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The Titus Canon FAQ
Written and compiled by Diane N. Tran
© Tranimation Art & Entertainment, 12 December 2008
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."
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.
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.
