'It is my specific wish and intention that the manuscript contained in this box be left unopened, unread and unpublished until one hundred years have passed since the events described in the first of the two accounts it contains (namely the year 1887).
If this length of time appears in retrospect to have been excessive, I can only apologise to the future generation. It seems to me now, in this first decade of the new century, that some further decades at least must elapse before these reminiscences can be received with such sympathy and respect as I hope will one day be possible.
The accounts of these cases have never passed through the hands of my literary agent, Dr Conan Doyle, nor do I intend that they ever shall; they are too bound up with events in my personal life which, although they may provide a plausible commentary to much of what must otherwise seem implausible in my published accounts of my dealings with Mr Sherlock Holmes, can never be made public while he or I remain alive. However, it is my hope that when all those involved have long passed beyond all censure, these accounts may see the light of a happier day than was ever, alas, granted to us.
John H. Watson, M.D., London 1907'
Picture the scene: it's 1987, Centenary Year of the publication of A Study In Scarlet. Jeremy Brett is camping it up as Sherlock on the Granada TV Series here in Britain, the bookshops are full of Holmes memorabilia, shiny new editions, pastiches, scholarly discussions of the 'Holmes Phenomenon' etc … and a young lesbian couple, Rohase Piercy and Charlie Raven, are reading the stories for the very first time and quickly becoming obsessed. What we are becoming obsessed by, however, is not so much the great detective's extraordinary intellectual powers as the relationship between Holmes and his faithful sidekick Dr Watson. Why, we wondered were post-Freudian commentaries not brimming over with observation and deduction on this interesting subject?
This interview with the lovely gals from the However Improbable Podcast brought it all back in vivid detail – the heady excitement of seeing the homoerotic subtext jump off the page, the witty and hilarious (to us) improvisation, the copious amounts of whisky and soda, all resulting in the creative urge to write, both together and individually, the hitherto untold story – and, of course, the media furore that greeted the eventual publication of 'My Dearest Holmes' in 1988, and ensured that Charlie's sister novella, 'A Case Of Domestic Pilfering' lay mouldering in a drawer for nigh-on thirty years. If you've a spare half-hour or so, have a listen to how it all panned out. Just click the link below.
https://www.howeverimprobablepodcast.com/listen/book-club-case-file-my-dearest-holmes
Rohase Piercy
