Who is Eve Titus?
Author and creator of the Basil of Baker Street books, Eve
Titus was the oldest of five, three boys and two girls. Born and
raised in New York City in 1922, she credited her brilliance to the
cultural advantages to her childhood in Brooklyn, New York. "My
mother was artistically inclined and my father wrote so beautifully
that his letters read like verse." She had lived in Mexico
for three years, then in California, before settling more permanently
in Florida. As a well-known professional, she was the author of
over thirty children's books, including those about the adorable French
cheese-tasting mouse, Anatole, which was made into a CBS Saturday morning
cartoon series from 1998 to 1999 by Nelvana Limited. Titus travelled
(a passion of hers), lectured, and published through her seventies and
eighties, undiminishedly driven by a flow of ideas, and conducted countless
interviews, seminars, and workshops for aspiring writers, and was seen
as one who took infinite pleasure in words and the precise art of combining
them. A professional concert pianist, she had two loves —
writing and music. She was the former president of the Sherlock Holmes
Society of Los Angeles, now dissolved, and became an "Investiture
Member" of the prestigious Baker Street Irregulars, receiving her
Irregular Shilling award in 1993.
Of the first Basil of Baker Street mystery, Adrian Conan Doyle,
son of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, wrote the author, "May I offer you
my heartfelt congratulations. It is a simply wonderful creation,
and I can assure you that my father would have revelled in every page."
Numerous Sherlockian collectors prize the Basil of Baker Street
mysteries. It holds a position as part of the Shaw 100, a collection
of the best Holmes literature. By the age of ninety, Titus was
legally blind, but wrote as long as she could, and she continued to
work with the help of student assistants, and struggled to keep whole
books in her head in order to edit and revise them. Heroic in
her efforts to complete a last book, aptly conveyed in the title of
the yet-to-be published work, Anatole and the Cheese Olympics,
she died on Monday, 04 February 2002 in Orlando, Florida. She
is dearly missed by all of us.
"For forty-five years," wrote her nephew,
"Eve Titus was marvellously devoted to her fictional characters
and to recording their adventures in her latest books. We shall
miss Eve as we go on enjoying her mousterpieces."
Who is Paul
Galdone?
Illustrator of Titus' Basil of Baker Street
books, Paul Galdone was born in Budapest, Austria-Hungary in 1914 and
emigrated to the United States in 1928. After finishing his studies
at the Art Student League and the New York School of Industrial Design,
Mr. Galdone worked in the art department of Doubleday (New York), where
he was introduced to the process of bookmaking, an activity that was
soon to become his life-long career. He served in the Second World
War in the United States Army Corps of Engineers.
Mr. Galdone is a well-known illustrator of nearly three
hundred books — many of which he himself wrote or re-told.
He is fondly remembered for his contemporary style, bright earthy humour,
and action-filled illustrations, which will continue to delight for
generations to come. His work was awarded runner-up for the Caldecott
Medal (Eve Titus, Anatole, 1957 and Anatole and the Cat,
1958) and selection by the American Library Association for notable
books (The Little Red Hen, Winter Danger, and Flaming
Arrows). He died of a heart attack on 07 November 1986, in
Nyack, New York, survived by three children.
Why do you call it the Titus
Canon?
The word "canon" means a literary group of works that are
accepted as representing a field. Sherlockians call the original
sixty Sherlock Holmes stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle —
fifty-six short stories and four novels — as the Canon
(always capitalised). To the most devoted Sherlock Holmes scholars,
it can also be referred to as the Sacred Writings, respectfully
reserved for Conan Doyle's original works only!
The term can also be used for Eve Titus' book series,
but I coined the term, the Titus Canon, to avoid any confusion
to Doyle's works.
How many books are in
the Titus Canon?
Five, and in chronological order of publication:
Does the Titus Canon have
a version of the Christ and Co. Codes?
Yes, created by me! Suggested by famed Sherlockian scholar, Jay
Finely Christ (rhymes with "list"), the Christ & Co. Codes
are simple, shorthand four-letter designations named for each of the
original Sacred Writings, written by Conan Doyle, for example, writing
HOUN for The Hound of the Baskervilles, or SCAN
for A Scandal in Bohemia. Subsequently I ended up making
up my own version of the code especially for Basilians:
Did Eve Titus plan to
write any further books?
Even when she was legally blind at ninety, she heroically kept writing
up until her death in 04 February 2002, leaving her latest book, Anatole
and the Cheese Olympics, unfinished. However, to my knowledge,
she had no plans for another Basil of Baker Street mystery.
Where does the Titus Canon
rank on the "Shaw 100" list?
Renowned Sherlockian scholar, John Bennett Shaw, famously
of the Baker Street Irregulars of New York, compiled the Shaw 100
(also called the Basic One Hundred) of books, pamphlets, and
periodicals of, arguably, the most important works relating to Sherlock
Holmes, presenting one an in-depth view of the entire Holmesian culture.
Eve Titus' Basil of Baker Street ranks at #78 under the "Specialised
Items" section of the Shaw 100.
What is "Holmestead"?
In the Titus Canon, Basil of Baker Street and Dr. David
Q. Dawson found a friendly neighbourhood community of mice on Baker
Street and called it Holmestead, named after the most famous
human inhabitant, Sherlock Holmes. Holmestead does not exist in
the film.