This is an annotated collector's guide for the 100 most important critical studies and association items to the Sherlock Holmes canon as suggested by John Bennett Shaw." The collectables and Incunabula (books and other publications) are numbered and the descriptions quite informative and entertaining to read. As the Pennsylvania-based author Carl William Thiel notes, "No collection of Sherlock Holmes will ever be complete, but half the fun is in the search." Included is a caricature of the author by Scott Bond, a letter to Shaw from Ray Betzner, and an Afterword. Four-colour cover, 60-page pamphlet.
Chapbook, 56p.
ISBN 1-896648-54-1 $12.50
Preface by Carl William Thiel
The late John Bennett Shaw of Santa Fe, New Mexico, was renowned for having the
largest Sherlock Holmes collection in the world, amounting to some 12,000 items.
Besides being an inveterate collector he was also indefatigable in spreading the
word about Sherlock Holmes, possessing a rare talent for imparting his own
enthusiasm for the subject as he hosted and attended scores of workshops around
the United States and Canada. For more than two decades Shaw issued a list
enumerating one hundred books he considered important reading for Sherlockians,
calling it "The Basic One Hundred." Periodically, he revised the list so as to
reflect recent additions, as, he wrote, "there seems to be no end to the welter
of Holmesian words." The December 1993 number of The Baker Street Journal
contained his last update, "The Basic Holmesian Library."
Except for the occasional pastiche, nearly everything written
about Sherlock Holmes contains some merit. Shaw offered us the cream of The
Writings about the Writings, the influential works of the men and women whose
literary labors were born out of true love for their subject.
To say the list is helpful is egregious understatement. The Basic One Hundred is
an inventory of the books we should know, a necessary guide which leads us
through the sprawling verbiage which has grown up around the figure of Sherlock
Holmes in the past hundred years.
Let the reader take note. Shaw's is an ideal list, one to
which all collectors may aspire, but seldom achieve. The novice collector
interested in acquiring Sherlockian material will quickly find the cost of doing
so daunting. (At the Bennington, Vermont Sherlock Holmes conference in June
1994, I overheard someone ask Peter Blau, no mean collector himself, what the
cost might be of starting up a collection of Sherlockiana. Blau figured if one
were to collect every newly printed word to appear on Holmes such a pursuit
would easily amount to $2000 annually, and that does not take into account the
cost of any item that had come before!)
In fact, back in 1977, book store owner and publisher Otto
Penzler did take into account the costs of such a Sherlockian wish list. He,
too, had devised a list of one hundred "indispensable" titles. "To amass them,"
he proclaimed, "requires only three things: fabulous wealth, infinite patience
and divine intervention." Penzler's "Holmesian shopping list," which was
published in Dilys Winn's Murder Ink (Workman Publishing Co., 1977), is truly an
impossible dream now. In first place, both due to worth and date of issue, is a
copy of Beeton's Christmas Annual, 1887, which had been valued at $7500 two
decades ago. He lards the century list with first editions of each Conan Doyle
title, as well as those featuring the early parodies of John Kendrick Bangs,
Mark Twain, Bret Harte and O. Henry.
There is considerable overlap, of course, but both lists
share a total of only 40 titles. Many of those on Penzler's bibliography are the
original books containing only one Sherlockian piece, in most cases a parody
which may be found in Ellery Queen's Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes. Where
Penzler differs markedly from Shaw is in his attention to collectibility. Where
Shaw simply cites a title because it is notable, Penzler specified first
editions and provided publication information, dutifully citing current (1977)
dollar value for each title.
Some titles on The Basic 100 have long been rare collector's
items commanding hundreds of dollars in dealer's catalogs or at antiquarian book
shows. Others, happily, have been reprinted once or twice and are (or were
recently) available through various sources.
To separate the titles readily available from those which are
scarce, I have gone over the list item by item, assigning my own numbers and
noting availability, publisher and date. If a title is still in print, I have
included the name of the publisher and its current price as indicated in Books
In Print or publishers' catalogs.
Though I have endeavored to keep the information up to date I
know there have been unavoidable omissions. Reprinted titles are always
reappearing in one form or another as well as disappearing with startling
rapidity. I tottered on the brink for some time, whether to stay within the
confines of Shaw's list as he composed it or take the liberty of updating it.
Significantly, there have been two or three outstanding contributions to
Sherlockiana since Shaw produced his last list in 1993. There is an excellent
guide to the world of Sherlockiana, Christopher Redmond's Sherlock Holmes
Handbook (Simon & Pierre, 1993) 251p. $26.50, and the publication of all nine
original books, newly annotated and corrected, which comprise The Oxford
Sherlock Holmes (which I discuss in the bibliography).
Finally, I decided not to tamper with the original list. I
make enough assumptions in my notes without presuming to attach my own
preferences onto this exalted tally.
I have not seen every item on this list.
My main sources for the annotations were Ronald Burt De
Waal's World Bibliography (1974) and International Sherlock Holmes (1980),
Jacques Barzun and W.H. Taylor's splendid survey of crime fiction, A Catalog of
Crime (1971), back issues of both The Baker Street Journal and Baker Street
Miscellanea, and my own small collection of Sherlockiana.
I would like to thank Mrs. Dorothy Rowe Shaw for granting me
permission to embellish her husband's bibliography and who kindly assured me
that John would have been pleased that someone was continuing the work he felt
was important.
Ray Betzner, whom I have yet to meet face to face, was kind
enough to contribute his thoughts and memories of John Bennett Shaw. Ray is the
Director of College Relations at Franklin & MArshall College in Lancaster, Pa.
and also bears the investiture of "The Agony Column" in The Baker Street
Irregulars.
This bibliographic appraisal also benefitted from the helpful suggestions made
by Peter Blau of the Red Circle of Washington and indomitable broadcaster of all
things Sherlockian through his monthly "Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press."
It would be ungrateful of me if I failed to acknowledge the labor done on my
behalf by Tim Galvin, librarian at Buffalo's Northwest Branch Library, who took
the time to search the library system's entire catalog for me without complaint.
This is also an excellent opportunity to thank the many
Sherlockians who encouraged me in this undertaking, a few of them close friends,
others whom I came to know through that electronic gab-fest, the Hounds of the
Internet. Not to be left out are the members of An Irish Secret Society at
Buffalo, the scion society for Western New York, who had the opportunity to read
and comment upon the manuscript in various drafts; and especial thanks and
gratitude to Richard A. Holland, whose unselfish assistance and guidance through
the newfangled technology of the PC proved invaluable time and again.
Carl William Thiel
Buffalo, New York, September 1996
JBS by Scott Bond