It’s not often that I get a request to expand on simple photograph. Indeed, I rarely get asked to expand on any aspect of my Starrett fixation. (I fear most of these blog entries have drawn a “Oh goodness, he’s at it again,” sort of response.)

Recently however, faithful reader Scott Monty responded to a picture showing my shelf of The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. At the far left was a book with a different title: Essays of Today, by Prof. Raymond W. Pence, long-time chair of the English department at DePauw University

“Tell us more about Essays of Today,” Scott said.

For this blog post, you can either thank or blame Scott.

Introducing Prof. Pence

In 1935, Prof. Raymond Woodbury Pence was a leading national voice in liberal arts education. Many of his students went on to be editors, journalists, writers and even a few college presidents. His most famous student was Marget Mead, and she credits Pence with helping her become an effective writer.

An article on Pence on the DePauw website, says:

“A demanding teacher, he was a perfectionist who reviewed the work of undergraduates rigorously and asked for repeated revisions of their manuscripts. ‘This is too good not to be better’ was a comment he often wrote on student papers.”

His students got so inured of hearing him preach “the sheer drudgery of revision” that some started referring to it simply as “the s.d. of r.”

‘Just coming into their own.’

Pence believed that the best way to teach college students how to write excellent essays was to have them read excellent essays. When he was formulating his plan for Essays of Today, he wanted a broad cross-section of well-written and thoughtfully argued papers published during the previous 10 years.

“The first test for inclusion, “ he wrote in his preface, “has been whether or not a given paper has genuine interest for the student. Further, a goodly number of articles have been chosen from writers that the editor believes are just coming into their own.”

He concludes his preface by thanking his students, “who with their frank—and sometimes devastating—criticism have helped shape my judgment as to what to include and exclude.”

And that is where Vincent Starrett came in.

In good company

At the time Pence was picking essays, Starrett was making a name for himself on the national scene. He had already built a small reputation as a writer of detective stories, including a few novels that sold moderately well. Since the late 1910s, he had also become a boldface name on the nation’s literary pages with quips and observations about books.

Starrett’s campaigning on behalf of Arthur Machen had not only furthered Machen’s reputation in the United States, but helped burnish Starrett’s reputation among the bibliophilic cognoscenti as a lover of books and book collecting.

Starrett’s timing could not have been better. Two years before Pence’s anthology hit the classrooms, Starrett had published what would be his most lasting book, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. The title essay from that volume had appeared in The Bookman for December, 1932. Pence doesn’t say whether it was The Bookman or the book where he read Starrett’s essay, but it was clear the piece made an impact.

There Starrett is near the back of the book, tucked between essays by others including J.B. Priestly, and Edith Wharton. Starrett was in impressive company overall. Some of the writers “coming into their own” in Pence’s volume were Robert Benchley, Stephen Leacock and G. K. Chesterton, along with future Pulitzer Prize winners like Bernard De Voto, Van Wyck Brooks, and Harvard Prof. Howard Mumford Jones, among others.

There is also an paper from someone else well-known in Sherlockian circles: Ronald Knox, who contributed a piece called “Humor and Satire.” The article is from his book, Essays in Satire, which also includes “Studies in the Literature of Sherlock Holmes.” Unhappily, there is no mention of Holmes from Knox’s essay in Prof. Pence’s book. Perhaps Pence felt one Holmes paper was enough.

‘Those who have fallen under the spell of Conan Doyle’

In his brief but delightful bio of Starrett, Prof. Pence gives a general outline of the writer’s literary output up to this time. And then he adds a perceptive point.

“(Starrett’s) Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1933) added his name to the growing list of those who have fallen under the spell of Conan Doyle’s great creation. (A most remarkable thing is the large number of articles and books that have appeared in the last two or three years having to do with Sherlock Holmes.)”

Oh Prof. Pence, if you could only see what has been produced in the last 89 years since you wrote this. You would be amazed, I think. You would also probably have admonished those who toil in the Sherlockian fields that “This is too good not to be better.” It’s a warning I’ll try to take to heart from now on.

Prof. Raymond W. Pence retired in his 80s and moved to Wilmington, Del., where his daughter lived. He died on Sunday, August 21 1979, at the age of 92. He could rest easy that his impact was felt for generations.

One more quick note, before we close.

My copy of Essays of Today was once owned by a Henry C. Johnson, who glued this bookplate into the front endpaper.

Rather handsome, don’t you think?

If you’re interested in getting your own copy of Essays of Today, there are many available and the price is quite reasonable. Some of the essays hold up and are worth a few moments on a winter evening in front of the fire with a glass of something distilled.

Thank you Scott Monty for the inquiry. Hope you enjoyed the result. I did.