Elementary, Dear Scholars : The Game Is Afoot at Sherlockiana Center

It took a better man than I, Dr. John H. Watson, to stop the crime these disrespectful modern writers and merchants have wrought against my friend and colleague, the inestimable Mr. Sherlock Holmes.

As the years have passed since the untimely retirement of Europe’s first consulting detective, readers of Holmes’ exploits have continued maniacally to fabricate impossible adventures for him and create such unspeakable trinkets as Holmes greeting cards and cocktail napkins. Seeing the best and wisest man I have ever known maligned in such a careless fashion hurts me more than the bullet that struck my shoulder in the battle at Maiwand.

Good heavens! This fabrication had to be stopped. But Holmes himself has said many times I am not up to the task of solving mysteries. You can only imagine then how pleased I was to find that someone finally had discovered a way to curb the trivialization of these delicate and serious matters.

Our rescuer calls himself Arthur Axelrad, wears a plaid deerstalker cap to work on occasion and is employed as a professor of English literature at Cal State , Long Beach. Odd chap. An American.

But after 98 years of Sherlock Holmes mania, he has finally given the United States what is believed to be the first center for the serious study of Sherlock Holmes, my accounts of his cases and the genre of Victorian detective fiction. If you ask me, it is about time.

--Dr. John H. Watson, as faithfully told to an American journalist

In the near century that has passed since Sir Arthur Conan Doyle began chronicling the exploits of literature’s most famous detective, Sherlock Holmes has been published and imitated, cherished and commercialized in more than 50 languages and cultures throughout the world.

But until Cal State, Long Beach, opened the Center for Sherlock Holmes Studies last fall, experts say, there has been no center for the scholarly study of the Holmes phenomenon in the United States. Although similar centers are in London and Toronto, this is believed to be the first in the nation.

Under the direction of Prof. Arthur Axelrad, the center was created to encourage and produce critical study, publication, research and discussion of the exploits of the world’s first consulting detective and his counterparts.

“The center is dedicated to the study of Victorian detective fiction,” said Axelrad, a lifetime Holmes buff. “We hope to examine the themes, the interest in the genre and why rather suddenly, there was such an outburst of interest in Holmes in July, 1891, when ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’ (the detective’s third adventure) was published.”

Watson would have approved.

Sponsored Lectures

The Center for Sherlock Holmes Studies has already sponsored two lectures, and the first edition of The Dark Lantern, the center’s newsletter/journal, will be released before Christmas.

John Bennett Shaw, a Santa Fe, N.M.-based Holmes expert who owns the largest collection of “Sherlockiana” in the world, according to the “World Bibliography of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson,” said Axelrad deserves a lot of credit for the center, although, he said in jest, “they may lock him up” for his obsession with Holmes.

Since the first Holmes story was published by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in 1887, nearly 200 Holmes clubs have formed, travel agents book Holmes tours of London and gift stores sell 221 Bee Honey (named for the detective’s home address), calabash pipes, Snoopy dolls in capes and deerstalker caps and other items of Sherlockiana.

The center’s inauguration here last fall mirrors a recent heating up of Holmes fever.

60 Adventures

Conan Doyle wrote only 60 Holmes adventures in 40 years. But last Christmas there were more Sherlock Holmes “pastiches”--books by modern writers recounting Holmes adventures that Conan Doyle never dreamed of--on the market than ever, according to specialty bookstore owners. And a flurry of Holmes movies is planned in 1985 for the big screen, television and cable.

“There’s a worldwide craze now,” Axelrad said. “It’s all over. Everyone recognizes him. He’s salable. He’s marketable. I know he’s the only literary character who’s instantly recognizable, and I believe that he’s the only literary character that some people honestly believe is real.

“In a world where ‘unique’ is a cheap word, with Holmes it may be one of the few times you can use the word and mean it.”

But why Holmes and why now?

Shaw believes Sherlock Holmes and his impeccable code of honor fill a deep void in today’s world--the need for heroes.

“Holmes is probably the most satisfying of all heroes,” said Shaw, who is also known as “Mr. Sherlock Holmes” in Sherlockian circles. “Mickey Mouse and Sherlock Holmes are the two most universally recognized people in the world. Holmes is a leader.

“Holmes is honest, is always successful. He respects women, family, friends, country.”

Holmes and other literary detectives have had a loyal following at Cal State, Long Beach, for the last decade, since the English department first began offering a survey course in detective fiction.

Several English professors have published scholarly works on the genre, and a few have published murder mysteries of their own. In May, Audrey Peterson published “Victorian Masters of Mystery from Wilkie Collins to Conan Doyle,” which explores the era’s detective fiction and its beginnings.

And at 63 Peterson is putting the finishing touches on her first murder mystery, “The Nocturne Murder,” about an American graduate student who goes to London to work on her doctor’s dissertation in music. The book begins: “I had been in London less than a year when I was arrested for the murder of my lover.”

Creative writing professor Dora Polk has published three gothic mysteries, and past English department chairwoman Eileen Lothamer is working on two murder mysteries with academic settings.

“It’s really cathartic to kill someone off who deserves it,” Lothamer said. “It’s been fun writing these.”

In January, 1982, the university’s survey course in detective fiction became an exclusively Sherlock Holmes course--one of about 30 in the nation, Shaw said.

The change was to honor the 100th anniversary of Holmes and Watson’s first meeting, said Axelrad, who teaches the course.

At the same time, Axelrad began the Felonious Commuters--an official offshoot of the modern-day Baker Street Irregulars in New York City, the first Holmes society in the country. In addition, he created a three-month-long Holmes exhibit at the university library, which was visited by several thousand viewers.

The interest Axelrad generated was the inspiration for the center, which is a part of the university’s School of Humanities.

Karl W. E. Anatol, dean of the school, said he thought it was necessary to corral that interest and organize the mini-seminars and conferences there.

“We are still a fledgling kind of thing,” Anatol said. “But I want to make ours the center of major focus in the country.”

He would like to see the center have an editorial board of experts from around the country to put out journals, magazines and hold a biannual or annual seminar or conference on Sherlock Holmes studies.

As yet, Anatol said, the center has little funding--an estimated $100 to publish the first edition of The Dark Lantern.

The Center for Sherlock Holmes Studies may only be in its early stages, but as the great detective himself would say, “The game is afoot.”