#Fandom vs BSI

[msclaritea]

Upon the Clear Distinction Between Fandom and the Baker Street Irregulars

BY LYNDSAY FAYE

November 30, 2012

In light of the ever-expanding popularity of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries in conjunction with recent adaptations including the Warner Brothers films, the BBC series, and the CBS reimagining, it falls to me to discuss certain disturbing tendencies on the part of new devotees to refer to that venerable institution, the Baker Street Irregulars, as a “fandom” when it is actually a literary society. The youth of the Sherlockian world will be excused for making this dare I say elementary error, since the case for the distinction has not been hitherto laid out. Following the summation of this article, however, fans and traditional Sherlockians alike will have reached a much clearer understanding, and the unfortunate misnomer of referring to the present Irregulars as a “fandom” will doubtless cease and be swiftly forgotten.

(Note: for the purposes of this intellectual exercise, the possibility that the BSI may potentially be a storied and erudite literary society and a happily thriving fandom simultaneously will be ignored. This decision was made in light of the fact that a noun cannot be two things concurrently, the way the Empire State Building is not both a functioning office tower and a tourist destination, and the way Bill Clinton is not both a former president and a saxophone player. Arguments that the BSI is peopled by both cultured readers and by eager fans would only muddy the issue, and therefore will not be entertained here.)

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word fandom dates from 1903 and is defined simply as “the realm of avid enthusiasts.” Although undoubtedly a positive, even a flattering definition, already we can see that this is an inaccurate way of describing the Baker Street Irregulars, founded in January of 1934 by Doubleday editor Christopher Morley and later permanently established as the premier Sherlockian society by Edgar W. Smith. While the BSI was conceived as a group of congenial, clubbable men who admittedly shared an avid enthusiasm for the Great Detective, no mention whatsoever is made in the definition of fandom of a taste for adult beverages, and the drinking of toasts to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s characters, which is of such import to the group as to be codified in the BSI’s by-laws. As a matter of fact, the words “Sherlock Holmes” appear nowhere in this document, while the words “drunk,” “drink,” “round,” and “toast” occur six times in the brief record. Describing the BSI as a fandom is thus clearly a counterfactual practice, and should be treated as such.

Of note, because the dates could potentially lead to confusion, is the fact that the Irregulars were founded in 1934 in New York City, at very close to the identical time period when the science fiction fandom was forming convivial societies of “avid enthusiasts” in order to discuss space travel, interplanetary colonization, their whip-smart literary contributions, and large-chested alien females. The Futurians, according to Frederik Pohl’s autobiography, were founded in 1934 in New York City; the Scienceers were founded in 1929 in New York City; the Los Angeles Fantasy Society was founded in 1934 in Los Angeles; and the National Fantasy Fan Federation was founded in 1941 in Boston. These societies in no way resembled the BSI, however, for their purpose was to discuss speculative, fictional adventures, while the BSI’s purpose (apart from toasting) was to discuss Sherlock Holmes. The Grand Game, as it’s called, a form of meta-scholarship, bears but scant resemblance to the doings of folk who pen Middle-Earth chronologies and dictionaries of the Klingon language. Those who suggest the BSI is a fandom will also note that, as a literary society, the BSI has always been peopled with thinkers and literary luminaries such as Isaac Asimov, while the Futurians boasted as one of their members Isaac Asimov, who was undoubtedly a different Isaac Asimov to the deservedly admired creative philosopher invested in the Irregulars.

One of the most self-evident differences between the Irregulars and those involved in fandom is the latter’s tendency to memorize an enormous amount of trivia regarding their specific preoccupations, be those preoccupations Battlestar Galactica or fiction featuring anthropomorphized dragons. A member of the Star Trek fandom, for instance, could readily inform an outsider that when Captain Picard was captured by the Cardassians, he insisted despite being cruelly tortured that the number of lights shown to him numbered four; such remarkable displays of knowledge are all too common among fandom enthusiasts. Invested members of the BSI could undoubtedly inform non-Sherlockians that Sherlock Holmes’s ancestors were country squires, that John Watson was an invalided member of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers, and that Holmes is on record as having possessed three dressing gowns (blue, purple, and mouse), but as these are matters of historical fact, knowledge of them is much more akin to familiarity with the Gettysburg Address. I say again: do not succumb to lazy terminology and misidentify the BSI as a fandom. The one is concerned with an exceedingly popular series of crime stories, and the other is concerned with pop culture.

The activities of fans vs. traditional Sherlockians are hugely divergent. While fans come together to discuss their favorite sci-fi stories, television shows, and films, Sherlockians confine their conversation (and toasts) exclusively to the sixty stories, referred to as the “canon.” No mention is made of adaptations of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries; indeed, it is safe to say that the BSI as a whole is unaware of such bastardizations of the original writings, if indeed such things as movies and television shows based on the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle exist, which is doubtful. In addition, fandom engages in a pastime termed “cosplay,” defined by Wikipedia as “a type of performance art in which participants don costumes and accessories to represent a specific character or idea.” Such behavior would be anathema to a Baker Street Irregular, some of whom have been photographed dressing in Victorian garb and deerstalker hats.

Denizens of the fandom community fail to confine their “avid enthusiasm” to mere discussion of hobbits and tribbles; they also, as a group, have a marked tendency to collect memorabilia relevant to their favorite characters, spending precious funds in pursuit of items such as action figures and animation cells. A comic book collector would think absolutely nothing of paying triple digits for a prized mint-condition issue of Spider-Man, for example, while my copy of the 1892 issue of the Strand Magazine…no, strike that, I beg your pardon, the comparison is similar but ultimately misleading. Irregulars of my acquaintance have amassed collections of Sherlock Holmes art, Sherlock Holmes books, Sherlock Holmes knickknacks, Sherlock Holmes pins, Sherlock Holmes translations, Sherlock Holmes reference volumes, and Sherlock Holmes talismans such as magnifying glasses or pipes, but as these are clearly objets d’art, they find no equivalency within the realm of fandom.

It is of particular importance to note that fandom participants often write what is termed fanfiction, fictional works featuring their beloved characters in various situations of the fan’s own imagining, defined as “stories about characters or settings written by fans of the original work, rather than by the original creator.” Whenever a writer pens a story about a character created by another author, that tale falls under the umbrella of fanfiction, a practice that the Baker Street Irregulars would find both mystifying and vaguely distasteful. In fact, the mere concept of writing new stories starring characters not belonging to the author would strike dismay into the hearts of the BSI, who very often write and read pastiches featuring Sherlock Holmes and John Watson (a pastiche is defined as “a work of art, literature, film, music, or architecture that openly imitates the work of a previous artist”). As you have already recognized, no doubt, pastiche is entirely different from fanfiction, as fanfiction is specified as being penned by fans, and as I have argued previously, the Baker Street Irregulars are not fans but rather a literary society, and thus are categorically incapable of writing fanfiction. The notion that they could be both we have already dismissed as specious.

One must bear in mind as well the ironclad argument that the BSI was founded in the tradition of the great metropolitan men’s clubs of the 1930s, and thus bears no resemblance whatsoever to fandoms, which are largely concerned with grown men and women wearing tights. I find this line of reasoning particularly compelling, since it is common knowledge that once a group forms around a certain idea, it remains always the identical entity, indistinguishable in its modern incarnation from its origins, free from growth, change, or adaptation. Admittedly the BSI is no longer exclusively for men, but that is an admirable mark of progress and should be considered accordingly. Just as the company Apple Inc. sells small personal circuit boards hand-crafted by the artist Steve Wozniak (keyboard and screen not included), the BSI is emphatically not a fandom. And please stop referring to them by such blatantly fallacious terminology.

Lastly, a word upon the subject of respect for the gentleman who made our literary society possible, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. There are some who take mild offense to those who speak of the BSI as a fandom, but I am not of their number, though it is worth mentioning out of deference that Doyle would certainly be outraged by the term. So beloved a character was Sherlock Holmes to Doyle that he spoke of him always with the soft light of adoration in his eyes and a flush upon his cupid’s cheeks, joy suffusing his features whensoever the subject of his masterful sleuth was raised. Were Doyle to be reanimated and exposed to the neophytes who ignore all discrepancies and insist upon wrongly identifying the BSI as a fandom, his mighty love for his hero would so overwhelm him, and his fury at the misidentification swell into so vast a storm cloud of righteous rage, that he would probably decide to remain alive simply for the pure, unadulterated pleasure he derived from writing the Sherlock Holmes mysteries, and would deliver unto us sixty more cases. And lo, global warming would be reversed, and he would find a cure for herpes.

I trust that this article clears up any remaining confusion regarding the word fandom, and its woeful inexactitude when characterizing the Baker Street Irregulars. I likewise hope I have assured the reader the BSI cannot be both a respected literary society and a fandom, any more than Australia can be both a continent and an island. One earnestly hopes that this will settle the matter for good and all, and we can move on to other, better topics. In the meanwhile, I am going to don my deerstalker and write a story in which Sherlock Holmes fights the Cardassians, that being the sort of activity relevant to my interests. Thank you.

1. Am I wrong or is this a bit rude?

2. Why don’t we hear more stories about how Doyle actually loved Holmes? It’s as though people want the character to be remembered as hated.

Lyndsay Faye is the author of Dust and Shadow and The Gods of Gotham from Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam. She tweets @LyndsayFaye.

@elwinglyre @sarahthecoat @sussexbound @fellshish @artfulkindoforder @johnlockedness @ebaeschnbliah @tjlcisthenewsexy @madzither

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[fandompitfalls]

Dumping the whole pot of tea on The Irregulars.

Originally posted: 4/9/2021

Two weeks ago, I offered to write a post for my Scion’s blog on the Irregulars before I had even seen the show.  While I try to follow Paul Thomas Miller’s belief that “All Holmes are good Holmes” (not gonna lie, I fail sometimes, yes Ferrell, I’m looking at you), this show caught my interest because I’m a fan of Gaiman’s A Study in Emerald and I am a horror nerd, so it had me at “rift”. I expected to like it.

What I did not expect was to love it as much as I do and to have so many thoughts about it.  Thoughts, feeling, surprising revelations and low-key frustration about things regarding this show and the fandom.  There was tea that needed to be spilled and I couldn’t do that in a BSI related blog post.  But this is my blog, nobody really reads it anyway so I’m dumping the whole damn tea pot onto the table and we’re doing this.

This is your spoiler warning:  Below be monsters.  You were warned.

If you’re still here then you’re either interested, got sent this as a “look what this bitch wrote”, or you really want to see the tea.  I’ve got words, so many that they’re going to be split out in categories. So sit back, I’m sure I’ll insult everyone by the time I’m finished.

Family

This show is about family.  End stop.  Not the family you’re born into but the family you find.  The Irregulars are a found family.  The first set of Irregulars; Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, and Alice…whatever her last name was. They were close friends and tried to be a family in their own way, until anger, jealousy, resentment got in between that and shattered it leaving everyone left guilt ridden and resentful.  The second set of Irregulars: Bea, Jessie, Spike, Billy and Leo (yes, I’m counting him, he damn well earned his right into this family) are absolutely a found family.  They came together in the workhouse and a bond forged of mutual survival, protection and love was created. A bond that remained firm long after they all escaped and went out on their own. Even in episode six when there is doubt cast along everyone and Leo’s true identity is discovered, feelings are hurt, betrayal is strong and everyone goes their own way for a time, that bond is still there and is plainly shown in episode seven when the group is able to use that familial bond they’ve created and now strengthened to pull Jessie out of the nightmare world that the Linen Man has cast her into. It’s the bond that Jessie uses to convince Bea that sending the mother they both desperately wanted back into the rift was the right thing to do. It’s the bond that keep Leo, Spike and Billy willing to fight against the monsters to the death to protect their home and the victims they’ve rescued, not knowing that Bea and Jessie would close the rift but believing that they would.

Drugs

It was mentioned, even in the trailers and the summary for this series that Sherlock Holmes is drugged.  And yes, in fact for a good majority of the series, Sherlock Holmes is strung out on opium or cocaine.  It’s not the pretty strung out like scruffy hot Benedict Cumberbatch or the effervescent smoothness of Jeremy Brett.  Henry Lloyd-Hughes shows us the dark side of prolonged addiction; head shaven, stumbling around in filthy rags, vomiting over the side of the bed, pissing on the nightstand, wild with withdrawal symptoms. When Bea asks their mutual landlady, Mrs. Hudson about Sherlock, she calls him a drug addict and a bum. In episode four when Bea is in a race with Watson to see who can find Sherlock first, she is assisted in the Opium Den by one of the addicts who tells her “Just because we’re users doesn’t mean we’re bastards. Everyone down here is trying to numb the pain of something, grief, heartbreak, life in general.” The line resonates because while this is happening, the episode is juxtaposition Bea’s trips into the bowels of opium dens looking for an addict with the Palace where Leo is attending a party for the elite.  There he meets Eleanor Morgot who is obviously attracted to his title and position.  Later, on a balcony, she offers him a drug telling him he needs to loosen up.  Leo, high on…a tablet version of opium perhaps, we’re shown his trip in a dream-like quality. A far cry from a bedridden Sherlock on the floor scrambling for the few pieces of what he thinks is opium rather than sugar.  The use of drugs amongst the wealthy doesn’t seem to hold the same distain and disgust as it does in the bowels of London.  Which is an interesting play on society, not only in the time period in the show but even now.  Why is it cool and trendy to see the rich and famous snorting coke off a glass table using dollar bills or popping tablets, yet when Bob in the neighborhood is discovered to be using heroin, he is suddenly the social pariah.  Society’s view of drug use is defined on a scale of wealth and prestige. Sherlock Holmes, caught in the middle of this, his prestige holding at bay much of society’s distain, as seen in episode seven when Gregson doesn’t even blink when Holmes walks in to Scotland Yard wearing a filthy, ripped shirt and a green coat.

Mirrors and parallels

Let’s discuss mirrors and parallels together because I’m going to be going back and forth on these.  And we’re starting with the huge one, the Irregulars vs the Irregulars- it’s all fun and games until the monsters become more dangerous and someone goes through a rift. I’m talking about Alice, Sherlock and John mirrored in Leo, Bea and Billy.  My thoughts on John Watson will have their own section so I won’t get into much of them here, but by episode three, I could see where this was going.  Bea, who hadn’t really had any sort of attraction to anyone, finds herself attracted to Leo.  Billy, who has secretly loved Bea as more than an arrant sister for possibly years, suddenly has competition in this well-spoken newcomer and is forced to watch as Bea and Leo grow closer. On the other side, as we learn in episode five, Sherlock and Watson are riding high on their success as consultants to Scotland Yard when Alice arrives, and suddenly Watson has competition for Holmes’ affection and is forced to watch as Sherlock and Alice grow closer. How Billy deals with it throughout the final few episodes and how we see Watson deal with it are in no way mirrored to each other. While resentment and jealousy do grow in these two characters, it is Billy who realizes first that Bea is a person with her own thoughts and feelings, and she’s allowed to like whomever she wants.  Did it hurt him? Hell yes, the clueless idiot took out his frustration with not only trying and failing to make Bea jealous, but getting into fights including with Leo. But hating Bea and hating Leo for something nobody can control is pointless and by the end of the story, Billy chooses his family, willing to sacrifice and standing beside Leo in the end. Watson, on the other hand, doesn’t come to this realization until he experiences the losses and guilt of his choices and sees them played out once again in the next generation.  His frustration and jealousy festered for almost two decades before he was faced with the realization that nothing would have changed and only then, did he begin to let go, both figuratively and literally.

Speaking of Watson and Bea, the parallels between their two characters run true through the first episode- starting with their first meeting and ending at their last. Loyalty, stubbornness, anger, frustration with their lot in life, the anguish of people leaving them, all of it plays out between these two in blinding contrast and none so much as the theme of forbidden love.   The same characteristics that makes Bea such an expansive and intriguing character are also with Watson, just hidden under layers of resentment and guilt. The scene in episode four when Watson comes around the corner and sees Sherlock and Alice kissing and realizes he is never going to have the one thing he truly wants paralleled with the scene in episode eight where Leo tells Bea that he sacrificed his freedom for Billy’s release. He was going back to the palace and marrying someone names Helena.  Bea realizes in that moment that she will never have the one thing she truly wanted. There’s a scene between Watson and Bea when they’re hiding out in a closet in an Opium Den waiting for security to go past them.  He looks at her and says, “ It amuses me to think you can best me, I am better educated, wealthier and stronger than you are, tell me , what ability is it that you think you have that I don’t possess in greater abundance?” And while that may be true; John Watson is a man of means, ex-Army, particular friend of Sherlock Holmes and a doctor, he has forgotten what made him that way in the beginning. Everything he was, everything he is, that is covered under layers of bitterness, he sees either consciously or unconsciously in Bea. This is what highlights the final scene between Bea and Watson, when she breaks down and while it’s not proper to touch, he does so anyway because he understands.  “Everyone leaves me” - “I won’t” Realization and acceptance and shared grief makes this scene extremely powerful.

Finally, let’s talk about John Watson

I’m going to be honest, I made it through the first six episodes with plans to make buttons that said, ‘John Watson is a petty jealous bitch’, because damn. And before anyone comes at me with the idea that I don’t understand and of course John had the right to be upset or worse yet, heteronormativity (although, honestly, the lack of Alice hate is either shocking or I’m not in the right places), let me say that yes, I understand, but watching Billy take a angry visible step back from Bea and Leo juxtaposed with John attempting to open a rift so he can keep Sherlock in town and then making the obvious choice to ignore Sherlock’s plea for help when it came to saving Alice.  A choice that he had to make again with Alice’s daughter Jessie.  Watching John in the first six episodes all the signs are there, the old married couple, where John is shouting out the window at an escaping Sherlock that he doesn’t even want to see him again to the vicious way he comes after Bea when she discovers who he truly is.  Hell, we as the viewers don’t even see Sherlock and John in the same scenes together outside of the flashback until episode seven. This is how we see John Watson because up until then, this is how Bea sees John Watson. They’re told by Mycroft Holmes, the Linen Man, hell even by Sherlock Holmes through his story that John Watson is the wart on this story, he is the danger, he is the reason this is happening again.

Episode seven though, is where Royce Pierreson shines as John Watson. Because episode seven and eight takes a man that is universally hated by everyone in the series and flips it to a man who is trapped by society, rules, honor, duty, and his own self-loathing who tried to keep things as they were only managing to ruin things completely.  He turns from a cruel example of classism to a sympathetic character, a man who’s trying to do things right, who wants to fix what he did.  By episode eight, I was not only love John Watson as a character, but I was sympathetic to his situation.  His attempts at denial and rationalization in episode seven that finally culminated in the first time he ever spoke the words aloud “I love him” was just…damn, rip my heart out Royce and stomp on it because you’ve got me. From that moment on, all thoughts of buttons were gone from my head and I was, possibly for the first time, firmly in the John Watson Appreciation Society.  Royce never says a word during the scene when Alice returns and Sherlock is overcome with emotions, but you can just see in his eyes the dagger slowly piercing his heart and how he is silent, allowing the sisters and Sherlock to have their moment with Alice.  Even when Jessie begins to close the rift and Alice returns to Purgatory, he remains still, finally moving when Sherlock looks at him and utters those first self-aware words he might have spoken the entire series “You’ve been a better friend to me than I deserved John”.  And when he is once again faced with saving the man he loves or a woman that Sherlock loves, he finally lets go, making the choice to help Bea save Jessie and letting Sherlock step into the rift to be with Alice.  It’s a painful scene and it’s what makes the final scene mentioned earlier between he and Bea even more powerful.  She looked at him as asks, “How do you stop loving someone?” and his reply with “You don’t.” Just. Heart wrenching.

I have never shipped Johnlock in any of the series, but congratulations Royce Pierreson, you’ve got me shipping Johnlock.  Not only Johnlock but canon Johnlock.  It might be unrequited (maybe, there was a hint of subtext and there’s always Season two) but it’s canon.

Which leads me to the important question and one in which I will dump out the remainder of my tea: I checked Twitter and social media the weekend The Irregulars came out. I never heard a peep about this.  There is a show out there, with Holmes and Watson, that is set in Victorian London (monsters and cross-dimensional rifts notwithstanding) where the showrunner has explicitly given canon Johnlock and I haven’t heard a peep about it?  Why is that?  I have my theories, but I really hope they aren’t true because it just gives credence to long held theories. I’m hoping that I’m just maybe not in the right groups, but my social media feed is vast enough that something would have eked through but all I hear are crickets.

It seems my teapot is empty.  Anyway, let me hear your thoughts. Preferably here.  Like I said, I’m not a popular blog so I’ll be surprised if this one picks up traction. But hey, come and talk.

You have different theories?  Wonder why I didn’t speak on something that you saw? Find yourself personally insulted by something I wrote? Want to celebrate my list of favorite John Watsons going up to five?  Let’s brew a fresh pot of tea and discuss it.

[sarahthecoat]

i think it is hilariously tongue in cheek. i don't know lindsay faye from adam, but the way this is structured is clearly proving each "denied" point one by one.

Upon the Clear Distinction Between Fandom and the Baker Street Irregulars

BY LYNDSAY FAYE

November 30, 2012

In light of the ever-expanding popularity of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries in conjunction with recent adaptations including the Warner Brothers films, the BBC series, and the CBS reimagining, it falls to me to discuss certain disturbing tendencies on the part of new devotees to refer to that venerable institution, the Baker Street Irregulars, as a “fandom” when it is actually a literary society. The youth of the Sherlockian world will be excused for making this dare I say elementary error, since the case for the distinction has not been hitherto laid out. Following the summation of this article, however, fans and traditional Sherlockians alike will have reached a much clearer understanding, and the unfortunate misnomer of referring to the present Irregulars as a “fandom” will doubtless cease and be swiftly forgotten.

(Note: for the purposes of this intellectual exercise, the possibility that the BSI may potentially be a storied and erudite literary society and a happily thriving fandom simultaneously will be ignored. This decision was made in light of the fact that a noun cannot be two things concurrently, the way the Empire State Building is not both a functioning office tower and a tourist destination, and the way Bill Clinton is not both a former president and a saxophone player. Arguments that the BSI is peopled by both cultured readers and by eager fans would only muddy the issue, and therefore will not be entertained here.)

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word fandom dates from 1903 and is defined simply as “the realm of avid enthusiasts.” Although undoubtedly a positive, even a flattering definition, already we can see that this is an inaccurate way of describing the Baker Street Irregulars, founded in January of 1934 by Doubleday editor Christopher Morley and later permanently established as the premier Sherlockian society by Edgar W. Smith. While the BSI was conceived as a group of congenial, clubbable men who admittedly shared an avid enthusiasm for the Great Detective, no mention whatsoever is made in the definition of fandom of a taste for adult beverages, and the drinking of toasts to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s characters, which is of such import to the group as to be codified in the BSI’s by-laws. As a matter of fact, the words “Sherlock Holmes” appear nowhere in this document, while the words “drunk,” “drink,” “round,” and “toast” occur six times in the brief record. Describing the BSI as a fandom is thus clearly a counterfactual practice, and should be treated as such.

Of note, because the dates could potentially lead to confusion, is the fact that the Irregulars were founded in 1934 in New York City, at very close to the identical time period when the science fiction fandom was forming convivial societies of “avid enthusiasts” in order to discuss space travel, interplanetary colonization, their whip-smart literary contributions, and large-chested alien females. The Futurians, according to Frederik Pohl’s autobiography, were founded in 1934 in New York City; the Scienceers were founded in 1929 in New York City; the Los Angeles Fantasy Society was founded in 1934 in Los Angeles; and the National Fantasy Fan Federation was founded in 1941 in Boston. These societies in no way resembled the BSI, however, for their purpose was to discuss speculative, fictional adventures, while the BSI’s purpose (apart from toasting) was to discuss Sherlock Holmes. The Grand Game, as it’s called, a form of meta-scholarship, bears but scant resemblance to the doings of folk who pen Middle-Earth chronologies and dictionaries of the Klingon language. Those who suggest the BSI is a fandom will also note that, as a literary society, the BSI has always been peopled with thinkers and literary luminaries such as Isaac Asimov, while the Futurians boasted as one of their members Isaac Asimov, who was undoubtedly a different Isaac Asimov to the deservedly admired creative philosopher invested in the Irregulars.

One of the most self-evident differences between the Irregulars and those involved in fandom is the latter’s tendency to memorize an enormous amount of trivia regarding their specific preoccupations, be those preoccupations Battlestar Galactica or fiction featuring anthropomorphized dragons. A member of the Star Trek fandom, for instance, could readily inform an outsider that when Captain Picard was captured by the Cardassians, he insisted despite being cruelly tortured that the number of lights shown to him numbered four; such remarkable displays of knowledge are all too common among fandom enthusiasts. Invested members of the BSI could undoubtedly inform non-Sherlockians that Sherlock Holmes’s ancestors were country squires, that John Watson was an invalided member of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers, and that Holmes is on record as having possessed three dressing gowns (blue, purple, and mouse), but as these are matters of historical fact, knowledge of them is much more akin to familiarity with the Gettysburg Address. I say again: do not succumb to lazy terminology and misidentify the BSI as a fandom. The one is concerned with an exceedingly popular series of crime stories, and the other is concerned with pop culture.

The activities of fans vs. traditional Sherlockians are hugely divergent. While fans come together to discuss their favorite sci-fi stories, television shows, and films, Sherlockians confine their conversation (and toasts) exclusively to the sixty stories, referred to as the “canon.” No mention is made of adaptations of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries; indeed, it is safe to say that the BSI as a whole is unaware of such bastardizations of the original writings, if indeed such things as movies and television shows based on the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle exist, which is doubtful. In addition, fandom engages in a pastime termed “cosplay,” defined by Wikipedia as “a type of performance art in which participants don costumes and accessories to represent a specific character or idea.” Such behavior would be anathema to a Baker Street Irregular, some of whom have been photographed dressing in Victorian garb and deerstalker hats.

Denizens of the fandom community fail to confine their “avid enthusiasm” to mere discussion of hobbits and tribbles; they also, as a group, have a marked tendency to collect memorabilia relevant to their favorite characters, spending precious funds in pursuit of items such as action figures and animation cells. A comic book collector would think absolutely nothing of paying triple digits for a prized mint-condition issue of Spider-Man, for example, while my copy of the 1892 issue of the Strand Magazine…no, strike that, I beg your pardon, the comparison is similar but ultimately misleading. Irregulars of my acquaintance have amassed collections of Sherlock Holmes art, Sherlock Holmes books, Sherlock Holmes knickknacks, Sherlock Holmes pins, Sherlock Holmes translations, Sherlock Holmes reference volumes, and Sherlock Holmes talismans such as magnifying glasses or pipes, but as these are clearly objets d’art, they find no equivalency within the realm of fandom.

It is of particular importance to note that fandom participants often write what is termed fanfiction, fictional works featuring their beloved characters in various situations of the fan’s own imagining, defined as “stories about characters or settings written by fans of the original work, rather than by the original creator.” Whenever a writer pens a story about a character created by another author, that tale falls under the umbrella of fanfiction, a practice that the Baker Street Irregulars would find both mystifying and vaguely distasteful. In fact, the mere concept of writing new stories starring characters not belonging to the author would strike dismay into the hearts of the BSI, who very often write and read pastiches featuring Sherlock Holmes and John Watson (a pastiche is defined as “a work of art, literature, film, music, or architecture that openly imitates the work of a previous artist”). As you have already recognized, no doubt, pastiche is entirely different from fanfiction, as fanfiction is specified as being penned by fans, and as I have argued previously, the Baker Street Irregulars are not fans but rather a literary society, and thus are categorically incapable of writing fanfiction. The notion that they could be both we have already dismissed as specious.

One must bear in mind as well the ironclad argument that the BSI was founded in the tradition of the great metropolitan men’s clubs of the 1930s, and thus bears no resemblance whatsoever to fandoms, which are largely concerned with grown men and women wearing tights. I find this line of reasoning particularly compelling, since it is common knowledge that once a group forms around a certain idea, it remains always the identical entity, indistinguishable in its modern incarnation from its origins, free from growth, change, or adaptation. Admittedly the BSI is no longer exclusively for men, but that is an admirable mark of progress and should be considered accordingly. Just as the company Apple Inc. sells small personal circuit boards hand-crafted by the artist Steve Wozniak (keyboard and screen not included), the BSI is emphatically not a fandom. And please stop referring to them by such blatantly fallacious terminology.

Lastly, a word upon the subject of respect for the gentleman who made our literary society possible, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. There are some who take mild offense to those who speak of the BSI as a fandom, but I am not of their number, though it is worth mentioning out of deference that Doyle would certainly be outraged by the term. So beloved a character was Sherlock Holmes to Doyle that he spoke of him always with the soft light of adoration in his eyes and a flush upon his cupid’s cheeks, joy suffusing his features whensoever the subject of his masterful sleuth was raised. Were Doyle to be reanimated and exposed to the neophytes who ignore all discrepancies and insist upon wrongly identifying the BSI as a fandom, his mighty love for his hero would so overwhelm him, and his fury at the misidentification swell into so vast a storm cloud of righteous rage, that he would probably decide to remain alive simply for the pure, unadulterated pleasure he derived from writing the Sherlock Holmes mysteries, and would deliver unto us sixty more cases. And lo, global warming would be reversed, and he would find a cure for herpes.

I trust that this article clears up any remaining confusion regarding the word fandom, and its woeful inexactitude when characterizing the Baker Street Irregulars. I likewise hope I have assured the reader the BSI cannot be both a respected literary society and a fandom, any more than Australia can be both a continent and an island. One earnestly hopes that this will settle the matter for good and all, and we can move on to other, better topics. In the meanwhile, I am going to don my deerstalker and write a story in which Sherlock Holmes fights the Cardassians, that being the sort of activity relevant to my interests. Thank you.

1. Am I wrong or is this a bit rude?

2. Why don’t we hear more stories about how Doyle actually loved Holmes? It’s as though people want the character to be remembered as hated.

Lyndsay Faye is the author of Dust and Shadow and The Gods of Gotham from Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam. She tweets @LyndsayFaye.

@elwinglyre @sarahthecoat @sussexbound @fellshish @artfulkindoforder @johnlockedness @ebaeschnbliah @tjlcisthenewsexy @madzither

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