William S. Baring-Gould

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William Stuart Baring-Gould (1913–1967) was a noted Sherlock Holmes scholar, best known as the author of the influential fictional biography Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street: A life of the world's first consulting detective, published in 1962.

In 1955, Baring-Gould had privately published The Chronological Holmes, an attempt to lay out in chronological order all the events alluded to in the Sherlock Holmes stories.

In 1967, Baring-Gould published The Annotated Sherlock Holmes, an annotated edition of the Sherlock Holmes canon, its subtitle promising "The four novels and fifty-six short stories complete".

In 1968, Baring-Gould published The Lure Of The Limerick, a study of the history and allure of limericks; a collection of limericks is included, arranged alphabetically. A bibliography is also included. The book was republished in 1974.

In 1958, Baring-Gould published The Annotated Mother Goose: Nursery Rhymes Old and New, Arranged and Explained, with his wife, Ceil Baring-Gould. This book provides a wealth of information about nursery rhymes, and includes often-banned bawdy rhymes.

Baring-Gould also wrote Nero Wolfe of West Thirty-fifth Street: The life and times of America's largest private detective, a fictional biography of Rex Stout's detective character Nero Wolfe. In this book, Baring-Gould popularised the theory that Wolfe was the son (by Irene Adler) of Sherlock Holmes himself.

Baring-Gould's paternal grandfather was the Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould.

Baring-Gould was creative director of Time magazine's circulation and corporate education departments.