Once again I got the question from another Sherlockian about when I'm going to write my own chronology. And once again I had to explain that I wasn't sure I was going to. I started to years ago, but I stopped about halfway through once I realized the challenge was far greater than I had imagined. Besides, I have more fun reporting on them. The debates, the arguments, the inconsistencies, the disagreements, the aggravations - it's all gold. And this month we're going to talk about a few of those aggravations. So, let's get to it.
I often "flip" through my database and just let things jump out at me. With almost forty-five timelines to peruse something always does. This time it was the chronology of the 1995 effort of Charles Layng in his book The Game Is Afoot!. Specifically it was his date for 'Charles Augustus Milverton' (CHAS) which caught my attention.
Now, Layng wasn't too on point with a lot of his dates. Seven of them are just year ranges, three are simply a year, and four of them have no year at all. Seriously. His date for 'The Missing Three-Quarter' (MISS) is "A February morning." But the one for CHAS got me to thinking about something I had already been pondering - if a chronologist says something not terribly specific, like T. S. Blakeney's choice for 'The Resident Patient' (RESI) of 'October of 1886 or 1887', then have they actually written two timelines (more if you add in other options of similar indecision)?
Think of it this way - say I build two timelines using Blakeney's dates and put RESI in October 1886 in the first one, and in October 1887 in the second. Suddenly all of the pieces get moved around. His placement for RESI goes between 'The Speckled Band' (SPEC) and 'The Reigate Squires' (REIG) in List #1, but after REIG in List #2. Is that a big deal? Perhaps not, but looking at other timelines from other chronologists shows that some would agree with this and some wouldn't. If I took all of the times when ol' T. S. couldn't nail down a date, then put them all in timelines to accommodate that indecisiveness, he would have seventeen different ones! And then if I took all the times he gave a season like 'Autumn' and broke it down to its individual months, the number grows. And if I...well, it can get even crazier, but you get the point.
What did Layng put for CHAS, you ask? "A fourth of the month in winter 1889." See the problem? If we take the winter months and separate them out, and place the 4th in each of them and then put those in another timeline, then we have three different ones for him. I can go through all of the other people's lists and see that most say it was January (years vary), but some like February. Does that mean only two more timelines? No, because several say it was December, and one even likes November. So, we're up to four possible lists for Layng. And that's based on that one listing! (And I haven't even brought up the point that he may have meant the other winter at the other end of the year. Geesh!)
Also, what does he mean by 'winter'? Astronomical winter? Meteorological winter? Just when it's cold? When snow's actually on the ground? Or maybe when the Thames is frozen? Now you can see the aggravation. And these are just a few examples. I have hundreds and hundreds of listings just like these.
I like the idea of having more chronologies to study, but are they really "new" ones? Technically, yes, but realistically, no. Or maybe the other way around. There are very few timelines that have an actual date for each case. Every other single one has at least some indecision in it. There's either a question mark or parentheses or an "or" or a slash. (That's a whole other topic there - whether a '/' means 'also' or 'either'. Same argument goes for a dash. That's when you have to go back to the literature [if it exists] and see what the chronologist meant. Believe me when I tell you, though, that it still isn't always clear. More aggravation.)
All of this is fascinating, and the work to separate all of these chronologies into alternate versions of the main one would be fun, but is it worth it? I had re-read an old email about William S. Baring-Gould from Sherlockian scholar J. C. O'Leary where he mentioned that the chronology in the back of Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street (SHoBS) was a little different from the one in The Annotated Sherlock Holmes (TASH), and might be considered a separate one. So, I dug out my copies and got to work comparing.
I found four variations - five if you count the fact that Baring-Gould believed there were three different cases called 'The Second Stain' (SECO). The differences, though, were nominal. An example: in 'The Lion's Mane' (LION) Baring-Gould says in TASH that it was July 27 - August 3, 1909. In SHoBS he says July 27 - August 3?, 1909. See it? And the rest are similar. There's no difference in the dates, just how he decided they worked together. In one version he says a case was 'through' from one date to the next by using a dash, while in the other book he used an '&' instead of a dash. But does it constitute a "new" chronology? Yes, using the dates from SHoBS might rearrange his cases a slight bit, but I can't decide if it's worth its own column on my spreadsheet.
This, however, brings up another consideration: if someone says the date of a case is from (ex.) July 20 - July 28, 1888, but in another version says July 20 & July 28, 1888, is that the same thing? The dash version would mean Holmes and/or Watson would have worked on the case the whole time. The & version means they worked on it the first day, and then the last day. Again, is that the same thing? Kind of, yeah. We know multiple cases were examined at the same time, so it's not a surprise that this would happen. Still, the question remains. It's no wonder I don't have any hair!
Well, as you can plainly see, Sherlockian chronology is fraught with headaches, heartaches, hidden panels, and red herrings. Why do I do it? Because it's a blast! I get to study the world's greatest detective who lived during one of the greatest periods in history in one of the greatest cities ever built, and the research never ends. And given my love for things in list form, it just don't get no better for this old man. So, I'll keep going until I can't.
I will always express my appreciation for you - the reader. This blog's Counter will tip over the 150,000 mark very soon, and even if it were half of that, it would still be more than I could've imagined when I started all of this. I'll see you next month, and as always...thanks for reading.
