A letter to two presidents

Dear Enrico and Gianluca

I would like, on behalf of Jane and myself, to thank you and the other members of Uno Studio in Holmes for inviting us to speak at your conventions in Milano and Sesto Fiorentino. This was a great honour for us, and we very much enjoyed the wonderful hospitality which we were offered and the excellent scholarship demonstrated in the other presentations at the conventions. With the latter, we confirmed the correctness of the way in which our society, the Franco-Midland Hardware Company, decided to present your society our Three Continents Award in recognition of the extremely high standards which your society sets in its approach to Holmesian and Doylean Studies. Although I have here repeatedly referred to ‘your society’, both Jane and I now feel that it is also ‘our society’, not only because we have been made Honorary Members of Uno Studio in Holmes, but because we wish to be actively involved in what it is that Uno Studio in Holmes is doing.

At the conclusion of the Sesto Fiorentino convention, I was asked to offer advice upon how Uno Studio in Holmes might best proceed as a Holmesian society in the future. There was, in fact, very little advice which I could usefully offer, since the society has already achieved a leading position amongst Holmesian societies in the world, under the guidance of the past Presidents of the society. Jane and I were particularly impressed by the high standards of the literary and historical research which had clearly been achieved in the presentations which we saw at the conventions, and in the journal of the society. This differs markedly from the whimsical approach to Holmes and his world which is followed by the vast majority of the Holmesian societies which now exist in the world, and the superior cultural position of this Italian scholarship is a clear reflection of the lengthy literary and historical heritage which exists in Italy, and of the respect with which the literature of England is held in Italy.

As you will be aware, I consider myself to be a Holmesian fundamentalist, in that I accept that the contents of the Holmesian Canon are of paramount importance where the discussion of Holmes is concerned. Thus, when Holmes says: "My ancestors were country squires …" [GREE 435], I appreciate that this is a purely English expression which means that the majority of his family were amongst the minor aristocracy. This means that he cannot, for example, have been a Frenchman; and it also means, unfortunately for him, that he cannot have been an Italian! Anything which attempts to contradict such categorical statements in the Canon can only be illogical and puerile nonsense. Being a Fundamentalist also means, for example, that when Holmes says: "I have never loved, Watson …" [DEVI 970], I must accept that this also means that he was never married, for Holmes was not the sort of man whose integrity, or rather lack of it, would allow him to marry without love. I must also insist, given Holmes’s statement about love, that the feelings which he may have had for Irene Adler were nothing more than admiration for someone with an intellect equal to his own. I am therefore unable to encumber him with several wives and mistresses or, worse still, with children, in the way that so many American writers want to do in order to have a half-American descendant of Holmes. There may be what appear to be some erroneous or contradictory statements in the Canon, but I feel that it is the duty of the serious Holmesian student to attempt to resolve these seeming problems, whilst not ignoring other, inconvenient parts of the Canon. It is the constraints of the contents of the Canon which prevent Holmesian scholarship from deteriorating into wild and foundationless speculation. When we play the Great Holmesian Game, we do need to have some rules to guide us, for there is no such thing as a worthwhile or meaningful game which does not have rules, and these rules are primarily supplied by the Canon itself.

In the hope that some general suggestions for further development might be useful for Uno Studio in Holmes, I would like to offer the following points for consideration not only by the retiring and incoming Presidents, but by all members of the society. These points may be all the more valid in being presented by someone who was, until recently, only an external observer of the progress of the society, in that they can be said from the heart, as well as from the mind, without consideration of the embarrassment of those who may be mentioned individually. They are also expressed from the experiences, both good and bad, of someone who has been responsible for acting as the President of another Holmesian society for more than a decade, and who has visited dozens of other Holmesian societies, in three continents. I also have the benefit that both the outgoing and the incoming President are members of my own society, The Franco-Midland Hardware Company, and I have thus been able to compare directly with them my own ideas for the future of my society and their ideas for the future of Uno Studio in Holmes.

For the retiring President I know that I represent the opinion of all of the members of the society in congratulating him on his continuation and development of the excellent aims established by all of his predecessors. We must here allow Enrico to mutter, like Holmes: "My blushes, Watson!" [VALL 769]. Holmes was, of course, mistaken in thinking that Watson was about to say something complimentary about him, but there is no such contradiction here. Enrico has worked tirelessly and selflessly for the improvement and benefit of this society, and it is this sort of approach to the Presidency, by Enrico and his predecessors, which has, in many ways, made Uno Studio in Holmes the envy of most of the serious Holmesian study groups in the world.

For the incoming President I must firstly congratulate him on achieving this high honour, and then immediately commiserate with him over all the hard work which he will have to do in running the society. Gianluca has already set out a plan for something which will bring Uno Studio in Holmes into line with all of the other serious Holmesian study groups in the world, in that he has suggested that it is important that Italy should have its own standard edition of the 60 Holmesian cases, the Canon. As he has pointed out, this will enable all Italian-speaking Holmesians to be able to know exactly what other Italian-speaking Holmesians are referring to when they quote something from the Canon, in that they will be able to give a page reference for any quotation which they may use in their arguments. An example of this is given above, with my own reference to Holmes saying "My ancestors were country squires …", as this quotation is followed by the reference [GREE 435]. This reference indicates that this quotation can be found in the story of GREE, or "The Greek Interpreter", on page 435 in the Doubleday/Penguin edition of The Complete Sherlock Holmes, which is the edition of the Canon used by almost all English-speaking Holmesian scholars. This quickly enables another scholar to look up the quotation which I have used, to check that it is quoted correctly, and to check that it has not been used out of context. Whilst visiting Italy this year, I obtained six different Italian editions of The Hound of the Baskervilles, and if I wanted to refer to a quotation from that story in Italian, I would not only need to give the page references for each of the six editions, but I would also have to give the bibliographical details of each of the six editions, and I am sure that there are many more editions which I would need to reference if I wanted to make sure that an Italian reader would know exactly where my quotation came from in all of the editions which are available.

The establishment of an edition of all of the 60 Holmes cases which can be accepted as being the standard edition for references is an absolutely essential requirement for Italian Holmesian scholarship, and Gianluca is to be congratulated on setting this as a major project for Uno Studio in Holmes during his term in office. This is not an easy tasking, in that it will need a great deal of work to decide upon the best possible interpretations of the original English, and this may well require the assistance of organisations outside of Uno Studio in Holmes, such as the literature departments of universities and financial institutions. The creation of a standard Italian translation of the Holmesian Canon will also require the assistance of Holmesian scholars within Uno Studio in Holmes, in the production of Introductions (and possibly Annotations) for each volume, and it is this point of involvement, although not just in terms of publishing, which I consider to be vital for the success of any Holmesian society. A society is not just the President, or a few experts, but a whole group of people interested in Holmes who have every possible variation in the levels of their knowledge of Holmes. I was extremely pleased to note that when papers were presented at the two conventions which I attended in Italy, not only were members ready to question the contents of those papers, and to offer alternative proposals, but that those presenting the papers were willing to accept this as a positive form of discussion and not merely to consider that they were being attacked on a personal basis. There are many Holmesian societies in the world where it is not thought to be acceptable to argue with those who are thought to be ‘leading authorities’ on different subjects, but there is clearly a far healthier respect for scholarship in Italy, and it was very pleasing to see everyone striving to achieve a better understanding of the material through discussion. Even the highest authorities can learn from beginners sometimes, if they have open minds!

Every member of a society must be encouraged to appreciate that they have something valuable which they can contribute to that society. Perhaps it is not in the form of lengthy papers of a very high level of scholarship, but it might be just one point of scholarship from the specialist interests of a member which can add to everyone’s better understanding. Alternatively, their involvement may be in the form of some organising ability hereby a member can provide administrative assistance of a practical nature at a meeting, or merely that a member may help in something as simple as setting out chairs prior to a meeting or in tidying up after a meeting. Amongst all of the hundreds of day-long meetings of my own society which I have organised (and we have at least one full-day or full-weekend meeting every month, with a week-long convention every other year), the ones in which I have found the greatest satisfaction have been those where everybody contributed something, to the best of their ability. If in no other way, members must attempt to be present at the functions organised by their society on their behalf. An enormous amount of work usually goes into the organisation of a meeting, and it can be very discouraging for the organisers if they then get a small number of members attending the meeting. We all have lots of calls upon our time, and meetings may involve long journeys, but when a meeting is announced, then all of the members of the society should make a note of this in their diaries and then be determined that they will attend. One can often learn more about Holmes at a good weekend convention, and be inspired with new ideas for possible articles or other activities, than one can from many months of reading about Holmes on one’s own. Beginners are, once again, often worried that they do not know enough about Holmes to avoid appearing ignorant at meetings, but my own experience of Uno Studio in Holmes reveals that it is not one of those societies where experts make beginners feel uncomfortable about their lack of knowledge of Holmes, in that everyone seemed to be anxious to help everyone else extend their knowledge of Holmes. I will always recall the marvellous way in which everyone seemed to want to talk all the time about Holmes, which was a marvellous contrast to the meetings of many societies which I have attended where most of the conversation was about anything but Holmes. All right, I admit that a few of the conversations during meal times were about non-Holmesian matters, and I must thank all of the members who helped me to understand that the best football team in Italy is: Latzio, Milan, Roma, ….. Please delete as necessary!

In terms of presenting scholarship, it can be very daunting for someone who is new to Holmesian Studies to think that they have to produce the high levels of scholarship which are presented by those who have been involved for many years. One way in which my own society attempts to overcome this problem is in having, at meetings, a series of short talks, called "Seven Per Cent Solutions". In these, the individual members each produce a presentation which provides the solution to some small Holmesian problem which he or she has seen prior to preparing the presentation, and he or she has to complete the presentation within a strict time limit of 7% of an hour, which is 4 minutes and 12 seconds. Beginners initially think that they cannot say enough to make a presentation last that long, but once they start to prepare the talk they soon see that their problem is actually one of cutting down what one says because of the time limit. The beginner may well make mistakes in their presentation, but if they have an appreciative audience, and any criticism is presented in a positive way, then they will thereafter see new insights on that subject as they read more about Holmes, and they will thus increase their expertise all the time. It is in this way that those who are new to Holmesian Studies can be encouraged to become those who will, in a few years’ time, be those who will take over the running of things, and who will produce the new scholarship of the future.

I am not one of those Holmesians who makes suggestions as to what others should do, and then sits back and does nothing, and for this reason I have firstly offered the retiring President the proposal that I will provide a small article on general topics of interest, and of specialist interest, for inclusion in future issues of The Strand. This proposal has been accepted by Enrico, and as both the outgoing President and the incoming President know that my great passion is for studies of The Hound of the Baskervilles, they have suggested that this column should be entitled "From Our Man on the Tor". I have also offered to support the incoming President’s plans for a standard edition of the Canon by offering to write an Introduction and to provide Annotations for one of the volumes of the standard Italian Canon. It should not be very surprising that the volume which I have offered to prepare is The Hound of the Baskervilles. If you would like to follow this example, then why not contact Gianluca and discuss how you might do something similar. If you do not relish the idea of doing something like this on your own, then why not contact Gianluca to offer to join a group of members of Uno Studio in Holmes to provide help with this project in some other way, perhaps as part of a team?

In conclusion, I would repeat that I feel very strongly that Uno Studio in Holmes needs very little advice as to how it can develop, in that it has already developed wonderfully in a remarkably short time. The number, the variety and the quality of the papers presented at the two conventions this year alone is a superb commentary on the excellent standing of the society. One must, however, beware of complacency and always strive to improve, and the ideas presented in this letter are meant to encourage thoughts along similar lines. In the Franco-Midland Hardware Company, we have a way of reminding members, whether they be the President or the newest member, that they need to get involved in the activities of the society if the society is to progress. We turn one of the quotations from the Canon around slightly and say: ‘Do not be a dog in the night-time.’ This is taken from the line, in the Doubleday/Penguin edition, at SILV 347. If you had a standard Italian translation of this case, then I would, of course, be able to give you a page reference for that, and the solution to that problem is, as mentioned above, in the hands of the members of the society. For now I will merely point out that Doubleday/Penguin SILV 347 records Inspector Gregory saying: "The dog did nothing in the night-time."

Jane and I wish you all the fullest enjoyment of your studies of Holmes, and we can ensure you that the more that you put into them, then the more you will get out of them. We thank you once again for allowing us to share our experiences of Sherlock Holmes and of Arthur Conan Doyle with you, and for all the marvellous experiences of Italy which we gained in exchange, and for all the new friendships which we made. We look forward to seeing as many of you as possible in the near future, and to making further friendships, when we attend our next convention of Uno Studio in Holmes, not as guests, but as participating members of this excellent society.

Yours sincerely

Philip Weller

USIH FMHC