Did I Find Two “Lost” Sherlock Holmes Poems?

“The Recrudescence of Sherlock Holmes” by a pretentious 17-year-old named Ian Schoenherr

Did I just find two “lost” Sherlock Holmes poems? I don't know. Maybe...

I should say that I’m going through yet another Sherlockian phase right now, so while painting the illustrations for Maile Meloy’s next novel (out this fall!), I listen to audiobooks of the Canon, and in between brush strokes I browse books and blogs about Sherlock Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle.

Yesterday, I finally looked up one of the earliest - if not the earliest - parodies of the great detective, “My Evening with Sherlock Holmes”, which was published anonymously in The Speaker for November 28, 1891. Its author turned out to be Conan Doyle’s soon-to-be friend, J. M. Barrie, who later created Peter Pan (another early obsession of mine).

Inspired by this - and also by the recent ruckus over “The Book o’ the Brig” - I started poking around for other early, possibly “lost” Sherlock Holmes parodies or pastiches. Soon, I found this poem:

And then I found another:

These two poems appeared in an obscure little book called Volume of Various Verse by Charles Joseph Colton (1868-1916), published in New Orleans by the Press of Searcy & Pfaff in 1899. Evidently, this may not have been their first time in print; as Henry Rightor states in the book’s introduction:

The name of Charles J. Colton, subscribed to verses in various newspapers of this country, notably in the New Orleans Times-Democrat of Mr. Page M. Baker, has, for a number of years, attracted the widest attention and furnished to a great body of readers the most genuine enjoyment. That these verses have struck the popular chord is attested by the extent to which they have been reproduced. Bridget, bringing in the early breakfast, has been equally careful to bring in the morning paper, and, like as not, the first thing turned to was the head of the “All Sorts” column wherein most of the shorter verses have appeared, and where the searcher might be sure to find some whimsical fancy dancing to the lilting measure our poet knows so well.

But I’ll leave it to someone else to track down which particular issues of the New Orleans Times-Democrat (or some other newspaper) may or may not have featured these works.

Google as I might, I haven’t been able to find any mention of Colton’s contributions to the subgenre of Sherlockian-parodies-in-verse. Maybe I haven’t looked hard enough or in the right places, so I hope someone will let me know if they’ve seen these before.

Now, here are transcriptions for your convenience:

ANOTHER FROM SHERLOCK HOMES
by Charles Joseph Colton

The famous vidocq, Sherlock Homes, and I, stood at the bar;
I complimented him upon his great success thus far,
Whereat the sleuth assured me, though in accents of some pride,
That ’twas simply observation and deduction, well applied.
“For instance,” he went on, “this crowd coming in the door
Are a lot of gentlemen whom I have never seen before;
Yet I’ll merely note the drinks they take, and to me will stand confessed
Their respective walks and callings.” I watched eagerly the test.

“Beer,” said the first man - whispered Holmes: “An undertaker, sure.”
The second asked for “port” - said S.: “A sailor, simple, pure.”
“Punch,” called the third - said Sherlock: "He a pugilist must be.”
“Gin,” cried the next - and Holmes declared: “A cotton planter he.”
“And he” the sleuth went on, about the last one of the group.
“Must be a daily paper scribe” - the youth had called: “A scoop.”
And when I made the inquiry, to Sherlock’s great delight,
I found that he in every single instance had been right.


SHERLOCK HOLMES’ LATEST TRIUMPH
by Charles Joseph Colton

An unknown had suicided: to find what he’d been
In life, the noted Sherlock Holmes, of course, had been called in;
The great detective searched the clothes upon the defunct man,
And in a confident tone his conclusions thus began:

“That this man lived in Providence is patent to my eye;
Men keep mementoes of their homes, and here’s a flask of R.I.
And late in Philadelphia he sojourned; that’s a fact
That’s patent; in his pocket is a last year’s almanac.

“Deceased was a book agent; note his canvas shoes;
A hunter, too; his pantaloons of duck doth that disclose;
And fisherman; his underwear of net proves that to me - ”
And all around were thunderstruck at such sagacity.

Enemy Women for the New York Times

Sometimes my first ideas are stronger than those that go into print. This might be a case in point: my New York Times Book Review cover highlighting John Vernon’s review of Paulette Jiles’ Enemy Women: A Novel.

The book is set during the Civil War and centers on an 18-year-old woman from the Missouri Ozarks, who is arrested on suspicion of being a Confederate spy and is thrown into a St. Louis prison. There, the prison commandant (a Union major) interrogates - but soon falls in love with - his captive, and ultimately helps her escape.

But how to illustrate that, or, rather, how to illustrate a review that has no physical descriptions of the characters, etc.? (Book Review illustrators are - or were - only provided the text of the review, not the book itself.)

Above is an early, more “realized” sketch: no facial features, but, I hoped, their hands and clothing and setting would hint enough at what the book was about. And here is a page of pencil notes for it - as well as another concept: a crazy-quilt map of Missouri that, I realized, would be better to stitch together with real bits of cloth, rather than to paint (something I wasn’t equipped to risk trying).

My “hand holding” design was turned down, though. So I ran out and got the novel and searched for descriptions of the two main characters. I wound up settling on an “ambrotype” idea, with a “magic realism” slant, with the major desperately - maybe too desperately - reaching out toward his love. For the major’s pose - and in the interest of time - I adapted one of my favorite Sidney Paget pictures of Sherlock Holmes, illustrating one of my favorite lines in one of my favorite stories, “The Adventure of the Reigate Squire“ (or “Squires” or “Puzzle”): “You’ve done it now, Watson,” said he, coolly. “A pretty mess you've made of the carpet.”

And so this color sketch was born - as was this poor Photoshop tweak where I raised the major’s arm and closed the ambrotype case a little:

Tthe major “breaking through the frame” idea was nixed, however. I had to keep him under glass, and the end result, below, is much more staid and, I think, less intriguing. That orange surface is supposed to be wood, but it looks like the ambrotype case is precariously balanced on it or suspended from it: looking at it now, I should have placed the case on top of a table or the like. But sometimes the better ideas come too late - or too early.

And here is the image as published....

Sherlock Holmes

Happy Birthday, Sherlock Holmes!

Today is the 156th birthday of Sherlock Holmes, so they say. By "they" I mean crazed, obsessive fanatics who devote much of their lives reading, re-reading, discussing, dissecting, and deconstructing the adventures of The Master. I was one such fanatic in my childhood after age ten, all through my teens years, and a bit into my twenties (when, finally, my Howard Pylomania took over). Many of my sketches and first illustrations were Sherlockian in nature, but somewhere along the line I stopped drawing Sherlock Holmes. I think it was because I had such a vivid idea of how he should look, but I felt unable to capture that idea on paper. I might have to try again, though - especially since some Sherlockian details crept into this picture from Read It, Don't Eat It!