Sherlockians have long recognized the wisdom and practical utility of the “Sacred Writings,” the four novels and fifty-six stories that comprise the Sherlock Holmes canon. This letter from Baker Street Irregulars founder Christopher Morley (1890-1957) to Edgar W. Smith (1894-1960), a vice-president of the General Motors Export Company and prominent Baker Street Irregular, illustrates a novel application of the canon to the sacrament of marriage. Contemplating a finer point of etiquette on the eve of his daughter Helen’s wedding, Morley took down his copy of the first American edition of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes for help – specifically, to examine the frontispiece illustration of a wedding scene by Sidney Paget for “The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor.” “We have just checked, in the frontispiece of the old Harper edn of The Adventures, the perfect demeanor of arm and hand (illus. for the Noble Bachelor). So do the Sacred Writings shew still another usefulness.”
Harper’s edition of The Adventures features a curious design blocked and printed in dark blue on the cover, at the center of which is a Gordian knot. Morley carefully deciphers the design in the second paragraph, hoping that Smith might make use of it in a future publication of Pamphlet House, his private imprint. In a suprascript he indicates that he has shared a carbon of the letter with Vincent Starrett (1886-1974), another prominent Sherlockian. As Morley pondered the significance of the Gordian knot that day at Green Escape, his daughter prepared to tie a new one.
This letter is one of many exchanged between Morley (writing as Shinwell “Porky” Johnson from “The Illustrious Client”) and Smith (as Dr. Thorneycroft Huxtable from “The Priory School”) in the Baker Street Irregulars archive at Houghton Library.
This post is part of a weekly feature on the Houghton Library blog, “You’ve Got Mail,” based on letters in Houghton Library. Every Friday this year a Houghton staff member will select a letter from the diverse collections in the Library and put that letter into context. All posts associated with this series may be viewed by clicking on the You’veGotMail tag.
[Thanks to Peter Accardo, Coordinator of Programs, for contributing this post.]