.
• 1939 : The Creeping Man. Holmes : Basil Rathbone. Watson : Nigel Bruce.
• 1936 : The Creeping Man. Holmes : Louis Hector. Watson : Harry West.
• 1931 : The Creeping Man. Holmes : Richard Gordon. Watson : Leigh Lovell.