{"id":10922,"date":"2024-04-01T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-04-01T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=10922"},"modified":"2024-05-08T08:07:32","modified_gmt":"2024-05-08T12:07:32","slug":"beware-of-foreign-entanglements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=10922","title":{"rendered":"Beware of Foreign Entanglements!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

While Victorian society often seems hidebound, clinging to a certain worldview (British is best), previous posts in this series have talked about how rapidly the world, and that world specifically, was changing. Travel was speeding up, the telegraph had been invented, laws were changing, and many Britishers had visited the Empire\u2019s far corners, or, as in Katy Darby\u2019s story, had served in the Army there. Of course, that wasn\u2019t the only way Victorians learned about the rest of the world\u2014it also came to them, for better or worse. In Belanger Books\u2019s entertaining volume Sherlock Holmes: A Year of Mystery 1885<\/em><\/a>, edited by Richard Ryan, contemporary authors look at any number of external influences on Holmes\u2019s milieu.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

These external forces are all the more consequential because, as George Gardner maintains, \u201cno other historical period is so iconic and fully-formed in the mind of both reader and writer.\u201d Or, as author Kevin Thornton put it, \u201cwith a Holmes story, there is no need for back story, to explain who the characters are, what they do, and what the story is about. It\u2019s all there as soon as you mention Sherlock or 221B.\u201d A situation ready-made for exciting surprises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Certainly, it takes a vivid imagination to figure out how such well-known characters would have reacted to the era\u2019s untoward events, like the Irish separatists\u2019 bombings. Gardner\u2019s story has Watson \u201cjumping at shadows,\u201d but Holmes takes a more measured view, seeming to believe \u201cthe hysteria and fear around the Fenian bombers were a larger threat than the bombings themselves.\u201d Another example is in Shelby Phoenix\u2019s story, which involves a shop selling Japanese pottery, \u201cactually pretty popular back in Victorian England,\u201d she says. Bringing goods to England for sale inspired her malefactor to do the same with people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhile we often picture Holmes and Watson living in a generic Victorian London, the Year of Mystery<\/em> concept has encouraged me to think about their place in history\u2014about a series of unexpected events that could have happened in the existing historical context,\u201d says author Paul Hiscock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are two stories that exemplify the cross-cultural influences of the time.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cThe Mystery of the Cloven Cord\u201d by George Jacobs begins with a visit from Scotland Yard Inspector Gregson, who is bearing an unusual scarf. Cut in half and rolled like a rope, it was abandoned at the scene of an attempted murder. A similar scarf was left at a recent break-in. The victims heard a Bengali dialect. Holmes and Watson soon find themselves in the middle of a foreign intrigue in which miscreants looked to the Thuggees\u2014\u201cbandits and murderers who would roam India, killing and robbing travelers\u201d\u2014for inspiration and had brought their methods to England.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1885, hundreds thousands of Britishers visited a major exhibition of Japanese art and culture, which burned to the ground a few days before DJ Tyrer\u2019s story, \u201cThe Japanese Village Mystery,\u201d opens. Holmes and Watson become involved when the Village\u2019s proprietor approaches them within days of the fire, fearful he\u2019ll be charged with arson. Watson is called away from this meeting to visit his patient, WS Gilbert (who, in real life, engaged a Village tea server to coach his \u201cthree little maids\u201d for The Mikado<\/em>). Gilbert has been attacked by a black-clad man with a Japanese sword. A similar man is seen combing through the exhibition ruins, and the proprietor insists the man is \u201ca member of that sect of assassins known as the Shinobi<\/em>.\u201d Once again, foreign entanglements have a dangerous side!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The authors mentioned herein cleverly use foreign influences and experiences to increase the intrigue in Holmes\u2019s world. Their stories in Sherlock Holmes: A Year of Mystery 1885<\/em><\/a> are:
Katy Darby – \u201cThe Adventure of the Lock Hospital\u201d
George Gardner – \u201cThe Adventure of the Damaged Tomb\u201d
Kevin Thornton – \u201cTracks Across Canada\u201d and \u201cTracked Across America\u201d
Paul Hiscock – \u201cThe Light of Liberty\u201d
Shelby Phoenix – \u201cSherlock Holmes and the Six-Fingered Hand Print\u201d

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While Victorian society often seems hidebound, clinging to a certain worldview (British is best), previous posts in this series have talked about how rapidly the world, and that world specifically, was changing. Travel was speeding up, the telegraph had been … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Just because England is part of an island doesn't mean it was isolated--the world could come to Sherlock Holmes's doorstep! These stories show how.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1335,61,174],"tags":[275],"class_list":["post-10922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-amateur-detective","category-character","category-first-draft-blog","tag-sherlock-holmes"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2Qa","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10922"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10922\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10926,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10922\/revisions\/10926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}