#lettersfromwatson

[maryellencarter]

SO okay there are well over a dozen different chronologies of Sherlock Holmes out there, in paper books and all that.

But, because Sir Arthur Conan Doyle gave negative fucks about anything to do with Sherlock Holmes continuity, if you are going to make a Definitive Chronology you have to make a bunch of decisions about things like "There are not only eight weeks between April 27 and October 9" and "This one is dated to the timeframe when Holmes was *dead*" and "This one has no indication of the date or year at all".

This gets even more complicated by the fact that many of the attempts at a definitive chronology are done by people who were playing "The Great Game", that is, pretending all their scholarship is based on the assumption that Watson is a real person and everything detailed in the stories really happened, so you can only have Watsonian explanations for all the conflicts instead of the simple and sweeping "Doyle did not give one single shit".

(There are also chronologies based on theses varying from "Watson is a time traveler" to "All the continuity errors are covering up H/W shippiness: the worse the error, the gayer the secret". It's a fun romp if you don't take it too seriously.)

What I've done in this Gdoc, which I hope people will feel free to use and base their own chronologies on, is I've copied out every date that is given in the Complete Sherlock Holmes and put them in order, along with the dates we can deduce by "three weeks earlier", "four years later", and so forth. When this causes conflicts, I have noted the sources and details, so that hopefully people can make their own decisions.

(1169 pages of hardcopy reviewed in three days. I may not have the ADHD, but I can definitely get head-down on a project.)

Have fun!

#letters from watson #lettersfromwatson #sherlock holmes #watsonian chronology #sherlock holmes spoilers #i guess?

[jabbage]

#Letters from Watson #lettersfromwatson

[neverquiteeden]

A Set of Notations surrounding Letters from Watson

Any/all notes around the context of these stories shall be added as I discover them during the course of LfW. As always these are for my own understanding and I will not be including actual analysis or 'meta' here, only further context (including that about the author) that I personally found interesting.

List of content warnings for LfW is here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MxfryiP0jmrOkTt_TKHKKJX_ZKYj1EN4h1YznM9Ey54/edit#heading=h.q43fjlx73u8l

Study In Scarlet Extract 1.

Battle of Maiwand: 27th July 1880. British defeat by the Afghan forces.

Enteric fever: Typhoid or paratyphoid

11 shillings and sixpence: £38.06 today (43.58 euros or 46.24 dollars)

Jezail - refers to a type of gun, typically personal and well-made

Criterion Bar: According to a few sources, the Criterion bar was generally known as a meeting place for gay men. Specific loitering laws were enacted against soldiers and ex-soldiers after the second afghan war due to them supplementing their pensions by means disapproved by the government. Arthur Conan Doyle was not yet friends with Oscar Wilde at the time of writing this section, however, so it is possible that he did not know the significance of such places. They met between the publication of Stud. and Sign of Four, and Doyle began to use the epithet of Bohemian to describe Holmes after that encounter.

A placard in the Criterion Bar today claims that Stamford and Watson met there on 1st January 1881. This generally makes sense as to the timeframe of Watson returning from Afghanistan, though the date isn't agreed upon in all circles (this is probably why Letters was meant to start on the 1st).

How far bruises may be produced after death - it is generally accepted that classical bruising does not occur after death: bruises do form if the flesh is traumatised and vessels burst, but there is no inflammatory reaction such as seen in living, classical bruises. Blood also pools in the lower half of the body during livor mortis, which produces the appearance of bruises.

Guiacum test - One of the first tests for blood developed. It relied on guiacum/guaiacum, a tree resin, and hydrogen peroxide to produce a blue stain in the presence of blood.

#letters from watson #notes from eden #acd holmes #acd sherlock holmes #lettersfromwatson #acd john watson #sherlock holmes #prepare to be sick of me

[basilsbestpainting]

The beginning of the Resident Patient where Sherlock is watching John, notices him begin to enter a depressive spiral, then proceeds to pull him out at the best moment, is actually so beautiful and deep. It really speaks to there being a deep relationship between them, no matter the context it was intended.

#letters from watson #lettersfromwatson #the resident patient

[ri-writing]

I have a new pen pal!

John sent me an email!  We are going to have a correspondence in 2023, but a good sort where John writes to me but I don’t have to write back.  Because I’m terrible at that.

He is interviewing to be someone’s roommate and they’re going to go play House Hunters and look at a flat tomorrow.  I wish them luck.  London real estate is insane.  (I know; I watch Location Location Location).

PS - are we putting spaces in the tag, fam, or is it all one word?

#lettersfromwatson #letters from watson

[mywingsareonwheels]

Ooh, I’ve had my first letter from my new friend John Watson!

Sounds like he’s had a tough time, but that new flatmate of his sounds fascinating. I hope they get on well. Also I do wish he had enclosed a photo of his “bull pup”, by which I assume he means a bulldog puppy. <3

#LettersFromWatson #letters from watson #a study in scarlet #sherlock holmes #dr john watson #arthur conan doyle

[diekatimitdemhutohnehut]

The dying detective is very whumpy!

#lettersfromwatson #sherlock holmes #whump

[personinthepalace]

You can subscribe to the Watson newsletter to receive the stories in your email @ lettersfromwatson dot substack dot com

Ooh that is so cool! Thank you for letting me know. I have also subscribed, and I can’t wait to get emails from the Dr. John Watson :)

Thank you @jabbage for setting this up! Emails begin on January 1st, 2023, the day all the Holmes stories will be in the public domain in the US!!

#oh I am so excited for this haha #it’s like the dracula daily thing #but I haven’t checked those out yet haha #I know I will be checking these emails more than I check my mcat ones LOL #letters from watson #john watson #doctor watson #dr watson #sherlock holmes #johnlock #watson newsletter #man facing southeast #answering asks in the palace

[aubreyzayn]

lettersfromwatson 1. I thought you were cool bc we hated the same people (still do) 2. truth is I am in love with you 3. like 15-16! 4. LIKE EVERY DAY 5. yes!! like 2 days ago but it doesn't matter now 6. BOOBZ 7. yes as previously stated I am in love with you 8. you're my wife 9. BRYAN AHHAA 10. already did lmao

#lettersfromwatson #bryar

[maryellencarter]

Letters from Watson (the Sherlock Holmes book-club Substack) started reading the short story "The Stockbroker's Clerk" today, and the titular clerk is a young cockney who uses a fair amount of (Doyle's approximation of) then-current slang, so I wrote up some approximations in the LfW discord (which is a very fun place). @jabbage asked if I was going to put the information on Tumblr for reference, so I guess here it is? Cleaned up a little bit and with help from other people in the discord.

* St Vitus's dance: A disease that makes you twitchy and shaky. It was a general term for conditions like Parkinson's or the twitching that can be a side effect of rheumatic fever.

* Cockney: The technical definition is a Londoner born within the radius where you can hear the bells of St Mary le Bow, "within the sound of Bow Bells" for short. The implication is that Mr Hall Pycroft, our stockbroker's clerk, comes from a lower or working class, and the stereotype would be that he's somewhat irreverent and not very bright, although ACD takes care to give us a little essay about how we should actually consider him hard-working and professional.

* Outré: French for outlandish or surprising. Holmes really likes this word, so we've probably discussed it before.

* Lost my crib: We've heard "crib" as meaning a bank or business before, in The Red-Headed League, when John Clay would "crack a crib". Pycroft is using it to mean job, with an implication that it's what we might now call a cubicle job, done at a desk in narrow indoor quarters.

* Soft Johnnie: A soft touch or soft Johnnie is someone who is easily scammed, often in reference to being an unquestioning mark for a con artist.

* Billet: In this context, a job. StephenHunterUK in the Discord mentioned it's likely from the French word for "ticket".

* Were let in: Were damaged or injured. I'm not sure of the etymology.

* Venezuelan loan: StephenHunterUK pointed out there was a Venezuelan sovereign debt default in 1892. Stockbroker's Clerk was published in March 1893, so it would have been topical at that time, but of course it has to take place not later than 1889, so this reference screws up the chronology even more than it already was. At any rate, the implication is that Mr Pycroft's old employer made a bad investment in Venezuelan securities and had to close down.

* Came a nasty cropper: This can mean anything from falling downstairs to having to shut up shop, but often indicates either death or something similarly final.

* Ripping good: Very good. Slang term Doyle is using to make Mr Pycroft sound less formal, more cockney and enthusiastic, also possibly a bit like a schoolboy.

* The smash: When the old job was ruined and had to close. I usually hear this in reference to investments or stock market crashes.

* On the same lay: Looking for the same type of work. Can also be criminal slang meaning people who work at the same type of crime, such as pickpockets.

* E.C.: StephenHunterUK provided the information that this is the postcode for the "City of London" area -- not the London metro area, but the one-square-mile area in downtown London known as the City, mostly associated with banking and law work. Hall Pycroft is saying that he's not sure how familiar Holmes and Watson are with the City of London area.

* It was my innings: Cricket reference. Means that Mr Pycroft feels he has had a lucky win.

* The screw was a pound a week rise: The pay was a pound a week more than Mr Pycroft was making at his previous job, so £4 a week or roughly £200 a year. You can see that the sketchy pottery company's offer of £500 a year more than doubles what he'd make at the reliable firm Mawson's.

* In diggings: Renting a room.

* A touch of the sheeny about his nose: A "Sheeny" is a derogatory term for an ethnically Jewish person, especially male. Pycroft is saying that Pinner had a somewhat hooked nose. The stereotype is also that Pinner might be either very financially shrewd or a con artist. (I don't know if this phrase made it into the warnings document.)

* A little sporting flutter: A bet.

* The mentions of Brussels (in Belgium, north of France) and San Remo (in Italy, southeast of France) are implying that the Franco-Midland pottery company is a big deal, with offices all across France and spilling out the corners.

* In the swim: In the thick of things.

* Deal chairs: Cheap wooden chairs. Geoharee in the Discord brought up that "deal" here refers to pine wood specifically -- pine is very soft, easily dented and stained, and is a fast-growing tree, so it was used for cheap low-quality furniture that wasn't intended to be long-lasting or durable, the sort of furniture we'd make out of fiberboard these days.

* Very badly stuffed with gold: Pinner has a badly-done gold filling in one tooth.

#letters from watson #lfw #lettersfromwatson #sherlock holmes

[jabbage]

#Letters from Watson #lettersfromwatson

[neverquiteeden]

Letters From Watson Update

EVERYONE GO CHECK UR FUCKING INBOXES LETTERS FROM WATSON JUST SENT AN EXTRACT FROM STUDY IN SCARLET

#lettersfromwatson #letters from watson #CHRISTMAS IS HERE OMG

[basilsbestpainting]

Oh boy do I want to talk about this from a forensics standpoint!!

This *would* revolutionize the world of forensics. Even in modern day we have no test both specific and sensitive enough to do something like this.

Currently, the tests mainly look for a reaction with the hemoglobin in the blood. Its an iron substance that binds with Oxygen, so as you can imagine it creates all kinds of false positives. And if there isn't enough blood? It's a false negative. Time and what it's on also play a huge factor on its detectability.

#lettersfromwatson #sherlock #letters from watson #Forensics reading #its been a minute since my forensic bio class #oh im so excited to do science with this

[fucksashton]

ship you with lukey bc aw that would be so cute omfg

AWE I KNOW AND YOURE ACUTALLY SO PRETTY OMG

Boyfriend: 

Best friend:

Secret Admirer: 

Friend with benefits:  

shortening them im sorryx

THE BEST SHIPS EVER

#lettersfromwatson

[aubreyzayn]

I LVOE BRYAR

#lettersfromwatson