- This article is about the fictional character. For other uses, see Sherlock Holmes (disambiguation).
Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, who first appeared in publication in 1887. He is the creation of Scottish author and physician
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. A brilliant London-based detective, Holmes is famous for his intellectual
prowess, and is renowned for his skillful use of "deductive reasoning" while
using abductive reasoning (inference to the best explanation) and astute
observation to solve difficult cases. He is arguably the
most famous fictional detective ever created, and is one of the best known and most
universally recognisable literary characters in any genre.
Conan Doyle wrote four novels and fifty-five short stories that featured Holmes. All but four stories are narrated by Holmes'
friend and biographer, Dr. John H. Watson; two are narrated by Holmes
himself, and two others are written in the third person. The first two stories, short novels, appeared in Beeton's Christmas
Annual for 1887 and Lippincott's Monthly Magazine in 1890. The
character grew tremendously in popularity with the beginning of the first series of short stories in The Strand Magazine in 1891; further series of short stories and two serialised novels appeared almost right up to Conan Doyle's death in 1930. The stories cover a
period from around 1878 up to 1903, with a final case in
1914.
The character
Knowledge and skills
In the very first story, A Study in Scarlet, something of Holmes'
background is given. In early 1881, he is presented as an independent student of chemistry with a variety of very curious side interests, almost all of which turn out to be single-mindedly
bent towards making him superior at solving crimes. An early story, "The
Adventure of the Gloria Scott", presents more background on what caused Holmes to become a detective: a college
friend's father complimented him very highly on his deductive skills.
In A Study in Scarlet, Dr. Watson assesses Holmes's abilities thus:
- Knowledge of Literature.—Nil.
- Knowledge of Astronomy.—Nil.
- Knowledge of Politics.—Feeble.
- Knowledge of Botany.—Variable. Well up in belladonna, opium, and poisons generally. Knows nothing of practical gardening.
- Knowledge of Geology.—Practical, but limited. Tells at a glance different soils from each other. After walks, has shown me splashes upon his trousers, and told me by their colour and
consistence in what part of London he had received them.
- Knowledge of Chemistry.—Profound.
- Knowledge of Anatomy.—Accurate, but unsystematic.
- Knowledge of Sensational Literature.—Immense. He appears to know every detail of
every horror perpetrated in the century.
- Plays the violin well.
- Is an expert singlestick player, boxer, and swordsman.
- Has a good practical knowledge of British law.
Later stories make clear, however, that the above list is misleading, and that Holmes—who has just met Watson—is 'pulling
Watson's leg'. Two examples: despite Holmes' supposed ignorance of politics, in "A Scandal
in Bohemia" he immediately recognises the true identity of the supposed Count von Kramm. Regarding non-sensational
literature, his speech is replete with references to the Bible, Shakespeare, and even Goethe. This is somewhat
inconsistent with Holmes's rebuking Watson for telling him that the Earth
revolves around the Sun instead of the other way around,
saying it would not matter to him one bit if it was true the other way around. He goes on to say that he avoids cluttering his
memory with information that is of no use to him in detective work.
Moreover, in "The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington
Plans" Watson reports that in November 1895, "Holmes lost himself in a monograph which he had undertaken upon the
Polyphonic Motets of Lassus"—a most esoteric field of
knowledge, for which Holmes would have had to "clutter his memory" with an enormous amount of information which had absolutely
nothing to do with crime fighting—knowledge so extensive that his monograph was taken as "the last word" on the subject (see
[1]). The later stories
abandon the notion that Holmes did not want to know anything unless it had immediate relevance for his profession; in the second
chapter of The Valley of Fear, Holmes instead declares that “all knowledge
comes useful to the detective”, and near the end of "The Adventure of the
Lion's Mane", he describes himself as “an omnivorous reader with a strangely retentive memory for trifles”.
Already in A Study in Scarlet, Conan Doyle compares his sleuth with two earlier, more established fictional detectives:
Edgar Allan Poe's C. Auguste Dupin and
Emile Gaboriau's Monsieur Lecoq. The former had
first appeared in "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," first published in
1841, and the latter in L'Affaire Lerouge (The Lerouge Affair) in 1866. The brief discussion between Watson and
Holmes about the two characters begins with a comment by Watson:
"You remind me of Edgar Allan Poe's Dupin. I had no idea that such individuals did exist outside of stories."
Sherlock Holmes rose and lit his pipe. "No doubt you think that you are complimenting me in comparing me to Dupin," he
observed. "Now, in my opinion, Dupin was a very inferior fellow. That trick of his of breaking in on his friends' thoughts with
an apropos remark after a quarter of an hour's silence is really very showy and superficial. He had some analytical genius, no
doubt; but he was by no means such a phenomenon as Poe appeared to imagine."
"Have you read Gaboriau's works?" I asked. "Does Lecoq come up to your idea of a detective?"
Sherlock Holmes sniffed sardonically. "Lecoq was a miserable bungler," he said, in an angry voice; "he had only one thing to
recommend him, and that was his energy. That book made me positively ill. The question was how to identify an unknown prisoner. I
could have done it in twenty-four hours. Lecoq took six months or so. It might be made a textbook for detectives to teach them
what to avoid."
Holmes seems convinced that he is superior to both of them, while Watson expresses his admiration of the two characters. It
has been suggested that this was a way for Conan Doyle to pay his respects to characters imagined by writers who had influenced
him, while insisting that his creation was an improvement on theirs. (Doyle did in fact express his own admiration for Holmes's
two predecessors.) However, Holmes pulls a very Dupin-esque mindreading trick on Watson in "The Adventure of the Cardboard Box" (repeated word for word in the story, "The
Resident Patient," when "The Cardboard Box" was removed from the Memoirs), and, to a lesser extent, in "The Adventure of
the Dancing Men".
Holmes is also a competent cryptanalyst. He relates to Watson, "I am fairly familiar
with all forms of secret writing, and am myself the author of a trifling monograph upon the subject, in which I analyse one hundred and sixty separate ciphers." One such scheme is solved using frequency
analysis in "The Adventure of the Dancing Men" which uses a
series of stick figures, for example:
Holmes has shown himself to be a master of disguise from his earliest cases, adopting personas from all walks of life: he
appears as a seaman in “The Sign of Four”, an opium addict in "The Man with the Twisted Lip", an old Italian priest "The
Adventure of the Final Problem", a plumber in "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton" and even as a woman in "The Adventure
of the Mazarin Stone".
Holmes sightings occured in the early 90's. although this has been denied, many still recall the event.
Although Holmes looks upon himself as a disembodied brain, there are times when he can become very emotional in a righteous
cause, such as when he disapproves of how the banker Holder treated his son in "The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet", and rounds
on the Duke in "The Priory School" for putting his own son in danger. At the end of "The Adventure of the Six Napoleons", he is touched by Inspector Lestrade's deep gratitude for his assisting Scotland Yard. Watson says, "he was more nearly
moved by the softer human emotions than I had ever seen him." And, in "The
Adventure of the Three Garridebs", Watson is wounded by a forger he and Holmes are pursuing. While the bullet wound proved
to be "quite superficial," Watson is moved by Holmes' reaction.
It was worth a wound—it was worth many wounds—to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay behind that cold mask. The
clear, hard eyes were dimmed for a moment, and the firm lips were shaking. For the one and only time I caught a glimpse of a
great heart as well as of a great brain. All my years of humble but single-minded service culminated in that moment of
revelation.
Holmes’ analysis of physical evidence is both scientific and precise. His methods include the use of latent prints such as
footprints, hoof prints and bicycle tracks to identify actions at a crime scene (“A Study in Scarlet”, "The Adventure of Silver
Blaze", "The Adventure of the Priory School", The Hound of the Baskervilles), the use of tobacco ashes and cigarette butts to
identify criminals ("The Adventure of the Resident Patient", The Hound of the Baskervilles), the comparison of typewritten
letters to expose a fraud ("A Case of Identity"), the use of gunpowder residue to expose two murderers ("The Adventure of the
Reigate Squire"), bullet comparison from two crime scenes ("The Adventure of the Empty House") and even an early use of
fingerprints (The Norwood Builder). Holmes also demonstrates knowledge of psychology in "A Scandal in Bohemia", luring Irene
Adler into betraying where she had hidden a photograph based on the ’’precis’’ that an unmarried woman will seek her most
valuable possession in case of fire, whereas a married woman will grab her baby instead.
Despite the excitement of his life (or perhaps seeking to leave it behind) Holmes retired to the Sussex Downs to take up
beekeeping ("The Second Stain"), and wrote a book on the subject. His search for relaxation can also be seen in his love in
music, notably "The Red Headed League" where Holmes takes an evening off from a case to listen to Sarasate play violin.
Personality and habits
Monument of Sherlock Holmes in London
Holmes is not at all a stuffy strait-laced Victorian gentleman as one might think; in
fact, he describes himself and his habits as "Bohemian". Modern readers of the Holmes
stories are apt to be surprised that he was an occasional user (a habitual user when lacking in stimulating cases) of
cocaine and morphine, though Watson describes this as Holmes'
"only vice", and later "weaned" Holmes off of drug use citing its destructive qualities [1]. In his personal habits, he is very disorganized, as Watson notes in
"The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual", leaving everything from
notes of past cases to remains of chemical experiments scattered around their rooms and his tobbaco inside his persian
slippers.
Nevertheless, Watson is very typical of his time in not considering a vice Holmes' habit of smoking (usually a pipe) heavily, nor his willingness to bend the truth and break the law (e.g., lie to
the police, conceal evidence, burgle, and housebreak) when it suited his purposes. In Victorian England, such actions were not
necessarily considered vices as long as they were done by a gentleman for noble purposes, such as preserving a woman's
honour or a family's reputation (this argument is discussed
by Holmes and Watson in "The Adventure of Charles Augustus
Milverton"). Since many of the stories revolve around Holmes (and Watson) doing such things, a modern reader must accept
actions which would be out of character for a "law-abiding" detective living by the standards of a later time. (They remain
staples of detective fiction, however.) Holmes has a strong sense of honour and "doing the right thing".
Holmes can often be quite dispassionate and cold; however, when hot on the trail of a mystery, he can display a remarkable
passion despite his usual languor. He has a flair for showmanship and often prepares dramatic traps to capture the culprit of a
crime which are staged to impress Watson or one of the Scotland Yard inspectors (e.g., Inspector Lestrade at the end of "The
Norwood Builder"). He also holds back his chain of reasoning, not revealing it or giving only cryptic hints and surprising
results, until the very end, when he can explain all of his deductions at once.
Holmes is also proud of being British, as demonstrated by the patriotic "VR" (Victoria Regina – i.e. Queen Victoria) made in bullet pocks in the wall by his gun. He has also carried out counterintelligence
work for his government in several cases, most conspicuously in His Last Bow, most often
tracking down stolen state documents or thwarting the work of foreign spies.
Holmes does have an ego that sometimes seems to border on arrogance; however, he has usually earned the right to such
arrogance. He seems to enjoy baffling police inspectors with his superior deductions. However, he is often quite content to allow
the police to take the credit for his work, with Watson being the only one to broadcast his own role in the case (in
"The Adventure of the Naval Treaty", he remarks that of his last
fifty-three cases, the police have had all the credit in forty-nine), although he enjoys receiving praise from personal friends
and those who take a serious interest in his work.
Although he initially needed Watson to share the rent of his comfortable residence at 221B Baker Street, Watson reveals in
"The Adventure of the Dying Detective" (when Holmes was living
alone) that "I have no doubt that the house might have been purchased at the price which Holmes paid for his rooms," suggesting
he had developed a good income from his practice, although it is never revealed exactly how much he charges for his services. He
does say, in "The Problem of Thor Bridge" that "My professional charges are
upon a fixed scale. I do not vary them, save when I remit them altogether..." This is said in a context where a client is
offering to double his fees; however, it is likely that rich clients provided a remuneration greatly in excess of Holmes's
standard fee: in "The Adventure of the Final Problem", Holmes states
that his services to the government of France and the royal house of Scandinavia had left him with enough money to retire comfortably, while in "The Adventure of Black Peter" Watson notes that Holmes would refuse to help the wealthy and
powerful if their cases did not interest him, while he could devote weeks at a time to the cases of the most humble clients.
Holmes also tells Watson, in "A Case Of Identity", of a golden snuff box received from the King of Bohemia after "A Scandal In
Bohemia" and a fabulous ring from the Scandinavian royal family. In "The Adventure of the Priory School", Holmes "rubs his hands
with glee" when the Duke notes the sum, which surprises even Watson, and then pats the cheque, saying "I am a poor man", an
incident that could be dismissed as Holmes's tendency toward ironic humour. Certainly, in the course of his career Holmes had
worked for both the most powerful monarchs and governments of Europe (including his own) and various wealthy aristocrats and
industrialists, and had also been consulted by impoverished pawnbrokers and humble governesses on the lower rungs of society. The
Victorian class system was much more complex than today's — it would have been degrading to offer a bill to a royal figure, but
such a figure might well provide recompense of the equivalent of millions in modern currency. On the other hand, Holmes has been
known to charge clients for his expenses, and to claim any reward that might be offered for the solution's problem: he says in
The Adventure of the Speckled Band that Miss Stoner may pay any
expenses he may be put to, and requests that the bank in The Red-Headed League
remunerate him for the money he spent solving the case. As well as accepting the reward from the Duke of Holdernesse in
The Adventure of the Priory School, Holmes has his wealthy banker
client in The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet pay him both for the
costs of recovering the stolen gems, and also claims the reward the banker had put for their recovery.
Holmes is generally quite fearless. He dispassionately surveys horrific, brutal crime scenes; he does not allow superstition
(as in The Hound of the Baskervilles) or grotesque situations to
make him afraid; and he intrepidly confronts violent murderers. He is generally unfazed by threats from his criminal enemies, and
indeed Holmes himself remarks that it is the danger of his profession that has attracted him to it. On occasion Holmes and Watson
carry pistols with them; however, these weapons are only used on five occasions.[2] Besides a pistol, Holmes twice uses a riding crop/cane as a weapon.[3]
Finally, Holmes does have capacities for human emotion and friendship. He has a remarkable ability to gently soothe and
reassure people suffering from extreme distress, a talent which comes in handy when dealing with both male and female clients who
arrive at Baker Street suffering from extreme fear or nervousness. In "The
Adventure of the Norwood Builder", we see an example of Holmes's affection for Dr. Watson when it is revealed that Watson
has sold his practice as a doctor to a man named Verner, who, "...[gave] with astonishing little demur the highest price that I
ventured to ask — an incident which only explained itself later, when I found that Verner was a distant relation of Holmes, and
it was my friend who had really found the money." Again we are shown his close personal friendship with Watson, whose near-death
at the hands of a counterfeiter in "The Adventure of the Three
Garridebs" elicits much grief and anger from Holmes. Over time, Holmes's relations with the official Scotland Yard
detectives goes from cold disdain to a strong respect. And the classic "might-have-been" in Holmes's life is, of course,
Irene Adler (from "A Scandal in Bohemia"), who is later referred to in the most laudatory
terms by Watson. This is the only such canonical incident, however; despite signs of interest in other women, Watson is
frequently disappointed that Holmes shows no further interest in them once the case is solved.
Relationships
An estimate of Holmes's age in the short story "His Last Bow" places his year of birth
around 1854 although there is no authoritative biography. At the beginning of "The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger", Watson states that Holmes "was in active
practice for twenty-three years"; during seventeen of these years, Watson "was allowed to cooperate with him and to keep notes of
his doings".
Historically, Holmes lived from the year 1881 at 221B Baker Street,
London (in early notes it was described as being situated at Upper Baker Street), a
flat up seventeen steps, where he shared many of his professional years with his good friend
Dr. Watson for some time before Watson's marriage in 1887 and after
Mrs. Watson's death. The residence was maintained by his landlady, Mrs. Hudson.
In almost all of the stories, Holmes is assisted by the practical Watson, who is not only a friend but also his chronicler
(his "Boswell"). Most of Holmes's stories are told as narratives, by Watson, of the
detective's solutions to crimes brought to his attention by clients. Holmes sometimes criticises Watson for his writings, usually
because he relates them as exciting stories rather than as objective and detailed reports focusing on what Holmes regards as the
pure "science" of his craft.
Holmes has an older brother, Mycroft Holmes, a government official, who appears in
three stories: "The Greek Interpreter", "The Final Problem", and "The Bruce-Partington Plans". He is also mentioned in a number of others,
including "The Empty House". Mycroft had a unique civil service position as a kind of memory-man for all aspects of government
policy — a kind of walking database. Sherlock thought Mycroft more gifted but not a man of action, preferring to spend his time
at the Diogenes Club, described as a club for the most un-clubbable men in London.
In three stories (The Sign of Four, A Study in Scarlet, and "The Adventure of the
Crooked Man"), Holmes is assisted by a group of street children he calls the
Baker Street Irregulars.
Law enforcement officers with whom Holmes has worked include Inspector Lestrade,
Tobias Gregson, Stanley Hopkins, Alec MacDonald,
and Athelney (or Peter) Jones, all five of Scotland
Yard, and Francois Le Villard of the French
police. Holmes usually baffles the police with his far more efficient and effective methods, showing himself to be a
vastly superior detective, a fact that the police seem to have learnt to take with good grace — witness Lestrade at the end of
"The Six Napoleons".
Holmes's archenemy and popularly-supposed nemesis was Professor James Moriarty ("the Napoleon of Crime"), who fell,
struggling with Holmes, over the Reichenbach Falls. Conan Doyle intended "The Final
Problem", the story in which this occurred, to be the last that he wrote about Holmes. However, the outpouring of protests and
letters demanding that he bring back his creation convinced him to continue. He did so with The Hound of The Baskervilles,
although this was a case Holmes was involved in before his supposed death. His return in "The Adventure of the Empty House" had
Conan Doyle explaining that only Moriarty fell over the cliff, but Holmes had allowed the world to believe that he too had
perished while he dodged the retribution of Moriarty's underlings. Also, numerous sources claim that Moriarty was initially
Holmes' mathematics tutor, as is also referenced in the work of William S.
Baring-Gould. Professor Moriarty also has a presence in The Valley of Fear.
Holmes and women
The only woman in whom Holmes ever showed any interest that verged on the romantic was Irene
Adler. According to Watson, she was always referred to by Holmes as "The Woman." Holmes himself is never directly
quoted as using this term — though he does mention her actual name several times in other cases. She is also one of the few women
who are mentioned in multiple Holmes stories, though she actually appears in person only in one, "A Scandal in Bohemia". She is often thought to be the only woman who broke through Holmes's
reserve. She is possibly the only woman who has ever "beaten" Holmes in a mystery; this point is unclear owing to a comment with
some chronological problems in one of the stories (see the Irene Adler or "The Five Orange Pips" articles for details). However, it is important to note that Watson
explicitly states, "It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler."
In one story, "The Adventure of Charles Augustus
Milverton", Holmes is engaged to be married, but only with the motivation of gaining information for his case. He clearly
demonstrates particular interest in several of the more charming female clients that come his way (such as Violet Hunter of "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches", whom Watson thought might become more than a client
to Holmes). However, Holmes inevitably "manifested no further interest in her when once she had ceased to be the centre of one of
his problems." Holmes found their youth, beauty, and energy (and the cases they bring to him) invigorating, as opposed to an
actual romantic interest.
These episodes show that Holmes possesses a degree of charm, yet, apart from the case of Adler, there is no indication of a
serious or long-term interest. Watson states that Holmes has an "aversion to women" but "a peculiarly ingratiating way with
[them]." Holmes states, "I am not a whole-souled admirer of womankind"; in fact he finds "the motives of women... so
inscrutable... How can you build on such quicksand? Their most trivial actions may mean volumes... their most extraordinary
conduct may depend upon a hairpin."
Another point of interest in Holmes's relationships with women is that the only joy he gets from their company is the problems
they bring to him to solve. In The Sign of Four, Watson quotes Holmes as
being "an automaton, a calculating machine." This references Holmes's lack of interest in relationships with women in general,
and clients in particular, as Watson states that "there is something positively inhuman in you at times."
Watson writes in "The Adventure of the Dying Detective" that
Mrs. Hudson is fond of Holmes in her own way, despite his bothersome eccentricities as a lodger, owing to his "remarkable
gentleness and courtesy in his dealings with women." Watson notes that while he dislikes and distrusts them, he is nonetheless a
"chivalrous opponent." However, Holmes cannot be said to be misogynistic, given the number of
women he helps in his work.
Watson, on the other hand, boasts in The Sign of Four of "an experience
of women which extends over many nations and three separate continents." In addition, he speaks favourably of some women —
indeed, in virtually all the longer stories he remarks on the exceptional beauty of at least one female character — and actually
marries one, Mary Morstan of The Sign of Four.
Influence
Holmesian deduction
"From a drop of water," Holmes wrote in an essay described in A Study in Scarlet, "a logician could infer the
possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without
having seen or heard of one or the other." Holmes stories often begin with a bravura display of his talent for "deduction". It is of some interest to logicians and those interested in logic to try to analyse just what Holmes is doing when he performs his deduction. Holmesian deduction appears to
consist primarily of drawing inferences based on either straightforward practical principles — which are the result of careful
inductive study, such as Holmes's study of different kinds of cigar ashes — or
inference to the best explanation. In many cases, the deduction can be modelled either way. In 2002, Holmes was inducted as an
honorary fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry — the only fictional character so honoured — in appreciation of his contributions to forensic
investigation.[4]
Holmes's straightforward practical principles are generally of the form, "If 'p', then 'q'," where 'p' is observed evidence
and 'q' is what the evidence indicates. But there are also, as one may observe in the following example, often some intermediate
principles. In "A Scandal in Bohemia" Holmes deduces that Watson had got very wet lately and that he had "a most clumsy and
careless servant girl." When Watson, in amazement, asks how Holmes knows this, Holmes answers:
"It is simplicity itself... My eyes tell me that on the inside of your left shoe, just where the firelight strikes it, the
leather is scored by six almost parallel cuts. Obviously they have been caused by someone who has very carelessly scraped round
the edges of the sole in order to remove crusted mud from it. Hence, you see, my double deduction that you had been out in vile
weather, and that you had a particularly malignant boot-slitting specimen of the London slavey."
In this case, we might say Holmes employed several connected principles such as these:
- If leather on the side of a shoe is scored by several parallel cuts, it was caused by someone who scraped around the edges of
the sole in order to remove crusted mud.
- If a 19th-century London doctor's shoes are scraped to remove crusted mud, the person who so scraped them is the doctor's
servant girl.
- If someone cuts a shoe while scraping it to remove encrusted mud, that person is clumsy and careless.
- If someone's shoes had encrusted mud on them, that person has been very wet lately and has been out in vile weather.
By applying such principles in an obvious way (using repeated applications of modus
ponens), Holmes is able to infer from
- 'p': The sides of Watson's shoes are scored by several parallel cuts.
to
- 'q1': Watson's servant girl is clumsy and careless.
and
- 'q2': Watson has been very wet lately and has been out in vile weather.
But perhaps Holmes is not giving a proper explanation — after all, Holmes may be well aware of Watson's servant girl. As
Watson is a doctor and it has been raining, it is likely he has been out in the rain.
Of course, Holmes's deductive reasonings are a common tool by which certain characters (particularly his astonished clients)
are introduced by Holmes himself into the story. For example, in Conan Doyle's story The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist, Holmes's observations allow him to deduce
that the client, Violet Smith, enjoys bicycling, due to slight roughenings of the sides of her shoe's soles from friction with
the pedals. He also notes that the lady has spatulated finger-ends, which he initially assumes had been acquired from
typewriting. However, he then openly corrects himself by commenting on Ms. Smith having a certain spirituality about the face
(which he commented would not come from working with a typewriter), and remarks how such fingers can also develop from playing
musical instruments; thus, he identified Ms. Smith as being a musician (a music teacher, to be precise).
In other instances of Holmesian deduction, it is more difficult to model his inference as deduction using general principles,
and logicians and scientists will readily recognize the method used, instead, as an "inductive" one — in particular, "argument to the best explanation",
or, in Charles S. Peirce's terminology, "abduction". However, that Holmes should have called this "deduction" is entirely plausible.
The instances in which Holmes uses deduction tend to be those where he has amassed a large body of evidence, produced a number
of possible explanations of that evidence, and then proceeds to find one explanation that is clearly the best at explaining the
evidence. For example, in The Sign of Four, a man is found dead in his room, with a ghastly smile on his face, and with no
immediately visible cause of death. From a whole body of background information as well as evidence gathered at and around the
scene of the crime, Holmes is able to infer that the murderer is not one of the various people that Scotland Yard has in custody (each of them being an alternative explanation), but rather another person
entirely. As Holmes says in the story, "How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever
remains, however improbable, must be the truth?" This phrase has entered Western popular culture as a catchphrase.
In the latter example, in fact, Holmes' solution of the crime depends both on a series of applications of general
principles and argument to the best explanation.
Holmes' success at his brand of deduction, therefore, is due to his mastery of both a huge body of particular knowledge
of things like footprints, cigar ashes, and poisons, which he uses to make relatively simple deductive inferences, and the
fine art of ordering and weighing different competing explanations of a body of evidence. Holmes is also particularly good at
gathering evidence by observation, as well locating and tracking the movements of criminals through the streets of London and its
environs (in order to produce more evidence) — skills that have little to do with deduction per se, but everything to do
with providing the premises for particular Holmesian deductions. Four examples of Holmes' deductions of an owner's lifestyle are:
Dr. Watson's old pocket watch in The Sign of Four, Dr. Mortimer's walking stick in The Hound of the
Baskervilles, Mr. Grant Munro's pipe in "The Adventure of the
Yellow Face" and Henry Baker's hat in "The Adventure of the Blue
Carbuncle."
In the stories by Conan Doyle, Holmes often remarked that his logical conclusions were "elementary," in that he considered
them to be simple and obvious. He also, on occasion, referred to his friend as "my dear Watson." However, the complete phrase,
"Elementary, my dear Watson," does not appear in any of the sixty Holmes stories written by Conan Doyle. One of the closest
examples to this phrase appears in the "The Adventure of the Crooked
Man". Upon Holmes's explanation of a deduction:
"Excellent!" I cried "Elementary." said he
It does appear at the very end of the 1929 film, The Return of Sherlock Holmes, the first Sherlock Holmes sound film,
and may owe its familiarity to its use in Edith Meiser's scripts for The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes radio series. The phrase was first used
by American actor William Gillette though.
It should be noted too, that our modern stereotype of police procedure — someone who looks for physical clues, rather than
someone who examines opportunity and motive — comes from Holmes.
Conan Doyle was an admirer of Oliver Wendell Holmes. In 1858, Holmes had written, in his Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, “Tell me about Cuvier’s getting up a
megatherium from a tooth … so all a man’s antecedents and possibilities are summed up in a
single utterance….” This recalls what Schopenhauer had written in 1851, “Just as a botanist recognises the whole plant from one leaf and Cuvier constructed the entire animal from one bone, so from one characteristic action of a man we can
arrive at a correct knowledge of his character.” (Parerga and Paralipomena, Vol. II, §118) These assertions are echoed in
"The Five Orange Pips", in which Sherlock Holmes declared, “As Cuvier could
correctly describe a whole animal by the contemplation of a single bone, so the observer who has thoroughly understood one link
in a series of incidents should be able to state all the other ones, before and after.”
Readers of the Sherlock Holmes stories have often been surprised to discover that their author, Conan Doyle, was a fervent
believer in paranormal phenomena, and that the logical, skeptical character of Holmes was in
opposition to his own in many ways.
It must be noted that, in Holmesian deduction, it is important to attempt to eliminate all other possibilities, or as many as
possible. As Holmes says to Watson,"Eliminate all that is impossible, whatever remains is the explanation, however improbable."
This requires quite a bit of practice to reach. Watson attempts several times to perform Holmesian deductions, and even gives his
explanations. However, he fails to recognize other equally probable circumstances, and is wrong on almost every count. As of
2007, the MI5 and MI6 are training their agents
in Sherlockian Deduction [5].
Role in the history of the detective story
A popular misconception is that the Sherlock Holmes stories gave rise to the entire genre of detective fiction. In fact, the
Holmes character and his modus operandi were inspired by two predecessors, C. Auguste
Dupin and Monsieur Lecoq and their technique for solving crime. Created by
Edgar Allan Poe and Émile Gaboriau respectively,
they were both investigators to whom even Holmes himself alluded. Many fictional sleuths have imitated Holmes' logical methods
and followed in his footsteps, in various ways.
Writers have produced many pop culture references to Sherlock
Holmes, Conan Doyle, or characters from the stories in homage, to a greater or lesser degree. Such allusions can form a
plot development, raise the intellectual level of the piece or act as Easter eggs
for an observant audience.
Some have been overt, introducing Holmes as a character in a new setting, or a more subtle allusion, such as making a logical
character live in an apartment at number 221b. Often the simplest reference is to
dress anybody who does some kind of detective work in a deerstalker and cloak (as seen right). Another rich field of pop culture
references is Holmes' ancestry and descendants (as discussed above) but really the only
limit is the writer's imagination. A third major reference is the quote, "Elementary, my dear Watson." Which surprisingly enough
was never actually said by Sherlock Holmes. True, Holmes has said "Elementary" and "My dear Watson" but has never actually said
"Elementary my dear Watson." Another common misattributation is that Holmes, throughout the entire novel series, is never
described as wearing the 'deerstalker hat', although Sidney Paget had drawn Holmes donning it on two occasions.
As an inspiration for speculation by fans
Main article: Sherlock Holmes speculation
The 56 short stories and 4 novels written by Conan Doyle are termed "the
Canon" by the Holmesians. A popular pastime among fans of Sherlock Holmes is to treat Holmes and Watson as real people,
and attempt to elucidate facts about them from clues in the stories or by combining the stories with historical fact. Early
scholars of the canon included Ronald Knox in Britain and Christopher Morley in New York.
Societies
In 1934 were founded the Sherlock Holmes Society, in London, and the Baker Street
Irregulars, in New York. Both are still active today (though the Sherlock Holmes Society was dissolved in 1937 to be
resuscitated only in 1951). The two initial societies founded in 1934 were followed by many more Holmesians circles, first of all
in America (where they are called "scion societies" - offshoots - of the Baker Street Irregulars), then in England and Denmark.
Nowadays, there are Holmesian societies in many countries like India and Japan being the more prominent countries which have a
history of such activity.
Museums
During the 1951 Festival of Britain, Sherlock Holmes' sitting-room was
reconstructed as the masterpiece of a Sherlock Holmes Exhibition, displaying a unique collection of original material. After the
1951 exhibition closed, items were transferred to the Sherlock Holmes Pub, in London, and to the Conan Doyle Collection in Lucens
(Switzerland). Both exhibitions, each including its own very good Baker Street Sitting-Room reconstruction, are still to be seen
today. In 1990 The Sherlock Holmes Museum was opened in Baker Street London and
the following year in Meiringen Switzerland another Museum was also opened, but naturally they include less historical material
about Conan Doyle than about Sherlock Holmes himself. The Sherlock Holmes Museum at 221b Baker Street London was the first Museum
in the world to be dedicated to a fictional character.
The Great Hiatus
Holmes fans refer to the period from 1891 to 1894 — the time between Holmes' disappearance and presumed death in "The
Adventure of the Final Problem" and his reappearance in "The Adventure of the Empty House" — as "the Great Hiatus".[2] It is notable,
though, that one later story ("The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge") is described as taking place in 1892.
Conan Doyle wrote the stories over the course of a decade. Wanting to devote more time to his historical novels, he killed off
Holmes in "The Final Problem", which appeared in print in 1893. After resisting public pressure for eight years, the author wrote
The Hound of the Baskervilles, which appeared in 1901, implicitly setting it before Holmes' "death" (some theorise that it
actually took place after "The Return" but with Watson planting clues to an earlier date).[6][7] The
public, while pleased with the story, was not satisfied with a posthumous Holmes, and so Conan Doyle resuscitated Holmes two
years later. Many have speculated on his motives for bringing Holmes back to life, notably writer-director Nicholas Meyer, who wrote an essay on the subject in the 1970s, but the actual reasons are not known,
other than the obvious: Publishers offered to pay generously. For whatever reason, Conan Doyle continued to write Holmes stories
for a quarter-century longer.
Some writers have come up with alternate explanations for the hiatus. In Meyer's novel, The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, the hiatus was explained as a secret sabbatical that Holmes
indulged in for those years after his drug rehabilitation treatment with
Sigmund Freud's help, while he light-heartedly suggested that Watson write a fictitious
account claiming he had died: "They'll never believe you in any case."
John Kendrick Bangs, creator of Bangsian
fantasy, wrote a book in 1897 called Pursuit of the House-Boat
(a sequel to his A House-Boat on the Styx, in which the souls of famous
dead people start up a club in Hades). In it, the house-boat (which was hijacked at the end of
A House-Boat on the Styx by Captain Kidd) is tracked down by the members of the club
with the aid of none other than Sherlock Holmes — who is indeed dead.
In his memoirs, Conan Doyle quotes a reader, who judged the later stories inferior to the earlier ones, to the effect that
when Holmes went over the Reichenbach Falls, he may not have been killed, but he was never quite the same man after.
The differences in the pre- and post-Hiatus Holmes have in fact created speculation among those who play "The Great Game"
(making believe Sherlock Holmes was a historical person). One theory[citation needed] holds that the later Holmes was in fact an impostor (perhaps even Professor
Moriarty), the later stories were fictions created to fill other writers' pockets (this is often used to deal with the stories
which supposedly are written by Holmes himself), and Holmes and Professor Moriarty were in fact a variation of Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange
Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Among the more fanciful theories, the story The Case of the Detective's Smile
by Mark Bourne, published in the anthology Sherlock Holmes in Orbit, posits that one of the places Holmes visited during
his hiatus was Alice's Wonderland. While there, he solved the case of the stolen tarts, and his experiences there contributed to
his kicking the cocaine addiction.
Adaptations
Canonical adaptations
-
Vasily Livanov was awarded the
OBE
for his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes in the Soviet TV series.
As Sherlock Holmes is such a popular character, there have been many theatrical stage and cinematic adaptations of Conan
Doyle's work — much in the same way that Hamlet or Dracula are often revised and adapted.
The Guinness World Records has consistently listed him as the "most portrayed
movie character" with over 70 actors playing the part in over 200 films.
Basil Rathbone starred as Sherlock Holmes, alongside Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson, in fourteen films (two for 20th Century
Fox and a dozen for Universal Pictures) from 1939-1946. Jeremy Brett is generally considered the definitive Holmes of recent times, having played the role in four series ("The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes") created by John Hawkesworth for Britain's Granada
Television from 1984 though to 1994 as well as depicting Holmes on stage. Brett's Dr. Watson was played by
David Burke and Edward Hardwicke in the
television series.
Related and derivative works (non-canonical)
-
In addition to the canonical Sherlock Holmes stories, Conan Doyle's "The Lost Special" (1908) features an unnamed "amateur reasoner" clearly intended to be
identified as Holmes by his readers. His explanation for a baffling disappearance, argued in Holmes' characteristic style, turns
out to be quite wrong — evidently Conan Doyle was not above poking fun at his own hero. A short story by Conan Doyle using the
same idea is "The Man with the Watches".
Another example of Conan Doyle's humour is "How Watson Learned the Trick"
(1924), a parody of the frequent Watson-Holmes breakfast table scenes. A further parody by Conan
Doyle is "The Field Bazaar". He also wrote other material, especially plays, featuring Holmes. Many of these writings are
collected in the books Sherlock Holmes: the Published Apocrypha edited by Jack Tracy,
The Final Adventures of Sherlock Holmes edited by Peter Haining and The
Uncollected Sherlock Holmes compiled by Roger Lancelyn Green.
Sherlock Holmes' abilities as both a good fighter and as an excellent logician have been a boon
to other authors who have lifted his name, or details of his exploits, for their plots. These range from Holmes as a
cocaine addict, whose drug-fuelled fantasies lead him to cast an innocent Professor Moriarty as
a super villain (The Seven-Per-Cent Solution), to science-fiction
plots involving him being re-animated after death to fight crime in the future (Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century).
Some authors have supplied stories to fit the tantalising references in the canon to unpublished cases (e.g. "The giant rat of Sumatra, a story for which the world is not yet prepared" in "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire"), notably The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes by Conan Doyle's son Adrian Conan Doyle with John Dickson Carr; others have
used different characters from the stories as their own detective, e.g. Mycroft Holmes in Enter the Lion by
Michael P. Hodel and Sean M. Wright (1979) or Dr. James Mortimer (from The Hound of the
Baskervilles) in books by Gerard Williams.
The main character in the TV series House, a medical doctor with a Holmesian
approach to diagnosing diseases, is named as a pun on the near-homophone "Homes" for "Holmes".
Sherlock Holmes in reality
Whenever Arthur Conan Doyle was asked if there was a real Sherlock Holmes, his answer never changed. There was a real person,
but he wasn't called Sherlock Holmes. Dr. Joseph Bell could draw large conclusions (like
Holmes) from the smallest observations. Dr. Bell was also dedicated to criminal cases and solved a few cases.[8]
Bibliography
Novels
Short stories
For more detail see List of Conan Doyle's Sherlock
Holmes short stories.
The short stories were originally published in periodicals; they were later gathered into five anthologies:
Lists of favourite stories
There are two famous lists of favourite stories: that of Conan Doyle himself---in The Strand in 1927, and that of the
Baker Street Journal in 1959.
Conan Doyle's list:
- "The Adventure of the Speckled Band"
- "The Red-Headed League"
- "The Adventure of the Dancing Men"
- "The Adventure of the Final Problem"
- "A Scandal in Bohemia"
- "The Adventure of the Empty House"
- "The Five Orange Pips"
- "The Adventure of the Second Stain"
- "The Adventure of the Devil's Foot"
- "The Adventure of the Priory School"
- "The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual"
- "The Adventure of the Reigate Squires"
The Baker Street Journal's list:
- "The Adventure of the Speckled Band"
- "The Red-Headed League"
- "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle"
- "The Adventure of Silver Blaze"
- "A Scandal in Bohemia"
- "The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual"
- "The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans"
- "The Adventure of the Six Napoleons"
- "The Adventure of the Dancing Men"
- "The Adventure of the Empty House"
Works by other authors
- Baring-Gould, William S. (1967). The Annotated Sherlock Holmes. Clarkson
N. Potter, Inc., New York & John Murray Publishers, London.
ISBN 0-517-50291-7
- Klinger, Leslie S. (2004-5). The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes. W.W.
Norton & Company, Inc., New York & London.
ISBN 0-393-05916-2
See also
References
External links
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