Free Republic

The Impenetrable Mystery of the Death of Sherlock Holmes’ Biggest Fan Brent Swancer July 2, 2019 It seems that there are those times when life truly does imitate art. These are the cases in which real life mysteries seem to be inextricably linked to artistic endeavors upon the canvas, page, or screen, and such mysteries have been around since time unremembered. One of these must surely be the mysterious death of the world’s most eminent researcher of the fictional character Sherlock Holmes, whose passing and its myriad bizarre clues remain unsolved and which seem perfect for a Sherlock story in...

This evening's Antiques Roadshow (from Belfast) had some interesting fortean-tinged items. Unsurprisingly, there were various pieces of Titanic memorabilia but the final segment had the daughter and granddaughter of Frances Griffiths showing the famous Cottingley fairy photographs and a camera given to Griffiths by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to Roadshow expert, Paul Atterbury. You can watch the episode in full on the BBC iPlayer for the next seven days.A few things worth noting from the programme:Frances only admitted that the photographs (bar one) were fakes after she had discovered her cousin Elsie had spoken out about them (Elsie had come...

LONDON - Sherlock Holmes enthusiasts got a rare glimpse into the private world of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as thousands of personal papers - from his passport to his jotted-down story ideas - went on display today. At the same time, the archive has become entwined in a mystery worthy of Doyle's celebrated fictional detective: the bizarre death of a leading Holmes scholar. The papers are to be auctioned off Wednesday, perhaps to disappear again into the obscurity of private ownership, a fate that had obsessed Richard Lancelyn Green, a former chairman of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London. Green,...