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 |
