Many master Sherlockians have come out of Indianapolis, which stands next to Minneapolis, New York, Chicago, and others as a great Sherlock town. And why not? Indy is one of the few places in America where you can go to a particular small space in a particular monument and know for a fact that you stand where Conan Doyle once stood. And why am I bragging up Indy-ites this morning?
Because Vincent W. Wright, of that particular city, is writing about Sherlockian chronology on the interwebs!
You may not have heard of his regular chronology column in The Illustrious Clients News, because in order to be a well-known chronologist in the land of Sherlockiana, you really seem to have to have been born before the 1950s . . . or else do something other than Sherlockian chronology. In a hobby of geeks, Sherlockian chronologists stand as the uber-geeks, toiling away on a topic that remains to this day both too exact and too vague for most simultaneously.
BIG DISCLAIMER: A lot of this opinion comes from the fact that I am one of those uber-geeks myself, and to this day my chronology pages get more hits than anything else I've put on the web, as well as have gained me surprising contacts from some fascinating folk on that subject. A ten minute presentation on the dates in Holmes and Watson's cases even helped get me my current job.
So I'm delighted to see Vince writing about chronology as his interest in "Historical Sherlock" moves to blog form. History is a big part of tying Watson's writings to dates, of course, and Vince is one of our best these days at finding connections between the two.
There's a truism in the Sherlockian community that all it takes to form a Sherlock Holmes society is "two Sherlockians and a bottle, and in a pinch, you can do without one of the Sherlockians." With such an arcane art as Sherlockian chronology, however, having that other Sherlockian out there is much more inspirational than having a bottle at hand, so I'm very glad to see Vince at work again.
It gives me hope that one of these days I'm going to block out some time on my personal chronology to get back to that subject as well.
The ongoing investigation of Sherlock Holmes, reported from the Peoria, Illinois outpost of Baker Street's dirtiest half a dozen.
Oh, I just realized you're the guy whose chronology I've been using for various unpublished projects. Thank you for the hard work on the Terra 221B. They're a fantastic resource, and entertaining to read just on their own.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Bill! Good to hear!
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