Fred Levin: Kindred Soul

Fred Levin, BSI, was a kindred soul with me. He was one of those rare Sherlockians that collected foreign translations of the Canon. Fred passed over Reichenbach Falls last February after suffer a debilitating stroke. His wife, Sunnie, asked me if I would help price Fred’s foreign language books and then ended up selling all of them to me for a price I could not refuse.  Last week, I hopped into my Hansom Cab and headed to Skokie, Illinois to pick up those books.

For me, no trip to the Land of Lincoln is complete without a visit to my Sherlockian Soul-Mate- Brad Keefauver and his home in Peoria. Brad and I have had numerous Sherlockian adventures together, dating all the way back to 1991. Anyone reading this very blog has Brad to thank. Brad helped me set this up before we headed off to the Windy City.

Recently investitured BSI, Philip Cunningham met us a Sunnie’s house, our convergence point. There, six large boxes awaited me. Sunnie not only packed all of the books, she also labels the outside of each box, not once, not twice but three times! She also included a ledger inside each box with the contents. She went beyond her call of duty on these boxes.

The four of us ate lunch and visited before it was time to head off again.

I logged nearly 2,000 mile on the old odometer in just over three days and now I have the daunting task of merging the book I did not have into my collecting and creating a catalog for the remaining books in Fred’s foreign collecting. Many people have expressed their desire to buy a few of Fred’s books He was so well liked in the Sherlockian community. I plan to begin selling them in early spring. As an extra bonus, I created a Memorial bookplate for each book.

I am glad to have know Fred and been a kindred spirit. I hope my next adventure with Brad is longer.