Monthly Archives: May 2012

Woolly Wordings 5

Posted by oldpatrick on

Some of the more famous mistakes relating to names have already merited mention on this blog.  Such as Watson’s wife calling him James or the multiple brothers named James Moriarty, but a few other lesser-known instances come to mind from the stories.  Also revealed earlier on this blog site is the fact that while the British and American editions of the stories were published at approximately the same time, the text was not always identical.

The Honourable Ronald Adair was a well-known name after his untimely death round the time of Holmes’ return to London as recounted by Watson in “The Adventure of the Empty House.”  There appears to be some confusion among the editors in the third paragraph of the story as to the intention of Conan Doyle.  ‘The Strand Magazine’ begins that paragraph with “The Honourable Robert Adair was the second son of the Earl of Maynooth, at that time Governor of one of the Australian colonies.  Adair’s mother had returned from Australia to undergo an operation for cataract, and she, her son Ronald, and her daughter Hilda were living together at 427 Park Lane.”  The Honourable Robert Adair is apparently the father of the Honourable Ronald Adair making the Earl of Maynooth the father of Robert Adair.  The editors of the American Collier’s magazine used Ronald instead of Robert for that instance even though it alters the meaning by letting the unnamed Earl of Maynooth become the father of Ronald and leaving Robert out altogether.

Some other examples in the stories with name variations include the following.  In chapter 10 of ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles,’ the editors of “The Strand Magazine” corrupted the name of the busybody Frankland by referring to “Franklin’s skull.”  In chapter 11 of ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles,’ the American edition of the book contains the paragraph “Mrs. Lyon flushed with anger again.” even though every other instance is Lyons.  The editors of “The Strand Magazine” appear to have forgotten in ‘The Adventure of the Six Napoleons’ that Dr. Barnicot was a doctor for they have Lestrade refer to him as Mr. Barnicot. 

NEXT WEEK: The rooms at 221b Baker Street, London

The Renown of the Baskervilles

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At the time of Sir Charles Baskerville’s death which occurred in June of the year of the Sherlock Holmes story ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles,’ it was presumed that Sir Henry Baskerville from Canada was the sole heir to the Baskerville estate. That assumption was an incorrect one, but that is for another time. The Baskerville ancestry was a rich one especially if the glimpses we are given are just a sample.

Thanks to the gallery with all its portraits of former Baskervilles, and Holmes’ knowledge of art and Sir Henry Baskerville’s knowledge of his family, we have many insights into the ancestry of the Baskervilles. Early in the chapter Watson writes in chapter six “A dim line of ancestors, in every variety of dress, from the Elizabethan (Queen Elizabeth I, 7 September 1533 – 24 March 1603) knight to the buck of the Regency (early 1800’s), stared down upon us and daunted us by their silent company.” Later, in chapter thirteen, when Holmes arrives on the scene, he says of one portrait, “That’s a Kneller” [Sir Godfrey Kneller, 1st Baronet (August 8, 1646 – October 19, 1723)], then “I’ll swear, that lady in the blue silk over yonder, and the stout gentleman with the wig ought to be a Reynolds” [Sir Joshua Reynolds RA FRS FRSA (16 July 1723 – 23 February 1792)]. Sir Henry then says about one portrait, “That is Rear-Admiral Baskerville, who served under Rodney in the West Indies” [1778-1783, during the American Revolutionary War] then he says, “The man with the blue coat and the roll of paper is Sir William Baskerville, who was Chairman of Committees of the House of Commons under Pitt.” It is unclear to me to which Pitt Sir Henry refers, either William Pitt the Younger (28 May 1759 – 23 January 1806) or William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham PC (‘the elder’) (15 November 1708 – 11 May 1778).

Because of the fame of the artists hired to depict several of the Baskerville clan through the centuries, it is clear the lineage of the Baskervilles is a dignified one despite the inclusion of the first Hugo, among others, and the family tree since the end of the story may once again be of an exalted calibre since Sir Henry seems a decent sort with first-rate prospects.

NEXT WEEK: Woolly Wordings 5

Codes and ciphers

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Being the creator of the dancing men cipher, the topic of ciphers and codes in the stories is near and dear to my heart. Of the sixty stories in the Sherlock Holmes saga ‘The Musgrave Ritual,’ ‘The Adventure of the Dancing Men,’ ‘The Adventure of the Red Circle,’ and ‘The Valley of Fear’ all use codes or ciphers.

In ‘The Musgrave Ritual,’ we find a centuries-old riddle intended to confound the family, but the butler and Sherlock Holmes were able to solve the puzzle with some knowledge of history and trigonometry.

In ‘The Adventure of the Dancing Men,’ the cipher was intended to pass messages between members of a gang while keeping the general public unaware of their intent. The solution was a simple replacement cryptogram.

In ‘The Adventure of the Red Circle’ a simple code was used by Gennaro to signal the mysterious lodger of Bloomsbury. The code went in this way: one pass of the candle in the window stands for the letter ‘A,’ two passes of the candle stands for ‘B’ and so on. A problem arises when one considers that the messages were in Italian yet the alphabet could not have been. One may recall that the messages were the single words: ‘attenta’ and ‘pericolo,’ which mean ‘beware’ and ‘danger’ in English. If one considers that the Italian alphabet contains no J or K (nor W, X, or Y for that matter), the code must have been simplified by Watson to make the story flow smoothly; otherwise, Watson and Holmes could not count past nine. The latter option seems preposterous to me.

In ‘The Valley of Fear,’ the disguised member of the Moriarty gang who called himself Fred Porlock sent Holmes a cipher message perhaps to ease his own conscience, but he was unable to send the cipher because Moriarty knew his secret. The cipher, however, was explained by Holmes with the discovery of the unnamed book containing the code.

NEXT WEEK: The Renown of the Baskervilles

The philosophy and practicality of deduction and induction

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Often Sherlock Holmes would say to Watson, “You know my methods. Apply them.” But what are Sherlock Holmes’ methods?

It is obvious from any casual reading of the stories that he was well read in a variety of topics despite what Watson may have said from time to time, and he used that knowledge to great advantage. He kept meticulous records and references in several forms. Watson mentions his index of biographies in ‘The Adventure of the Empty House,’ the book (later several volumes) in which he daily filed the agony columns (the modern reader might know them as personal classified advertisements) of the daily London newspapers, a set of American Encyclopedias in ‘The Adventure of the Five Orange Pips,’ the Continental Gazetteer in ‘A Scandal in Bohemia.’

In one memorable exposition from ‘A Study in Scarlet,’ he says the following regarding knowledge: “I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilled workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.”

Holmes’ philosophy came out in several instances. The most common axiom he used to explain his methods is: “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” It is used in five separate places: twice in ‘The Sign of Four,’ ‘The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet,’ ‘The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans,’ and ‘The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier.’ Another precept that Holmes employed often is this: “It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.” Or the similar quote, “Data! data! data! I can’t make bricks without clay.” Often, when describing the facts of a case, he would mention one or more cases from his vast memory of crime that were similar to the current one. On one such occasion in ‘A Study in Scarlet,’ Holmes remarks, “There is nothing new under the sun. It has all been done before.”

His ultimate goal is to discover the proper starting point, to grasp the important facts, ignore the unimportant ones, and work out the most likely chain of events. This topic could become a textbook, but I could hardly expect to encompass it in this space. Until that epic tome is published, this brief glimpse into the mind of Sherlock Holmes will have to suffice.

NEXT WEEK: Codes and ciphers