by Alessandro Gebbia
Since his first appearance in The Beeton’s Christmas Annual for 1887, Sherlock Holmes has commanded Canada's greatest admiration, becoming a literary myth on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Holmes’s extraordinary success was principally due to the Victorian taste of the Canadian readership and its eagerness for any kind of fictional reconstruction of the never-forgotten motherland. It was also due to the very personal relationship between the inventor of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle, and the new Dominion.
In 1880, Doyle, a young and unpractised medical student, signed as a surgeon on board the SS Hope of Peterhead, a whaling ship bound for the coasts of Labrador and Greenland. The seven-month experience on board the whaler was very important for the young Doyle, who was especially impressed by the Arctic. As he points out in his Memories and Adventure (1922), once beyond "the Magic Door", his Romantic mind was so deeply affected by these infinite, silent, and open spaces that several years later, when he started his career as a writer, he named his brand-new hero Sherrinngford Hope. When he eventually decided to change the name to Sherlock Holmes, the surname Hope survived in several of Dr. Watson's accounts. It also appeared in A Study in Scarlet (1887) and The Sign of the Four (1890) in which a minor character is called Jefferson Hope; in "The Second Stain"(1904), Trelawney Hope is a member of Lord Bellinger's Cabinet.
Doyle's relationship with Canada was also fostered through his correspondence with a group of Scottish emigrants, especially his former friend and writer Robert Barr. In 1894, just after the publication of "The Final Problem"(1893), Sir Arthur, as he was then known, internationally acclaimed as the creator of Sherlock Holmes, was invited to lecture in the USA and Canada. Barr was among the organizers of the tour together with Samuel Sidney McClure, of McClure's Magazine, who first published Doyle's works in the USA. Barr accompanied Doyle on his Canadian Tour during which they are reputed to have argued furiously at Niagara Falls over Doyle's decision to have Sherlock Holmes die at the Reichenbach Falls, in "The Final Problem". The result of their dispute was Barr’s "The Great Pegram Mystery", published a few months later in a collection entitled The Face and the Mask (1895). In this pastiche - the first, I would say, of literary quality - Sherlaw Kombs and his misadventures are a parody of the Great Detective’s.
Sir Arthur was not particularly distressed by the argument with Barr and altogether delighted by the Canadian landscape. He was somewhat less impressed by the inhabitants of that wonderful landscape, however, whom he considered gifted with courage but quite dull and unimaginative. Canadians appeared to him quite the opposite of the undaunted fishermen he met on the SS Hope and this negative impression is reflected in The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902). Here, Sir Henry Baskerville is the only undeniably Canadian character in the entire Canon, Myers, the Toronto bootmaker, being not a character but simply a name. According to Dr. Watson, "this young stranger from Canada" is a man of action and courage so dull he fails to realize when or where danger is coming from: "How . . . would you describe a man", Clifford Goldfarb writes, "who, having had the unsettling experience of having his boots stolen from outside his hotel room one night, leaves a second pair outside the same door the next night, to suffer the same fate? One wonders if he left his third and last pair outside upon the third night. What can one say about a man who falls in love with another man's wife, believing her to be his sister, even though there is absolutely no resemblance between the supposed siblings?" ". There are twoother references to Canada in the Holmes Canon. In the "Adventure of Black Peter" (1904), from The Return of Sherlock Holmes(1905), SH solves the mystery of the three letters "C.P.R.", by identifying them with Canadian Pacific Railways. In the "Copper Beeches" (1892), from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892), a character is givin a posting in Halifax.
Canadian humorist and novelist Stephen Leacock presented a brilliant lampoon of Sherlock Holmes in "Maddened by Mystery: or, The Defective Detective." Leacock’s short-story, included in his Nonsense Novels (1911), is regarded as one of the best examples of mystery and crime fiction in Canada. Leacock’s "Great Detective" -- Holmes is never mentioned and Dr. Watson is "the Secretary"-- is all exaggeration. His task is to solve the mystery of Prince of Wurttbergen's abduction. Apparently a case of international conspiracy against the British Crown, the abducted prince turns out to be a thoroughbred Dachshund, winner of numerous international awards. In order to save the honour of England and the finances of the Countess of Dashleigh, the "Great Detective " disguises himself as a dog and wins first prize at the Paris International Dog Show. Unfortunately, he is captured, without tags, by a dog-catcher and in the end disappears. Leacock's sarcasm did not affect Holmes's success in Canada nor Sir Arthur’s good relationship with the country. In fact, Doyle made Canada one of the protagonists in "The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans"(1908) of the so-called "Bi-metallic Question", which was a current issue at the time of the monetary crisis after silver had been demonetized.
Canada returned Doyle’s loyalty when, in 1914, he was invited to visit the National Reserve at Jasper Park in the Northern Rockies. During his tour, accompanied by Lady Doyle, Sir Arthur was asked by the Canadian Club to lecture for its members, on topics of his choice, throughout the country. In Western Wanderings (1915) Doyle recollects:
I have had such invitations from Quebec, Montreal, Hamilton, Vancouver, Fort William, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary, and several more. I have actually accepted in the case of Montreal, Winnipeg, Edmonton and Ottawa. In each case the procedure is the same - a short lunch and then a speech, which is supposed to cover half an hour. One is left with very mixed feelings over the business, since on the one hand it is honourable that these kind people should desire to hear from you, while on the other your holiday jaunt changes suddenly into a lecture tour, unless you discriminate, and if you do discriminate you find it hard not to give offence. On the whole it is best to sacrifice your holiday to some extent and give of your best. You will find in return a warm welcome and a surprisingly indulgent and sympathetic audience.
Doyle’s lecture on "The Future of Canadian Literature" was given in Montreal on 4 June 1914. In twenty minutes, he briefly discusses his ideas on the art of writing, stressing in particular the importance of reading and improving one's knowledge. When he turns his attention to Canadian literature, his approach becomes hasty and superficial. His final remark is less a critical evaluation than a polite homage to his host country: "[Canadian literature] . . . in time to come may well influence the literature of the world." Doyle's appraisal represents yet another attempt to curry favour with his increasing number of Canadian readers. This also happens in his address to the Canadian Club of Ottawa given on July 2 1914 when he read his newly-composed poem "The Athabasca Trail" that extolls the beauty of Canadian nature.
Mother of a mighty manhood, land of glamour and hope,
From the eastward sea-swept islands to the sunny western slope,
ever more my hearth is with you, ever more till life shall fail,
I’ll be out with pack and packer on the Athabasca Trail.
The 1914 tour marked the end of any direct relations between Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Canada. But the echo of his lectures, which were extolled by national and local presses, renewed Holmes's popularity. Evidence of this popularity is the numerous Broadway productions of Sherlock Holmes that reached Canadian cities. In the early 1930's, a series of movies, mostly filmed in England and the USA, were also very popular in Canada. Among them, Sherlock Holmes and the Scarlet Claw, released in 1944 by Universal Pictures and starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, takes place in Canada. Set in Quebec City during the first summit of Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin, it relates the adventures of Holmes and Dr. Watson in the little town of La Mort Rouge. Often bordering on mere propaganda, albeit cleverly worked-out, the movie ends with Watson expressing his desire to know Canada better. Holmes answers with Churchill's famous words: "Canada, the link which joins together these great branches of the human family." At about the same time, a series of BBC movies and CBC radio dramas cultivated an ever-growing audience that turned Holmes into a sort of national hero. More recently, during the 1980's, Canadian audience and TV viewers appreciated the accurate reconstruction of fin-de-siecle London and some of its more minor characters in the Granada TV series starring Jeremy Brett, but generally the production received critical reviews.
Despite Sherlock Holmes’s popularity, his influence on Canadian writing arrived late on the scene. Initially, Canadian writers produced pastiches that were replicas of American works, totally imitative in form and content. Later on, post-modernism infused new vitality into minor genres and made it possible for Canadian mystery and crime young authors to assert themselves as the most original in the Holmesian revival. Among them is Ronald C. Weyman, who has released a trilogy: Sherlock Holmes and the Mark of the Beast (1989); Sherlock Holmes and the Ultimate Disguise (1991); Sherlock Holmes: Travels in the Canadian West (1994). Peter H. Wood’s Uno Scandale in Bohemia (1990) imagines Giacomo Puccini, the famous Italian opera composer, trying to adapt Doyle’s "A Scandal in Bohemia", translated into Italian in 1895, before moving to Sardou’s La Tosca. Wood’s work is the hilarious libretto presented to the reader in the double version of English and macaronic Italian.
Nineteenth-century scholarship on Sherlock Holmes was almost non-existent in Canada. In fact, it was not until the 1970s that Canadian critics recognized Holmes as a literary character. The first Canadian edition of The Complete Sherlock Holmes was not published until the spring of 1980 when the British copyright expired. Among the body of critics produced by the 1970s, a significant number adhere to the Irregular tradition (some call it "the great game") that treats Holmes as a historical figure and Watson as his biographer; it looks for cues and evidence of possible connections between Holmes, Watson, Moriarty and Canada. Others are more interested in Holmes and Watson as literary characters and Arthur Conan Doyle as their creator. To the former group belongs W. E. Ricker, whose compelling essay, "The Absent Corpse Mystery Solved"(1988), argues that Mount Moriarty, not far from Victoria, British Columbia, is named after HMS Plumper’s sublieutenant William Moriarty, explorer of that trail of the pacific coast in the mid-nineteenth century and, in Ricker’s reading, Professor Moriarty's father. Ricker claims he has followed the ship's route to the Yukon Territory where, in an abandoned gold mine, he has found a journal preserved in a worm-eaten wood box. Written part in Cyrillic and part in English, the journal was kept by one John the Russian, and tells of an adventure occurred during a trip to Dawson. Injured in an accident, the Russian is rescued by two men, one of whom it turns out to be Professor Moriarty who had escaped from Reichenbach and hid himself in that waste land in order to complete his study of Fermat’s last theorem. Up until this point, the story is nothing extraordinary, but Professor Moriarty’s version of the Reichenbach accident is astonishing. As Moriarty relates it, the fight between he and Holmes was a put-up affair, a gentlemen’s agreement. Both were anxious to vanish without leaving any trace of themselves, so that Moriarty could pursue his scientific research and Holmes could carry out his mission in Tibet with which his brother Mycroft had entrusted him.
Ricker's article, together with other innovative critical essays, have been published in Canadian Holmes, a quarterly founded in 1973 as the journal of "The Bootmakers of Toronto", the foremost Sherlockian Society in Canada. The Society was founded in February 1972 when the "Irregular game" was pretty much the only game in town and it remains one of the largest, liveliest, scholarly societies and one of the friendliest Sherlockian societies in the world. Since then, 72 issues of Canadian Holmes have been published, first under the editorship of Christopher Redmond and later of Trevor Raymond. Each issue contains critical essays, pastiches, and Sherlockian gleanings with a strong emphasis on their Canadian content. The journal has always been an ideal forum for Canadian Sherlockians and encourages the establishment of new societies all over the country. According to Guerra and Solito's I 17 scalini, there are now thirteen societies of this kind in Canada and "The Bimetallic Question of Montreal", the only one in the French-speaking Province, and "The Stormy Petrels of British Columbia" are among the most important.
The West Coast is the home of several Sherlockian societies. There, Barbara and Christopher Roden have founded Calabash Press, a small, privately-owned publishing house specialising in Sherlock Holmes and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Their motto is "Books by Sherlockians for Sherlockians" and in just a few years the Rodens have transformed their Press into the world's premiere Sherlockian publisher. They have published such significant works as Stephen Clarkson’s The Canonical Compendium (1998), designed both for scholars who are seriously interested in studying Sherlock Holmes’s adventures and for casual readers who want simply to learn a little more about the protagonists of those adventures. The Compendium is divided into two major parts. The first is a "Topical Index" which collects canonical references to more than 80 categories and 144 sub-categories, from Addresses to Weapons. The second part is comprised of sixty individual "Story Indexes," each index containing an introduction that highlights anomalies, presents issues for discussion, and lists in detail the categorical references which appear in the story. The Story Indexes also tell where each item can be found in the five major editions of the Canon (the Doubleday, the Baring-Gould Annotated, the Heritage, the John Murray, and Oxford editions).
Calabash Press also published Sidelights on Holmes (1996) by John Hall, in which the popular Sherlockian author examines in detail the Canon and discusses the problems that have fuelled the `game’ over the years. The Case Files of Sherlock Holmes is a series of volumes that will eventually represent the complete Canon. Each volume of the series focusses on different aspects of Holmes’s adventures; articles by leading Sherlockian and Doylean writers treat the subject both in conventional and unconventional ways. Calabash Press and its founders are patient talent scouts too, and have discovered new skilful Canadian pastiche authors including Ronald C. Weyman, Denis O. Smith, David Stuart Davis, and John Hall.
Before concluding my brief overview of the relationship between Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes and Canada I would like to recommend to the reader what I consider a real monument of the Canadian Sherlockian world: "The Arthur Conan Doyle Collection" at the Metropolitan Toronto Reference Library. Described by Ronald De Waal in his World Bibliography of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson as the best collection of Sherlockiana available to the public anywhere, this collection, supervised by Ms. Victoria Gill, can be viewed in the Sherlock Holmes Room at the library. Advertised in the library's booklet as "an adventure in itself", "the room is furnished in Victorian style -- a cluttered, comfortable place replete with evidence of the detective's presence". "The Arthur Conan Doyle Collection" was begun in 1969 with the purchase of over 150 volumes, part of the estate of Toronto collector Arthur Baillie. In the same year, Harold Mortlake of London, England, issued his famous Sherlock Holmes catalogue -- now a collectors' item -- one of the most comprehensive Sherlock Holmes collections ever offered for sale. It listed almost 1500 pieces. With the purchase of the Mortlake Collection, the Metropolitan Toronto Library acquired most of the main editions and works that represent the literary life of Arthur Conan Doyle and the development of the Sherlock Holmes tradition. Toronto is also home to one of the most outstanding collections of Sherlockian ephemera, held by Judge S. Tupper Bigelow. This collection of ephemera is comprised mostly of privately printed pamphlets and magazines, play-bills and press-clipping, as well as Bigelow’s own correspondence with Sherlockian scholars from all over the world.
All this, I think, allows me to maintain that in Canada, too, "the game is still afoot". As a tribute to all Canadian scions, I will conclude by quoting, "The Bootmakers' Ode to Their Founder":
Salute Sir Henry Baskerville, whose boots were tan, not brown--
Canonical Canadian, who left Toronto town--
He bought those boots from Meier, set them out in a hotel,
Where one was promptly snaffled for its baronetic smell.
Salute bold Joseph Meier, who had made those boots of tan--
A bootmaker on Queen Street West, a most substantial man--
When Sir Henry's boots were paid for, he retired on the take,
No doubt content that never more would he be forced to make.
His son kept up the business, and the Bootmakers today
Sing praises to the Meiers in a most Sherlockian way.
For if he hadn't labelled them, we'd never know from whom
Those boots had come which Sherlock tore from Grimpen's miry tomb.
And bumbling Doctor Watson got the name a little wrong,
And Joseph Meier soon became the Meyers of our song--
So we salute The Meyerses whose name is written still
Enshrined within the boots of bold Sir Henry Baskerville!