The Sherlock Holmes Collections, University of Minnesota Libraries

Twin Cities Public Television (TPT) "NewsNight Minnesota" -- Ken Stone uncovers the Holmes Collection

MN Daily Video Report on the Holmes exhibit

WCCO Radio "The Don Shelby Show" -- Don discusses Sherlock Holmes with curator Tim Johnson and Showboat star Chris Kehoe

WCCO TV "Finding Minnesota" -- Reporter Jeanette Trompeter highlights the Holmes exhibit and collections

Exhibit--Victorian Secrets and Edwardian Enigmas: The Riddles of the Rooms of 221B Baker Street Copy of the exhibit catalog

Nostalgia Ventures Production of 1948-1949 radio shows from the Meiser Collection

"More Than a 'washed-up has-been': Textual Aspects of the Holmes Icon" (Delivered paper)

Research Tools and Useful Links

BIBLIOGRAPHIES

Finding Aids to Manuscript Material in the Sherlock Holmes Collections

Publications of Interest

"Story of the Blue Carbuncle," from Pennsylvania Grit Story Companion, December 18, 1904
"The Adventure of the Red Circle," from the June 11, 1911 Boston Sunday Post
Friends of the Library Newsletter Summer 1995
E. W. McDiarmid, "The Saga of a Sherlockian Scion Society: The Norwegian Explorers of Minnesota" (Norwegian Explorers, 1995)
George Hubbs, "Yes, Virginia, Sherlock Holmes Lives" (Norwegian Explorers, 1995)
"Under the Arch II" Exhibit Booklet
Sheet Music, "The Ghost of Sherlock Holmes"

Art, Photography, and Illustrations

Parker Brothers, Sherlock Holmes Game, 1904
Fredric Dorr Steele, Collier's cover from January 28, 1905

About The Collections

The Sherlock Holmes Collections at the University of Minnesota Library constitute the world’s largest gathering of material related to Sherlock Holmes and his creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
The Collections consist of over 15,000 items including books, journals, and a wide variety of other forms through which the transformation of the Holmes character from the printed page to a cultural icon can be traced.
The Sherlockian materials within the Collections include:

Artifacts
Audio & Video Recordings
Books
Journals
License Plates
Manuscripts
Motion Pictures & Film Strips
Musical Scores
Original Artwork
Periodicals

Personal Papers & Libraries
Playbills
Posters
Radio Scripts & Original recordings
Scrapbooks
Statuary
T-Shirts
Theatrical Programs
Toys & Games

Collections Profile

SHERLOCK HOLMES STORIES
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Between 1887 and 1927 Conan Doyle wrote four novels and fifty-six short stories featuring the Holmes character.
The Collections include a wide range of English language editions of these works, plus translations in over fifty other languages.

SHERLOCK HOLMES STORIES
by Other Writers
Following in the footsteps of Sir Arthur, many writers have taken their own turn at creating a Holmes adventure. These imitations or pastiches have included works by Isaac Asimov, Agatha Christie, Adrian Conan Doyle (Sir Arthur’s son), Stephen King, A.A. Milne, Mark Twain, and P.G. Wodehouse. The Collections have a wide selection, both serious and lighthearted.

WRITINGS ON THE WRITINGS
These include commentaries and reference works on almost every aspect of the Holmes stories and the Victorian Era in which they are set.

SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
If one wants to know more about the creator of Sherlock Holmes, the Collections have biographical material, as well as Conan Doyle’s own works of non-Sherlockian fiction and nonfiction.

JOURNALS AND PERIODICALS
The Collections hold numerous journals from Sherlock Holmes appreciation societies throughout the world. The journal collection includes complete holdings of the Baker Street Journal, from the Baker Street Irregulars of New York, and The Sherlock Holmes Journal from the Sherlock Holmes Society of London. Copies of The Strand Magazine, where many of the Holmes stories first appeared, are also available for consultation.

SCRAPBOOKS
The scrapbooks contain exhaustive clippings from periodicals which mention Holmes or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The scrapbooks were assembled by John Bennett Shaw and they include material from 1869 to 1994.

THE PERFORMING ARTS
The performing arts material includes audio and video recordings, musical scores, posters, scripts, theater programs, and other material related to Holmes productions.

SHERLOCK HOLMES AND POPULAR CULTURE
Numerous artifacts document the iconographic development and universal appeal of Sherlock Holmes. The typical deerstalker hat, magnifying glass and curved pipe associated with Holmes are represented in their many mediums.

History of the Collections

The Sherlock Holmes Collections began in 1974 with the purchase of James C. Iraldi’s small but distinguished library of first editions of the Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Thus, the University of Minnesota Library has been building the Sherlock Holmes Collections for more than thirty years. Direct purchases and generous donations have helped the Collections to reach their current size and comprehensiveness.
Two of the more important collections of the many that have been added since 1974 are those of Philip S. Hench and John Bennett Shaw.
Philip S. Hench M.D., was a Mayo Clinic consulting physician and a recipient of the Nobel Prize for medicine (1950), who, with his wife Mary Kahler Hench, built one of the more remarkable Sherlockian libraries ever assembled. The treasures of the Hench library include: unique copies of Beeton’s Christmas Annual, (1887) containing “A Study in Scarlet”, the first Sherlock Holmes adventure; English and American first editions of the stories; plus material related to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, William Gillette, and Frederic Dorr Steele.
John Bennett Shaw, an entrepreneur from Santa Fe, New Mexico attempted to collect everything on or about Sherlock Holmes and nearly succeeded. The Shaw Collection is the most diverse, with items running the gamut from books to stuffed animals.

For more information on the history of the collection see Timothy J. Johnson, "The Adventure of the Unopened Box: Building the Sherlock Holmes Collections at the University of Minnesota Libraries," Collection Management 29 (3/4) 2004:121-141

Using the Collections

The materials in the Sherlock Holmes Collections do not circulate outside of the reading room of the Special Collections and Rare Books Department. Photocopying is available and is subject to applicable copyright laws.
Before visiting the Collections in person, please make an appointment with the Collection Specialist for the Sherlock Holmes Collections at the address below.

Sherlock Holmes Collections
111 Elmer L. Andersen Library
222 21st Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55455
612-624-3552
Fax: 612-625-5525
E-mail: Sherlock Holmes Collections

1998
Volume 2, Number 1 (PDF, 405 kb)
Volume 2, Number 2 (PDF, 602 kb)
Volume 2, Number 3 (PDF, 1.8 mb)
Volume 2, Number 4 (PDF, 430 kb)

2000
Volume 4, Number 1 (PDF, 346 kb)
Volume 4, Number 2 (PDF, 379 kb)
Volume 4, Number 3 (PDF, 492 kb)
Volume 4, Number 4 (PDF, 355 kb)

2002
Volume 6, Number 1 (PDF, 251 kb)
Volume 6, Number 2 (PDF, 289 kb)
Volume 6, Number 3 (PDF, 230 kb)
Volume 6, Number 4 (PDF, 315 kb)

2004
Volume 8, Number 1 (PDF, 2.27 mb)
Volume 8, Number 2 (PDF, 1.96 mb)
Volume 8, Number 3 (PDF, 1.16 mb)
Volume 8, Number 4 (PDF, 2.19 mb)

2006
Volume 10, Number 1 (PDF, 198 kb)
Volume 10, Number 2 (PDF, 235 kb)
Volume 10, Number 3 (PDF, 232 kb)
Volume 10, Number 4 (PDF, 234 kb)

Exhibition Catalogs

Items from the collections have been featured in a number of exhibitions. Booklets produced as a part of each exhibit are reproduced here, in PDF format and include:

Arthur Conan Doyle (1979) (PDF, 10.5MB)
Molding the Image: William Gillette as Sherlock Holmes (1983) (PDF, 2.2MB)
The Other Master: Frederic Dorr Steele (1984) (PDF, 3.3MB)
Investigating Sherlock Holmes (1985) (PDF, 1.5 MB)
The Frederic Dorr Steele Memorial Collection (1987)(PDF, 3MB)
Howard Haycraft and the Art of Detective Fiction (1993) (PDF, 2.5MB)
The Basic Holmesian Library: A Catalog (2001) (PDF, 1.47MB)