#the most famous spiritualist detective couple

[thelastunicornflipouts]

Off topic.

It might be just a coincidendence, but the Eddie's wife in "Bojack Horseman" being named Lorraine is a great easter egg.

It is too good to be just a coincidence.

[weirdletter]

A Brilliant Void: A Selection of Classic Irish Science Fiction (Recovered Voices), edited by Jack Fennell, Tramp Press, 2018. Info: tramppress.com.

An astronomer challenges an emperor. A hunter pursues the last dinosaur through a remote rainforest. A young Kerryman emigrates to the Moon to seek his fortune. These fifteen darkly funny stories illuminate a side of Irish literary history that is often overlooked. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the winds of change came rushing in Ireland’s direction. Science and technology would transform everything: life, love, death, crime, war, and even history itself. Edited and introduced by Jack Fennell, this collection of lesser-known works of classic Irish science fiction includes stories by Frances Power Cobbe, Fitz-James O’Brien, Charlotte McManus and Cathal Ó Sándair.

Contributors: JANE BARLOW (1856–1917) was born in Dublin, the daughter of the Vice-Provost of Trinity College. She wrote under a couple of different pseudonyms, most notably Felix Ryark and Antares Skorpios, and her work includes the philosophical space-voyage story History of a World of Immortals Without a God (1891), and the ‘lost world’ novel A Strange Land (1908). FRANCES POWER COBBE (1822–1904) was an outspoken social reformer who campaigned for women’s suffrage and advocated for animal rights; she was a founder of the National Anti-Vivisection Society and the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection. Cobbe was a regular correspondent with Charles Darwin, and wrote extensively on the moral implications of his theory of evolution. She is buried beside her partner Mary Lloyd in the cemetery of St Illtyd’s Church in Gwynedd, Wales. CLOTILDE (‘CLO’) GRAVES (1863–1932) was born in Buttevant, Co. Cork, and published her first novel at the age of forty-six, under the pseudonym ‘Richard Dehan’. Prior to this, she was also a playwright, a freelance journalist and a cartoonist. During her lifetime, she was perhaps best known for her controversial 1911 novel The Dop Doctor, which lionised the British side of the Second Boer War (1899–1902). MARGARET WOLFE HUNGERFORD (1855–1897) was born in Rosscarbery, Co. Cork, and later married a Dublin solicitor. Her first novel was written to support herself and her three young children following the sudden death of her husband. She is perhaps most famous as the originator of the phrase, ‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,’ which first appeared in her second novel, Molly Bawn (1878). DOROTHY MACARDLE (1889–1958) was born in Dundalk, Co. Louth. She studied at University College Dublin, and subsequently taught English at Alexandra College, the girls’ school at which she herself had been educated. Although she was best known as the author of The Irish Republic (1937), her 1942 novel Uneasy Freehold – adapted to film as The Uninvited (1944) and subsequently published under that title – is now acknowledged as a modern classic ghost story. WILLIAM MAGINN (1794–1842) was a native of Cork and a prolific writer of short fiction. A resident of London from 1824, he was a frequent contributor to various newspapers, and in 1836 he fought a duel over the fallout from a negative review he had written of a Whig MP’s debut novel. Also of genre interest is his 1827 novel Whitehall, presented as a historical novel about the 1820s from the year 2227. CHARLOTTE ELIZABETH (‘L’) MCMANUS (1853–1944), a native of Castlebar, Co. Mayo, is best remembered today for her novel The Professor in Erin, originally serialised in Arthur Griffith’s Sinn Féin Weekly in 1912. She also helped to establish the second branch of the Gaelic League in Co. Mayo, and was a member of the Irish Literary Society. L.T. MEADE, or ELIZABETH THOMASINA MEADE SMITH (1844– 1914), was a prolific author, mostly of children’s stories. She was born in Bandon, Co. Cork, and later resided in London. She was also a member of the Pioneer Club, a progressive feminist group based in London. AMELIA GARLAND MEARS (1842–1920) was born in Freshford, Co. Kilkenny, and died in Leeds; FITZ-JAMES O’BRIEN (1828–1862) was born in Cork, and grew up in Castleconnell, Co. Limerick. He emigrated to the US in the early 1850s, and later fought for the Union in the American Civil War. TARLACH Ó hUID (1917–1990) was born Augustus Walter Hood, after his father, in London. He was a member of the Social Credit Party of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and later a member of the IRA. For his IRA activities (mostly pamphleteering), he was jailed from 1940–1945, and he continued working for the Gaelic League after his release. ART Ó RIAIN (1893–1968), a native of Thurles in Co. Tipperary, was a civil servant who wrote under the pseudonym ‘Barra Ó Caochlaigh’ (since civil servants were not permitted to publish under their own names at the time); under this name, he wrote the Oireachtas Literary Award-winning sci-fi novella An Tost [Silence]. He went on to write for the state Irish-language publishing company, An Gúm. CATHAL Ó SÁNDAIR (1922–1996) was born in Weston-super-Mare, and published his first Irish-language short story at the age of sixteen. He is reputed to have written 160 books for schoolchildren, featuring the intrepid detective Réics Carló, the cowboy Réamonn Óg, and the space-pilot Captaen Spéirling. Æ (GEORGE WILLIAM RUSSELL) (1867–1935) was born in Lurgan, Co. Armagh. A poet, political activist, novelist, essayist and painter, he appears as a character in James Joyce’s Ulysses. His pseudonym ‘Æ’ was abbreviated from the word ‘Æon,’ and reflects his spiritualist beliefs.

[scifi4wifi]

On a rainy October day in London (because it’s London in October, of course it’s raining) my husband and I took the bus to Central London. Our destination was a place that I’d been looking forward to visiting since moving to London two years ago. And honestly, a rainy, cloudy day seemed almost fitting. I tried to convince my husband that we should arrive by a horse driven hansom cab, but he said no on the grounds that it would hold up traffic. Spoil sport.

The address 221b Baker Street is iconic in the realms of fiction. It was the home of the world’s greatest detective Sherlock Homes, his friend and partner Dr. John Watson and their landlady Mrs. Hudson from 1881-1904. The Georgian terrace house in London was built in 1815 and was in fact a registered lodging house from 1860-1934. The house is a listed Grade 2 of special architectural and historical interest by Her Majesty’s Government. In 1990 the site became the Sherlock Holmes Museum.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle released his first Sherlock Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet, in 1886 and from that point on Victorian England, and indeed the whole world, was hooked. There have been numerous films and television shows based upon Holmes, most recently the much-acclaimed BBC show Sherlock. Yearly, thousands of people visit the museum and I was super excited to go.

Having paid ��15 each and waiting in line (or queue since we’re in the UK) and had our tickets checked by an old-timey police officer, we entered the hallway and up the stairs to the sitting room. Walking in is much like walking into the past. The entire house is meticulously decorated in the classic Victorian style, but including an 1880’s chemists set, Sherlock’s violin and bullet holes in the wall spelling QV for the Queen (done by Sherlock out of boredom). The whole effect was both homey and quirky. The sitting room is set up as described in the stories and it is easy (and heartwarming) to see that BBC’s Sherlock made nods to this in their set design.

Next to the sitting room is Sherlock’s bedroom. As in most homes from this period all of the rooms were very small, and it was crowded with a bed, dresser, desk and small corner fireplace. The walls were covered in newspaper clippings and photos of criminals, and on the bed, in a glass case, is Sherlock’s iconic hat (called a deer-stalking hat for some strange reason. Does it make you invisible to deer? It’s a mystery).

I was completely charmed and would happily have moved into that room (minus the crime photos of course). I have a weakness for cozy rooms with fireplaces.

Going up the well-worn stairs to the next floor I couldn’t help but imagine all the people that had walked these same stairs in the last 200 years. The staircase was narrow and steep, like all staircases in London (it’s like the people that designed them wanted you to fall and break your neck), and at each landing there is a large window to let in the weak light from a cloudy and rainy day.

On the second floor were Watson’s room on one side and Mrs. Hudson’s on the other. Watson’s room included medical instruments and the desk where the Doctor recorded their adventures. Under the mounted head of the Hound of Baskerville (possibly my favorite thing. Not because I like mounted heads, but because it was so obviously fake), were letters written to Sherlock Holmes from fans across the world. I took the time to read a letter from a 14-year-old Chinese fan dated from this year, thanking Sherlock for inspiring her to work hard in school so that she might someday become a detective.

Mrs. Hudson’s room has been given over to some … disturbing … wax figures depicting Sherlock and Watson’s most famous cases, including arch-nemesis Moriarty. Again, I’d happily move into the house tomorrow, but those creepy mannequins would have to go, particularly the one hanging out of a hole in the ceiling. Can you imagine running into that when you get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom? The top floor is simply a small bathroom and a loft that stored old trunks and suitcases from the era but I was once again charmed.

I wanted to spend more time exploring but the whole place was packed with tourists and I find crowds a bit overwhelming. We did a quick run through the gift shop next door, where they of course sell the Sherlock-Stalking-Deer hat (I made a bee-line to try one on but noticed a couple getting told off for doing just that. I suppose it makes sense, who wants to buy a hat that a hundred other people have tried on? Eww.) We bought a few souvenirs (no stalking poor defenseless animals hats) and then headed home.

All in all, the museum is well worth the £15. The folks that work in the museum were full of information about every single object and happily answered any questions. The attention to detail in decoration was amazing. It was of course crowded, and there is never a time that there’s not a line of people waiting to enter (we went on a Wednesday morning in October for example), but that simply shows how much Sherlock Holmes has impacted the imagination for over 100 years. In a city as full of history as London, the Sherlock Holmes Museum really does make you feel like you’ve stepped back in time.

Incidentally, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a Spiritualist. He regularly frequented mediums and psychics, and often hosted séances in his home. How tempting it must have been for Conan Doyle to have one of Sherlock’s mysteries solved by a medium, but he never did. I for one am glad, because that would be cheating.

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A Visit to 221B Baker Street On a rainy October day in London (because it’s London in October, of course it’s raining) my husband and I took the bus to Central London.