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NEW on The Baker Street Babes: Book Release: Femme Friday
We are incredibly happy and proud to be able to announce the publication of our essay collection: What started as an act of resistance – a weekly post on Fridays on our tumblr to celebrate – rather than mock and put down – women became something we greatly enjoyed doing, and...
Read more at http://bakerstreetbabes.com/book-release-femme-friday/
NEW on The Baker Street Babes: Book Release: Femme Friday
We are incredibly happy and proud to be able to announce the publication of our essay collection!
What started as an act of resistance – a weekly post on Fridays on our tumblr to celebrate – rather than mock and put down – women became something we greatly enjoyed doing, and so it grew into a series. This volume is a collection of these essays on the women in the Sherlock Holmes stories as well as in adaptations and pastiches. We tried to include as many ladies as possible, though we are aware that we missed the likes of Mrs. Cushing from “The Cardboard Box,” Nancy Barclay from “The Crooked Man,” Emilia Lucca from “The Red Circle” as well as the ladies from “The Greek Interpreter” and “The Retired Colourman”, and a few others. However, we have assembled quite the collection of essays on awesome ladies, so we beg forgiveness from the fantastic ladies we did not manage to include.
Once the idea to publish the essays in a book started to form, we opened a call for further essays on our social media sites – which resulted in the 33 essays in this collection.
Trying to figure out how to best navigate formatting and figuring out the quirks of self-publishing was a steep learning curve – and it continues – as we are working on an epub version of the content. In the end, we decided to publish with two different companies, as shipping costs would always be horrendous for one continent or another. We are now selling the book on Blurb.com (US market) and Lulu.com (European market).* Since the books have several gorgeous images by Merilyn Paugus, we wanted to honour her work as well, so we created both an affordable black and white version of the book, and a slightly more fancy one with colour images.
You can find the US versions here, and the European versions here. They are only very slightly different in format, and Lulu allowed for a title on the spine, whereas Blurb did not, but essentially they are the same. Within a couple of weeks, the book should also be available via Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
All proceeds of the sales are used to cover the maintainance costs of our website and podcast hosting sites.
We would like to thank every one of those amazing ladies who offered to contribute to this project. Femme Friday resonated with a lot of people and this collection is very important to us as Sherlockians, and as women.
*We dearly hope that shipping to Africa, South America, Asia and Australia won’t be too expensive!
NEW on The Baker Street Babes: Call for Submissions!
Two years ago, we started writing essays on canonical and non-canonical ladies in the Sherlock Holmes universe(s): Femme Friday is a way for us all to shout out to the brilliant ladies of every Sherlock Holmes ‘verse. Femme Friday is a lark via which we announce a particular female character and...
Read more at http://bakerstreetbabes.com/call-for-submissions/
Call for Submissions! (the call is now closed: all ladies have been claimed!)
Two years ago, we started writing essays on canonical and non-canonical ladies in the Sherlock Holmes universe(s):
Femme Friday is a way for us all to shout out to the brilliant ladies of every Sherlock Holmes ‘verse.
Femme Friday is a lark via which we announce a particular female character and then queue 100% positive content about her.
Femme Friday is a celebration of the fact that we BSB are ladies and that we are proud of ourselves and care about how we’re portrayed in media.
Femme Friday is a way for us to better appreciate Sherlock Holmes and John Watson by studying the women in their lives.
Since then, we have covered quite a few of the women in the Canon and in adaptations, and we plan to publish these essays in book form. However, we are still missing a few kick-ass ladies, which is why we need you!
We are looking for guest contributors for the following female characters:
*Mrs. Ferguson (The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire)
*Annie Harrison (The Adventure of the Naval Treaty)
*Isadora Klein (The Adventure of the Three Gables)
*Mrs. Ronder (The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger)
*Lady Frances Carfax (The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax)
*Elsie Cubitt (The Adventure of the Dancing Men)
*Kate Whitney (The Man with the Twisted Lip, Sherlock, HLV)
*Anna Coram (The Golden Pince-Nez)
Write in your own personal style, but please stay on-topic and positive. This is about celebrating these women, and your essay should focus on that. Contributions should be between 700 and 1000 words.
If you include illustrations, make sure they are in the public domain and at least 300 dpi.
Please email us at [email protected] if you want to contribute so we can mark the ladies that are being written about.
The deadline for the contributions is Monday, September 12.
* marked names have been claimed.
Lady Hilda Trelawney Hope
By BSB Lyndsay
Lady Hilda Trelawney Hope, apparently the “most lovely woman in London” in addition to being one hell of a Secret Agent Super Spy, might not at first blush seem the perfect choice for a Femme Friday. After all, Lady Hilda steals the impolitic diplomatic letter left in her husband’s charge with apparently no greater trouble than if she had been rifling through his loose change to run down the corner store and pick up some cigarettes. She is one of two criminals in “The Second Stain,” she the thief and Eduardo Lucas the blackmailer who compels her to theft; but I would argue that she is one of the most formidable women in sixty tales, and in my headcanon, every month or so she goes out for three-martini lunches with the unnamed woman who turned Charles Augustus Milverton into Swiss cheese.
We meet her in high Watsonian fashion, with our good doctor waxing still more than usually poetic over Lady Hilda’s “subtle, delicate charm” and the “beautiful colouring of that exquisite head,” and her “queenly presence,” which was “tall, graceful, and intensely womanly.” (My new goal in life is for my presence to be “intensely womanly,” which I wonder quite how best to accomplish short of wearing my ovaries as epaulettes.) While Watson adjusts his trousers discreetly, Holmes treats his unexpected visitor with remarkable courtesy—no, he says, he cannot reveal the full import of her husband Trelawney Hope’s visit, but the missing material could well cause Hope’s political career, if not all of Europe, to go tits up.
Lady Hilda is sincere and persuasive; though terrified, she is poised and composed. She cleverly chooses the one chair in the room which will afford her privacy by lighting her from the back, and after Holmes gives his regretful denials, she neither berates him nor even disagrees with his principles. All told, it is a curious interview indeed for a noblewoman in desperate straits to carry on with a Bohemian hired detective, and both parties treat each other with considerable respect.
It is not until Holmes and Watson are invited to the murdered Eduardo Lucas’s crime scene by a delightfully warm Lestrade that we learn Lady Hilda is a full metal badass in combat boots. After being told that Trelawney Hope could be ruined, Lady Hilda—whose only thought was for her husband in the first place, as she was convinced the “foolish letter, a letter of an impulsive, loving girl” would be in her husband’s eyes “criminal” if revealed—promptly decides to don a disguise, create a secret identity as a typist with a taste for gore, and wheedle her way into the room where the letter was hidden. She next pretends to faint in front of the constable, thereby easily ridding herself of him, steals her own letter back, dusts her hands and mucks up the placement of the carpet, and is off home again before you can say “ninja.” One wonders where women of the peerage learn such sweet moves.
What troubles me most about this whole scenario is how obviously Lady Hilda loves her husband and how much she is willing to sacrifice for him when this Trelawney chappie is, let us be real here, kind of a power tool. First off, his name is “Trelawney.” Second, it’s certainly reasonable for a diplomat dealing with scads of sensitive information to neglect to confide in his wife high matters of state; but the way he completely dismisses her from that aspect of his life is disappointing to anyone who has ever watched “House of Cards.” Finally, Lady Hilda is so certain that he would reject her upon learning of her past that I feel confident in labeling him an asshat. Lady Hilda is being alternately ignored and abused by the men in this story, and despite the direness of her situation, she navigates all with intentions fully rooted in loyalty and love.
When Holmes confronts Lady Hilda about the theft, she rebuffs him completely—not once, but six times in a goddamn row. This is Sherlock Holmes we’re talking about here—you know, that fella whose orders are almost impossible to ignore? Fortunately, Lady Hilda at last decides to enlist Holmes's help, seeing as Sherlock Holmes thinks about as highly of blackmailers as he does chigger bites. After Holmes arranges for the letter to magically reappear and this Trelawney sap scampers off like a rabbit to show it to the wife he just ordered out of the room, all is well again, and one supposes that this mental banana peel will never imagine his spouse has a knack for international espionage. As for Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson—they sure as hell is toasty know better.
- I value you for more than just the many benefits you’ve brought into my life. I value you as a person. - That’s nice. It really is. But your apologies always seem to come after you already got what you wanted.
Love that Elementary took this title and made something completely new.
Mrs. St Clair
By BSB Ashley
“You would have done better to have trusted your wife,” says Sherlock Holmes to an abashed and exposed Neville St. Clair at the conclusion of “The Man with the Twisted Lip.” Isn’t that so often the case? Mrs. Neville St. Clair is one of the many women in the Canon who is never given a name of her own (though let’s face it, it’s probably Violet or Mary. Probably Violet). This lack of identifier should not be mistaken for lack of identity. Nor should it suggest a lack of character or of purpose. Mrs. St. Clair instigates the action, knowingly leads the police and Holmes to vital clues, and maintains the base of operations during the case.
While many Canonical cases revolve around women, Mrs. St. Clair is at the center of this one without being either a victim or a villain. She is an everywoman: a devoted wife, and a loving mother. And like so many wives and mothers—certainly mine, and perhaps yours as well—she is a rock, and expert manager of people and situations, and has a felicity for cutting through bullshit.
The case is triggered when Mrs. (Violet or Mary) St. Clair sees her husband flailing out of the upper window of the sort of establishment that makes other seedy rat-infested rookeries look like cozy tea shops. What does she do? She makes instant note of the fact that Neville is not wearing a collar and tie, because details matter, registers that he seems to be in distress, and immediately rushes into this hideous den of vice to rescue him. She tries to muscle her way past the sinister toughs blocking the stairway, and she has to be carried out bodily before she gives up and fetches the police. There is no strength like the strength of a woman when her family is threatened.
Holmes spends a long cab ride to the St. Clairs’ home in Kent musing to Watson over how sorry he is not to have good news for his client (for, presumably, just as she engaged the police, Mrs. St. Clair enlisted Holmes), and how worried she is for her husband. The reader might therefore expect a frail, weeping thing to greet Holmes and Watson, but instead, we get a different sight altogether: “She stood with her figure outlined against the flood of light, one hand upon the door, one half raised in her eagerness, her body slightly bent, her head and face protruded, with eager eyes and parted lips, a standing question.” Following an introduction to Watson and a brief exchange with Holmes, she ushers the men into her house and proceeds to grill the detective in the most satisfyingly forthright manner: “Now, Mr. Sherlock Holmes… I should very much like to ask you one or two plain questions, to which I beg that you will give a plain answer. …Do not trouble about my feelings. I am not hysterical, nor given to fainting. I simply wish to hear your real, real opinion.” While she grills Holmes, she is “standing upon the rug and looking keenly down at him as he leaned back in a basket chair.” As a personal confession, every time I read this I imagine my own mum interrogating a different version of Holmes. And every time, every version cowers and must collect himself before he answers.
There is one other unique quality of Mrs. St. Clair: while her husband is missing, she allows two bachelors to stay in her house with her. Several commentators have posited that she was having a dalliance with Holmes (who was meant to be staying with her on his own), and others have suggested she had designs on him that he was relieved to escape through Watson’s serendipitous presence. For my part, I think she didn’t care if her reputation was ruined if it meant the safe return of her husband, and was simply happy to offer whatever help Holmes requested; she’s a practical woman. The long and short of it is that Mrs. St. Clair is not to be trifled with, and quite frankly, if she ever does learn the truth of his activities from her husband, I wouldn’t trade places with him for all the coppers Hugh Boone ever collected.
you know what time it is: hawkeye is smoking his ciggie and i am sitting here with illustrations and screencaps — but sadly, again, without notes — for the next round of ‘elementary sherlocking’. (no one suggested a similarly corny substitute title, so i’ll just stick with it till the end.) as...
Love this post!
Have some dashing Watson.
Edward charming Mrs. St Clair. <3
Mrs. St Clair
By BSB Ashley
“You would have done better to have trusted your wife,” says Sherlock Holmes to an abashed and exposed Neville St. Clair at the conclusion of “The Man with the Twisted Lip.” Isn’t that so often the case? Mrs. Neville St. Clair is one of the many women in the Canon who is never given a name of her own (though let’s face it, it’s probably Violet or Mary. Probably Violet). This lack of identifier should not be mistaken for lack of identity. Nor should it suggest a lack of character or of purpose. Mrs. St. Clair instigates the action, knowingly leads the police and Holmes to vital clues, and maintains the base of operations during the case.
While many Canonical cases revolve around women, Mrs. St. Clair is at the center of this one without being either a victim or a villain. She is an everywoman: a devoted wife, and a loving mother. And like so many wives and mothers—certainly mine, and perhaps yours as well—she is a rock, and expert manager of people and situations, and has a felicity for cutting through bullshit.
The case is triggered when Mrs. (Violet or Mary) St. Clair sees her husband flailing out of the upper window of the sort of establishment that makes other seedy rat-infested rookeries look like cozy tea shops. What does she do? She makes instant note of the fact that Neville is not wearing a collar and tie, because details matter, registers that he seems to be in distress, and immediately rushes into this hideous den of vice to rescue him. She tries to muscle her way past the sinister toughs blocking the stairway, and she has to be carried out bodily before she gives up and fetches the police. There is no strength like the strength of a woman when her family is threatened.
Holmes spends a long cab ride to the St. Clairs’ home in Kent musing to Watson over how sorry he is not to have good news for his client (for, presumably, just as she engaged the police, Mrs. St. Clair enlisted Holmes), and how worried she is for her husband. The reader might therefore expect a frail, weeping thing to greet Holmes and Watson, but instead, we get a different sight altogether: “She stood with her figure outlined against the flood of light, one hand upon the door, one half raised in her eagerness, her body slightly bent, her head and face protruded, with eager eyes and parted lips, a standing question.” Following an introduction to Watson and a brief exchange with Holmes, she ushers the men into her house and proceeds to grill the detective in the most satisfyingly forthright manner: “Now, Mr. Sherlock Holmes… I should very much like to ask you one or two plain questions, to which I beg that you will give a plain answer. …Do not trouble about my feelings. I am not hysterical, nor given to fainting. I simply wish to hear your real, real opinion.” While she grills Holmes, she is “standing upon the rug and looking keenly down at him as he leaned back in a basket chair.” As a personal confession, every time I read this I imagine my own mum interrogating a different version of Holmes. And every time, every version cowers and must collect himself before he answers.
There is one other unique quality of Mrs. St. Clair: while her husband is missing, she allows two bachelors to stay in her house with her. Several commentators have posited that she was having a dalliance with Holmes (who was meant to be staying with her on his own), and others have suggested she had designs on him that he was relieved to escape through Watson’s serendipitous presence. For my part, I think she didn’t care if her reputation was ruined if it meant the safe return of her husband, and was simply happy to offer whatever help Holmes requested; she’s a practical woman. The long and short of it is that Mrs. St. Clair is not to be trifled with, and quite frankly, if she ever does learn the truth of his activities from her husband, I wouldn’t trade places with him for all the coppers Hugh Boone ever collected.
Did he take liberties with you? I don’t even know what that means. And I don’t appreciate being woken up so that you can indulge your paranoid fantasies about your brother
Oh, Joan...
Mrs. St Clair
By BSB Ashley
“You would have done better to have trusted your wife,” says Sherlock Holmes to an abashed and exposed Neville St. Clair at the conclusion of “The Man with the Twisted Lip.” Isn’t that so often the case? Mrs. Neville St. Clair is one of the many women in the Canon who is never given a name of her own (though let’s face it, it’s probably Violet or Mary. Probably Violet). This lack of identifier should not be mistaken for lack of identity. Nor should it suggest a lack of character or of purpose. Mrs. St. Clair instigates the action, knowingly leads the police and Holmes to vital clues, and maintains the base of operations during the case.
While many Canonical cases revolve around women, Mrs. St. Clair is at the center of this one without being either a victim or a villain. She is an everywoman: a devoted wife, and a loving mother. And like so many wives and mothers—certainly mine, and perhaps yours as well—she is a rock, and expert manager of people and situations, and has a felicity for cutting through bullshit.
The case is triggered when Mrs. (Violet or Mary) St. Clair sees her husband flailing out of the upper window of the sort of establishment that makes other seedy rat-infested rookeries look like cozy tea shops. What does she do? She makes instant note of the fact that Neville is not wearing a collar and tie, because details matter, registers that he seems to be in distress, and immediately rushes into this hideous den of vice to rescue him. She tries to muscle her way past the sinister toughs blocking the stairway, and she has to be carried out bodily before she gives up and fetches the police. There is no strength like the strength of a woman when her family is threatened.
Holmes spends a long cab ride to the St. Clairs’ home in Kent musing to Watson over how sorry he is not to have good news for his client (for, presumably, just as she engaged the police, Mrs. St. Clair enlisted Holmes), and how worried she is for her husband. The reader might therefore expect a frail, weeping thing to greet Holmes and Watson, but instead, we get a different sight altogether: “She stood with her figure outlined against the flood of light, one hand upon the door, one half raised in her eagerness, her body slightly bent, her head and face protruded, with eager eyes and parted lips, a standing question.” Following an introduction to Watson and a brief exchange with Holmes, she ushers the men into her house and proceeds to grill the detective in the most satisfyingly forthright manner: “Now, Mr. Sherlock Holmes… I should very much like to ask you one or two plain questions, to which I beg that you will give a plain answer. …Do not trouble about my feelings. I am not hysterical, nor given to fainting. I simply wish to hear your real, real opinion.” While she grills Holmes, she is “standing upon the rug and looking keenly down at him as he leaned back in a basket chair.” As a personal confession, every time I read this I imagine my own mum interrogating a different version of Holmes. And every time, every version cowers and must collect himself before he answers.
There is one other unique quality of Mrs. St. Clair: while her husband is missing, she allows two bachelors to stay in her house with her. Several commentators have posited that she was having a dalliance with Holmes (who was meant to be staying with her on his own), and others have suggested she had designs on him that he was relieved to escape through Watson’s serendipitous presence. For my part, I think she didn’t care if her reputation was ruined if it meant the safe return of her husband, and was simply happy to offer whatever help Holmes requested; she’s a practical woman. The long and short of it is that Mrs. St. Clair is not to be trifled with, and quite frankly, if she ever does learn the truth of his activities from her husband, I wouldn’t trade places with him for all the coppers Hugh Boone ever collected.
The Man with the Twisted Lip, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
(via reading-sherlock)
From Page to Screen: BBC’s Sherlock
…there, sitting by the fire and grinning at my surprise, was none other than Sherlock Holmes. […]
"Holmes!" I whispered, "what on earth are you doing in this den?" The Man with the Twisted Lip [x]
Perfect modern version is perfect. :)
Mrs. St Clair
By BSB Ashley
“You would have done better to have trusted your wife,” says Sherlock Holmes to an abashed and exposed Neville St. Clair at the conclusion of “The Man with the Twisted Lip.” Isn’t that so often the case? Mrs. Neville St. Clair is one of the many women in the Canon who is never given a name of her own (though let’s face it, it’s probably Violet or Mary. Probably Violet). This lack of identifier should not be mistaken for lack of identity. Nor should it suggest a lack of character or of purpose. Mrs. St. Clair instigates the action, knowingly leads the police and Holmes to vital clues, and maintains the base of operations during the case.
While many Canonical cases revolve around women, Mrs. St. Clair is at the center of this one without being either a victim or a villain. She is an everywoman: a devoted wife, and a loving mother. And like so many wives and mothers—certainly mine, and perhaps yours as well—she is a rock, and expert manager of people and situations, and has a felicity for cutting through bullshit.
The case is triggered when Mrs. (Violet or Mary) St. Clair sees her husband flailing out of the upper window of the sort of establishment that makes other seedy rat-infested rookeries look like cozy tea shops. What does she do? She makes instant note of the fact that Neville is not wearing a collar and tie, because details matter, registers that he seems to be in distress, and immediately rushes into this hideous den of vice to rescue him. She tries to muscle her way past the sinister toughs blocking the stairway, and she has to be carried out bodily before she gives up and fetches the police. There is no strength like the strength of a woman when her family is threatened.
Holmes spends a long cab ride to the St. Clairs’ home in Kent musing to Watson over how sorry he is not to have good news for his client (for, presumably, just as she engaged the police, Mrs. St. Clair enlisted Holmes), and how worried she is for her husband. The reader might therefore expect a frail, weeping thing to greet Holmes and Watson, but instead, we get a different sight altogether: “She stood with her figure outlined against the flood of light, one hand upon the door, one half raised in her eagerness, her body slightly bent, her head and face protruded, with eager eyes and parted lips, a standing question.” Following an introduction to Watson and a brief exchange with Holmes, she ushers the men into her house and proceeds to grill the detective in the most satisfyingly forthright manner: “Now, Mr. Sherlock Holmes… I should very much like to ask you one or two plain questions, to which I beg that you will give a plain answer. …Do not trouble about my feelings. I am not hysterical, nor given to fainting. I simply wish to hear your real, real opinion.” While she grills Holmes, she is “standing upon the rug and looking keenly down at him as he leaned back in a basket chair.” As a personal confession, every time I read this I imagine my own mum interrogating a different version of Holmes. And every time, every version cowers and must collect himself before he answers.
There is one other unique quality of Mrs. St. Clair: while her husband is missing, she allows two bachelors to stay in her house with her. Several commentators have posited that she was having a dalliance with Holmes (who was meant to be staying with her on his own), and others have suggested she had designs on him that he was relieved to escape through Watson’s serendipitous presence. For my part, I think she didn’t care if her reputation was ruined if it meant the safe return of her husband, and was simply happy to offer whatever help Holmes requested; she’s a practical woman. The long and short of it is that Mrs. St. Clair is not to be trifled with, and quite frankly, if she ever does learn the truth of his activities from her husband, I wouldn’t trade places with him for all the coppers Hugh Boone ever collected.
Sherlock Holmes, The Man with the Twisted Lip
Well, I know which part of the Venn I’m in…
(via finalproblem)
Granada best moments 7: curious case of disappearance..
Requested by anon.
Great case, great lady.
