The Literary Agents

The Literary Agents is a scion society of the Baker Street Irregulars (BSI) dedicated to studying Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s works — not exclusively (but also not excluding) those he may have promoted for, or under the name of, Dr John H. Watson...

The meeting is hosted by Ashley D. Polasek BSI (Author of Being Sherlock and Editor of The Conan Doyle Review) and Mark Jones BSI (Co-host of the Doings of Doyle podcast).

Anyone can become a member of The Literary Agents by doing these three things:

(1) Sign up for the annual meeting of The Literary Agents;

(2) Attend the meeting;

(3) Be nice to everyone when participating (and preferably at all other times!).

There are no other hoops, and no dues.

And you can celebrate your membership with this delightful Literary Agents lapel pin, which features to society logo emblazoned on the barrel of his Conan Doyle’s favourite Parker Duofold fountain pen. The pin is 2.5 inches long.

Order yours by sending $15 USD via Paypal to Editor@ACDReview.org. Don't forget to include your name and full mailing address!

Proceeds help support the hosting costs of Doings of Doyle and The Conan Doyle Review.

Recording of The Literary Agents #5 - The Land of Mist at 100

The fifth annual meeting of The Literary Agents took place on Friday 17th January 2024 at 10:30-11:30 EST. You can watch the recording here.

The 2025 theme was The Land of Mist at 100. Our special guest was Professor Christine Ferguson of The University of Stirling, UK, author of many works on Spiritualism and editor of the Edinburgh Works' edition of The Land of Mist. Our panel consisted of Michael Homer, Steven Rothman and Bob Stek who discussed Conan Doyle and Spiritualism more broadly.

Recording of The Literary Agents #4 - This Time It's Personal

The fourth annual meeting of The Literary Agents took place on Friday 12th January 2024 at 10:30-11:30 EST. You can view the recording here.

The theme was the Devilish Doctor Doyle - musings on Conan Doyle as physician and his medico-Gothic writings. Our special guest was Professor Roger Luckhurst (Birkbeck, University of London), author of numerous works on Gothic literature, and editor of the Edinburgh Works' edition of Round the Red Lamp (1894). And this year's esteemed panel of Doylean medicos was Marilynne McKay, Robert Katz, and Richard Sveum.

Recording of the Literary Agents Ride Again (Annual Meeting #3), 6th January 2023

The third annual meeting of The Literary Agents took place on Zoom on Friday 6th January 2023 at 10:30-11:30 EST. You can view the recording here.

“If there's no 221B, then where the hell have we been living?”

This year’s theme was Annotation and Adaptations. We were delighted to be joined by a panel of Annotators Extraordinaire: Margie Deck and Nancy Holder (The Terror of Blue John Gap), Phil Bergem (The Horror of the Heights and the BSI Manuscript series) and Anastasia Klimchynskaya (The King of the Foxes) to talk about the experience of sifting through the finer details of Conan Doyle’s works.

And our special guest was Charles Kindinger, creator and writer of Moriarty: The Devil's Game, the ten-part podcast from Audible. Charles talked about his process of authoring a thrilling original work that radically re-imagines Conan Doyle's characters and their world. You can download and listen to Moriarty here.

Recording of the Literary Agents #2, 16th January 2022

The second annual meeting of The Literary Agents took place online at 10:00-11:00 EST on Sunday 16th January 2022. You can view a recording here.

“The explorers were nonplussed when Summerlee couldn’t switch off the cat filter…”

For our second meeting, we were delighted to discuss ‘Conan Doyle’s India’ with Sumal Surendranath (Founder of the Sherlock Holmes Society of India), Donny Zaldin BSI, ASH (Author of 'The Sherlockian Durbar Room') and Paul M. Chapman (Writer and Co-host of Doings of Doyle).

And we were joined by Xander Sobecki, for an entertaining exploration of the life of a medieval archer of the14th-century and the inspiration for The White Company - all while Xander sported thirty pounds of armour!

Recording of the Inaugural Meeting, 10th January 2021

The first annual meeting of The Literary Agents took place online at 11:00-12:00 noon EST on Sunday 10th January 2021 where the theme was ‘Conan Doyle in 2021 and beyond.’

The meeting was hosted by Ashley D. Polasek BSI (Author of Being Sherlock and Editor of The Conan Doyle Review) and Mark Jones (Co-host of the Doings of Doyle podcast).

Ashley and Mark were delighted to be joined by Talia Bordallo (Artist and Animator), Clifford Goldfarb BSI (Chair of the Friends of the Arthur Conan Doyle Collection at the Toronto Public Library), Douglas Kerr (Series Editor of the forthcoming Edinburgh Edition of the Works of Arthur Conan Doyle) and Les Klinger BSI (Consulting Sherlockian and annotations supremo).

Watch the recording on Facebook.

Download the chat.

In advance, we asked everyone who registered how much Conan Doyle had they read? If you're interested in the results, here they are:

Becoming a member of The Literary Agents

Anyone can become a member of the Literary Agents. We only ask that you do three things:

(1) Sign up for the annual meeting of The Literary Agents;

(2) Attend the meeting;

(3) Be nice to everyone when participating (and preferably at all other times!).

There are no other hoops, and no dues.