Foreword by Hirayama Yuichi

One hundred years has passed since the publication of “Studies in the Literature of Sherlock Holmes” by Ronald Knox in 1912. That’s four generations of Sherlockians in United States and Britain. On the other hand, there have been only three generations of Sherlockians in Japan, as its history didn’t begin until after World War II.

It is said the first Sherlockian meeting in Japan was in 1948, with Richard Hughes, Edogawa Rampo, Yoshida Ken-ichi and others attending. But this scion society had only one meeting, and then Hughes moved to Hong Kong. The real history of Japanese Sherlockiana began with Dr. Naganuma Kohki and his first book, Sherlock Holmes no Chie (Wisdom of Sherlock Holmes), published in 1961. He was an earnest Sherlockian and the first Japanese to become a member of The Baker Street Irregulars. Naganuma’s generation was an introductory age. He wrote nine books on Sherlockiana, most of which were overviews of western studies and investigations. Before Naganuma, we had only a few articles on Sherlockiana, and it was unusual for us to give such consideration to detective stories.

The second generation was that of Dr. Kobayashi Tsukasa and his wife, Ms. Higashiyama Akane. They began the Japan Sherlock Holmes Club in 1978, the first nation-wide Sherlockian society in Japan. The couple was tireless Sherlockian evangelists, publishing many books to spread Sherlockiana all over the nation. I also became a member of JSHC when I was just a high school student. JSHC once had more than one thousand members, and remains one of the largest Sherlockian societies in the world.

As the third generation of Sherlockians, I have seen Sherlockiana imported and developed. Now it is time to export the results. In 1991 I began publishing an international Sherlockian magazine, Shoso-in Bulletin. At that time, there was The Baker Street Journal, Sherlock Holmes Journal and many other Sherlockian magazines but most of them were American or at least printed in English. I planned to introduce Sherlockiana to Japanese and other non-English speaking countries. In 2004, the bulletin’s final volume, vol.14, was published. I believe the journal succeeded in its mission.

This series of published articles are not only from the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, but also from France, the Czech Republic, Italy, Spain, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Russia, Belgium, Australia, New Zealand, India, Malaysia, Brazil, Hong Kong, and Japan.

This volume contains all of my own articles published in The Shoso-in Bulletin, and several that appeared in The Baker Street Journal, The Ritual, Canadian Holmes, and other Sherlockian magazines printed in English. (One of them was translated into Italian, and published in an Italian magazine.) After twenty years of writing, I believe it is a good time to sum up my overseas works.

In these writing and publishing endeavors, there are two people who supported me the most; without their help, it would not have been possible to write even one Sherlockian article in English. The first one to thank is Mr. John Hall of England. I met John when I attended the general meeting of the Northern Musgraves. He is a famous Sherlockian scholar, and I always admire his vast knowledge and kind gentlemanship. We wrote some articles together and exchanged Sherlockian questions and answers. It was a fun game and good training as a Sherlockian. All of these articles are included in this book.

The other friend is Ms. Mel Hughes of the United States. She was the co-editor of The Shoso-in Bulletin. She was previously a professional editor, and without her help, The Shoso-in Bulletin would not have continued as long as it did. I thank her so much for her great support and help.

I also thank to Ms. Peggy Perdue of Canada. She assisted us in the completion of this book. She checked my poor English with great patience.

In this book, names of Japanese people are written in our traditional style, family name first, for instance HIRAYAMA is my family name, and YUICHI is my personal name.