The Early Punch Parodies of Sherlock Holmes

Introduction

This book is a result of hubris. Originally, I intended to publish only the 17 Picklock Holes stories, annotated, along with an essay about R.C. Rudie Lehmann and Punch magazine.

But as I started searching through the back issues, I found that Punch did more than treat the Great Detective like a hand puppet for the amusement of its readers. It reviewed Conan Doyle’s books and used his creation as a yardstick to measure his fictional rivals. It praised his patriotic turns and laughed immodestly when he said that fairies existed. It seems as if Punch treated Conan Doyle like a fictional character, and Sherlock Holmes as if he was real.

Much like the rest of us.

Then I came across two P.G. Wodehouse parodies, written when he had narrowly escaped from a ruinous career in finance at the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank on Lombard Street. A lifelong affection for Holmes and Conan Doyle did not keep him from borrowing his friend’s creation for his own purposes. Maybe, I thought, I could throw them in as well. Then I read his song about Holmes and an article about William Gillette boxing with New York’s upper crust at a party. Let’s add them to the mix as well. Plum interviewing Conan Doyle? Great, even if it was for another long-defunct magazine.

That inspired the fatal idea: Did Punch do anything else with Holmes and Conan Doyle? By this time, I was hooked. I learned that Conan Doyle debuted in Punch, not because of Holmes, but for a short story about a romance gone wrong. A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of the Four was ignored, but not a patriotic poem he wrote opposing the sale of Admiral Horatio Nelson’s flagship to the Germans.

Then Punch met The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and it was love at first sight. Satire needs popular icons; simplified versions of people and institutions with most of their flesh boiled away, but still strong enough to be instantly recognizable and bear the weight of the jokes. Holmes’ amazing deductive ability, forbidding demeanor, cocksureness and toys (the pipe! the Stradivarius! the deerstalker!) made him adaptable to any need a writer might have. Holmes could play the hero, straight man, and fool. Best of all, being immortal, he’d never wear out.

Leaving Conan Doyle upstaged by his creation, a role he would play, bitterly at times, for the rest of his life. Hi-ho, as Kurt Vonnegut said.

Punch’s relationship with Conan Doyle varied between admiration and gentle satire. Many on the staff remembered his illustrator uncle, Richard. The magazine had used his cover illustration for decades, so they would already be inclined to treat Conan Doyle kindly.

It helped that he was a good writer. With a few exceptions, Punch’s reviewers loved his books. Also, Conan Doyle, like Punch, was loyal to the Empire. During the Boer War, he risked his health to oversee a field hospital in South Africa and made enemies in the hidebound military for advocating reforms based on the lessons learned in the war. He used his pen to defend Britain against her enemies for which he would receive a knighthood.

He also rarely engaged in public activities that could provide useful fodder for satire. When he was irritated by the self-promoting antics of popular novelist Hall Caine, Conan Doyle sent an anonymous letter of complaint to a newspaper, but he told the editor to give Caine his name should he want to know who wrote it.

It was Conan Doyle’s advocacy for spiritualism in 1917 that changed Punch’s attitude. His embrace of the faked Cottingley Fairies photos made him look foolish. Finally, the writers had something new to hang their punch lines on, and they took full advantage of it.

So when you dip into this book expecting a series of Sherlockian parodies, you’ll find more. You’ll see Conan Doyle as he appeared through Punch’s skewed lens. You’ll see the ways Sherlock Holmes was portrayed, from the butt of jokes to the embodiment of all that was good in the Empire. Plus, you’ll discover a glimpse of Imperial Britain at its height, confident in itself and its future.

And a few laughs, too.

About the Articles

The Early Punch Parodies of Sherlock Holmes reprints most of the articles, stories, cartoons, briefs, and columns that mentioned Sherlock Holmes and Conan Doyle in chronological order. Not every appearance was noted. Some brief mentions were omitted, as were the reviews of mystery novels that simply compared the detective’s abilities to Holmes, nearly always unfavorably to the work in question.

The English spelling of most words were retained. Some minor editing was made for the sake of clarity. Some captions were replaced with typeset versions to make them readable.

Articles appear under their own titles if available. Some appeared without a title in one of two columns: Our Booking-Office for book reviews and Charivaria that consisted of short items. Titles were supplied where necessary. Conan Doyle is referred to as ACD in the introductions. Publication dates and further information about titles can be found in the Source Notes at the end of the book.

Acknowledgements

Finally, a word of thanks goes out to these people without whom this book would have remained a dream: Andre Gailani of Punch Ltd. for efficiently arranging for permission to publish excerpts from that wonderful (and lamented) magazine; Scott Harkless, my research assistant on the 223B Casebook project; Denise Phillips of the Hershey Public Library for obtaining needed books; and Teresa Peschel, my editor and wise advisor.

—Bill Peschel

Hershey, Pa.

1890

A Physiologist’s Wife

Punch did not review A Study in Scarlet upon its appearance in Beeton’s Christmas Annual in 1887 or in book form in July 1888. It also ignored The Sign of the Four when it appeared in February 1890. Instead, it was a short story about an eminent researcher’s love affair gone ironically wrong that drew a mention in Our Booking-Office. At the end of lengthy praise for George Sims’ mystery The Case of George Candlemas, the reviewer

. . . highly recommends this story, as he also does a short tale in Blackwood, for this month, entitled A Physiologist’s Wife, by A. Conan Doyle.

1892

The Fighting ‘Foudroyant’

ACD joined in the indignation at the news that one of Admiral Horatio Nelson’s flagships, H.M.S. Foudroyant, was going to be scrapped. Worse, it was going to be sold to a German businessman! The wooden sailing ship was outdated and falling apart, but patriotic Britons considered the sale to a foreigner to be a national insult. On Sept. 12, The Daily Chronicle published a poem from ACD, For Nelson’s Sake, H.M.S. Foudroyant, that began:

Who says the Nation’s purse is lean,

Who fears for claim or bond or debt,

When all the glories that have been

Are scheduled as a cash asset?

If times are bleak and trade is slack,

If coal and cotton fail at last,

We’ve something left to barter yet—

Our glorious past.

Punch took up the cause with a poem of its own that was equally full of fire and fervor. It followed ACD’s line of a nation selling off its history and references J.M.W. Turner’s painting of the Temeraire being pulled to the ship breaker’s yard:

"Great Turner has pictured the old Temeraire

Tugged to her last berth. Why the sun and the air

In that soul-stirring canvas, seem fired with the glory

Of such a brave ship, with so splendid a story!

Well, look on that picture, my lads, and on this!

And—no, do not crack out a curse like a hiss,

But with stout Conan Doyle—he has passion and grip!—

Demand that they give us back Nelson’s old Ship!"

In the end, the anonymous Punch scribe pleaded that the Foudroyant be preserved alongside Nelson’s other flagship Victory:

"While a rag, or a timber, or spar, she can boast,

A place of prime honour on Albion’s coast

Should be hers and the Victory’s! Let us not say,

Like the fish-hucksters, "Memories are cheap, Sir, to-day!"

The campaign succeeded when a British businessman bought the Foudroyant. It was used as a training ship for boys until 1897, when a storm drove it onto the beach at Blackpool. The Foudroyant was broken apart and its wood used for, among other things, furniture, souvenirs, and the wall paneling for the Blackpool football club’s boardroom.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes received a positive review, with some odd reservations, from the Baron de B.-W., the non de plume of Our Booking-Office. Charles, his Friend, referred to a character type in the theatre (who would appear in the program that way) whose sole purpose was to stand by and admire the hero. It would not be the last time that Watson’s role in the stories would be seen this way.

By this time, Holmes was already part of the cultural currency, his name a by-word as a solver of mysteries. In the Essence of Parliament column (Feb. 11, 1893), when a member of the House of Commons disappears, the writer mused that it is evidently a case for Sherlock Holmes; must place it in his hands.

The title of Mr. Conan Doyle’s new book, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, is incomplete without the addition of, And the D.D., or Dummy Doctor, who plays a part in the narratives analogous to that of Charles, his Friend, on the stage. The book is, in many respects, a thriller, reminding one somewhat of The Diary of a Late Physician, by Samuel Warren. This volume is handsomely got up—too handsomely—and profusely, too profusely, illustrated. For both romancer and reader, such stories are better un-illustrated. A sensational picture attracts, and distracts. In this collection, the Baron can recommend The Beryl Coronet, The Red-Headed League, The Copper Beeches, and The Speckled Band. The best time for reading any one of these stories is the last thing at night, before turning in. At such an hour, try ‘The Speckled Band,’ and see how you like it, says the Bold Baron.

1893

The Bishop’s Crime

R.C. Lehmann

In June 1891, the first Holmes short story, A Scandal in Bohemia, appeared in The Strand Magazine. Three months later, the first parody, My Evening With Sherlock Holmes, by J.M. Barrie, no less, appeared in The Speaker. A trickle of stories followed, but it was Punch’s R.C. Rudie Lehmann who first saw the possibility of creating a series of parodies modeled after the first book. Lehmann wrote eight stories in this cycle, eight more in 1903 and ’04, and added the capstone in 1918, just as ACD did.

I was sitting alone in my room at 10.29 on the night of the 14th of last November. I had been doing a good deal of work lately, and I was tired. Moreover, I had had more than one touch of that old Afghan fever, which always seemed to be much more inclined to touch than to go. However, we can’t have everything here to please us; and as I had only the other day attended two bankers and a Lord Mayor for measles, I had no real cause to complain of my prospects. I had drawn the old armchair in which I was sitting close to the fire, and, not having any bread handy, I was occupied in toasting my feet at the blaze when suddenly the clock on the mantelpiece struck the half hour, and Picklock Holes stood by my side. I was too much accustomed to his proceedings to express any surprise at seeing him thus, but I own that I was itching to ask him how he had managed to get into my house without ringing the bell. However, I refrained, and motioned him to a chair.

My friend, said this extraordinary man, without the least preface, you’ve been smoking again. You know you have; it’s not the least use denying it. I absolutely gasped with astonishment, and gazed at him almost in terror. How had he guessed my secret? He read my thoughts and smiled.

"Oh, simply enough. That spot on your shirt-cuff is black. But it might have been yellow, or green, or blue, or brown, or rainbow-coloured. But I know you smoke Rainbow mixture, and as your canary there in the corner has just gone blind, I know further that bird’s-eye is one of the component parts of the mixture."

Holes, I cried, dropping my old meerschaum out of my mouth in my amazement; I don’t believe you’re a man at all—you’re a devil.

Thank you for the compliment, he replied, without moving a muscle of his marble face. You ought not to sup— He was going to have added pose, but the first syllable seemed to suggest a new train of thought (in which, I may add, there was no second class whatever) to my inexplicable friend.

No, he said; "the devilled bones were not good. Don’t interrupt me; you had devilled bones for supper, or rather you would have had them, only you didn’t like them. Do you see that match? A small piece is broken off the bottom, but enough is left to show it was once a lucifer—in other words, a devil. It is lying at the feet of the skeleton which you use for your anatomical investigations, and therefore I naturally conclude that you had devilled bones for supper. You didn’t eat them, for not a single bone of the skeleton is missing. Do I make myself clear?"

You do, I said, marvelling more than ever at the extraordinary perspicacity of the man. As a matter of fact, my supper had consisted of bread and cheese; but I felt it would be in extremely bad taste for a struggling medical practitioner like myself to contradict a detective whose fame had extended to the ends of the earth. I picked up my pipe, and relit it, and, for a few moments, we sat in silence. At last I ventured to address him.

Anything new? I said.

No, not exactly new, he said, wearily, passing his sinewy hand over his expressionless brow. "Have you a special Evening Standard? I conclude you have, as I see no other evening papers here. Do you mind handing it to me?"

There was no deceiving this weird creature. I took the paper he mentioned from my study table, and handed it to him.

Now listen, said Holes, and then read in a voice devoid of any sign of emotion, the following paragraph:—This morning, as Mrs. Drabley, a lady of independent means, was walking in Piccadilly, she inadvertently stepped on a piece of orange-peel, and fell heavily on the pavement. She was carried into the shop of Messrs. Salver and Tankard, the well-known silversmiths, and it was at first thought she had broken her right leg. However, on being examined by a medical man who happened to be passing, she was pronounced to be suffering from nothing worse than a severe bruise, and, in the course of half-an-hour, she recovered sufficiently to be able to proceed on her business. This is the fifth accident caused by orange-peel at the same place within the last week.

"It is scandalous! I broke in. This mania for dropping orange-peel is decimating London. Curiously enough I happen to be the medical man who—"

Yes, I know; you are the medical man who was passing.

Holes, I ejaculated, you are a magician.

No, not a magician; only a humble seeker after truth, who uses as a basis of his deduction some slight point that others are too blind to grasp. Now you think the matter ends there. I don’t. I mean to discover who dropped that orange-peel. Will you help me?

Of course I will, but how do you mean to proceed? There must be thousands of people who eat oranges every day in London.

Be accurate, my dear fellow, whatever you do. There are 78,965, not counting girls. But this piece was not dropped by a girl.

How do you know?

Never mind; it is sufficient that I do know it. Read this, he continued, pointing to another column of the paper. This is what I read:—

Missionary Enterprise.—A great conference of American and Colonial bishops was held in Exeter Hall this afternoon. The proceedings opened with an impassioned speech from the Bishop of Florida—

Never mind the rest, said Holes, that’s quite enough. Now read this:—

The magnificent silver bowl to be presented to the Bishop of Florida by some of his English friends is now on view at Messrs. Salver and Tankard’s in Piccadilly. It is a noble specimen of the British silversmith’s art. An elaborate description followed.

These paragraphs, continued Holes in his usual impassive manner, give me the clue I want. Florida is an orange-growing country. Let us call on the Bishop.

In a moment we had put on our hats, and in another moment we were in a Hansom on our way to the Bishop’s lodgings in Church Street, Soho. Holes gained admittance by means of his skeleton key. We passed noiselessly up the stairs, and, without knocking, entered the Bishop’s bedroom. He was in his nightgown, and the sight of two strangers visibly alarmed him.

I am a detective, began Holes.

Oh, said the Bishop, turning pale.

Then I presume you have called about that curate who disappeared in the alligator swamp close to my Episcopal palace in Florida. It is not true that I killed him. He—

Tush, said Holes, we are come about weightier matters. This morning at half-past eleven your lordship was standing outside the shop of Salver and Tankard looking at your presentation bowl. You were eating an orange. You stowed the greater part of the peel in your coat-tail pocket, but you dropped, maliciously dropped, one piece on the pavement. Shortly afterwards a stout lady passing by trod on it and fell. Have you anything to say?

The Bishop made a movement, but Holes was before-hand with him. He dashed to a long black coat that hung behind the door, inserted his hand deftly in the pocket, and pulled out the fragmentary remains of a large Florida orange.

As I supposed, he said, a piece is missing.

But the miserable prelate had fallen senseless on the floor, where we left him.

Holes, I said, this is one of your very best. How on earth did you know you would find that orange-peel in his coat?

I didn’t find it there, replied my friend; I brought it with me, and had it in my hand when I put it in his pocket. I knew I should have to use strong measures with so desperate a character. My dear fellow, all these matters require tact and imagination.

And that was how we brought home the orange-peel to the Bishop.

The Duke’s Feather

R.C. Lehmann

The opening of the second installment in the Holes cycle refers to the political upheavals in the Russian Empire. Tsar Alexander III came to the throne in 1881 after his father was assassinated by Nihilists, an anarchist movement that rejects all authority. The tsar turned his country inwards, rejecting all things Western and his secret police were dedicated to eradicating anyone who posed a threat to the autocracy.

Holes’ involvement with the Russian Czar parallels Holmes’ dealings with royalty. From the King of Bohemia in A Scandal in Bohemia, Holmes requested a photo of Irene Adler; from the Czar, Holes asked for a gold-chased drug injector.

Two months had passed without my hearing a word of Holes. I knew he had been summoned to Irkoutsk by the Czar of Russia in order to help in investigating the extraordinary theft of one of the Government silver mines, which had completely and mysteriously disappeared in one night. All the best intellects of the terrible secret police, the third section of the Government of the Russian Empire, had exhausted themselves in the vain endeavour to probe this mystery to the bottom. Their failure had produced a dangerous commotion in the Empire of the Czar; there were rumours of a vast Nihilist plot, which was to shake the Autocracy to its foundations, and, as a last resource, the Czar, who had been introduced to Holes by Oloa Fiaskoffskaia, the well-known Russian Secret Agent at the Court of Lisbon, had appealed to the famous detective to lend his aid in discovering the authors of a crime which was beginning to turn the great white Czar into ridicule in all the bazaars of Central Asia. Holes, whose great mind had been lying fallow for some little time, had immediately consented; and the last I had seen of him was two months before the period at which this story opens, when I had said good-bye to him at Charing-Cross Station.

As for myself, I was spending a week in a farmhouse situated close to the village of Blobley-in-the-Marsh. Three miles from the gates of the farmhouse lay Fourcastle Towers, the ancestral mansion of Rear-Admiral the Duke of Dumpshire, the largest and strangest landowner of the surrounding district. I had a nodding acquaintance with His Grace, whom I had once attended for scarlatina when he was a midshipman. Since that time, however, I had seen very little of him, and, to tell the truth, I had made no great effort to improve the acquaintance. The Duke, one of the haughtiest members of our blue-blooded aristocracy, had been called by his naval duties to all parts of the habitable globe; I had steadily pursued my medical studies, and, except for the biennial visit which etiquette demanded, I had seen little or nothing of the Duke. My stay at the farmhouse was for purposes of rest. I had been overworked, that old tulwar wound, the only memento of the Afghan Campaign, had been troubling me, and I was glad to be able to throw off my cares and my black coat, and to revel for a week in the rustic and unconventional simplicity of Wurzelby Farm.

One evening, two days after my arrival, I was sitting in the kitchen close to the fire, which, like myself, was smoking. For greater comfort I had put on my old mess-jacket. The winter wind was whistling outside, but besides that only the ticking of the kitchen clock disturbed my meditations. I was just thinking how I should begin my article on Modern Medicine for the Fortnightly Review, when a slight cough at my elbow caused me to turn round. Beside me stood Picklock Holes, wrapped in a heavy, close-fitting fur moujik. He was the first to speak.

You seem surprised to see me, he said. "Well, perhaps that is natural; but really, my dear fellow, you might employ your time to better purpose than in trying to guess the number of words in the first leading article in the Times of the day before yesterday."

He