ŷ������

The following may be of some interest to readers of :

��

1

Half a league, half a league,

Half a league onward,

All in the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

“Forward, the Light Brigade

“Charge for the guns!�� he said:

Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

��

2

“Forward, the Light Brigade!��

Was there a man dismay’d?

Not tho�� the soldier knew

Someone had blunder’d:

Theirs not to make reply,

Theirs not to reason why,

Theirs but to do and die:

Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

��

3

Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon in front of them

Volley’d and thunder’d;

Storm’d at with shot and shell,

Boldly they rode and well,

Into the jaws of Death,

Into the mouth of Hell

Rode the six hundred.

��

4

Flash’d all their sabres bare,

Flash’d as they turn’d in air,

Sabring the gunners there,

Charging an army, while

All the world wonder’d:

Plunged in the battery-smoke

Right thro�� the line they broke;

Cossack and Russian

Reel’d from the sabre stroke

Shatter’d and sunder’d.

Then they rode back, but not

Not the six hundred.

��

5

Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon behind them

Volley’d and thunder’d;

Storm’d at with shot and shell,

While horse and hero fell,

They that had fought so well

Came thro�� the jaws of Death

Back from the mouth of Hell,

All that was left of them,

Left of six hundred.

��

6

When can their glory fade?

O the wild charge they made!

All the world wondered.

Honour the charge they made,

Honour the Light Brigade,

Noble six hundred.

��

Composed by Alfred Lord Tennyson on 2 December, 1854.

The charge itself took place on 25 October, 1854, with the British public learning of it on 12 November 1854.

��

The following may be of some interest to readers of :

Being a reprint of a letter written in 1879 to the British Medical Journal by a young physician named Arthur Conan Doyle.

Sir, ��

Some years ago, a persistent neuralgia led me to use the tincture of gelseminum to a considerable extent. I several times overstepped the maximum doses of the textbooks without suffering any ill effects. Having recently had an opportunity of experimenting with a quantity of fresh tincture, I determined to ascertain how far one might go in taking the drug, and what the primary symptoms of an overdose might be. I took each dose about the same hour on successive days, and avoided tobacco or any other agent which might influence the physiological action of the drug. Here are the results as jotted down at the time of the experiment. On Monday and Tuesday, forty and sixty minims produced no effect whatever. On Wednesday, ninety minims were taken at 10.30. At 10.50, on rising from my chair, I became seized with an extreme giddiness and weakness of the limbs, which, however, quickly passed off. I here was no nausea or other effect.

The pulse was weak but normal. On Thursday, I took 120 minims. The giddiness of yesterday came on in a much milder form. On going out about one o’clock, however, I noticed for the first time that I had a difficulty in accommodating the eye for distant objects. It needed a distinct voluntary effort, and indeed a facial contortion, to do it. On Friday, 150 minims were taken. As I increased the dose, I found that the more marked physiological symptoms disappeared. Today, the giddiness was almost gone, but I suffered from a severe frontal headache, with diarrhoea and general lassitude. On Saturday and Sunday, I took three drachms and 200 minims. The diarrhoea was so persistent and prostrating, that I must stop at 200 minims. I felt great depression and a severe frontal headache. The pulse was still normal, but weak.

From these experiments I would draw the following conclusions.

1. In spite of a case described some time ago in which 75 minims proved fatal, a healthy adult may take as much as 90 minims with perfect immunity.

2. In doses of from 90 to 120 minims, the drug acts apparently as a motor paralyser to a certain extent, causing languor, giddiness, and a partial paralysis of the ciliary muscle.

3. After that point, it causes headache, with diarrhoea and extreme lassitude.

4. The system may learn to tolerate gelseminum, as it may opium, if it be gradually inured to it. I feel convinced that I could have taken as much as half an ounce of the tincture, had it not been for the extreme diarrhoea it brought on.

Believe me,

Yours sincerely,

A.C.D.

Clifton House, Aston Road, Birmingham

First published in the British Medical Journal, Volume 2, #977, pg.483. 20 September 1879.

Seven years would pass between the writing of this letter and the time when Conan Doyle would become the literary agent for Dr. John H. Watson, as well as the author of numerous historical and adventure tales by his own hand. In so doing, Conan Doyle turned his talents away from the noble art of medicine and towards the task of furthering the world of literature. In so doing, he moved from curing the physical ailments of one person at a time, to the inspiration of joy in the masses of people who read �� and continue to read �� his words. Who can say for certain by which occupation Conan Doyle brought more happiness to the world?

Some readers have commented upon the use, perhaps excessive at time, of footnotes in the new Sherlock Holmes stories which I have been fortunate enough to recently unearth.

I blame three things. The first is my training as a pediatrician and clinical researcher. For every medical manuscript I publish, careful referencing is of the utmost importance. I plainly have been unable to separate this aspect of my life from my work on these Holmes adventures. The second is that I have always appreciated when an author carefully spells out (admittedly, usually in the forms of an author’s afterword) what was true and what was fictional about their stories. Finally, I ‘blame�� Leslie S. Klinger, the editor of the masterwork, The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes (2005-2006). This work, which delves into the vast amount of scholarly work that has gone into Sherlockian studies, is how I read and re-read the Canon of Holmes, and therefore the presence of footnotes has become permanently embedded in my brain as an accepted part of reading a Holmes tale.

I now find that I cannot write without them. However, I did offer to delete them from the manuscript for The Fateful Malady, included in Part 1 of . The editor, David Marcum, suggested via email that we leave them in, since they are “sort-of-your thing.�� I can only agree!

For those readers who might be distracted by the presence of these footnotes, I have endeavored to publish or re-publish each of these short adventures to contain first an unannotated version, followed by the annotated one, allowing the reader to choose which one they care to peruse. For the larger compilations of tales, such as , I likewise will publish both an annotated and a basic version.

How best to read the various tales of Sherlock Holmes? The most obvious answer to that question is: the order in which they were written and published, beginning with A Study in Scarlet. However, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the first literary agent for Dr. John H. Watson, did not publish the stories in a strict chronologic order, with many stories told primarily as flashbacks. Therefore, for the reader, either new to these wondrous tales or seeking to read them all again, I present the following option. By following this list, the reader is able to see for themselves the maturation of Holmes and Watson, from relatively young lads with all of London at their fingertips, to the mature gentlemen reflecting upon a lifetime of adventure.

I generally follow the dating laid out by the great Sherlockian editor Leslie S. Klinger in his masterwork, (2005-6), which is itself a consensus of other Sherlockians, who often followed but the vaguest of clues in the stories themselves in order to come to their conclusions. Dr. Watson, for all his excellent qualities, was never his best with dates. For the sake of vanity, this literary agent interjects the timing for those stories which I have been so fortunate as to unearth and publish.

(1852: Watson born)

(1854: Holmes born)

1874: The Gloria Scott

1879: The Musgrave Ritual

1880:

1881: A Study in Scarlet

1883: The Speckled Band

1883:

1884:

1886: The Beryl Coronet

1887: The Resident Patient

1887: The Reigate Squires

1887: The Five Orange Pips

1888:

1888: The Valley of Fear

1888: The Noble Bachelor

1888: The Yellow Face

1888: The Greek Interpreter

1888: The Sign of Four

1888: Silver Blaze

1888: The Cardboard Box

1889: The Crooked Man

1889: A Scandal in Bohemia

1889: The Man with a Twisted Lip

1889: A Case of Identity

1889:

1889: The Boscombe Valley Mystery

1889: The Stockbroker’s Clerk

1889: The Naval Treaty

1889: The Engineer’s Thumb

1889: Hound of the Baskervilles^

1889: The Blue Carbuncle

1890: The Red-Headed League

1890: The Copper Beeches

1890: The Dying Detective

1890:

1891: The Final Problem

1894: The Empty House

1894: The Second Stain%

1894: The Golden Pince-Nez

1894: The Norwood Builder

1894:

1895: Wisteria Lodge

1895: The Three Students

1895: The Solitary Cyclist

1895: Black Peter

1895: The Bruce-Partington Plans

1895:

1896: The Veiled Lodger

1896: The Sussex Vampire

1896: The Missing Three-Quarter

1897: The Abbey Grange

1897: The Devil’s Foot

1898: The Dancing Men

1899: The Retired Colourman

1899: Charles Augustus Milverton

1900: The Six Napoleons

1901: The Priory School

1901: The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax

1901: Thor Bridge

1902: Shoscombe Old Place

1902: The Three Garridebs

1902: Three Gables

1902: The Illustrious Client

1902: The Red Circle

1903: The Blanched Solider*

1903: The Mazarin Stone

1903: The Creeping Man

1907: The Lion’s Mane*

1909: (The Assassination of Sherlock Holmes)

1909: (The Assassination of Sherlock Holmes)

1909: (The Assassination of Sherlock Holmes)

1914: His Last Bow

1918:

^ The dating of The Hound of the Baskervilles is the most difficult of the entire Canon, such that Klinger devotes an entire Appendix to the controversy. I have picked the date with what appears to be the most evidence behind it, accepting that it is at best a flimsy theory.

% The dating of The Second Stain is one of the most controversial of the entire Canon. Watson himself deliberately attempts to obscure the date: “It was, then, in a year, and even in a decade, that shall be nameless, that upon one Tuesday afternoon in autumn we found two visitors…��

* Dr. Watson sadly makes no appearance.

Immortal Sails

By Alfred Noyes (1880��1958)

Now, in a breath, we’ll burst those gates of gold,

And ransack heaven before our moment fails.

Now, in a breath, before we, too, grow old,

We’ll mount and sing and spread immortal sails.

It is not time that makes eternity.

Love and an hour may quite out-span the years,

And give us more to hear and more to see

Than life can wash away with all its tears.

Dear, when we part, at last, that sunset sky

Shall not be touched with deeper hues than this;

But we shall ride the lightning ere we die

And seize our brief infinitude of bliss,

With time to spare for all that heaven can tell,

While eyes meet eyes, and look their last farewell.

From Collected Poems (1947)

Immortal Sails

By Alfred Noyes (1880��1958)

Now, in a breath, we’ll burst those gates of gold,

And ransack heaven before our moment fails.

Now, in a breath, before we, too, grow old,

We’ll mount and sing and spread immortal sails.

It is not time that makes eternity.

Love and an hour may quite out-span the years,

And give us more to hear and more to see

Than life can wash away with all its tears.

Dear, when we part, at last, that sunset sky

Shall not be touched with deeper hues than this;

But we shall ride the lightning ere we die

And seize our brief infinitude of bliss,

With time to spare for all that heaven can tell,

While eyes meet eyes, and look their last farewell.

From Collected Poems (1947)

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859 �� 1930), celebrated author and literary agent for the tales of Sherlock Holmes and his biographer Dr. John H. Watson, has a complex relationship with the fabled City by the Bay, San Francisco, California.

In 1887, the first Holmes tale, A Study in Scarlet, was released. This novella relates events that took place in 1881, including the legendary meeting of Holmes and Watson at the chemical laboratory of St. Bart’s. The second half of the story also contains a significant ‘flashback�� entitled ‘The Country of the Saints.�� This spans the space of five chapters and is set in the wild lands of the American West, specifically Utah. For reasons that will remain forever unclear, in 1889 or 1890, before the publication of any other Holmes tales, Conan Doyle made a curious choice to rewrite the American chapters of A Study in Scarlet, with the London action moving to San Francisco, as a play entitled Angels of Darkness. Holmes makes no appearance at all, and the John Watson, M.D. character contained within is almost indistinguishable from the Watson familiar to us from the subsequent tales of the Canon. First and foremost, in the play’s Watson is described as a ‘San Francisco Practitioner,�� suggesting that he is doing more than just visiting the City by the Bay, but has actually settled down there. His actions are also a bit out of form, and most shocking to many readers, he eventually marries a woman called ‘Lucy Ferrier�� (especially bizarre since A Study in Scarlet makes it clear that she died in 1860)! It is no surprise that this bizarre and apocryphal tale of Doyle’s, so at odds with the Watson that we know and love, remained unpublished for over a hundred years, until 2001, when The Baker Street Irregulars of New York decided that it should be allowed to see the light of day, if only for the sake of curiosity. Recent evidence (outlined in the Literary Agent’s Notes at the end of Watson’s recently unearthed pre-Holmes tale, ) does shed some light on how and why Watson might have actually been induced to make a voyage to San Francisco c. 1884 (during the interval between the events set down in The Speckled Band �� which take places in April 1883 �� and The Beryl Coronet �� proposed for 1886).

The next mention of San Francisco by Doyle takes place in The Noble Bachelor, published first in 1892 in the Strand Magazine, and then as part of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, with the events likely occurring in 1888. Therein the Lord Robert Walsingham de Vere St. Simon attempts to marry the fascinating Miss Hatty Doran, daughter of the California millionaire Mr. Aloysius Doran. Lord St. Simon had met the impetuous, volcanic lady while travelling in San Francisco the year earlier. As a denizen of this fair city, I am torn by what to make of the depiction of San Francisco as manifested by Hatty Doran’s character. While she has a “graceful figure and striking face�� she was also a “tomboy, with a strong nature, wild and free, unfettered by any sort of traditions.�� So far, so good. However, her manner of speech was fairly rough and colloquial, with at least three uses of the un-popular term ‘Frisco. ��But in the end her behavior is gracious; perhaps more so than her jilted fiancée.

One possible explanation for these anomalies, is that Conan Doyle, editing Watson’s words, did not visit San Francisco for many more years. Finally, in 1923 (at the age of sixty-four) Conan Doyle arrived at San Francisco as part of his great lecture tour of North America. Sixteen years had passed since the Great Earthquake of 1906 had leveled much of the fair city that Watson once must have known. Where Conan Doyle stayed is a matter of great mystery. On the one hand, some historians suggest that he and his wife Jean took rooms at the Clift Hotel, the great art deco luxury hotel two blocks from Union Square (this choice might have made a practical sense, since it was advertised as the first hotel in San Francisco to be fire and earthquake proof). However, a contrary view is expressed by a beautifully polished brass plaque on the side of a gracious little gray-stone building (wedged between two massive apartment complexes) at 2151 Sacramento Street, across from Lafayette Park.

The house was reputedly built in 1881, and thus was a survivor of the Great Earthquake and subsequent Fire, which fortunately did not stretch quite this far west. Some evidence suggests that Conan Doyle simply visited the building, which belonged to one Dr. Adams. But the romantic likes to think that the unassuming Conan Doyle may have preferred this small building (with its echoes of a brownstone at 221 Baker Street) to the bustle of the massive Clift Hotel and, at the bidding of his host, transferred his effects there. In any case, we can hope that Conan Doyle finally appreciated the great city that he was visiting, though to our knowledge, the pen of his friend John H. Watson remained silent on the topic of a city filled perhaps with sad memories.

by Edmund Waller (1606 �� 1687)

“What fruits they have, and how heaven smiles

Upon those late-discovered isles.

Aid me, Bellona, while the dreadful fight

Betwixt a nation and two whales I write.

Seas stained with gore I sing, adventurous toil,

And how these monsters did disarm an isle.

Bermudas, walled with rocks, who does not know?

That happy island where huge lemons grow,

And orange trees, which golden fruit do bear,

The Hesperian garden boasts of none so fair;

Where shining pearl, coral, and many a pound,

On the rich shore, of ambergris is found.

The lofty cedar, which to heaven aspires,

The prince of trees, is fuel for their fires;

The smoke by which their loaded spits do turn,

For incense might on sacred altars burn;

Their private roofs on odorous timber borne,

Such as might palaces for kings adorn.

The sweet palmettos a new Bacchus yield,

With leaves as ample as the broadest shield,

Under the shadow of whose friendly boughs

They sit, carousing where their liquor grows.

Figs there unplanted through the fields do grow,

Such as fierce Cato did the Romans show,

With the rare fruit inviting them to spoil

Carthage, the mistress of so rich a soil.

The naked rocks are not unfruitful there,

But, at some constant seasons, every year

Their barren tops with luscious food abound,

And with the eggs of various fowls are crowned.

Tobacco is the worst of things which they

To English landlords, as their tribute, pay.

Such is the mold, that the blest tenant feeds

On precious fruits, and pays his rent in weeds.

With candied plantains, and the juicy pine,

On choicer melons, and sweet grapes, they dine,

And with potatoes fat their wanton swine.

Nature these cates with such a lavish hand

Pours out among them, that our coarser land

Tastes of that bounty, and does cloth return,

Which not for warmth but ornament is worn;

For the kind spring, which but salutes us here,

Inhabits there, and courts them all the year.

Ripe fruits and blossoms on the same tress live;

At once they promise what at once they give.

So sweet the air, so moderate the clime,

None sickly lives, or dies before his time.

Heaven sure has kept this spot of earth uncursed

To show how all things were created first.

The tardy plants in our cold orchards placed

Reserve their fruit for the next age’s taste.

There a small grain in some few months will be

A firm, a lofty, and a spacious tree.

The palma-christi, and the fair papaw,

Now but a seed, preventing nature’s law,

In half the circle of the hasty year

Project a shade, and lovely fruit do wear.

And as their trees, in our dull region set,

But faintly grow, and no perfection get,

So in this northern tract our hoarser throats

Utter unripe and ill-constrained notes,

Where the supporter of the poets�� style,

Phoebus, on them eternally does smile.

Oh! how I long my careless limbs to lay

Under the plantain’s shade, and all the day

With amorous airs my fancy entertain,

Invoke the Muses, and improve my vein!

No passion there in my free breast should move,

None but the sweet and best of passions, love.

There while I sing, if gentle love be by,

That tunes my lute, and winds the strings so high,

With the sweet sound of Sacharissa’s name

I’ll make the listening savages grow tame -

But while I do these pleasing dreams indite,

I am diverted from the promised fight.��

One of the earliest writings by (who was once confined to the Tower of London and then banished from England!)

Sir Henry Wood: Fantasia on British Sea Songs “Home Sweet Home�� (1905): Chapters I & II: The Serapis & The Malabar
Ralph Vaughan Williams: Full Fathom Five (1951): Chapter III: The Isle of Devils
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: The Tempest, Andante con moto (1873): Chapter IV: The Globe Hotel
Felix Mendelssohn: A Midsummer’s Night Dream, Con moto tranquilo (1842): Chapter V: St. George’s
Sir Edward Elgar: Salut d’Amour (1888): Chapter VI: The Heart of the Island
Ralph Vaughan Williams: Dives and Lazarus (1939): Chapter VII: Piercing the Veil
Felix Mendelssohn: Songs Without Words, op. 109 (c.1847): Chapter VIII: A Darkening Sky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Andante Cantabile (1871): Chapter VIII: A Darkening Sky
Gabriel Fauré: Requiem, Sanctus (1900): Chapters IX & X: Murder & A Tangled Skein
Eric Coates: The Sleepy Lagoon (1930): Chapter XI: The Evidence of the Proprietress
Carl Linger: Song of Australia (1859): Chapter XXII: The Evidence of the Australian Rugby-Player
Alfredo Keil: A Portuguesa ‘Heroes of the Sea, Noble Race�� (1890): Chapter XXIII: The Evidence of the Portuguese Wine-Merchant
František Škroup: Where is My Home? (1834): Chapter XIV: The Evidence of the Bohemian Physician
Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov: Turkish Fragments, Op. 62, I. ‘Caravan�� (1930): Chapter XV: The Evidence of the Turkish Engineer
Ludwig van Beethoven: The Creatures of Prometheus Overture (1801): Chapter XVI: The Evidence of the Greek Pugilist
Thomas Arne: Rule Britannia (1740): Chapter XVII: The Evidence of the English Naturalist
Pietro Mascagni: Cavalleria Rusticana, Intermezzo (1890): Chapter XVIII: The Evidence of the Italian Painter
Joaquin Rodrigo: Fantasy for a Gentleman (1954): Chapter XIX: The Evidence of the Spanish Marquesa
Aaron Copland: Appalachian Spring, Doppio Movimento (1944): Chapter XX: The Evidence of the American Lady
Claude Debussy: Claire de Lune (1890): Chapter XXI: The Evidence of the French Solicitor
Sir Edward Elgar: Enigma Variation 9, ‘Nimrod�� (1899): Chapter XXII: The List of Evidence
Sir Edward Elgar: The Immortal Legions (1924): Chapter XXIII & XXIV:�� A Possible Solution & An Extraordinary Tale
Ludwig van Beethoven: Ode to Joy (1824): Chapter XXV: The Constable’s Dilemma
Antonín Dvořák: Goin�� Home (adapted from Symphony no.9, Largo) (1893): Epilogue: The Orontes

��Author’s Notes: I wanted the sound of The Isle of Devils to address two themes, the Bermudian connection to Shakespeare’s The Tempest, and the multinational aspect of the guests at the Globe Hotel. While some of the music was composed by 1880, especially the pieces played by Lucy during the hurricane (Mendelssohn’s ‘Song Without Words,�� and Tchaikovsky’s ‘Andante Cantabile�� from the String Quartet no.1), many of the pieces are anachronistic. But they were too perfect to pass up in favor of a less-ideal but earlier piece.

Wood’s ‘Fantasia on British Sea Songs�� seemed like a great choice to open the tale, as Watson journey from the base hospital in Pakistan towards his home in England, with a minor but significant detour in idyllic Bermuda. The next several works have obvious Shakespearean connections (‘Full Fathom Five�� is a song sung by Ariel in ��The Tempest��), and then Elgar’s ‘Salute to Love�� seemed like a good choice for Watson and Lucy’s walk in Somers Garden. Vaughan Williams�� ‘Dives and Lazarus�� may be a bit of an odd choice for the meeting of Watson and Dumas, but it’s a lovely work, and one of the greatest Requiem’s of all time, by the Frenchman Fauré seemed to fit the death of the Frenchman Dumas.

Most of the country-specific music was very easy to choose. Some national anthems seemed perfect, such as Linger’s fantastic ‘Song of Australia,�� Keil’s ‘A Portuguesa,�� and Skroup’s ‘Where is My Home?�� One conscious exception was that I purposefully chose not to go with ‘God Save the Queen�� (since to an American’s ear, the tune has been appropriated for the song ‘My Country, ‘Tis of Thee��), and instead went with ‘Rule Britannia,�� which I think still works well.

Other ones were trickier. As a Commonwealth nation, Bermuda does not have its own anthem, so I went with Coates�� ‘Sleepy Lagoon�� as a musical description for sleepy St. George’s, the home of Mrs. Foster. Ippolitov-Ivanov’s ‘Turkish Caravan�� seemed perfect for Mr. Bey, while Mascagni’s famous ‘Intermezzo�� from Cavalleria Rusticana was a better fit for Signore Aicardi than the actual Italian anthem of the time. Rodrigo’s ‘Fantasy for a Gentleman�� is a great piece that may be a bit too fast-tempo to perfectly fit the Spanish Marquesa, but it was too wonderful to leave out. Debussy’s gorgeous ‘Claire de Lune�� appeared perfect for the pretend Frenchman Hector Dubois. The hardest was the music for Mr. Delopolous, the Greek pugilist, but I finally hit upon Beethoven’s ‘Creatures of Prometheus�� and decided that the theme of the Greek myth was close enough. Copland’s ‘Appalachian Spring�� is definitely anachronistic, but since the Shaker theme that he used dates back to 1848, and because I believe that it is the most beautiful piece of American music ever composed, I just had to use it for Lucy’s Theme.

For the chapter in which Dunkley and Watson debate the clues to the mystery, what could be better than Elgar’s magnificent ‘Nimrod�� from ‘Enigma Variations�� (a piece that has its own )? And while Elgar’s ‘Immortal Legions�� is actually based upon a poem by Alfred Noyes (1880 �� 1958) about the English armies dead, I thought it could work as a stand-in for the dead of the French Foreign Legion.

The Immortal Legions

Now, in silence, muster round her

All the legions of her dead.

Grieving for the grief that crowned her,

England bows her glorious head.

Round the ever-living Mother,

Out of the forgetful grave,

Rise the legions that have saved her

Though themselves they could not save.

Now the living Power remembers,

Now the deeper trumpets roll.

Are there worlds beyond the darkness?

Worlds of light beyond the darkness?

And a voice beyond the darkness

Whispers to her stricken soul:

Mother of immortal legions,

Lift again thy glorious head.

Glory honour and thanksgiving,

Now, to our victorious dead.

Watson’s joy at the end of Chapter XXIV, when all has been made clear, can only be summed up by the greatest piece of music ever written, Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy,�� from a poem by Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (1759 �� 1805):

Oh friends, not these tones!

Rather, let us raise our voices in more pleasing

And more joyful sounds!

Joy! (Joy!)

Joy! (Joy!)

Joy, beautiful spark of the gods*

Daughter of Elysium,

We enter, drunk with fire,

Heavenly one, your sanctuary!

Your magic reunites

What custom strictly divided.

All men become brothers,

Where your gentle wing rests.

Whoever has had the great fortune

To be a friend’s friend,

Whoever has won a devoted wife,

Join in our jubilation!

Finally, ‘Goin�� Home,�� the theme from the second “Largo�� movement of Dvorak’s ‘New World Symphony�� is the perfect sound by which to send Watson back to England onboard the Orontes. There he will settle in at 221B Baker Street and find the friendship of a lifetime.

John Hamish Watson, MD is justifiably famous worldwide for writing fifty-six of the sixty tales that make up the recognized Canon of Sherlock Holmes. He published his works through an arrangement with his literary agent, . Although several fine mysteries preceded his work, Dr. Watson is generally credited for launching the mystery genre into its stratospheric heights. But is it possible that Dr. Watson also is responsible for first discovering the leading candidate of the ?

First of all, let us set the context. The plays and poems published in the early 1600’s under the name William Shakespeare were certainly popular in their time, but initially they were considered one of many. It wasn’t until the mid-1700’s, around the time that Samuel Johnson referred to Shakespeare’s work as “a map of life,�� that his fame began to seriously rise. This phenomenon became especially evident during the Victorian era when many writers treated Shakespeare’s works as a secular equivalent of the Bible. The essayist Thomas Carlyle wrote in 1840: “That King Shakespeare, does not he shine, in crowned sovereignty, over us all, as the noblest, gentlest, yet strongest of rallying signs; indestructible.�� Finally, the term Bardolatry, derived from Shakespeare’s��sobriquet “the Bard of Avon�� and the Greek word latria ‘worship�� (as in idolatry), was coined in 1901 by George Bernard Shaw in the preface to his collection “Three Plays for Puritans.��

Perhaps as a back-lash against the rise of Bardolatry, the Stratfordian merchant’s authorship of the plays was first openly questioned in the pages of Joseph C. Hart’s ��The Romance of Yachting�� (1848). Hart argued that the plays contained evidence that many different authors had worked on them. Four years later Dr. Robert W. Jameson published ��Who Wrote Shakespeare?�� anonymously in the��Edinburgh Journal, expressing similar views. The first person strongly considered as a candidate was Sir Francis Bacon, who counted no-less than the respected author Ralph Waldo Emerson amongst his adherents. Mark Twain also favored Bacon as the true author in ��Is Shakespeare Dead?�� (1909). But it wasn’t until 1920, with the publication of J. Thomas Looney’s ��Shakespeare Identified����that , became the most popularly-accepted alternative authorship candidate. As for why de Vere would publish his masterpieces under a pen-name, many theories abound. The more fanciful ones of which suggest that de Vere was either the love-child of the young Elizabeth I (and hence her true heir) or that he fathered the Henry Wriothesley, the Earl of Southampton upon her. Many of these conspiracy theories converge on a central hypothesis that , Queen Elizabeth’s brilliant and vigilant spymaster, although preceding De Vere to the grave, must have been involved in ordering the cover-up.

Certainly, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson were great fans of Shakespeare’s plays. Puzzled over the unusual interest in her house and its furnishings, Holmes asked Mrs. Mary Maberley, “You don’t happen to have�� a first folio Shakespeare without knowing it?�� (The Adventure of the Three Gables). Despite Dr. Watson’s assessment that Holmes knowledge of literature was “Nil�� (Chapter II, A Study in Scarlet), Holmes quoted (or mis-quoted) from fourteen of the plays in the course of his official cases. And one of Holmes�� most famous expressions is not by Holmes at all. “The game is afoot�� (The Adventure of the Abbey Grange) is actually from King Henry V (Act Three, Scene One, Line Thirty-Two). It has even been argued by the great Christopher Morley that since Holmes only quoted from one of the plays twice �� Twelfth Night �� ergo Holmes was born on the twelfth night of Christmas, that is January 6th.

The first hint that Watson (and/or Conan Doyle) may have held Oxfordian beliefs comes from the impactful tale ��The Final Problem�� (1893). Therein, Holmes related to Watson that he “went out about midday to transact some business in Oxford Street��. but as I walked down Vere Street a brick came down from the roof of one of the houses and was shattered to fragments at my feet.�� Vere Street is a street in central London off of Oxford Street, and which is named after a family name of the area’s owners at the time of its construction, the Earls of Oxford.

This small reference is, of course, hardly convincing. However, a stunning revelation can be found in ��The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor�� (1892). In this simple mystery, a young nobleman consults Holmes to solve the disappearance of his hour-old bride, the former Miss Hatty Doran of San Francisco, California. Although the man signs his name, Robert St. Simon, Holmes does a quick bit of research from a red-covered reference volume that he plucks from a line of books beside the mantelpiece and finds this gem: “Lord Robert WALSINGHAM DE VERE St. Simon, second son of the Duke of Balmoral �� Hum!�� (emphasis mine). First of all, there is no such title as the Duke of Balmoral. This supposed individual shows up two other times in the Canon, both of which have to do with betting, for his horse Iris ran in the Wessex Cup (Silver Blaze), and he lost a considerable sum of money at whist to Ronald Adair and Colonel Moran (The Adventure of the Empty House). It has long been known that in order to protect their identities, Watson changed the names of certain individuals who feature in Holmes�� cases, the first and best example being the fictional title used for the case of “Wilhem von Ormstein, King of Bohemia�� (A Scandal in Bohemia). Balmoral Castle is the royal summer and hunting estate in the Scottish highlands, purchased by Prince Albert for Queen Victoria in 1852, and since the Queen sometimes travelled incognito as the “Duchess of Balmoral,�� it can only be assumed that the reference has royal connotations.

Finally, Holmes continues, “They inherit Plantagenet blood by direct descent, and Tudor on the distaff side. Ha!�� To clarify for those unfamiliar with this term, the distaff side is the female branch of a family. At first glance this lineage appears opaque, but if one hypothesizes that either Watson or Conan Doyle (or the printer of the ) accidentally (or deliberately) reversed these terms, all becomes clear. An obvious candidate who inherited Plantagenet blood on the distaff side (from , a descendent of ) and Tudor blood directly (from Henry VIII) would be Queen Elizabeth I herself. Therefore, in the ��Adventure of the Noble Bachelor�� we find a direct correlation of Lord R. W. DE VERE St. Simon being related to, or descended from, Elizabeth I. And this leads us back to the possibility that either Dr. Watson or Sir Arthur purposely utilized this name in order to draw attention to the connection between de Vere and Elizabeth (and also Walsingham’s involvement in the cover-up). If so, they may take credit for predating the main thrust of the Oxfordian argument by some twenty-eight years!