Episode 114: Escape with Sherlock Holmes

"Has anything escaped me?" [HOUN]

There's a reason Vincent Starrett wrote "Here, though the world explode, these two survive,/ And it is always eighteen ninety-five." Whether it was in the 1940s or today, the world offers a up a variety of stressors and developments that cause one to wish to simply forget about it all for a while.

Hence, the concept of escapism. The pastime of Sherlock Holmes is a form of escapism, and we explore what it means, the origin of the phrase, and how it differs from procrastination. And there were a number of individuals in the Canon who were escaping from something or who wished to bury themselves in some sort of distraction or hobby. From Irene Adler to Selden, Hugh Boone to Brunton, J. Neil Gibson to Elsie Cubitt, there were reasons to withdraw and escape; and Stapleton, Baron Gruner, and Sherlock Holmes himself had hobbies that kept them otherwise occupied from time to time.

Plus, we wrap up with an escapist Gas-Lamp: Bill Schweikert's "A Long Evening with Holmes."

Sponsors

Wessex Press, with The Watson Chronicles by Ann Margaret Lewis.
The Baker Street Journal, where you'll find many reasons to escape in every issue.

Notes

1:33 Hello there and a brainstorm
6:25 Wessex Press
7:39 Our other show
10:26 Escapism and the Sherlock Holmes stories
18:48 Hobbies as escapes
22:35 Polyphonic motets of Lassus
23:41 The great hiatus — escapism at its most extreme
29:10 The likelihood of Watson cramming for a Chinese pottery exam
33:45 Conan Doyle's interests and hobbies
35:26 Peter Carey was ahead of his time
39:54 The Baker Street Journal
41:22 The Sherlock Holmes News
57:50 Editor's Gas-Lamp
1:00:33 Listener comment
1:03:49 The game's afoot!
1:04:39 The Procrastination Song

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