THE NEWSPAPERS
The Newspapers is the name of the annual journal of the Sherlockians of Baltimore. Inaugurated in 2017, the publication usually appears in June and contains articles, stories, poems, artwork, and other pieces by Holmesians past and present. Those whose work is featured can honestly say that they've been published in The Newspapers.
Issue no. 5 (2023) is now available. To order your copy -- or any of our back issues (seen below) -- email SherlockiansOfBaltimore@gmail.com. Copies are $20 each.
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
The Name and Masthead of Our Journal
The Baltimore Sun was founded in 1837 by Arunah S. Abell and two additional partners as a daily penny newspaper. In the nearly 200 years since its launch, it has been home to some of the most famous names in journalism - H. L. Mencken, Frank R. Kent, Russell Baker, Edmund Duffy, A. Aubrey Bodine - to name a few – and has won 16 Pulitzer Prizes for journalism.
Arthur Conan Doyle had nine Sherlock Holmes stories appear in The Baltimore Weekly Sun as they were published in 1891 - 1893, and The Valley of Fear was serialized in The Sun in 1914. Several stories from the Casebook were published in the pages of The Sun in 1925. Several other writings by Doyle would also appear in The Sun including The Lost World, The Green Flag and Danger!
Felix Morley, brother of Christopher Morley (the founder of the Baker Street Irregulars), joined The Sun in 1922 as an editorial writer. Morley later served overseas in the Far East, becoming the paper’s first correspondent in China in1925 and then in Geneva in 1928. He resigned the following year, complaining about what he called the “excessive influence” of H. L. Mencken on the paper’s editorial policy. Morley received the investiture of “The Second Stain” in 1944 from the Baker Street Irregulars.
When the Six Napoleons of Baltimore was formed in 1946, the bond between the newspaper and Sherlock Holmes became stronger.
At a meeting of The Six Napoleons in early 1947, a cartoonist of The Sun, Richard Q. Yardley, was in attendance and presented the original of his January 4, 1947 cartoon to Paul S. Clarkson, the group’s Gasogene. We have that cartoon later in this issue.
James H. Bready, an editorial writer for The Evening Sun from 1951 until his retirement in 1985, joined The Six Napoleons and became Napoleon XXVII. Bready would serve as The Evening Sun’s book editor from 1968 until 1979, and authored the column Books and Authors in the Sunday edition for over 50 years. Bready was appointed as Gasogene IV at their December 12, 1952 meeting and received the investiture “The Disappearance of Mr. James Phillimore" from the Baker Street Irregulars in 1955.
William Stump was with The Sun from 1949 - 1958 and was a prolific writer for the weekly Sun Magazine. His writings appeared under the bylines of Henry Rauch and James C. Bertram, as well as his own name. Stump later served as editor of Baltimore magazine from 1964 - 1972, and then served as the last editorial page editor of the Baltimore News American. Stump was Napoleon XXXI.
Ralph Reppert was a staff writer for the Sun Magazine (a supplement to the Sunday newspaper), and was Napoleon XXXIII. He served as Gasogene X for the group and became a member of the Baker Street Irregulars in 1966 with the investiture of “Horace Harker.”
In 1962, a features writer for The Sun, William Hyder, became Napoleon LXXVI. Hyder’s career at The Sun
included stints as television editor, columnist and copy editor. He served as Commissionaire XX, Gasogene XXII and then as Harker IV for the scion. Hyder became a Baker Street Irregular in 1997 with the investiture of “A Most Valuable Institution.” Hyder gave the featured presentation at the inaugural mob of the Sherlockians of Baltimore on May 9, 2016 and became the group’s first Certified SOB.
Since the Sherlockians of Baltimore celebrate all things Baltimore, as well as Sherlock Holmes, it made sense that our literary efforts pay some tribute to The Sunpapers. Having tossed about several possible names for this project, Ross E. Davies suggested the name of The Newspapers, as Dr. John H. Watson and/or Arthur Conan Doyle frequently used those two words to describes the periodicals read or otherwise used in the Canon - including in the second paragraph of The Adventure of the Six Napoleons.
Above is a former masthead design of The Baltimore Sun, which has contained many of these design elements since the 1 840s, and is rich with symbolism. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and the famed Baltimore Clipper ships are featured at both ends of the vignette. The United States federal government is represented by the eagle and shield. Other design elements honor justice, the arts, transportation, agriculture and the industriousness of Maryland’s workers.
Above, and on the cover of our journal is our homage to the Sunpapers, but with a Sherlockian twist. The ship is the Gloria Scott, Holmes’s first case. The train is the State and Merton County Railroad, from The Valley of Fear and the BSI investiture of John F. Baesch, who gave the second presentation at our inaugural mob.
The sun never sets on Britannia and has replaced Justice. You may recall in His Last Bow, Holm es’s last case, that the housekeeper, Martha, “might almost personify Britannia.” The federal shield has been replaced with our group’s emblem. Instead of an eagle, we have a raven as was mentioned in The Hound of the Baskervilles. This also gives us a nice connection with that famous Baltimorean, Edgar Allan Poe, as Doyle states, “Where was the detective story until Poe breathed the breath of life into it?”
In His Last Bow, we learn that Holmes is keeping bees upon the South Downs. We learn that Holmes aunt was related to the French artist, Vernet, in The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter.
​
The anchor represents the first story of the Canon, A Study in Scarlet, where Holmes explains the significance of a blue tattoo on the hand of a Commissionaire. The sheaf of wheat is a reference to our founder's favorite story, The Adventure of the Three Garridebs, where Alexander Hamilton Garrideb made his money in real estate, and then the wheat pits of Chicago.
The phrase LIGHT FOR ALL has been a part of The Sun since the newspaper’s beginnings. The concept represented Abell's philosophy that his newspaper would cover the news for all readers, not just the well-to-do citizens of Baltimore. We have replaced that phrase with BY THE LIGHT, as representative of how Holmes would explain one of his deductions. The phrase appears seven times in the Canon.
Our first journal was released at our mob/meeting on July 22, 2017 at Chiapparelli’s. Take a close look at the date of The Sun on the cover.
​
We are pleased to present The Newspapers to you. Please enjoy and we welcome your comments.
All individual photographs (except that of Felix Morley) in this section originally appeared within the pages of The Sun.
Photo of James Bready by Nora Gruner - 1985
Photo of William Stump by Frank R. Gardina - 1972
Photo of Ralph Reppert by Richard Stacks - 1963
Photo of William Hyder by Jed Kirschbaum - 2009