Canadian Holmes: The First Twenty-Five Years

Whenever a Sherlock Holmes Society is formed, someone, sooner or later, will suggest that the Society should have a newsletter or a journal. The Bootmakers of Toronto were no exception to this rule, and the first issue of the society's magazine Canadian Holmes' appeared in the summer of 1973. From small beginnings, and an irregular publishing schedule, Canadian Holmes' is now one of the foremost Sherlockian society publications available. Over the years, the content of Canadian Holmes' has been varied, scholarly, entertaining, andabove allinteresting; from time to time it has also managed to be controversial; at the cutting edge of criticism of the Sherlockian world, so to speak. Canadian Holmes' has also always managed to maintain a national identity. While its editors have published material from around the world, the magazine remains intrinsically Canadianand is all the better for that. Thus, each issue of the magazine offers a detailed Bootmaker's Diary', a record of almost everything that happens in the day to day life of a Sherlockian society; and articles viewing Holmes and Conan Doyle from a Canadian perspective are a regular feature. In his Introduction to this volume, Christopher Redmond, who edited Canadian Holmes' from 1979 to 1991, traces the development of the magazine and gives an insight into some of the problems of editing a regular Sherlockian publication. The magazine's present editor, Trevor Raymond, has added an Afterword, which provides an update on current editorial direction and thinking. This volume is issued in celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of The Bootmakers of Toronto in 1997.