The Morley-Montgomery Award

If you'd like to read ALL of the award-winning essays from 1958 to 2006, you can now get them in "A Remarkable Mixture", available for purchase on this site.

The Morley-Montgomery Award was established in 1958 through the generosity of legendary bookdealer Lew D. Feldman, to be given each year to the author of the best article in The Baker Street Journal.  The original award consisted of $100 donated by Feldman until his death in 1976, and after that contributed by The Baker Street Irregulars.

The Morley-Montgomery Award was suspended in 1980, and was reinstated in 1995 with a generous cash prize for the best article published in the BSJ during the year.  Edgar W. Smith, writing in "The Editor's Commonplace Book" in 1958 said, "I only hope it will not tend to make aspiring professionals out of the laborers-of-love whose efforts are, and always will be, the bulwark of the Journal's reputation."

And though his hopes were not met in Poul Anderson, the professional who has won the award twice, we note happily that virtually every other winner has remained a laborer of love.

1958 - Poul Anderson, "Irregular Poetics"
1959 - Daniel L. Moriarty, "The Woman Who Beat Sherlock Holmes"
1960 - Jerry Neal Williamson, "The Adventure of the Bugged Bird"
1961 - Robert Keith Leavitt, "The Origin of 221B Worship"
1962 - S. Tupper Bigelow, "The Hoof-Marks in The Priory School"
1963 - Edward F. Clark, Jr., "Study of An Unknown Tale"
1964 - Ronald S. Bonn, "The Problem of the Postulated Doctor"
1965 - Henry T. Folsom, "My Biblical Knowledge is a Bit Rusty"
1966 - Alan H. Foster, "On the Location of Dr. John H. Watson's Tin-Dispatch Box"
1967 - William S. Baring-Gould, "Mrs. Hudson's Inheritance"
1968 - Poul Anderson, "The Archetypal Holmes"
1969 - William H. Miller, "Some Observations on the Alleged Use of Cocaine By Mr. Sherlock Holmes"
1970 - Edward A. Merrill, "Holmes and Brunton: Civil Engineers"
1971 - Henry C. Potter, "Reflections on Canonical Vehicles and Something of the Horse"
1972 - Andrew Jay Peck, "The Solitary Man-Uscript"
1973 - J.C. Prager & Al Silverstein, "Lowenstein of Prague"
1974 - Peter E. Blau, "In Memoriam: Muzaffar Ad-Din"
1975 - Michael L. Burton, "On the Hound"
1976 - H.C. Potter, "John H. Watson, Word Painter"
1977 - Jack Tracy, "St. Saviour's Near King's Cross"
1978 - Richard Luman, "The Second Hand in The Second Stain"
1979 - Howard Brody, "The Location of Baskerville Hall"
1995 - Margaret Nydell, "On the Chaldean Influences in Cornish"
1996 - Philip Shreffler, "Quintessence of Irregular: The Old Series of The Baker Street Journal"
1997 - Susan Rice, "Dr. Watson's Hidden Addiction"
1998 - Jon Lellenberg, "Entertainment and Fantasy: The 1940 BSI Dinner"
1999 - S.E. Dahlinger, "The Sherlock Holmes We Never Knew"
2000 - Ben Vizoskie, "Who Wrote the American Chapters of A Study In Scarlet?"

2001 - Thomas Cynkin, "James Watson, M.D."

2002 - Robert S. Schultz, "Upon the Dating of Blood Stains"

2003 - Donald K. Pollock & Andrew Solberg, "The Case of 'J': A Psychoanalytic Case Study with Particular Attention to 'Marriage Neurosis'

2004 - Constantine Rossakis, "Thaddeus Sholto: (Mis)Diagnosed"

2005 - Catherine Cooke, "Mrs. Hudson: A Legend in Her Own Lodging House"

2006 - Harold Billings, "The Materia Medica of Sherlock Holmes"

2007 - Ray Betzner, "The Wicked Beginnings of a Baker Street Classic!"

2008 - Mattias Bostrom, "The Humble Dr. Mortimer: On the Real Swedish Pathological Society"

2009 - Marshall Berdan, "Holmes Alone: Glimpses of Post-Watson Baker Street In The Mazarin Stone"

2010 - Michael Pollak, "The Spies Who Never Were with Some Observations on Holmes's Retirement"

2011 - Sonia Fetherston, "'I Met Harry Murcher': Getting Acquainted with Holland Grove's Elusive P.C."

2012 - Peter Calamai, "Why He Isn't 'Sir Sherlock' Today"

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