It Belongs In "Memoirs!" Not "Last Bow!"

 

My wife got me an awesome Sherlock Holmes desk calender for Christmas. (I got her a Chicago Cubs desk calendar, thus proving myself to be a husband of impeccable taste matching Angela's impeccable taste. Gee whiz, we're made for each other.)

When I arrived at work on January 14, my calendar told me it was the 132nd anniversary of the publication of "The Adventure of the Cardboard Box." So I immediately felt obligated to read it, which I did during my lunch break. 

This one has an interesting publication history. In England, it was originally published in the January 1893 issue of The Strand Magazine. In the U.S., it appeared in the January 14, 1992 issue of Harper's Weekly, which gives us the anniversary date.

This and 11 other stories published in 1892 and 1993 were collected as The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. (1894) Well, except that "Cardboard Box" was left out of the British edition. It was initially included in the American edition, but quickly dropped in later reprints. The beginning of the story, in which Holmes deduces what Watson is thinking, was moved to the beginning of "The Adventure of the Resident Patient."

An annotated version of the story I have on my Kindle tells me that Doyle once said he left it out because it was "rather more sensational than I care for." (quoted from Daniel Stashower's superb biography of Doyle Teller of Tales) Sherlockian scholar Leslie Klinger quotes Doyle as writing "There was a certain sex element in the Cardboard Box story and for this reason I discarded it." The story was eventually reprinted in The Last Bow in 1917.

So what was the big deal? Well, the case involves a harmless spinster who receives a package in the mail. This package is the titular cardboard box, which contained two severed human ears.

The police think its probably a joke perpetrated by some rowdy medical students that the spinster once had to evict from her home. But Lestrade calls in Holmes anyways. Holmes examines the box, the twine that had been tied around it, the handwriting on the address and--after asking the spinster a few seemingly innocuous questions--is well on his way to uncovering a double murder.

Eventually, a story emerges of adultery, alcoholism and senseless violence. These are probably the elements of the story that convinced Doyle to remove it from Memoirs. It is, though, a great story in which Holmes makes some solid and clever deductions to get to the truth. You can read it yourself HERE.

For years, depending on the edition, reprints of Memoirs would sometimes have "Cardboard Box" put back in it (where it belongs, by golly). Other editions still had it in Last Bow, with the beginning of "Box" still moved to the beginning of "Resident Patient" in Memoirs. So if you have an older collection of the stories on your bookshelf, check it to see. If "Cardboard Box" is in the wrong place, you must now live with the horrible knowledge that your Holmes collection is flawed. I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but there you go.