Sherlock Holmes: Trifles

"I've heard of your methods before now, Mr. Holmes" [NAVA] In this month's "Mr. Sherlock Holmes the Theorist" theme, we turn our attention to another detective — a contemporary of Sherlock Holmes: Dr. John Evelyn Thorndyke. The creation of R. Austin Freeman, Thorndyke appeared in 21 novels and 40 short stories published between 1907 and 1942. In Baker Street Miscellanea No. 9, Howard Brody uncovered Thorndyke's opinion of Sherlock Holmes's methods, and it's just a Trifle. If you have a question for us, please email us at [email protected]. If you use your inquiry on the show, we'll send you a thank you gift. Our Merch Store is open: Trifles mugs, notepads, and oval stickers can be yours (or someone else's, if you'd like to make it a gift). Start shopping today. "Trifling Trifles" is back — short-form content that doesn't warrant a full episode. This time, "Lomax" emerges from the sub-library. Make sure you're signed up so you don't miss this is exclusive benefit for our paying subscribers. Check it out (Patreon | Substack). Leave Trifles a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and Spotify; listen to this episode here or wherever you get podcasts Links

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Music credits Performers: Uncredited violinist, US Marine Chamber Orchestra Publisher Info.: Washington, DC: United States Marine Band. Copyright: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0

"It is not cold which makes me shiver" [SPEC]

We've all had moments when we've shivered. Perhaps it's from being exposed to the cold for a while, so the entire body spasms in an effort to create heat. Or maybe it's a tingle along our spine, brought on by something that scares us. We trace the appearance of shivers and shivering in the Sherlock Holmes stories, to determine who was shivering and why. We even explore a little about origins of the word itself. It's just a Trifle. If you have a question for us, please email us at [email protected]. If you use your inquiry on the show, we'll send you a thank you gift. Our Merch Store is open: Trifles mugs, notepads, and oval stickers can be yours (or someone else's, if you'd like to make it a gift). Start shopping today. "Trifling Trifles" is back — short-form content that doesn't warrant a full episode. This time, "Lomax" emerges from the sub-library. Make sure you're signed up so you don't miss this is exclusive benefit for our paying subscribers. Check it out (Patreon | Substack). Leave Trifles a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and Spotify; listen to this episode here or wherever you get podcasts Links

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Music credits Performers: Uncredited violinist, US Marine Chamber Orchestra Publisher Info.: Washington, DC: United States Marine Band. Copyright: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0

"the gap of loneliness and isolation" [MAZA] Holmes and Watson go together like every great paring. To think of one of them, one must, by simple association, think of the other. It seems almost anathema to consider them alone. In his 2009 Morley-Montgomery Award-winning article "Holmes Alone: Glimpses of Post-Watson Baker Street in 'The Mazarin Stone,'" Marshall Berdan, BSI ("Henri Murger") paints a very different picture than the lost-without-his-Boswell detective. His analysis is just a Trifle. If you have a question for us, please email us at [email protected]. If you use your inquiry on the show, we'll send you a thank you gift. There's a new "Trifling Trifles" episode out — short-form content that doesn't warrant a full episode. We release these at the beginning of every month. The latest episode is "Lomax." This is a benefit exclusively for our paying subscribers. Check it out (Patreon | Substack). Our Merch Store is now open: Trifles mugs, notepads, and oval stickers can be yours (or someone else's, if you'd like to make it a gift). Start shopping today. Leave Trifles a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and Spotify; listen to this episode here or wherever you get podcasts Links

• The Morley-Montgomery Award episode series (Patreon | Substack)
• All of our social links: https://linktr.ee/ihearofsherlock
• Email us at trifles @ ihearofsherlock.com

Music credits Performers: Uncredited violinist, US Marine Chamber Orchestra Publisher Info.: Washington, DC: United States Marine Band. Copyright: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0

"These villains have coaxed this unhappy lady to London" [LADY] Professor James Moriarty, Colonel Sebastian Moran, Dr. Grimesby Roylott — it seems as if the male villains in the Sherlock Holmes stories get all of our attention. And yet, there are a number of women who are complicit in Canonical crime — and in some cases the instigators. Who are they and where do we find them? It's just a Trifle. If you have a question for us, please email us at [email protected]. If you use your inquiry on the show, we'll send you a thank you gift. Our Merch Store is open: Trifles mugs, notepads, and oval stickers can be yours (or someone else's, if you'd like to make it a gift). Start shopping today. We've got another "Trifling Trifles" episode coming up — short-form content that doesn't warrant a full episode. We release these at the beginning of every month. Make sure you're signed up so you don't miss this is exclusive benefit for our paying subscribers. Check it out (Patreon | Substack). Leave Trifles a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and Spotify; listen to this episode here or wherever you get podcasts Links

• All of our social links: https://linktr.ee/ihearofsherlock
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Music credits Performers: Uncredited violinist, US Marine Chamber Orchestra Publisher Info.: Washington, DC: United States Marine Band. Copyright: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0

"a rough familiarity" [LAST] According to one Sherlockian scholar, there is material in "The Musgrave Ritual" that is strangely familiar. You may or may not have picked up on it before. We certainly didn't. E. Butler Richards, in Vol. 9 of Baker Street Miscellanea, wonders if Watson or Holmes was pulling the wool over our eyes in this entry from an early part of Holmes's career. Does he succeed in convincing us of his thesis? It's just a Trifle. If you have a question for us, please email us at [email protected]. If you use your inquiry on the show, we'll send you a thank you gift. Our Merch Store is open: Trifles mugs, notepads, and oval stickers can be yours (or someone else's, if you'd like to make it a gift). Start shopping today. Don't sleep on "Trifling Trifles" — short-form content that doesn't warrant a full episode. We release these at the beginning of every month. The latest episode is "for those with ears attuned to catch the distant view-halloo!" This is a benefit exclusively for our paying subscribers. Check it out (Patreon | Substack). Leave Trifles a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and Spotify; listen to this episode here or wherever you get podcasts Download | 25.4 MB 22:54 Links

• Baker Street Miscellanea (Abebooks)
• Pseudepigrapha (Wikipedia)
• E. Butler Richards (IMDb)
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Music credits Performers: Uncredited violinist, US Marine Chamber Orchestra Publisher Info.: Washington, DC: United States Marine Band. Copyright: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0

"Funds were wanting, however" [STUD]

Not every case Sherlock Holmes took involved a crime. Often times, clients were dealing with a puzzling situation or a conundrum without a crime. And taking their cases to Sherlock Holmes was the best recourse. And a number of these cases involved clients who were in a bit of a financial jam. Interestingly these cases all appeared in fairly close succession. Coincidence? Perhaps it's just a Trifle. If you have a question for us, please email us at [email protected]. If you use your inquiry on the show, we'll send you a thank you gift. There's a new "Trifling Trifles" episode out — short-form content that doesn't warrant a full episode. We release these at the beginning of every month. The latest episode is "for those with ears attuned to catch the distant view-halloo!" This is a benefit exclusively for our paying subscribers. Check it out (Patreon | Substack). Our Merch Store is now open: Trifles mugs, notepads, and oval stickers can be yours (or someone else's, if you'd like to make it a gift). Start shopping today. Leave Trifles a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and Spotify; listen to this episode here or wherever you get podcasts Download | 21.5 MB 23:01 Links

• George Gissing
• I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere Episode 91: The Confidence Game
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Music credits Performers: Uncredited violinist, US Marine Chamber Orchestra Publisher Info.: Washington, DC: United States Marine Band. Copyright: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0

"Corresponding member of the Swedish Pathological Society" [HOUN] When James Mortimer, M.R.C.S. left behind his walking stick in The Hound of the Baskervilles, it was filled with clues — enough to lead Watson to his medical directory, which listed Mortimer as a member of the Swedish Pathological Society. In his 2008 Morley-Montgomery Award-winning article in Vol. 58, No. 4 of The Baker Street Journal, Mattias Boström, BSI ("The Swedish Pathological Society") determined that Mortimer's membership was an impossibility. He explains why and it's just a Trifle. If you have a question for us, please email us at [email protected]. If you use your inquiry on the show, we'll send you a thank you gift. There's a new "Trifling Trifles" episode out — short-form content that doesn't warrant a full episode. We release these at the beginning of every month. The latest episode is "for those with ears attuned to catch the distant view-halloo!" This is a benefit exclusively for our paying subscribers. Check it out (Patreon | Substack). Our Merch Store is now open: Trifles mugs, notepads, and oval stickers can be yours (or someone else's, if you'd like to make it a gift). Start shopping today. Leave Trifles a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and Spotify; listen to this episode here or wherever you get podcasts Download | 21.9 MB 23:04 Links

• The Morley-Montgomery Award episode series (Patreon | Substack)
• All of our social links: https://linktr.ee/ihearofsherlock
• Email us at trifles @ ihearofsherlock.com

Music credits Performers: Uncredited violinist, US Marine Chamber Orchestra Publisher Info.: Washington, DC: United States Marine Band. Copyright: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0

"To my astonishment it was Sherlock Holmes" [CROO] What if we told you that Watson wasn't exactly honest with readers in "The Crooked Man"? That his telling of the tale masked that it was actually he, and not Sherlock Holmes, who solved the case. John Rabe, son of old Irregular W.T. Rabe ("Colonel Warburton's Madness") questions Watson's version of "The Crooked Man" in Vol. 76, No. 1 of The Baker Street Journal. And it's just a Trifle. If you have a question for us, please email us at [email protected]. If you use your inquiry on the show, we'll send you a thank you gift. Our Merch Store is open: Trifles mugs, notepads, and oval stickers can be yours (or someone else's, if you'd like to make it a gift). Start shopping today. Don't sleep on "Trifling Trifles" — short-form content that doesn't warrant a full episode. We release these at the beginning of every month. The latest episode is "for those with ears attuned to catch the distant view-halloo!" This is a benefit exclusively for our paying subscribers. Check it out (Patreon | Substack). Leave Trifles a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and Spotify; listen to this episode here or wherever you get podcasts Links

• The Baker Street Journal
• All of our social links: https://linktr.ee/ihearofsherlock
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Music credits Performers: Uncredited violinist, US Marine Chamber Orchestra Publisher Info.: Washington, DC: United States Marine Band. Copyright: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0

"the business in the crypt" [SHOS] If you experience claustrophobia, this may not be the episode for you. Because it's all about being shut up in close spaces. And it's the monthly "Mr. Sherlock Holmes the Theorist" episode. Denise M. Rogers walks us through the gothic theme shared between Edgar Allan Poe and some of the Sherlock Holmes stories in her Baker Street Miscellanea article "Crypts, Secret Rooms and Subterranean Passageways: Entombment as a Motif in the Canon" from Spring 1990. It's just a Trifle. If you have a question for us, please email us at [email protected]. If you use your inquiry on the show, we'll send you a thank you gift. Our Merch Store is open: Trifles mugs, notepads, and oval stickers can be yours (or someone else's, if you'd like to make it a gift). Start shopping today. Don't sleep on "Trifling Trifles" — short-form content that doesn't warrant a full episode. We release these at the beginning of every month. The latest episode is "for those with ears attuned to catch the distant view-halloo!" This is a benefit exclusively for our paying subscribers. Check it out (Patreon | Substack). Leave Trifles a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and Spotify; listen to this episode here or wherever you get podcasts Links

• Baker Street Miscellanea (Abebooks)
• All of our social links: https://linktr.ee/ihearofsherlock
• Email us at trifles @ ihearofsherlock.com

Music credits Performers: Uncredited violinist, US Marine Chamber Orchestra Publisher Info.: Washington, DC: United States Marine Band. Copyright: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0

"an exaggerated view of my scientific methods" [SUSS] We consider Watson a reliable narrator. At least we hope he is. And yet there are a number of times when Sherlock Holmes accuses his Boswell of romanticizing the factual. Is Holmes simply taking issue with how Watson writes with a more emotional and imaginative framework? Or is it possible that Watson was also exaggerating to make the stories more exciting? It's just a Trifle. If you have a question for us, please email us at [email protected]. If you use your inquiry on the show, we'll send you a thank you gift. Our Merch Store is open: Trifles mugs, notepads, and oval stickers can be yours (or someone else's, if you'd like to make it a gift). Start shopping today. Don't sleep on "Trifling Trifles" — short-form content that doesn't warrant a full episode. We release these at the beginning of every month. The latest episode is "for those with ears attuned to catch the distant view-halloo!" This is a benefit exclusively for our paying subscribers. Check it out (Patreon | Substack). Leave Trifles a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and Spotify; listen to this episode here or wherever you get podcasts Links

• All of our social links: https://linktr.ee/ihearofsherlock
• Email us at trifles @ ihearofsherlock.com

Music credits Performers: Uncredited violinist, US Marine Chamber Orchestra Publisher Info.: Washington, DC: United States Marine Band. Copyright: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0