Although the Sherlock Holmes canon traditionally consists of four novels and 56 short stories written by Arthur Conan Doyle, there are many Sherlock Holmes stories outside the canon. Most of these noncanonical stories were written by authors other than Doyle, but there are four short stories about Holmes written by Doyle that are nonetheless excluded from the canon for various reasons. This LibriVox album consists of these four noncanonical stories. The first story, "The Field Bazaar", was first published in 1896 in a special issue of a University of Edinburgh student newspaper called The Student that Doyle had founded almost a decade prior. Doyle wrote this very brief story to support a fundraising event at the university, his alma mater, but most scholars consider the story to be a parody and therefore not part of the canon. The second and third stories, "The Lost Special" and "The Man with the Watches", were both published in The Strand Magazine in 1898 and both feature mysteries involving trains. These two stories are not part of the canon because neither story mentions Holmes by name, although literary scholars have proposed that the unnamed "amateur reasoner" in "The Lost Special" and the unnamed "well-known criminal investigator" in "The Man with the Watches" are intended to be Holmes, and this theory is accepted for the purposes of this LibriVox album. Doyle wrote the fourth story, "How Watson Learned the Trick", for a miniature book that was placed in Queen Mary's Dolls' House, a dollhouse built for Queen Mary in the 1920s that housed a tiny library featuring works by several famous authors of the day, the contents of which were published in 1924 for public consumption. Considered a companion piece to "The Field Bazaar" due to both stories consisting entirely of conversations between Holmes and Watson over breakfast, "How Watson Learned the Trick" is similarly excluded from the canon on the grounds of being a parody. ( David Purdy)
Gender specific casting. If you sign up for one of the one-line roles in "The Lost Special" or "The Man with the Watches", feel free to sign up for a one-line role in the other story as well. Dulcamara (memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=124333) has kindly offered to be our DPL for this project. Prooflistening will be word perfect.
Is there a deadline?
We ask that you submit your recorded sections within 1-2 months of placing your claim. Please note that to be fair to the readers who have completed their sections in a timely way, if you haven't submitted your recording(s) after two months, your sections will automatically be re-opened for other readers to claim, unless you post in this thread to request an extension. Extensions will be granted at the discretion of the Book Coordinator. If you cannot do your section, for whatever reason, just let me know and it'll go back to the pool. There's no shame in this; we're all volunteers and things happen.Please do not sign up for more sections than you can complete within the two month deadline.
How to claim a part, and "how it all works" here
To find a section to record, simply look at point 5. below at the sections. All the ones without names beside them are "up for grabs." Click "Post reply" at the top left of the screen and tell us which section you would like to read (include the section number from the left-most column in the reader list, please). Read points 6. to 8. below for what to do before, during and after your recording.
Please claim roles (the numbers in the first column below)! Please note: All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. When you submit your recording, you will be placing your recording in the public domain as well.
If this is your first recording, please let me know under which name or pseudonym you'd like to appear in the LibriVox catalogue. We can also link to a personal website/blog.
Please don't download or listen to files belonging to projects in process (unless you are the BC or PL). Our servers are not set up to handle the greater volume of traffic. Please wait until the project has been completed. Thanks!
Magic Window:
BC Admin
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This paragraph is temporary and will be replaced by the MC with the list of sections and reader (Magic Window) once this project is in the admin system.
Set your recording software to:
Channels: 1 (Mono)
Bit Rate: 128 kbps
Sample Rate: 44.1 kHz
Submit one file per act.
Make sure you add this to the beginning of your recording: [Role], read by [your name].
If you are reading narration, please include for each file:At the beginning: Chapter [#] of Four Noncanonical Sherlock Holmes Short Stories by Arthur Conan Doyle. This is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit Librivox dot org.
At the end: End of Chapter [#].
Please remember to check this thread frequently for updates!
AFTER recording Save files as 128 kbps MP3
noncanonical_[role]_#_128kb.mp3 (all lower-case) where # is the section number (e.g. noncanonical_narrator_1_128kb.mp3)
Transfer of files (completed recordings) Please always post in this forum thread when you've sent a file. Also, post the length of the recording (file duration: mm:ss) together with the link.
Upload your file with the LibriVox Uploader: https://librivox.org/login/uploader
(If you have trouble reading the image above, please message an admin)
You'll need to select the MC, which for this project is: mightyfelix
When your upload is complete, you will receive a link - please post it in this thread.
- The textlinks outside of gutenberg don't look good since they are html and not scans. We prefer scans, so if you can find any of the pre-1925 versions on archive or hathitrust or elsewhere, it would be much better.
- To keep the MW tidy, you'll need way more than 4 sections - for each story you will need the number of players plus narrator plus one section for the finished file. I know it sounds like overkill (especially since all the cast sections will be deleted at the end), but it'll be so much more easy to work with. Have a look at the currens one-act-collection to see what I mean.
- I would also recommend to change the title in the intro/outro for the narrator, having Doyle's name in there twice sounds a bit weird...
Other than that, it looks good.
Cheers, Ava.
Resident witch of LibriVox, channelling
Granny Weatherwax: "I ain't Nice."
-- AvailleAudio.com
Availle wrote: ↑January 17th, 2021, 9:20 pm
A few things:
- The textlinks outside of gutenberg don't look good since they are html and not scans. We prefer scans, so if you can find any of the pre-1925 versions on archive or hathitrust or elsewhere, it would be much better.
- To keep the MW tidy, you'll need way more than 4 sections - for each story you will need the number of players plus narrator plus one section for the finished file. I know it sounds like overkill (especially since all the cast sections will be deleted at the end), but it'll be so much more easy to work with. Have a look at the currens one-act-collection to see what I mean.
- I would also recommend to change the title in the intro/outro for the narrator, having Doyle's name in there twice sounds a bit weird...
Other than that, it looks good.
Thank you for the input, Ava! I will endeavour to acquire scans of the two non-Gutenberg texts. I chose those two URLs because both have already been used as source texts on LibriVox for solo readings, even as recently as last year, so I figured that they would suffice, but I agree that having scans would be preferable. I'll do some investigating.
Your call for more sections makes sense. I will need 33 sections, so I have updated the relevant field accordingly.
In accordance with your recommendation, I have renamed this project "Four Noncanonical Sherlock Holmes Short Stories". Unfortunately, I don't know how to change the title of the thread. Can you advise me?
I believe I'm allowed to accept you as DPL prior to an MC signing on, so I've named you DPL just under the project summary. Thanks again for signing onto this project, Jasna!
Availle wrote: ↑January 18th, 2021, 5:01 pm
I'm not MCing this, I find dramatic readings daunting. Plus, I have my own sitting there waiting for completion right now too. One at a time...
No worries about not MCing this project, Ava! I would find MCing any project daunting; I'm still finding my feet as a BC.
With respect to your suggestion that I find alternate sources for the first and fourth stories, might Wikisource be preferable to World-English? Wikisource is more well-established (and more similar to Project Gutenberg), and "The Field Bazaar" is on Wikisource. I gave the World-English URL for "The Field Bazaar" initially because that is the source that has been used for this short story on LibriVox in the past. Here is the Wikisource URL for "The Field Bazaar":
Salvationist wrote: ↑January 18th, 2021, 6:03 am
I chose those two URLs because both have already been used as source texts on LibriVox for solo readings, even as recently as last year, so I figured that they would suffice, but I agree that having scans would be preferable. I'll do some investigating.
Yes, you're right. I'm not sure why those two texts were ok to use in those projects. Maybe somebody knows something I don't! I'll ask the other MCs and see if anyone knows about it. I've also done a little digging for scans of these stories, because I'm interested in this project and I hope to see it succeed. But I haven't had any luck yet.
In accordance with your recommendation, I have renamed this project "Four Noncanonical Sherlock Holmes Short Stories". Unfortunately, I don't know how to change the title of the thread. Can you advise me?
It's easy, when you know where to go! Just go edit the first post of the thread and change the subject line.
I believe I'm allowed to accept you as DPL prior to an MC signing on, so I've named you DPL just under the project summary. Thanks again for signing onto this project, Jasna!
[/quote]
That's great. Thank you!
Jasna
Second to the right and then straight on till morning.
Hi I would love to be the narrator on this project if it is still available. Thanks
Michele When you're having what you feel like is a 'bad day' and then someone comes along out of nowhere and extends to you the simplest of kind gestures, you feel it so deeply within your heart.” ―Miya Yamanouchi
mightyfelix wrote: ↑January 18th, 2021, 10:14 pm
Yes, you're right. I'm not sure why those two texts were ok to use in those projects. Maybe somebody knows something I don't! I'll ask the other MCs and see if anyone knows about it. I've also done a little digging for scans of these stories, because I'm interested in this project and I hope to see it succeed. But I haven't had any luck yet.
Thank you for asking the other MCs about these sources, Devorah! I appreciate your help. I have contacted the University of Edinburgh about getting a copy of the issue of their student newspaper in which “The Field Bazaar” was published and have already received an encouraging response, although they said it will likely be more than twenty days before they will be able to send me a scan, due to a backlog of requests for scans of their archives. “How Watson Learned the Trick” was published in The New York Times after it was added to the queen’s dollhouse, and I am hopeful that I can get a scan of the relevant page through my library. It sounds like a few of us are trying to track down these scans in various ways, so hopefully our cumulative efforts will result in success eventually!
Also, thank you for explaining how to change the title of the project! It seems obvious now, but as Holmes says in “The Field Bazaar”, “it is all obvious when it is explained”.
Well, having scans of the originals is always a good thing, so that's worth following up. In the meantime, we are ok to go ahead and use these sources. Normally, we only accept scans or Project Gutenberg, but these are... well, different.
I will MC for you, and I already have your MW set up for you to fill in. Let me know if you need help with anything else. I've BCed for a few DRs myself in the past, and don't mind you picking my brain if you feel you want to.
I'm glad that the project can go ahead ... especially as I've already recorded Holmes! But I felt that, as our volunteers had already recorded Field Bazaar and Watson and the Trick, if we decided that we couldn't use their sources, we would have had to take down the existing recordings. Difficult area.
Looking forward to seeing the Magic Window.
Peter
"I think, therefore I am, I think." Solomon Cohen, in Terry Pratchett's Dodger
mightyfelix wrote: ↑January 19th, 2021, 7:39 pm
Well, having scans of the originals is always a good thing, so that's worth following up. In the meantime, we are ok to go ahead and use these sources. Normally, we only accept scans or Project Gutenberg, but these are... well, different.
I will MC for you, and I already have your MW set up for you to fill in. Let me know if you need help with anything else. I've BCed for a few DRs myself in the past, and don't mind you picking my brain if you feel you want to.
Thank you for volunteering to MC this project, Devorah! I have now filled out the MW. Please let me know if there is anything I should change about it. I also really appreciate you making yourself available for questions! I will likely be taking you up on that. I'm very excited to see this project coming together.
Plus, I have my own sitting there waiting for completion right now too. One at a time...
I'll ask the other MCs and see if anyone knows about it. I've also done a little digging for scans of these stories, because I'm interested in this project and I hope to see it succeed. But I haven't had any luck yet.
