I needed a topic to talk about for a scion meeting this month, so I thought a quick rundown of the history of the title change in "The Reigate Squires" would be an easy one. Maybe define the word for other boorish Americans and quote some folks. Easy peasy. But just to make sure I wasn't missing anything that was common knowledge with apocryphal story of the name change, I told my wife I needed just a few minutes with my books to check some things.
Over the years, there has been plenty of confusion with the title of the seventh case in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. Is it "The Reigate Squires" or should "Squires" be singular? And haven't I seen it listed as "The Reigate Puzzle"? Turns out, it's an international dispute.
According to D. Martin Dakin's entry for this story in A Sherlock Holmes Commentary:
"This first appeared in The Strand as The Reigate Squire (singular); but evidently soon after, this name struck Watson as inappropriate for the two men concerned, and in The Memoirs it was changed to The Reigate Squires. In the American editions it has usually been altered to The Reigate Puzzle: it is believed that the first American editors feared that the word 'Squires' would be offensive or even incomprehensible to the Sons of the Free."
Thinking on Dakin's quote, I have to admit that it felt off because in GREE, Holmes famously told Watson that “My ancestors were country squires, who appear to have led much the same life as is natural to their class." Why can Americans be expected to understand it in this context but not in a story's title?
But Dakin's theory has been the explanation given for as long as I can remember. And like many other things in Sherlockiana, I've trusted those that have come before me as they are always smarter than me and usually correct.
And only one page of the manuscript exists, and that isn't the title page. So we can't go to the source material for this one. So I delved a little deeper into this, and came across an article from Baker Street Miscellanea, Number 35, Autumn 1983. Ann Byerly reports that in Sidney Paget's account book from March 1893 says "7 drawings S.H. (Reigate Puzzle)".
It seemed odd that Paget would use "Puzzle," but that could be brushed away as Paget is connected with so many Sherlock Holmes stories. Surely his contact at the American magazine, Harper's Weekly, reported this title to him at some point.
But Paget didn't illustrate the American edition.
As with so many Sherlock Holmes stories published in The Strand magazine, Sydney Paget illustrated the tale. But Harper's Weekly in America commissioned W. H. Hyde for two illustrations. There is no connection between the British illustrator and the American title.
So why would Sydney Paget refer to this story as "The Reigate Puzzle"?
Byer posited in her article that Doyle originally titled the story "Puzzle" but after sending his submission to America, changed his mind and changed the manuscript title to "Squire." Four years after this article was published, Richard Lancelyn Green stated the same theory in his essay on the story in The Baker Street Dozen. Lancelyn Green hypothesized that Doyle wrote to The Strand editor and requested the title be changed. (Constantine Rossakis later told me in an email that Green changed his mind, but I've yet to see documentation on that point.)
(Lancelyn Green also pointed out that there can only be one squire, as The Oxford English Dictionary defines the word "squire" as meaning "one who is the chief land-owner, magistrate, or lawyer in a district." So the plural edition that we've all been using is incorrect. Confused yet? Me too.)
At the time of this writing, I have spent two hours in this rabbit hole and have dug through: A Sherlock Holmes Commentary, Baker Street Miscellanea, The Baker Street Dozen, From Holmes to Sherlock, The Oxford Annotated edition of The Memoirs, The Sherlock Holmes Reference Library edition of The Memoirs, The Baker Street Journal, The Green Bag Almanac, a few emails, and numerous websites. So much for "just a few minutes with my books."
After all of this, you know what I've come up with?
The American title is the right one and the British version is incorrect. USA! USA! USA!
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