Jack Tracy--Page 2

The Encyclopaedia Sherlockiana; or, A Universal Dictionary of the State of Knowledge of Sherlock Holmes and His Biographer John H. Watson, M.D. was published in 1977. It was nominated for an Edgar Award as the best biographical/critical work of the year by the Mystery Writers of America and won a 1999 poll as the most important Sherlockian book of the twentieth Century, beating out works by William S. Baring-Gould and Vincent Starrett. Amazingly, it was Tracy’s first book: at the time it came out he had published only a privately printed monograph about the Mormon chapters of a Study in Scarlet and a few articles in The Baker Street Journal and in The Holmesian Observer, a now-defunct journal put out by a New York City scion.

            Tracy explained the idea behind The Encyclopaedia Sherlockiana in a proposal to a prospective publisher in 1971. He pointed out that “The action of all the tales takes place between 1881 and 1914—all but the last two of them before 1903. The world has changed a great deal since then, and for a thorough enjoyment of any literature, let alone a significant understanding of it, there must be a grounding in the milieu and the terminology of its period. The new Sherlockian [he means younger Americans] has little natural understanding of Holmes’ world. . . . He has never heard of ‘aqua tofana,’ nor does Doyle tell him that it is a Sicilian poison. ‘Beeswing’ is meaningless to him, although Victorians knew it was wine dregs. What is a gasogene? A dog-cart? A broad? Nitrite of Amyl? The Vehmgericht? A commissionaire? A Gladstone bag? Enteric fever? Because he is American he cannot identify such English places as Houndsditch, Abergavenny, the Goodwins, Old Jewry, The Pool, Doctors’ Commons, or John o’Groats—nor will he find them in any standard work of reference. The many references to British Army regiments and the Indian Empire bewilder him. Even if he is ambitious with his atlas he will not find Boscombe Valley, King’s Pyland, Hallamshire, or Eyford—because they are fictitious.”

            The Encyclopaedia Sherlockiana is dedicated to Tracy’s mother, which is ironic in view of later events, and to “Gomo,” whoever that might be. The book, for which he spent six years doing research, mostly in the Lilly Library at Indiana University in Bloomington, comprises 3,500 entries on phrases, terms, characters, places, customs, plots, and virtually everything else in the Sherlock Holmes canon. It is illustrated with photographs from the period and with maps drawn by Tracy. In the introduction Tracy notes that while the book “owes a great deal to the ‘Sherlockian’ tradition, it is not really a part of it. It is based on the same prime assumption—that Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson were living historical personages, that the chronicles are based on actual incidents, and that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle acted as Watson’s literary agent in placing them—and there the similarities end. The cult of ‘Sherlockiana’ is a high-camp intellectual joke in which fact and fiction must be confused as thoroughly as possible. This work is established on precisely the opposite approach. It is not an ‘in’ book, and it never speculates. In fact all references which are clearly imaginative are marked with an asterisk so that the reader immediately is made aware of the fact.” [An example is Saxe-Coburg Square, the location of Jabez Wilson’s pawnshop.]

            In keeping with his policy of not speculating, Tracy does not try to identify the real places on which the fictional ones are based, “if the evidence is not all but conclusive. Thus Watson’s great orme street is declared to be the very real Great Ormond Street in Bloomsbury; but even though the overwhelming Sherlockian consensus is that stoke moran is actually the Surrey hamlet of Stoke D’Abernon, I have declined to assert this identification in the absence of more direct evidence and have labeled Stoke Moran as fictitious.”

            Tracy points out that The Encyclopaedia Sherlockiana is presented “as if it had been written during the first decade of the twentieth century by a denizen of that era. . . . As a result this book takes almost no notice of events which occurred after 1914 (the only exceptions are death dates and biographical details of [real] persons mentioned in the saga). . . . the outcome is a synthesis of English society in the years 1880–1910, with the accent on the 1890s, which represents the general state of knowledge in Holmes’s time. Understand that no information is given herein which was not believed to be true by the Victorians themselves. . . . population figures for the United States are based on the 1900 census, and all other population statistics are as of 1901, unless otherwise specified.”

            The most fascinating entry to me is the one for “Bull pup.” Tracy defines it as “a young bulldog” and notes that “At his first meeting with Holmes, Watson said that he kept a bull pup (STUD), but the animal is never mentioned again.” Many commentators have tried to figure out what happened to that dog. What they seem not to have noticed is that the pup is mentioned in the context of Holmes and Watson discussing their respective shortcomings before deciding to share the apartment in Baker Street. Watson says, “I keep a bull pup and object to rows, because my nerves are shaken, and I get up at all sorts of ungodly hours, and I am extremely lazy. I have another set of vices when I’m well, but those are the principal ones at present.” Why would owning a dog be considered a “vice”? Also, Watson says that he keeps the pup and objects to rows because his nerves are shaken. What would be the connection between having a dog and having shaken nerves? Tracy, I think, has hit upon the answer: he says that “To keep a bull pup, in Anglo-Indian slang, means to have fits of short temper.” Tracy doesn’t claim that that is what Watson means; he merely states the fact and lets the reader draw his or her own conclusion. Watson, of course, had recently served in the army in India, so he would be familiar with “Anglo-Indian slang.” So there was no dog at all; Watson was merely saying that his shaken nerves might cause him to fly off the handle now and then. Perfect!