Just about a year ago, the Sherlockian world was buzzing with people talking about a new podcast, Sherlock Mondays, from The Rosenbach Museum and Library in Philadelphia. Manager of Public Programs, Ed Pettit was going to host a weekly discussion with a rotating cast of noted Sherlockians live each week on YouTube to discuss the stories we all love. I will admit that I only watched one, as YouTube isn't my preferred way to spend time. But when I discovered the episodes are also in an audio format, I downloaded a few to check them out. I fully admit that I am late to this party, but these discussions are SO GOOD!
And the biggest reason for this great show is Ed Pettit. I'm going to presume that most readers here have watched or listened to some episodes of Sherlock Mondays, so I'll be preaching to the choir here when I say that Ed is a charming and engaging host of this show. I got to meet Ed in person last January and can attest that his energy and interest in the Sherlockian world goes beyond those sessions. He's very active in the Philadelphia scion society, The Sons of the Copper Beeches, is a member of other groups, has consulted on a Sherlockian book, has given scores of Sherlockian presentations at The Rosenbach, and most interestingly hosted Sherlockian reading groups, game nights, and cocktail parties. As you'll see below, Ed Pettit is a guy you want to spend time with!
How do you define the word “Sherlockian”?
If you enjoy Sherlock Holmes and want to further explore the universes in which those stories occur, then you’re a Sherlockian. All gates and doors are open, just enter and engage. So you can be a Sherlockian who primarily engages in just movies or TV adaptations. But for me, all Sherlockians exist in two types: those who have read all of Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes adventures and those who have yet to read all of Doyle’s Sherlock. And as much as I love talking to Sherlockians who have read everything (and then some), it’s actually those who are still reading the stories for the first time whom I envy. That’s the Sherlockian I wish I could always be.
How did you become a Sherlockian?
I think it was a gradual process. Sherlock Holmes stories in
movies and books were always there for me. Sherlock has a strong presence in
popular culture, so I think I always engaged in small ways with Sherlock.
However, around the time when the Granada Holmes TV series with Jeremy Brett
was first airing in the U.S. (I was around 19 or 20), my Dad gave me a complete
Strand edition with the Paget illustrations. My Dad wasn’t a Sherlockian,
although he likely read some of the stories. I think he just found the book on
the discount table at a big bookstore and thought I would like it. And I read the stories and LOVED them,
especially in their facsimile format. It was almost like encountering the
stories like the first readers did. This was a world I wanted to be in. But what I can’t remember is if I started
reading the stories, then discovered Jeremy Brett, or if I saw some Brett
episodes and then started reading. The discovery of both is intertwined in my
memory.
My deeper involvement as a Sherlockian came when I became a member of the Philadelphia scion society, The Sons of the Copper Beeches several years ago. I am now a Master Copper-Beech-Smith and the Recorder of Pedigrees for the SoCB. For many years, Steve Rothman had suggested I join, but I always hesitated because the group was male-only in those days, and I didn’t want to belong to a gender-segregated organization. The first meeting I attended was the first one that allowed women to participate and I have been keenly involved ever since.
What is your profession and does that affect how you enjoy being a Sherlockian?
I create public programs for a rare book museum in Philadelphia, The Rosenbach Museum & Library, with an astounding collection of books and manuscripts. For the Rosenbach, I’ve hosted literary-themed cocktail parties, organized marathon readings of Moby-Dick and Dracula, set up reading courses for a many works of literature, interviewed authors, and on and on. But these days, I mostly create web-series called Biblioventures, featuring works from our collections. Over the past few years, I’ve hosted shows on Dracula, Frankenstein, Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, The Pickwick Papers, and Sherlock Holmes (As you can see my interests lie in the 19th Century; I didn’t grow this beard for nothing), in which cohosts and I talk about books serially, over many weeks, or months, in a kind of “conversational annotation.” Most of these shows also feature cocktails, and I smoke my pipe throughout all of them (the benefits of hosting them from my home office). Basically, my job is to drink, smoke, and talk about books.
Our founder, Dr. Rosenbach, also collected (and sold) ACD’s works and we have Doyle’s manuscript of “The Adventure of the Empty House,” as well as correspondence from Baker Street Irregular founders Christopher Morley and Edgar Smith, and Vincent Starrett. So creating a Biblioventure series that highlighted this part of our collection was really exciting for me. More on Sherlock Mondays below. But basically, part of my job is getting to play in the Sherlock universe (and get paid for it).
What is your favorite canonical story?
I think my favorite short story is still “The Man with the Twisted Lip,” but that may be because it was also my favorite Jeremy Brett episode. I love what it says about identity and creativity. Neville St. Clair is a “legitimate” journalist who finds a way to make more money playing the beggar Hugh Boone. I think there’s something going on there in Doyle’s subconscious as a serious historical novelist who makes even more money creating his Sherlock Holmes adventures. I don’t think Doyle was ashamed of his Sherlockian output, but he was certainly bemused and sometimes annoyed that his most successful work was not literarily important. Also, whenever I need to use a pseudonym, I use Hugh Boone. One time I submitted poetry to a magazine (whose main editor I knew) as Hugh Boone, so he would give me honest feedback. “Blue Carbuncle” and “Scandal in Bohemia” also rank very high because they are perfectly constructed narratives.
My favorite novel is probably still The Sign of the Four. I think Hound is likely a better novel as a work of fiction, but the world Doyle evokes in Sign, the characters, the backstory about the stolen treasure, the chase at the end, are still very thrilling. It’s the adventure I want to go on with Sherlock and Watson. And I would definitely smoke the hookah with Thaddeus Sholto.
Who is a specific Sherlockian that you think others would
find interesting?
I’ve met so many over the years and pound-for-pound Sherlockians might be the most interesting people of all the many literary fan groups I’ve been part of. Such a rich diversity of minds. Attending scion meetings, or the BSI weekend, I am always excited to just listen to everyone tell their stories. The Sherlockian whom I am getting to know right now is Olivia Rutigliano, BSI and editor at LitHub and CrimeReads. She’s cohosted a couple of special Sherlock Mondays episodes on detective stories that were published when Doyle stopped writing Sherlock stories after “The Final Problem.” Olivia is so brilliant and knows so much about 19th Century literature (she’s going to be cohost on my next Biblioventures series called Monsters and Ghosts, featuring Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and A Christmas Carol). Ask her about lady detective stories. You won’t be sorry. With that said, I’d also have to say the most interesting Sherlockian to me will be the next one I meet.
What subset of Sherlockiana really interests you?
I’m a literary historian, so I’m always interested in the publication and reception of Doyle’s works and how their literary reputation has developed over time. Because of this, I rarely play The Game. I enjoy reading what others write in Game-mode, but I’m too invested in Doyle as an author to do this myself. I’m also a big fan of genre crossover adaptations, especially with monsters or science fiction (Monstrum Opus of SherlockHolmes, Campbell and Prepolec’s anthologies like Gaslight Grimoire and Gaslight Grotesque).
How did Sherlock Mondays come about?
During the Covid pandemic, I had to work at home and figure out ways to continue public programs for the Rosenbach. Thus, Sundays with Dracula was born. We have a substantial Bram Stoker collection at the Rosenbach, including Stoker’s research notes for Dracula. So I hosted a weekly show with rotating cohosts, talking about one chapter per week of the novel. I also brought in special guests (Leslie Klinger, Kim Newman, David Skal, Sir Christopher Fraying, and Mark Gatiss) for some of the episodes and created a signature cocktail for every show. This show was such a success that we continued with other novels from our collections. Because I have to invest so much of myself into these shows (they are very personality driven), I need to choose books I can live with and be interested in talking about for months on end. So, all of the books so far have also been personal favorites of mine.
Sherlock Holmes stories were a perfect fit for the show because of both our collection and my own interests. Sherlock Mondays began in September 2023 and streamed live for 40 episodes, all free to watch on theRosenbach’s YouTube channel (except for eight eps on The Hound of the Baskervilles, which were subscription only). We had great BSI member cohosts and special guests, who I think all may have been interviewed here on this blog over the years (Anastasia Klimchynskaya, Mary Alcaro, Monica Schmidt, Curtis Armstrong, Scott Monty, Burt Wolder, Leslie Klinger, Mark Jones, Paul Chapman, Steve Doyle, Max Magee). And Mary Alcaro, a great mixologist, created all the Sher-locktails for the program. I also smoked a different pipe for every episode. In effect, I got paid to talk about Sherlock Holmes for 40 weeks this year (and drank my way through it all!). We covered everything from A Study in Scarlet through the “Empty House,” in published order, and now the show will become Sherlock Monthly, starting in November 2024. We’ll pick up with “The Norwood Builder,” and every month I’ll have a different cohost to talk about a story with me. To finish the Canon, this will probably take about three years. Yes, I realize how lucky I am.
What are some of your favorite moments from Sherlock
Mondays so far?
I love it best when the cohosts and I go down rabbit-holes about details and that happened on almost every episode. But honestly, because I do the show live for over 30 weeks in a row, they kind of blend together in my head. There’s no post production and just as one ends, I am working on the next one, so I get no time to reflect on what we’ve done. It’s always about what’s next (and for me that will be Jekyll and Hyde which begins on September 23, 2024).
What book would you recommend to other Sherlockians?
Even though Les Klinger’s New Annotated Sherlock is the gold standard for Sherlockian books, I still get a visceral pleasure rereading William Baring-Gould’s Annotated Sherlock. I can only imagine what it was like for its first readers. Nothing like this had ever been written for a fictional universe. If you are a new Sherlockian, I think this is the one book to get.
And if you are an already deeply committed Sherlockian and you haven’t read Doyle’s other works yet, I would recommend, his gothic/supernatural stories. You can find lots of different editions of these. My favorite is probably Gothic Tales edited by Darryl Jones for Oxford University Press, but there’s also the excellent Tales of Unease collection, edited by David Stuart Davies for Wordsworth. Doyle was a brilliant writer of scary stories.
Where do you see Sherlockiana in 5 or 10 years from now?
I think it will continue as it has been, becoming more and
more open to all kinds of different people with different tastes and viewpoints.
Sherlockiana used to be a white male world adept at gatekeeping. And that’s not
unique to Sherlock. This has been the case for most reading communities from
Shakespeare to Austen to Dickens to Doyle. Their devoted readers wanted to keep
their authors to themselves and frowned upon interlopers. I see that kind of
gatekeeping disappearing rapidly over the years, especially as works that were
formerly considered “popular culture” have completely crashed into the world of
canonical literature. The result is a far richer place where we have the
opportunity to experience new and exciting viewpoints that come from readers,
not just trained specialists.
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| Ed with his wife and five daughters |
