Sherlock Holmes: Trifles

"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 trifles@ihearofsherlock.com. 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 trifles@ihearofsherlock.com. 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

"the hidden wickedness" [COPP] 

 
 
Vincent Starrett eventually became the dean of American Sherlockians, widely recognized as the foremost expert and significant collector, in part due to his publication of The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes in 1933. This month's Morley-Montgomery Award episode comes to us from Starrett expert Ray Betzner, BSI ("The Agony Column") from Vol. 57, No. 3 of The Baker Street Journal.
 
But before that book made its way to the public, a chapter appeared in a rather unusual place. For Starrett, who was accustomed to his Jimmy Lavender series appearing in, shall we say, less than family-friendly places, his Sherlock Holmes material appearing there must have been just a Trifle.
 
 
If you have a question for us, please email us at trifles@ihearofsherlock.com. 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
 

Links
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (Abebooks)
Studies in Starrett (blog)
It Is Always 1895 (conference)
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

"As to your dates, that is the biggest mystification of all." [CREE] 

 
 
If you want to know five different options for dates of a Sherlock Holmes story, all you have to do it get four chronologists together. Such is the case with "The Five Orange Pips."
 
In the mid-1990s, Les Klinger, BSI ("The Abbey Grange") looked at evidence within the story and external to it to determine if Watson's claim of 1887 would hold up. Along the way, he tested the assumptions of many other Sherlockians before him. It's just a Trifle.
 
 
If you have a question for us, please email us at trifles@ihearofsherlock.com. 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
 


Links
Baker Street Rambles by Leslie S. Klinger (Gasogene Books)
Other episodes mentioned:
Episode 318 - Dr. Watson's Marriages
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

"spat out some atrocious word" [CREE] 

 
One of the curiosities of Victorian and Edwardian life that doesn't get much attention, at least in Sherlockian conversation, is that of spats.
 
This curious piece of attire related to footwear gets a scant two mentions in all of the Sherlock Holmes stories (do you remember who is mentioned as wearing them?), but its history and evolution are even more fascinating. It's just a Trifle.
 
 
If you have a question for us, please email us at trifles@ihearofsherlock.com. 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
 
Links
Spats (footwear) (Wikipedia)
What Are Spats? Footwear History and Fashion Trends (Scotland Kilt Collection)
6 Reasons Why Men Don't Wear Spats Anymore (Gentleman's Gazette)
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