"A Detective Rare" - Angela Buckley's "The Real Sherlock Holmes" (Jerome Caminada).

"Has the real Sherlock Holmes been deduced?" wondered the headline to Jasper Copping's review in The Telegraph 15 March 2014 .

Angela Buckley's "The Real Sherlock Holmes - The Hidden Story of Jerome Caminada" is not the first to propose the Manchester detective as inspiration for Conan Doyle's fictional detective. Don Hale's (much slighter) November, 2013,  publication commits to the title  "JEROME CAMINADA - The Victorian Detective - The inspiration for Sherlock Holmes" (sic). Intrigued by the Copping piece I read the Buckley biography.

Attractively produced with 16 pages of contemporary illustrations, the book comprises four thematic strands: the author's family history, Sherlock Holmes, Manchester and Caminada himself. A Preface records the genesis of research conducted into the last two - the author's discovery that an ancestor lived on Caminada's first beat and was likely acquainted with him.

Such is often the way a family connection can inspire a broader interest in local history and it is a pity this thread is not developed beyond the Preface, which ends with a statement of the book's prime purpose:"I hope that, after decades of silence, the voice of this extraordinary Victorian super-sleuth will be heard once again". Well, it is and it isn't.

 I want to stress that I think the book well worth reading. It is enthusiastically researched (with a useful, extensive bibliography). Caminada and Manchester vie fascinatingly for the reader's attention. And they are strongly related, for, policeman that he was, the story and character of Caminada naturally highlight the condition of the poor during his career in Cottonopolis. Buckley indicates her book's strongest theme in an initial quotation from the detective, himself quoting Dickens:

"Cant as we may...we shall to the end of all things find it very much harder for the poor to be virtuous than it is for the rich, and the good that is in them shines the brighter for it."

 The book and its subject stand on their own two feet upon this powerful theme and it is a continuing irony that recourse is made to the fictional Sherlock Holmes only to mask "a detective rare" as a ballad described Caminada in 1893 (quoted in full on p114). I turn now to the Sherlockian content.

I have to conclude that the author and/or publisher felt the fictional detective would help to sell the real one. A title which employed the indefinite article before "Real" and a text which avoided anything beyond a casual reference to the character whose name fast became a byword for any good detective would not have shifted the spotlight off Caminada. Unfortunately, the title and references to Doyle's creation strain to draw parallels and befog the clarity of Buckley's portrait.

Copley and others propagate the notion that Doyle took inspiration from Caminada, that this is a unique selling point for this book. Whatever she may say outside its pages, Buckley makes nothing like a sustained attempt to connect the two men. The closest to a claim of this nature is expressed in the final paragraph: "His widely publicised cases could easily have provided inspiration for the stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle."

References to Sherlock Holmes in the text are patchy, too loosely related and, at times, inaccurate. That Doyle (but neither Holmes nor any cases) figures in the Index is in keeping with the superficial treatment of this heavily advertised aspect. 
My own suspicion that the author's interest and research were not with Holmes was aroused on p17 where "Star Blaze" survived proof-reading. Chapter 12, "The Beautiful Crook" thinks Irene Adler appeared in "novels" and proceeds to draw a parallel with the real-life Alicia Osmond that does not hold water. Similarly, the presentation of burglar, Bob Horridge, as Chapter 9's "The Professor Moriarty of the Slums" reveals a career criminal whose direct hands-on approach is the very opposite of Doyle's "spider in the centre of his web" who "only plans". All they in truth have in common is to have been the most formidable men encountered. 

"The Stockbroker's Clerk" and "A Case of Identity" provide initial quotations to two other chapters with little relevance and what is remarkable (to the Sherlockian) is the absence of apposite reference to the Canon where you may have expected it were this a serious attempt to relate the two detectives. Thus, the absorbing section in Chapter 5 on "Next-of-Kin" fraud is oblivious of, for example, "The Three Garridebs". 

On more than one occasion, the author argues against her own claim. Page 87 avows "Detective Camanada was not a 'first-class chemist' like Sherlock Holmes". By Chapter 19 he has become "The Garibaldi of Detectives" and Buckley quotes the Manchester Courier: "Mr Caminada was not exactly a Sherlock Holmes, but as a detective he did good service to Manchester."

The real detective is credited with powers of observation, disguise, deduction and wide knowledge of criminals as if this were so exceptional that he might readily have inspired Doyle. The book however illustrates little more than excellent local knowledge of beats he knew well and a logical use of disguise in streets where you were well known. Caminada's move in retirement to private detection was common and, while a parallel is drawn here with Holmes, the more obvious reference to Altamont in "His Last Bow" is not made when either the Fenians or Caminada's spying are discussed.

Most seriously, the author seems not to realise that the comparison of detective fiction and real-life detectives at the opening of Chapter 12 is in fact a strong argument NOT to haul Sherlock Holmes into this biography.

I have had occasion frequently this year to look at periodicals of the period. It is clear that from the moment Sherlock Holmes achieved popularity across the World, from the USA to Australia, his name became a byword (a shorthand) applied to detectives who solved a tricky case or was employed as a cry of desperation that "a Sherlock Holmes" was needed. I do not sense Angela Buckley knows this. Nor should she. Her absorbing work on Caminada and evocation of a Manchester thankfully long gone are good enough to stand alone.

When I re-read the story of Jerome Caminada (as I shall) it will be beneath my personal preferred title: "A Detective Rare".
  
© Ray Wilcockson (2014) All rights Reserved.

A Scandal in Academia - On the Observation of Teachers.

"You see, but you do not observe". ( Sherlock Holmes to Doctor Watson "A Scandal in Bohemia". )

This post is occasioned by TEACHERS OR CRISPS? by @HeyMissSmith in which she takes issue with the  pervasive notion that the profession is in need of general improvement and that that is secured through inspectional critical and graded scrutiny by senior teachers and Ofsted. She argues that this is a counter-productive regime born of attitudes and motivations themselves the (real) object for improvement.

My career as a secondary teacher of English for more than three decades from 1969 bears this out in spades. There was (and therefore is) another way.

HMI Inspections.

Once per decade I was inspected by HMI as clear-sighted, empathic, respectful and autonomous as the teachers and institutions they visited. Lesson and whole-school assessments felt negotiated and balanced. These were positive experiences because the inspectors observed in the manner indicated by Holmes's remark to Watson.

Internal Inspections.

All my schools and colleges had a system of annual staff development assessments, which featured (centrally) self-assessment of perceived achievements and needs and classroom visits by the Head or a Deputy. I was never inspected by anyone else. Visits lasted the duration of each lesson and were conducted with patent respect, interest, participation and an open agenda: observe what is really encountered. Feedback discussion supplemented the final report with teacher evaluation of each lesson and an emphasis on the positives observed.

These feedback chats were always valued because most of the matters were dealt with as equal professionals discussing their common art. They could be of surprising practical use: for example, one Head was fascinated by the use of body language in the classroom and observed something I had never been aware of - that I had the slowest blink-rate he'd ever encountered in a teacher. He had discussed this with some students and all agreed that to sit in one of my lessons gave you the uncanny feeling I saw everything that happened...even that I saw what they were thinking. Not so; but I wasn't about to disabuse them!

Other Observations.

1. 1969-71.

I entered the profession in the last year you could with a degree but no teaching qualification. This, automatically, extended probationary status to two years. From Day 1, I taught a full 11-18 timetable. No one ever inspected me in the manner so familiar today. Observation, however, was frequent and took two main forms.

By invitation and request I observed many classes conducted by experienced colleagues. From these I learned all I came to know about classroom management and what I call presence. I offer one example: Desks were typically arranged in five rows of doubles with, therefore , aisles between. I found difficulty communicating effectively with the back rows until I watched my Head of Department (also a Ray) do two very simple things I'd never considered. He spent most of the lesson on his feet (away from the 'protection' of the teacher's desk) either conducting the lesson from the back of the room or (a very strong stance this) at the head of successive aisles, reaching all students under the 'umbrella' of one outstretched, emphatic arm-movement. This I imitated, just as effectively as I replicated the stentorian voice of Dick W... who could (as I still can) silence the whole school queuing for dinner. 

I was left in no doubt that what happened in my own classes was entirely my personal responsibility. This did not mean I was neglected. Classrooms are typically adjacent with thin walls. When discipline irretrievably broke down (and it frequently did) the present problem was dealt with either by the teacher next door or a deputy taking over the lesson for long enough to a) discipline the class and b) demonstrate the art of teaching. My desire to learn was taken for granted and I felt supported but never undermined. Simply, I sensed, that if I did not learn by example, then fight my own demons, I'd not cut it in the long run as a teacher. No one ever suggested visiting to observe because I knew they were doing this in far subtler ways.

For example, I did not fail to observe how frequently Heads of Year and Deputies glanced in through the door window or popped a head in 'for a word' with A or B. Stan M..., a Head of Year, never passed through my lessons in the school library (on his way to collect geology specimens) without adding humour, moral support, educational enrichment and professional comradeship to my work. The message was we were all in it together and we respected the subtle complexities we teachers call 'a lesson'. Teachers like Stan were (are) legion - they have Holmesian powers of observation that take in realities in a moment and act accordingly. I have been proud to  know Heads who have slipped noiselessly into a lesson and sat patiently until they sensed a convenient moment to pursue the (often minor) reason for their visit. 

2. As a Qualified Teacher.

It may raise a sardonic smile in many a 21st Century teacher as I record that a standard sentence on my annual self-assessment was to the effect that, as I considered all my teaching was done on behalf of the Head Teacher (saving him or her from having to teach all classes), my classes were there for the visiting any time the Head wished. An open invitation that, to their credit, I think all my heads and principals took up with enthusiasm. 

Otherwise, within my departments, I was fortunate to work with some colleagues who valued teaching a class together where there was a perceived gain for the students. In the teaching of English many occasions arise where the active contribution of a subject colleague adds freshness, variety and a different perspective. From Year 7 to A level, lessons may be aptly enriched with judicious recourse to the double-act. One example: a prepared full reading of T S Eliot's The Waste Land dramatized for two (teacher) voices and performed for combined A level classes, invited to listen with no text to follow. English teachers are necessarily fluent and highly effective readers and give of themselves in such memorable lessons. Student feedback often noted how much more meaning and impact may thus be rendered evident in a literary text. 

On other occasions, we might request a special appearance from a colleague to act a part in a play or bring their class to discuss a specific topic, such as exam preparation. Variety, professional comradeship, common goals, mutual caring. Everyone (pupils and teachers) learn.

A Final Observation.

 Teachers have ever completely understood their work may always be improved and is a proper subject for inspection. In 1969 as now these tenets underpin a profession that is a humanity and an art. My private analogy has always been with the artist and the apprentice. I would simply ask (with, I believe, Miss Smith): Which would you observe to learn more, artist or apprentice? How best does the apprentice improve: by micro-scrutinizing performance with an abstract checklist of someone's notion of simplistically measurable artistic skills or by encouraging the apprentice to observe the master and mistress as they create? AND, finally, who would have the insensitivity, the patronising stupidity to critique an artist in media res as something unique and self-valuing is being created?                  
      

My Previous Education Posts.

Let the Forest Judge. 4/2/14   HERE 

Of Decile Bands, Levels, Cabbages & Kings. 18/7/13 HERE

Two Allegories about Education. 10/7/13 HERE 

The Empty Space and the Illusion of the First Time in Teaching. 28/6/13 HERE

An Inspector Calls – My Thoughts on Three Teachers' Blogs. 17/6/13 HERE

Brush Up Your Shakespeare – Set Text 2013 for Department of Education Study. 12/6/13 HERE

The Day That the Rains Came Down – Halcyon Days (for Jenny). 8/6/13 HERE

Learning By Hearts – a Poem to Read, Learn & Inwardly Digest. 7/6/13 HERE

A Fable for Our Times. 3/6/13.  HERE

        
  

Let the Forest Judge.

    "You have said; but whether wisely or no, let the forest judge."
     
     (Touchstone - "As You Like It" Act 3, scene 2. W. Shakespeare.)

I Sing of the Time before the Building of the Temple.

Imagine if you will one broad, free sweep of landscape dipping seaward, rising to the sky, peopled as in 'The Vision Concerning Piers Plowman' by William Langland:

'A fair field full of folk...
Of all manner of men the rich and the poor,
Working and wandering as the world asketh.'

At one with the elements they live and love in the natural cathedral of earth and sea and sky, with a homely profundity and the fearless curiosity of life on the wing.

And there were among them some who carried much knowledge in their minds and wisdom in their hearts who, all knew, understood the child better than most, for they were as children themselves before the ancientness of things. Such were the good companions.

To these were entrusted the growing of the children. In fields folk tended to their crops while, close by, in sundry modest chapels, a different seed-time grew to standing corn.

Of the teachings therein none were quite alike, being as the species of the flowers in a field. Neither did they know the tyranny of the one.

This was the way of things from time immemorial.

I Speak of the Temple.

It came to pass that the deciders convinced themselves and the people that it would be a good idea to replace the old patchwork of chapels with just one majestic temple.

"Everyone deserves the best," they said. "Our temple shall be the envy of the World."

And the people acquiesced, in the name of equality, having no reason to mistrust those who had stepped forward for election.
                                             -o-

Wondrous was the busyness of it all.

The deciders sent forth for the thinkers from distant lands.
The thinkers thought and were rewarded.
Then scribes scribbled and were rewarded.
Printers pressed and were rewarded.

The great decider looked upon The Common Teachings and saw that it was good, ordering that it be placed upon the altar of the Temple.
                                           -o-
How irresistible seems collective man when harnessed to the one creation! How suddenly, sometimes, night masks the day with no twilight between.

At one gesture from the great decider acre upon acre transformed to Temple pavement overnight. Just before what would have been dawn, the great new doors swung open, enormous bells clanged hour upon hour until all, ALL, had passed the empty chapels and were gathered in.

No one noticed the closing of the doors. There was so much to be done - so, at least, the showers said.

The showers were as much a part of the architecture as the stained glass images and wall paintings they had been trained to show. Some had been good companions; most were not. The great decider had no faith in chapel ways.

There had, amongst the deciders, been some brief discussion on Temple working hours and, having concluded there was nothing of value to know or to be done beyond its precincts, they set the great clock to perpetual day. Adults, henceforth, would work in and for the Temple; and the showers would instruct the young, so they too, in time, would be ready to take an allotted place beneath the beneficent dome.

All the paths were marked upon the Temple floor. Daily, for years, the children trod, listless, past the familiar stucco pictures and coloured glass depicting The Common Teachings. Sometimes a child vaguely wondered what made the stained glass glow. This made the showers unhappy. It was not a relevant question.

The observers were everywhere. They were the eyes and ears of the deciders, and as fearful of losing status as the testers who reported directly to the great decider with favourable statistics concerning the efficacy of The Common Teachings.

It was understood that, with favourable reports, one might attend one of the side chapels for a more varied diet of instruction. But even here the eye of the observer scrutinised by right. 

It was rumoured in dark corners that, unlike everyone else, the deciders and their trusted allies did not live in the Temple; that there were still a few of the oldest chapels outside, attended by chosen children.

Outside? How could there be? There was no 'outside' in The Common Teachings. 

This was how it was in the time of the Temple.
                                             -o-

I Sing of the Fall of the Temple.

It began with a slight crazing of the stained glass high above the walls; with the crumbling of plastered images from the touch of too many hands; from the subsidence of stones without foundations beneath the trudge of far too many feet.

"What's that?" cried a child, taken with the tendril of a plant growing through the Temple floor.

"That picture in the glass!" exclaimed another, bathing in a narrow shaft of sunlight. "It's gone! Oh! Stand here with me! It's so warm!"

Silence.

Then: through the dome above, from the earth below, through wall and window crashed strange things of living green and warm, pulsating, radiating light. Hands young and old clawed at the crumbling stones, tore gaping holes. Scenting the invading vegetation, gulping in an air purer than the rank Temple incense, families of folk stumbled through the breaches into a waiting world.

Weeping, in their thousands they threw themselves upon the forest floor, smelling the pines of freedom, totally lost but incontinently blithe.

When they came to their senses, helping hands lifted them up. And the good companions, patient as nature, lead them, each by each, to the upland clearings through ancient, knowing, sunlit forest glades.

A Personal Note.

This post is...what it is. All I can say is that I began teaching in the year of Woodstock, 1969, and I never dreamed it would be so necessary to recall Joni Mitchell's words:

"We are stardust, we are golden, we are billion year old carbon, And we got to get ourselves back to the garden."

© Ray Wilcockson (2014) All rights Reserved.

   

Eille Norwood and the Three Watsons.

In March, 1923, readers of The Strand Magazine were treated to a new Sherlock Holmes story, The Creeping Man, in the (very) occasional series collected in 1927 as The Casebook.

That same month saw the release of the last batch of  Stoll's silent versions of the short stories, starring Eille Norwood. Totalling 45 shorts, directors Maurice Elvey and (for the 1922 Further Adventures) George Ridgwell captured on film every short Holmes story so far published (except for The Five Orange Pips), including 1921's MAZA and 1922's THOR.

In addition, the success of 1921's Adventures prompted Stoll's feature-length HOUN and June, 1923 would see the release of the other long novel adaptation, SIGN, crowning a body of work unrivalled before or since.

No attempts were made to link the stories - indeed, the order of filming and release follows neither canonical nor chronological order. For example, both LAST and FINA appear in the last 1923 series. Norwood is the common thread and (until SIGN) his Watson, played by Hubert Willis.

Conan Doyle could happily remain in his 'Steven Moffat' mode of drip-feeding new stories, for the cinema had joined live theatre in keeping Sherlock Holmes before an international audience. Three of the greatest early portrayers of Holmes - Gillette, Saintsbury and Barrymore - already graced the silver screen; but 1923 was Eille Norwood's year for from October 1 you could put a voice to the silent Norwood by visiting the theatre to see The Return of Sherlock Holmes. 

The Holmes fan who saw all Norwood's output on stage and screen in 1923 would have encountered three different Doctor Watsons: Hubert Willis in the shorts, Arthur M Cullin in SIGN and H G Stoker on stage.

Martin Freeman & Benedict Cumberbatch preview still, BBC Sherlock.

Imagine our own Sherlock, Benedict Cumberbatch, paired with such a succession of Watsons in the space of a year and we can see just how differently the good doctor is viewed today. Where we see parity and intimacy in a classic double act, producers in 1923 were following established theatrical tradition in putting Holmes alone centre-stage along with such thoughtfully-cast villains as Dr Grimesby Rylott (Roylott in the original story), played by character actor, Lyn Harding, in Doyle's SPEC play. William Gillette had set this trend and worked with numerous Watsons in his long career as the Great Detective.

Nigel Bruce & Basil Rathbone publicity still.

Bumbling as some find Nigel Bruce's portrayal in the Rathbone series, he was a fine, likeable actor of great presence who proved the perfect foil and modestly elevated the figure of Watson to equal billing, establishing the new tradition. 

Modern producers would chop and change Watsons at their peril, the only acceptable reason being for the kind of personal reasons that necessitated David Burke's departure from the Granada series. It required the finest of actors to replace him. The late Edward Hardwicke was just that. 

With this background in mind I just want to record something of the three rather neglected Watsons who supported Eille Norwood in 1923. Who were they?

Hubert Willis & Eille Norwood in The Man with the Twisted Lip.

1. Hubert Willis.





      




 This image is typical of the audience's experience of Watson in the 3 Stoll shorts available on Youtube. Rarely is he shown in close-up; characteristically, we see him in profile behind Holmes or at the side of the screen following events in the background. Born in 1876 in Reading, he was in his mid forties at the time of filming, younger than a Norwood in his early sixties, but not young enough in looks to portray SIGN's Watson in love.

Willis was active on screen from 1913, the year he played Shelton in Doyle's House of Temperley. Wikipedia and IMDb are at odds over the date of his death: the former records 1933, while the latter has Willis living to the ripe old age of 108, dying 1984, in Suffolk. I've not been able to resolve this discrepancy, but I can't believe the IMDb entries which have this Hubert Willis in a series of TV appearances in the 1960's, playing police constable or ambulance man! Kieran McMullen has a little more on Willis HERE . 

2. Arthur M Cullin.

More mysterious still is the actor brought in especially for Stoll's last Holmes film, SIGN, to play opposite Isobel Elsom's Mary Morstan. Cullin was also born in the 1870's but looked the more youthful and had specialised in smart gentleman roles. He'd also played Watson before in the (lost) 1916 Saintsbury film, The Valley of Fear. Again McMullen has a little more HERE  but neither he nor I has been able to find a photograph of Cullin. Jay Weissberg has seen SIGN and there's a fascinating, detailed review on NitrateVille HERE . 

Stoll may well have cast him because of a more recent "Doctor" appearance - as Dr Cumberly in the company's feature film of 1920, The Yellow Claw, by Sax Rohmer. This film exists in its entirety at the BFI and was given a rare airing in April 2013. Here is the BFI entry - click 'More' on the page to read a detailed summary of the whole film: BFI ENTRY .
update on possible photo of Arthur M Cullin:
I have just come across the following webpage in which 2 lobby cards from the lost 1921 "Dangerous Lies" are stated to feature Arthur Cullin. If so, he must be the older gentleman in the first frame (they may be magnified if you download). He looks to me just a little younger than Hubert Willis. Please click HERE .

3. H G Stoker.

Cast list from my programme of The Return of Sherlock Holmes 1923 Princes Theatre.




 

 I was pleased recently to acquire a programme hand-dated 10/11/1923 of Norwood's stage appearance as Sherlock Holmes. Himself a playwright and composer, Norwood was perhaps more feted as such in Australia where Melbourne ever considered him one of their own after his work there in the early 90's. His uncle, J E Harold Terry, proved a better dramatist, collaborating with Arthur Rose in The Return of Sherlock Holmes which opened at the Princes (now Shaftesbury) theatre on October 9, 1923, after previewing in Cardiff at the Playhouse on 1 October. Norwood produced himself and the play filled the capacious theatre for 130 performances, closing on January 26 of 1924. Arthur Lloyd has an excellent page on The Princes HERE .

Amnon Kabatchnik describes the play and its reception in Sherlock Holmes on the Stage, which may be sampled HERE . This reference also details further productions after the Princes run, at home and abroad. Norwood took it first on tour in England, especially to his home county of Yorkshire. I Know for certain he took it to Huddersfield and was warmly received - see the BBC article HERE . His home city of York disappointed him with a low turnout at the Theatre Royal as indicated in this item currently on Ebay: HERE . Perhaps other Watsons joined him on the road, but I shall close this post with a look at the one I'd most like to have seen, H G Stoker, the most Doylean of Watsons.

Commander H G Stoker DSO RN.

To explain: (NB: What follows assumes the references I have discovered all refer to one actor known as H G Stoker). Cousin to Bram, Henry Hugh Gordon "Dacre" Stoker was born in Dublin in 1885 and died in London in 1966. He was thus 38 years old in 1923 and clearly considered a preferable stage Watson to Arthur Cullin, who, as the programme above shows, was available and actually in the cast playing 'The Rev Dr Shlessinger'.

Conan Doyle attended one of the Princes performances and addressed the audience, praising the authors: "I am only a grandfather; these are the parents." He will therefore have seen a Watson whose actor's life mirrored both the Doctor's and his own, for here was a man recently out of the navy after distinguished service. The Stoker website has his obituary HERE and Anzac.org details his contribution to the Gallipoli campaign HERE .

Henry Stoker was ACD's kind of man - a fearless adventurer, hero, sportsman and patriot. As the biographies indicate, he had a flair for acting (he entertained his own men while imprisoned by the Turks) and put it to good use from about 1920 while waiting for a recall to the navy.

I would suggest he will have recommended himself for the part of Watson after appearing with Felix Aylmer in the Gaiety Theatre on Broadway from September 27, 1922 to April, 1923. The play was John Galsworthy's Loyalties and Stoker played the part of Charles Winsor. The play may be read online HERE .

Stoker progressed to film acting from 1933 to his recall to active service in 1939. That done, he returned to act in film and on television. Delightfully, IMDb records his part as Colonel Hayter in the sadly lost 1951 TV production of The Reigate Squires which starred Alan Wheatley as Holmes and Raymond Francis as Watson.

I leave the reader with this lovely image of H G with Lilli Palmer in the 1938 film "Crackerjack", looking, for me, so reminiscent of Conan Doyle himself in Colonel Blimp mould, just before stepping up to serve his country one more time.

  
 
              

On First Looking Into Richardson's Clarissa.

"A Girl Reading" by her uncle, Joshua Reynolds, 1771.

In this well-known painting, Miss Theophila Palmer (whichever the volume) is well into Samuel Richardson's Brobdingnag of a novel. By contrast, I have just landed on its coast, in company with @Lynn_Shepherd and other Twitter users who have commenced reading "Clarissa" in real time corresponding to its dated letters. I am, therefore at the end of Letter III.

Before proceeding (on January 15) I want to do some preparatory thinking which, perhaps, will sustain and light my journey.

I must first observe the irony in a painting by an uncle of a niece reading a book about a young lady written by a man. Nor am I Theophila. In 1747 (the year before "Clarissa" was published) Reynolds painted "Boy Reading", which better catches my gender and self-conscious stiffening of resolve for the task ahead.

[NB: for those fascinated, as I am, by images of readers reading, I recommend William B Warner's illustrated web article:  "Staging Readers Reading" ]

The notes that follow are personal reminders informed by the belief that a novelist teaches me, early on, how I am to read the ensuing fiction.

PREFATORY NOTES ON... PREFATORY MATERIAL!

The title-page is conventional enough for the period & genre, illustrating a general obligation felt by the early novelists to preview the lie of the land ahead. Partly informative, mostly publicity designed to lure and assure in equal measure, the title page reserves its largest typeface for the immediate, first name intimacy of "Clarissa". Apart from its unsurprising impression of 'clarity' (that's what it means) this Latinate, Augustan name takes me straight to Pope's "Rape of the Lock" (as, for that matter, will 'Arabella'). It is by way of being a stock literary type and I note the generality also of "A Young Lady", & "Comprehending"; the highlighting of "Concerns", "Distresses", "Parents", "Children" & "Marriage"(implying propriety in the drawing of morals). The wink of promise of sensational content in "Misconduct" and, especially, the revelation of the "Private Life" of a "Young Lady" insinuates all.
 
What follows between the title page and Letter I convinces me Richardson seeds in my mind the question of whether "Clarissa" will settle for either the sensational or the moral OR transcend both in a more consummate achievement. Will "Clarissa" the novel amount to more than its eponymous central character, a prose "Hamlet"?

I'm offered three further preparations for reading which strike me as less conventional and revelatory of the author's designs: 1)The Preface 2) The Names of the Principal Persons and 3) Letter summaries.

In itself a familiar encounter in an early English novel, this Preface is less concerned to offer an Apologia than to support 2) & 3) in presenting convenient 'factual' information about narrative and characters. 'The Names' borrows 'Dramatis Personae' from the drama; the summaries may not be read with much profit before the Letters they précis but will perform a very useful function as Index to the barely uninterrupted flow of letters to come.

Richardson clearly wishes to avoid "dry narrative" and the provision of 2) & 3) free him to construct " letters...written while the hearts of the writers must be supposed to be wholly engaged in their subjects...many of them written in the dialogue or dramatic way....Much more lively and affecting," (Preface).

PREFATORY THOUGHTS ON THE EPISTOLARY FORM

-These are letters; not diary entries.

- "Spontaneous" as the author avers them to be a) one chooses to write or not. One selects when to write (delays in replies may be more than postal). One composes a letter (it's not the same as impromptu conversation). One hides & reveals in a form only partly analogous to soliloquy. Richardson is writing every letter.

- Every letter is its own narrative voice. This voice is naturally partial. I am not to take any letter at its word. With no over-arching narrative voice I must work more actively than usual as a reader to "hear" the author AND to BUILD my own best narrative from the disparate elements provided.

- I am aware that each letter will draw me into its own lively charms but I am to maintain a perspective that is able to absorb each partial glimpse in continuous reassessment. I liken this process to the theoretical introduction of new mirrors and shards of glass into a kaleidoscope - one new piece shifts the whole perspective.

-Richardson has hit upon a form that places imaginative responsibility upon the reader - only I can fully conjure the world coded in the Letters. It's the novel as play. I do this in the theatre. We all do it in life.

What World? I hazard, having now read to Letter III that "Clarissa" the novel is that world, and that Clarissa, the heroine in a fictional narrative, is you or me by any other name. I anticipate a novel which seeks to mirror the fullness of any life which is more than a list of traits, actions, speeches and feelings - a living being is IN life and only an appreciation of both the inner and outer worlds may come some way toward doing justice to the complexity of human being.

I step from the shore.

Robinson Crusoe illus. Walter Paget.

© Ray Wilcockson (2014) All rights Reserved.

"Many Happy Returns" - 'Sherlock' as Sonnet.

This post is a personal response to the Sherlock Series 3 Mini-Episode currently available to view on the BBC's iPlayer and Red Button. Please do not read it if you have not yet seen 'Many Happy Returns' OR have avoided it, preferring to await 'The Empty Hearse'.

With considerable trepidation I've just watched seven richly multi-layered minutes of television that belie their brevity. I'm glad I did.

Two years ago come the 30th of January the last moments of 'Sherlock' (until now) in the BBC Canon inspired 'Markings'. Specifically, I thought Martin Freeman's John remarkable in his grief. I still do.

Rumour, the hype of teasers, my ambivalence over limited screenings and the underworld of internet spoilers combined to dull the edge of simple anticipation. In the end, I chose to view because the new episode wasn't billed as a trailer and was on general release.

I was familiar with the conventional 'minisode'. This is a different animal. The content of Many Happy Returns has crucial significance to the cycle's narrative arc and its sophisticated construction is on a higher artistic plane.

Form fascinates me in literature and film and as far as I can see Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss have invented a new one - the filmic equivalent to poetry's sonnet. The raison d'etre of 'Many Happy Returns' is to encapsulate in seven minutes far longer passages of time. As with the sonnet there is here a masterly artistic compression. Consider the surprising density achievable by some thoughts in Twitter form. We RT them or Favourite as a salute to ingenuity. The new 'Sherlock' is just such a tweet of a film.

We are in Doctor Who (and Star Trek) territory in turning to consider the multiplicity of time spans represented by these seven minutes:

- the (as yet unrevealed) dramatic time that elapses between Reichenbach Fall's graveyard scene and the forthcoming opening to The Empty Hearse.

- our 2-year wait for Sherlock3.

- the Great Hiatus of May 4, 1891 to the cusp of March/April, 1894.

- the decade that passed between December, 1893's The Final Problem and October, 1903's The Empty House.

- the corresponding few minutes related in The Empty House where Holmes describes to Watson the missing years.

I am impressed by the writers' creative restraint, faultless Sherlockian logic, sureness of touch and powers of imagination.

Ever aware of a viewer's priorities, internal spoilers are scrupulously avoided. An elegantly constructed succession of hints (such as the Canon Holmes was wont to offer Lestrade) economically sketches (as in charcoal) two strong and interwoven narrative threads: the imminent Return and life as it is without Sherlock. No element is elaborated further, the writers' watchword being at the centre of the script in Sherlock's (pre-recorded) "Only lies have detail."
    
Via Anderson's map and the comedy of Greg Lestrade's futile refusal to entertain the notion Sherlock Lives! the writers conduct us on a whistle-stop tour of the detective's secret activities, faithfully re-creating Doyle's graduated 'reincarnation' (I elaborate on this stylistic technique HERE ).

What is totally new and logically original about Many Happy Returns is the provision of explicit insight into John's state - the central element of an authorial decision to embed our experience of the resurgent Sherlock in John's everyday world.

The inspirational device of Greg's (ironically retained) 'uncut version' of Sherlock's CD is delightfully, perfectly apt in a television experience. Its title, of course, puns poetically. As significant is the consummate recourse to a convention familiar to viewers. Those other Doctors, Who and Spock, impart knowledge to the present of the future from the past. Jesus did too.

In essence the film is a labour of love, a deftly fashioned, celebratory expression of something denied the readers of The Strand - foreknowledge with certainty that Sherlock Holmes was poised to return.

I'll leave it (aptly) there. It's Christmas Day and I've a guinea fowl to enjoy. After such an entrée, courtesy those cordon bleu chefs, Moffat and Gatiss, I prophesy it will go down all the better.

It gives me inordinate pleasure to note not only does Sherlock Live but the creators and actors of Many Happy Returns are firing on all cylinders too.

Benedict Cumberbatch in BBC's  "Sherlock - Many Happy Returns".

        




   

Conan Doyle - Actor.

Court of Appeal in Session - "The Abbey Grange" Granada TV.

"See here, Captain Crocker, we’ll do this in due form of law. You are the prisoner. Watson, you are a British jury, and I never met a man who was more eminently fitted to represent one. I am the judge. Now, gentleman of the jury, you have heard the evidence. Do you find the prisoner guilty or not guilty?”
“Not guilty, my lord,” said I." ("The Abbey Grange" pub 1904).

Conan Doyle - Actor.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle spent the afternoon of Tuesday June 16th, 1906, at the theatre. Queues had formed during the night and by noon thousands were packed into cavernous Drury Lane to pay tribute to Ellen Terry on the occasion of her 50th year on stage. 

As a member of the General Committee organizing this commemorative benefit, Doyle had a ticket...and a 45 minute role to play on stage.

"The Jury" by John Morgan, 1861.

 The main item in the first half of this 6 hour extravaganza was a performance of Gilbert & Sullivan's comic opera Trial By Jury. The first of the Savoy operas, it had been an instant success in 1875 and fast became a standard through revivals and theatrical benefits, its brevity and light wit making it an ideal centrepiece. By 1906, the songs, dialogue and traditions of performing Trial By Jury were as familiar as The Last Night of the Proms today.

Gilbert himself (as on this occasion) played The Associate at several benefits and, in joining the all-male Jury, Conan Doyle participated in a tradition that populated the court with notable guest appearances. Some were actors; most were not, and part of the fun was spotting them amongst the jury and bridesmaids, on the seats by Council or Bench and in the crowded court.

Conan Doyle had, of course, lectured and given readings in major theatres and prestigious settings at home and abroad. This was something different - a dramatic role. Even a minor part in a G & S benefit before several thousand people at Drury Lane must concentrate the mind wonderfully. Watch these few minutes of a 1953 (traditional) production for a taste of what Doyle's part entailed.

For further familiarity with the opera you can read the vocal score on line HERE .

Doyle's Fellow Players.

Copies of the programme survive and faithfully name everyone involved in the production. There is a special frisson of interest in the lists of committees & performers for Doyle and Sherlock Holmes enthusiasts.

Alongside ACD on the General Committee sat Charles Frohman. James Welch & Seymour Hicks served on both General & Executive committees. Welch had recently (1902) directed the popular Holmes parody Sheerluck Jones at Terry's Theatre. Hicks has gone down in history as the co-author and (first) Doctor Watson in 1893's Under the Clock revue. His wife, Ellaline Terriss (friend and associate of Frohman and Gilbert) will perform later in the show.

On stage with ACD in a seat by Council is Sydney Grundy who wrote the play A Pair of Spectacles in which Sir John Hare created the role Sherlock Holmes makes reference to in A Scandal in Bohemia. Gilbert Hare (John's son) is one of the Crowd in Court.

With Gilbert Hare stands C. Aubrey Smith who, apart from playing cricket against ACD, is to become a close friend of Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, appearing as the Elderly Gent on Train in Terror by Night years later.

Most deliciously is the presence in court of not one but two Napoleons of Crime. Rubbing shoulders in the Court Crowd are Gillette's Moriarty, W L Abingdon, and Arthur Wontner's nemesis, Lyn Harding.

I'll return briefly to Conan Doyle but the rest of the programme and the significance of Terry's Jubilee in that time of great transition are too striking to ignore.

Highlights of the Jubilee Programme.

All credit to Bram Stoker and his associate Drury Lane managers for mounting a production of unparalleled length and lavish complexity. The logistics are military in scale. A veritable Hydra of egos (noble and celebrity) to be reconciled. Non-actors backstage. And even further behind the scenes disagreement, prejudice and the over-arching bitter-sweetness of it all, for (as Terry acknowledged that afternoon) the absence of that other national treasure, Sir Henry Irving, was keenly felt. Plans had been discussed for their joint Jubilee but he had passed away the previous October. His son, known as H B Irving, joined Ellen Terry on stage in the second half performance of Much Ado's first act. He will act with Basil Rathbone 8 years later at The Savoy and found Our Society (London's Murder Club) with Conan Doyle.

On the day there's no doubt it was a roaring success. Here is The Times response: "Some thousands of Londoners devoted what was virtually the whole of a working day to a theatrical debauch. From shortly after noon to six o'clock they filled Drury Lane with a riot of enthusiasm, a torrent of emotion, a hurly-burly of excitement, 'thunders of applause.' They cheered 'til they were hoarse, laughed to the verge of hysteria, and sang 'Auld Lang Syne' in chorus, not without tears." The Times commentator added, "For half a century Ellen Terry has been appealing to our hearts. Whatever the anti-sentimentalists might say, that is the simple truth.…A creature of the full-blooded, naïve emotions she excites those emotions in us."

Please now download and open this Archive.org  pdf file of the University of California's copy of the souvenir programme. I just have one or two further observations. HERE

To Harry Fragson, music hall singer and comedian, went the honour of opening the show after the overture. HERE he is in 1906 singing 'Sapho'.  Shortly before his death in 1913 (murdered by his insane father) he recorded his best known song Hello, Hello, Who's Your Lady Friend?' An equally famous comedian, George Graves, will cover the scene change (compere-style) after ACD's spot. Imagine the Edwardian equivalent of Les Dawson - Graves was well loved as 'the pillar of Drury Lane at Christmastime' in pantomime. 

'Trial by Jury' was preceded by a great English actress, Mrs Patrick Campbell (speaking HERE on the art of dramatic speech) and followed by a great French actor, Coquelin (with his son). Bernhardt's male lead on Broadway, this legendary Cyrano de Bergerac had but three years to live.

I urge the reader to follow the link at the foot of this post to Nina Auerbach's superbly illuminating chapter in 'Ellen Terry: Player in her Time' on the Terry family disagreements, gender prejudice and historical significance of Terry's Jubilee. Suffice it to note here that, without Ellen Terry's intervention, she would have been the only female on or off stage. A revealing, astounding story.

For now, please note in the Tableaux Vivants such delicacies as vi. Rival Beauties featuring Constance Collier and Edna May in a scene arranged by Alma-Tadema. Imagine too the awe with which the assembly must have witnessed Lily Langtry revealed as Cleopatra.

Scenes from plays (The Rivals & Much Ado) bestride the impossibly short interval of twelve minutes (during which, one presumes, ACD and others took their reserved seats to watch...

Clan Terry and Ellen herself play the first act of Shakespeare's play. The red indicators in the programme are a printed guide to the actress's family. See the lovely Edmund Gwenn as Balthazar? 

How to follow Terry? Answer - Enrico Caruso who has travelled from Italy with the great composer, Paulo Tosti, here to accompany the tenor in (I believe) the Toreador Song from Carmen. Caruso created the part of  Don José in San Francisco the night before the great earthquake, in April 1906. Here he is (please read the uploader's notes):

Finally here, I would draw your attention to the list of other attendees at the closing Reception - Madame Duse.

As Auerbach records, Terry was very moved by Eleanora Duse's presence. Often ill, the great Italian actress (Bernhardt's rival), had travelled from Florence. She did not need to take the stage - she carried one with her everywhere she went.

One last recording before I return to Conan Doyle. Here is Ellen Terry herself as Portia in 1923:

Conan Doyle Juryman.

In the course of my research I found a link to the boisestate.edu list of D'Oyly Carte productions of Trial by Jury. When you click on the link provided, scroll to the Drury Lane production and left click the photo of W S Gilbert as Associate. A pop-up appears which is a photograph of the whole jury. I must assume it to be one of the cast photographs taken that day by The Dover Studio (see programme credits). If my assumption is correct, one of the twelve is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Actor. 

For my own purposes I used my clipping tool to capture the image so I might magnify it. I shall not reproduce that here. You may wish to do the same. I am down to two potential ACD's on zoom and should be interested to hear any comments on this photograph. I have never seen it before. CLICK HERE .

For the Auerbach chapter on the Terry Jubilee: CLICK HERE . You may need to scroll the Google extract up to the chapter opening.

I close this post with a quotation from Ellen Terry that applies equally (in its first part) to Conan Doyle. Her Jubilee Motto:

      “And one man in his life plays many parts”

                             (And so does a woman!)

Post Script.

Troopers that they were, at the end of a tiring and emotional afternoon, many of the professional cast walked  to work from Drury Lane to their respective theatres - Terry (with some relief) too. She was glad finally to lose herself in the character of Lady Cicely Waynflete in Shaw's 'Captain Brassbound's Conversion' at The Court Theatre. 

ACD's presence on that all-male jury carries its own bittersweet irony in view of the fact his wife, Touie, was already fatally ill and would pass away on July 4th. For him, as for many another, at the very moment of celebrating continuity, life was irrevocably changing.


    

 Ray Wilcockson 2013.