"Perfectly Fresh" [SPEC]

One of the mainstays of scholarship of the world of Sherlock Holmes has always been the The Baker Street Journal. Since 1946, this "Irregular" quarterly has been consistently offering the best of Holmesian essays, commentary, news and activity. And while it is published by the Baker Street Irregulars, you don't need to be a member of the BSI to subscribe - it's open to anyone who has a passing interest in the world of Sherlock Holmes.

If you're a subscriber and you received your Spring 2010 issue (Vol. 60, No. 1) of the BSJ, you may find that the old cliché "the more things change, the more they stay the same" can now applies to the Journal, as a few changes were recently instituted - and change is not something that's been welcomed at the BSJ.

Last year, under the able guidance of the team at the Wessex Press, the cover of the Journal got a much-needed update when the traditional profile of Holmes by Frederic Dorr Steele was replaced by an ever-rotating image that was consistent with the content inside each issue. That has been continued with the latest issue, featuring Jude Law and Robert Downey, Jr. as Watson and Holmes:

In addition, an enclosed letter from the publisher enumerates some of the differences at the Baker Street Journal:

Dear Baker Street Journal Subscriber:

As you undoubtedly realize, this Spring 2010 issue of the BSJ arrives in your mailbox approximately six weeks later than usual. We thank all our subscribers for their patience.

We have been undergoing some changes here at the Journal. Times change, technology changes, and as inconvenient as this can sometimes be, these changes also bring new opportunities. This year, we have changed printers after a long 18-year run with our Sheridan Press.It seemed like a good time to make other changes as well, including returning The Baker Street Journal to the perfect binding of the Original Series, as well as an upgrade in the typesetting and production of the interior changes. This all begins with this issue at hand, but it took a little extra time to get in place. We trust you find it all worth the wait.

One thing that hasn't changed is the quality of the contents. Steven Rothman is still the guiding spirit of  The Baker Street Journal and his leadership insures that the BSJ remains the Sherlockian publication of record.

Here you can see the difference between the Winter 2009 issue and the Spring 2010 issue:

We've also given you a side view of what a perfect binding means - something especially essential for you collectors (or accumulators) who like to put the BSJ on your bookshelf.

    

As to the content of the Spring 2010, you can check that out on the Baker Street Journal site (Articles & Extras --> Current Contents). This link changes quarterly, always giving you the table of contents of the most current issue, as well as the Editor's Gas-Lamp to read online. And if you'd like to see what some of the best articles have been, check out the links on the Morley-Montgomery Award section, where some of the decade's most recent highly acclaimed scholarship lives.

If all of this moves you, we encourage you to subscribe to the Journal. This is the premier publication of Sherlockian scholarship, and you get five issues - all four quarterly issues plus the Christmas Annual - for just $37.50 a year in the U.S. and $47.50 outside of the U.S.

And now the Baker Street Journal has an official Facebook page at http://facebook.com/BakerStreetJournal. If you're so inclined, please "like" it here:

The more people we encourage to recommend or like the BSJ Facebook page, the more we'll be able to share our unique and singular hobby with the world and encourage the next generation of Sherlock Holmes enthusiasts to join the Game.

"This Comic Interlude" [3GAB]

For those of you who are interested in Sherlock Holmes in the realm of comic books, this should grab your attention. As you are no doubt aware, we recently reported that the Muppets would have a role in a new Sherlock Holmes-themed comic book ("All Were Equally Puppets in His Hands" [SOLI]). If your tastes in the graphic arts are a little more refined, fear not! We noticed some early quivers across the web that may indicate some additional publications that you may wish to note.

Some History
There are a great many instances of Holmes in the comics over the years. While we haven't yet provided a comprehensive review or compilation of all of the titles at this point, we point you to Bully Comics, who has a nice retrospective from the month of January, 2008.

The Present
The British comics blog downthetubes.net re-posted a Del Rey interview with Tony Lee, the British comics creator, who appeared at the Bristol Comics Expo last weekend. For those of you who may not know Tony, he has recently completed Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Graphic Novel. [Side note: we mentioned the original book Pride and Prejudice and Zombies in Episode 22 of I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere].

The reason it caught our eye is that last month, Bleeding Cool first reported Tony and his writing partner Dan Boultwood had their photo taken at the Sherlock Holmes set of the London Film Museum earlier this year. An interesting tease, for certain.

But thanks to the Del Ray interview, we have it straight from Tony that he's "working on and pitching a graphic novel series of books on the Baker Street Irregulars, another childhood love."

So we began to piece some of the other bits of the puzzle together to see if we could find more information.  It turns out we didn't have to look very far, as Bleeding Cool followed up with a post this weekend that clinched it: Tony Lee and Dan Boultwood's Irregular Graphic Novels. The only information we have is that Sherlock Holmes is dead and it looks like the Irregulars are poised to replace him; but of the assortment of ragtag street urchins, who will it be? No specifics on the plot, a publisher or anything other than a series of images from flyers that were handed out at the London MCM Expo:

    

We're glad to see that at least Wiggins gets an appearance.

Related info:
  

"Self-Willed for the Job" [LAST]

One never knows where an interest in Sherlock Holmes will lead or when it will come in handy. In the case of Rhiannon Paine, it meant a job offer.

On her blog Crooks by the Book, Ms. Paine recounts the story in "Sherlock Holmes got me a job," in which she describes responding to a job posting for an assistant editor at The San Francisco Chronicle. You can read all about her own chronicle of the adventure by clicking the link above.

We won't give away how it all came about. But the hiring manager in the story? None other than one of our own - Robert Frier, BSI ("Colonel Upwood").

The moral of the story: Sherlock Holmes pops up in the strangest of places. Having a hobby such as ours may not only be enjoyable, but it may lead to other exciting opportunities. It's best to prepare in advance.

"Tell a Weaver" [COPP]

The latest episode of the audio show I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere has been posted. Episode 26 is an interview with Fritz Weaver, Tony Award-winning star of the 1965 Broadway play Baker Street: A Musical Adventure of Sherlock Holmes. Spend 30 minutes or so with Fritz to hear his perspectives on on the making of the musical, his co-stars and a fairly impressive knowledge of the Canon.

You can click through to Episode 26: A Musical Stroll Down Baker Street, or you can listen right here by clicking the play button below.

Above all, we hope you'll become a regular subscriber or listener to the show, where Burt Wolder and Scott Monty gather Irregularly to discuss goings-on in the world of Sherlock Holmes. The show is available on iTunes, so it will automatically load to your iPod:

And if you're interested in the musical, you can find it on Amazon below.

"Recalled Recollections" [STUD]

As you may know, today marks the 151st anniversary of the birth of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. We won't spend too much time on the subject this year (because frankly, we did that last year), but we'll provide you with a few links to honor his memory. Often regarded tongue-in-cheek by the Baker Street Irregulars as the "literary agent" for Dr. John Watson, he is was a man of great talent in a variety of areas, most notably in his writing.

Here are a few sites with more information on Sir Arthur:

• Previous entries on the Baker Street Blog labeled "Conan Doyle." From our other birthday greetings, to biographies, to the issues surrounding his fabled home, you'll find it here.
• A comprehensive page of links, laid out in narrative and list styles from Sherlockian.net.
• The May 22nd entry from This Day in History.
• The Arthur Conan Doyle Society
• Friends of the Arthur Conan Doyle Collection, Toronto Public Library
• The Conan Doyle Crowborough Establishment
• And what would a list of references be, without the obligatory Wikipedia entry for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle?

Do you have any favorite links or sites that you'd like to share? Please add them in as a comment below.

"Most Intense Application" [BLAC]

With all of the recent publicity around Apple's iPad (as of the date of this posting, there have been more than 1 million sold), we've seen a rise in the number of apps that have been developed for it, the iPhone and the iPod Touch. Naturally, some of those have been Sherlock Holmes-related apps (which we've previously covered).

Since that time, there have been quite a few apps for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch, and as a service to you, dear reader, we've assembled some (many were near duplicates, so we chose the most interesting or attractive), categorized them, and provided the prices and average ratings (on a 4- or 5-star scale). We haven't downloaded them all, so we can't provide reviews for each. We'll try to update this post with additional apps as they become available.


Perhaps our readers would like to download them and provide feedback in the comments section below - we'll keep this post hotlinked to the front page of the Baker Street Blog so viewers can easily find them and read what you've had to say. And if you'd care to let us know when new apps of interest are available, we'll add those as well.

In order to get a glimpse of each of these, simply click on the iTunes icon next to each to see it launched in iTunes, complete with a full description, reviews and screenshots.

Sherlock Holmes iPad / iPhone /  iPod apps

Books
iVerse Media has all five volumes of the graphic novel The Trial of Sherlock Holmes. Each is $0.99 and has a rating of 3 1/2 to 4 stars:

•   Sherlock Holmes #1
•   Sherlock Holmes #2 
•   Sherlock Holmes #3 
•   Sherlock Holmes #4 
•   Sherlock Holmes #5 

The first of a number of apps that offer most of the Canon in electronic form, The Sherlock Holmes Collection by Fee Tan is a straightforward approach to letting you put most of the stories in your pocket. Some of the features of this app: full pagination, like the original printed editions; each title includes page numbers; Table of Contents incorporates one click navigation; remember your reading progress; swipe to turn the page; add bookmark progress.

It seemingly includes the entire Canon: A Study In Scarlet, The Sign Of The Four, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, The Return of Sherlock Holmes, His Last Bow, The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes, The Hound Of The Baskervilles, The Valley Of Fear


The Sherlock Holmes Collection (Fee Tan) - FREE, rated 4 stars



KiwiTech offers a handsome and sophisticated interface to its one-stop app that includes most of the Canon that has cleared copyright (The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes seems to be the only portion not yet available in the public domain). Included are: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge and Other Stories, The Hound of Baskervilles, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, The Return of Sherlock Holmes, The Sign of the Four, A Study in Scarlet, The Valley of Fear.

The cover art provides a hint of Leslie Howard as Sherlock Holmes and the pages "turn" when you scroll through the text.
  The Sherlock Holmes Collection Classique (KiwiTech) - FREE, 4 stars


PublishThis, LLC offers a few apps - some in individual format, and one as a compilation. The compilation, titled "Sherlock Holmes Classics," contains  A Study In Scarlet, The Sign Of The Four, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, The Return of Sherlock Holmes, His Last Bow, The Hound Of The Baskervilles, The Valley Of Fear

• Sherlock Holmes Classics - $0.99, 3 1/2 stars
• The Adventure (sic) of Sherlock Holmes - $0.99, 4 stars
• The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes - $0.99, 4 1/2 stars
• The Return of Sherlock Holmes - $0.99, 4 1/2 stars
• His Last Bow - $0.99, 4 stars

Probably one of the handiest reference guides-cum-Canon you can find for electronic devices, the Sherlock Holmes app from Andrews UK Ltd. is like an electronic Sherlock Holmes Handbook or Sherlock Holmes Companion (which are also highly recommended). The app is described as follows:

This Book includes the original 60 stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle examined in detail; brief biographies of Doyle and his famous duo; an A-Z of every actor to have portrayed Holmes on stage, film, radio and television; pastiches and spoofs; appendices that include an in depth bibliography and a look at the best Sherlock Holmes websites around.

"Sherlock Holmes" (Andrews UK Ltd.) - $7.99, no ratings yet.





Movies

You can take a few selections from the Basil Rathbone / Nigel Bruce classics from the 1940s with you, as Procypher Software released four different titles, each priced at $0.99. No ratings, but then again, you're most likely familiar with these films by now.

App features: Play, stop, pause, continue, volume control, progress bar, and moviemark controls. Moviemarks let you mark your favorite places in the movie so you can return to them fast and easily! The Continue feature starts the movie where you paused it even after closing the movie player.

•   Terror by Night  
•   The Woman in Green 
•   Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon 
•   Dressed to Kill 

Andrews UK Limited and Films4Phone bring us one of Arthur Wontner's appearances as the master from the 1930s. Synopsis: Holmes is now retired. However, he gets one last call about a case involving arch enemy Professor Moriarty who has got involved with an American gang end the life of a, John Douglas, a country gentleman with a mysterious past.

Functionally, once downloaded this self-contained 'film in an app' does not require a Wi-Fi or 3G connection to be viewed; fully functioning film within the app; synopsis page / information page function within the app; director biography page.
The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes (Andrews UK Ltd) - $0.99, no rating


Interactive

Vook has developed an interactive reading experience - kind of like a hypertext annotated version - called The Sherlock Holmes Experience. And it's quite an experience. According to its creators, "Vook is an entirely new way to read -- it's an application that integrates video and text into one complete experience. With this vook, you can read two gripping Sherlock Holmes mystery stories and watch informative videos that pull you deep into the colorful world of 19th century London, immersing you in the spirit of detective fiction and Baker Street."

 The Sherlock Holmes Experience (Vook) - $2.99, 3 1/2 stars.

BeamItDown Software provides a number of titles to read, but they take a slightly different approach from other publishers. In their words:

Other reader applications display the text of the book you are reading in individual pages. The number of words that can be displayed on the screen at one time is determined by the size of the font used. This forces you to choose between reading with a very small font size or using a large font and changing pages every few seconds. The problem is that reading with a very small font induces eye strain, while frequent paging disrupts concentration.

The BeamItDown iFlow Reader solves this problem by using an entirely new approach to reading. Instead of paging, the BeamItDown iFlow Reader scrolls text much like a teleprompter. Large, easy to read text scrolls by smoothly as you read. The precise scrolling speed is controlled by subtly tilting the device, which quickly becomes very intuitive and natural. You can personalize your reading experience by selecting the paper color, text color, text size, and the font that you prefer to create a truly enjoyable reading experience.

Titles from BeamItDown are $0.99 and are universally rated at 4 stars:

• The Sherlock Holmes Collection - the entire Canon within copyright: A Study in Scarlet, His Last Bow, The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans, The Adventure of the Devil's Foot, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, The Return of Sherlock Holmes, The Sign of the Four, The Valley of Fear

• Mystery Classics - a number of interesting titles and authors in the detective fiction genre: The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart; The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; The Murders in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe; The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie; The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens; The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie; The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan; Trent's Last Case by E. C. Bentley

Warner Bros., the studio that brought you Robert Downey, Jr. in Sherlock Holmes, has its own app. This is an interactive game that invites the user to play detective:

Once inside the shoes of the World’s Greatest Detective, you must use Sherlock’s keen wit and persuasive charm to prove a man innocent of murder, without revealing your sources. The investigation will take you into the seedy, gritty side of Victorian London, overflowing with deceit and disregard for basic codes of decent behavior as you traverse the deadly back alleys. Scour the environments… Uncover the Clues… Reveal the truth in “The Case of the Innocent Man”.

Sherlock Holmes Mysteries (Warner Bros.) - $0.99 and rated 3 1/2 stars.

The game's afoot with this app from Mobile Deluxe. Put your examination skills to the test and solve 6 mysteries based on the original Sir Arthur Conan Doyle mysteries. BONUS eBook downloads with every case you crack. Scour the world hunting for hidden clues in two immersive gameplay modes that let you become the detective. Test your skills of deduction within 30 unique environments.

The Game's Afoot (Mobile Deluxe) - $2.99, rated 3 stars

Test your knowledge of the stories - both in written and film form - with the Sherlock Holmes Quiz. The most erudite Sherlockian should be able to answer most of the questions without much help, although there may be a few obscure or arcane items that only the truest devotee will know. The newbies will have enough to keep them interested without feeling ostracized, as the first level contains questions that are basic without being entirely vapid. You'll find over 400 questions and four levels of play to keep your interest and to challenge you.

Sherlock Holmes Quiz (Super Monko) - FREE, 3 stars

Do you like The Annotated Sherlock Holmes? Do you miss the ability to scrawl notes in the margins of your hard copy edition of the Canon? Here's an opportunity to have both. This app from ZyngRule only includes The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, but the list of features is impressive. Among them:
Autoscrolling - scroll through the book without touching the screen; easy built-in dictionary - expand your vocabulary by simply swiping across a word; fast text search; annotate sections of the book using the Text Bookmarks and Notes features, email the notes for further editing; stylish, animated graphics and a plethora of fonts and colors; realistic paper texture backgrounds for book pages; sound effects; night mode support.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes eBook (ZyngRule) - $0.99, no ratings yet.

The Sherlock Holmes Guide to London is a great way to combine your interest in the character with a walking tour of some of the famous sites in the stories. There are plenty of photographs of the locations and attractions. For example, the first 40 locations from Leicester Square to Baker Street cover four miles and include walking directions as well as Tube stops and other transportation.

The Sherlock Holmes Guide to London (Clay) - $2.99, no ratings yet.


Don't forget: If you'd like to download any of the above apps and provide feedback in the comments section below, we'd appreciate it. Also, if you know of any other worthy of inclusion, please let us know. This post will remain on the front page of the Baker Street Blog so viewers can easily find them and read what you've had to say.