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Evelyn Herzog, BSI
Evelyn Herzog (The Daintiest Thing Under a Bonnet, 1991) saved her tooth fairy money to obtain a copy of The Complete Sherlock Holmes.  That book became the foundation upon which she attracted a group of other college students at Albertus Magnus College to meet and discuss the Sherlock Holmes stories. Precocious young women, they wrote to William S. Baring-Gould, John Bennett Shaw, Peter Blau, Ted Schulz, and others and developed ongoing correspondence with them.  While still in high school, Evy learned that (at that time) the Baker Street Irregulars did not admit women to its dinners.  While in college, she and her cohorts still considered it an injustice, and, being the 1960s, they picketed the 1968 BSI Dinner.

That eventually led to the founding of the Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes, of which she is still “The Principal Unprincipled Adventuress.”  Evy was invested in the BSI among the six women (including Susan Rice) whom Tom Stix invested at the memorable 1991 BSI Cocktail Party which finally fully opened the BSI to women.  She has been a notable Sherlockian and an important figure in American Sherlockian history.

Along the way, she has met many memorable Sherlockians.  She is expertly interviewed by Susan Rice, and she talks about the many people she has known and the events she not only witnessed, but participated in, and, sometimes, initiated.


Click to play this interview

Interviewee: Evelyn Herzog
Interviewer: Susan Rice
Date: March 9, 2015
Location: New York, NY
Description:  MP3, 44.1 MB, 68kbps, 1 hour 30 minutes

Interview Topics

Childhood
John Baesch
The Tooth Fairy and The Complete Sherlock Holmes
Discovering the Sherlockian Community
Albertus Magnus College
Starting Her First Scion Society
Linda Patterson
Pat Moran
Marykay Mulligan
Carol Muschler
Chris Steinbrunner
William S. Baring-Gould
Mary Ellen Couchon (Rich)
John Bennett Shaw
Ted Schulz
Picketing the 1968 BSI Dinner (Evy, Linda Patterson, Pat Moran, Lisa Jones, Mary Ellen Couchon (Rich), Mary Ellen Ebeling)
The William Gillette Luncheon
Cliff Andrew
Edith Meiser
“Get your damn girls out of here!”
Julian Wolff
The Founding of the Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes
Investitures
Thomas Stix
Jack Tracy
Other Sherlockian Events
Dinner with Tom Stix
The ASH Dinner
The First Dinner (Kate Karlson, Angela Mitchell, Nancy Maczulak, Mary Ellen Couchon (Rich), Pat Moran, Linda Patterson, and Evy)
Funny Memories
Writings
Meeting Other Sherlockians
Richard Miller
Chris Steinbrunner’s Radio Plays
George Fletcher
The Pshaw Bowl
Born to Boogie


Related Materials

A History of the Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes (The Baker Street Journal 2004 Christmas Annual)


Evelyn Herzog and Susan Rice discuss events leading up to their 1991 investitures.  The link goes directly to the 57-minute mark in the I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere Episode 89 podcast.

For an index to all OHP interviews, see our Oral History Project Summary list.

Interviews recently added online (sorted by when recording was posted online)

Material in the BSI Archive may be used by any qualified scholar, subject to the normal rules and regulations of the library. For links to a detailed finding aid and related information, see our BSI Archive page.

Page composed on 7/16/17 by Andrew Solberg
Page updated 7/17/17 by Randall Stock
This page last updated 6/3/21 by Marsha Pollak.


7/19/2017
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