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Sherlock Holmes: the story on HearLore | HearLore
Sherlock Holmes
In 1893, a public outcry of such magnitude that it nearly destroyed a major magazine forced a British author to resurrect a character he had just killed. The Strand Magazine lost over 20,000 subscribers when Arthur Conan Doyle published The Final Problem, a story in which his detective, Sherlock Holmes, fell to his death at the Reichenbach Falls. Readers did not merely feel sadness; they felt a personal loss, with some writing letters beginning with the insult You brute. The phenomenon was unprecedented for a fictional character, proving that Holmes had transcended the page to become a living entity in the public consciousness. This reaction forced Conan Doyle to write The Adventure of the Empty House in 1903, explaining that Holmes had faked his death to escape his archenemy, Professor James Moriarty. The period between 1891 and 1894, when the detective was presumed dead, is now known to fans as the Great Hiatus, a time of silence that only served to deepen the mystery surrounding the consulting detective. The story of Holmes is not just one of crime and deduction, but of a cultural force so powerful that it compelled its creator to lie about his own fiction to satisfy the demands of his audience.
The Calculating Machine
Sherlock Holmes was born in 1853 or 1854, though the exact date remains a subject of debate among scholars who treat the stories as historical records. He was the son of country squires, and his early life was marked by a solitary nature that would define his adult personality. Holmes developed his methods of deduction as an undergraduate, pursuing amateur cases for fellow students before a meeting with a classmate's father led him to adopt detection as a profession. His brother, Mycroft, seven years his senior, was a government official with a unique position as a human database for all aspects of government policy, yet Mycroft lacked the physical interest required for field work. Holmes himself was described as bohemian in his habits, possessing a cat-like love of personal cleanliness while simultaneously maintaining a home that lacked contemporary standards of tidiness. He was willing to break the law to right a wrong, contending that certain crimes were beyond the reach of the law and therefore justified private revenge. His social life was equally sparse; during two years at college, he made only one friend, and he avoided casual company for the rest of his life. He believed that the mind had a finite capacity for information storage, and learning useless things reduced one's ability to learn useful things, a philosophy that led him to claim ignorance of the Earth revolving around the Sun because such information was irrelevant to his work.
The Science of Deduction
Common questions
When did Arthur Conan Doyle kill off Sherlock Holmes and why did he resurrect him?
Arthur Conan Doyle published The Final Problem in 1893 in which Sherlock Holmes fell to his death at the Reichenbach Falls. He resurrected the character in 1903 with The Adventure of the Empty House after public outcry forced him to write a story explaining that Holmes had faked his death to escape Professor James Moriarty.
What is the Great Hiatus in the Sherlock Holmes stories and when did it occur?
The Great Hiatus refers to the period between 1891 and 1894 when Sherlock Holmes was presumed dead after the events of The Final Problem. The earliest known use of the expression Great Hiatus dates to 1946 and covers the time from his disappearance to his reappearance in The Adventure of the Empty House.
Who is Irene Adler and how did she defeat Sherlock Holmes in A Scandal in Bohemia?
Irene Adler was a retired American opera singer and actress who bested Sherlock Holmes in a battle of wits in A Scandal in Bohemia. She escaped Holmes before he could retrieve the photograph of her and the Crown Prince of Bohemia Wilhelm von Ormstein, proving that emotional matters opposed the cold reason Holmes placed above all things.
Where did Sherlock Holmes live and what was the relationship between Holmes and Dr. John H. Watson?
Sherlock Holmes lived at 221B Baker Street in London with Dr. John H. Watson and their landlady Mrs. Hudson. The two men worked together for seventeen of Holmes's twenty-three years as a detective, with Watson serving as his biographer and companion despite disapproving of Holmes's cocaine habit.
When was the Sherlock Holmes Museum opened and how many adaptations of the character exist?
The Sherlock Holmes Museum opened on Baker Street in London in 1990 and a second museum opened in Meiringen near the Reichenbach Falls in 1991. By the 1990s over 25,000 stage adaptations films television productions and publications had featured the detective making him the most portrayed human literary character in film and television history.
Did Sherlock Holmes ever say the phrase Elementary my dear Watson in the original stories?
Sherlock Holmes never utters the phrase Elementary my dear Watson in any of the sixty stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The exact phrase and close variants first appeared in newspaper and journal articles as early as 1909 and one of the nearest approximations appears in The Adventure of the Crooked Man.
Holmes's investigative technique relied heavily on the acquisition of hard evidence, often employing methods that were in their infancy during the Victorian era. He was particularly skilled in the analysis of trace evidence, including latent prints such as footprints, hoof prints, and shoe impressions, to identify actions at a crime scene. He utilized tobacco ashes and cigarette butts to identify criminals, compared typewritten letters to expose fraud, and used gunpowder residue to expose murderers. His home chemistry laboratory was mentioned in The Naval Treaty, and he used analytical chemistry for blood residue analysis and toxicology to detect poisons. Holmes also demonstrated a knowledge of psychology, luring Irene Adler into betraying where she hid a photograph based on the premise that a woman would rush to save her most valued possession from a fire. He was a cryptanalyst, claiming to be the author of a monograph on secret writing in which he analyzed one hundred and sixty separate ciphers. Despite his supposed ignorance of politics, he could immediately recognize the true identity of a disguised Count, and he demonstrated a knowledge of Latin, citing authors such as Hafez, Goethe, and Gustave Flaubert. His guiding principle, as he stated in The Sign of Four, was that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
The Doctor and The Detective
The relationship between Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John H. Watson was the most significant bond in the detective's life, yet it was built on a foundation of professional necessity and deep, unspoken affection. Financial difficulties led Holmes and Watson to share rooms together at 221B Baker Street, London, where they were maintained by their landlady, Mrs. Hudson. Watson narrated most of the stories, serving as Holmes's biographer and companion, though Holmes frequently called Watson's records sensational and populist. When Watson was injured by a bullet, Holmes's reaction revealed the depth of his care, making it clear to their opponent that the man would not have left the room alive if he had genuinely killed Watson. Holmes's friendship with Watson was his most significant relationship, and Watson's medical background provided a link between medical investigation and the detection of crime. Watson strongly disapproved of Holmes's cocaine habit, describing it as the detective's only vice, and was concerned about its effect on Holmes's mental health and intellect. Despite this, Watson condoned the detective's willingness to do things on behalf of a client, such as lying to the police or breaking into houses, when he felt it morally justifiable. The two men worked together for seventeen of Holmes's twenty-three years as a detective, with Watson accompanying Holmes during investigations and often sharing quarters at 221B Baker Street.
The War Against Moriarty
The Great Hiatus began with a final battle between Holmes and the criminal mastermind Professor James Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls. Conan Doyle killed off Holmes in The Final Problem, published in 1893 but set in 1891, because he felt that his literary energies should not be directed too much into one channel. The public reaction was unlike anything previously seen for fictional events, with distressed readers writing anguished letters to The Strand Magazine. One lady even began her letter with You brute, and legend has it that Londoners wore black armbands in mourning, though the earliest known reference to such events comes from 1949. After resisting public pressure for eight years, Conan Doyle wrote The Hound of the Baskervilles, which was serialized in 1901 and 1902 with an implicit setting before Holmes's death. In 1903, Conan Doyle wrote The Adventure of the Empty House, in which Holmes reappeared to explain to a stunned Watson that he had faked his death to fool his enemies. Holmes used a Japanese martial art known as baritsu to fling Moriarty to his death in the Reichenbach Falls, a practice that combined jujitsu with boxing and cane fencing. The period from 1891 to 1894, between his disappearance and presumed death and his reappearance, is now known to fans as the Great Hiatus, and the earliest known use of this expression dates to 1946.
The Woman Who Bested Him
Irene Adler was a retired American opera singer and actress who appeared in A Scandal in Bohemia, and she was one of the only people who bested Holmes in a battle of wits. Five years before the story's events, Adler had a brief liaison with Crown Prince of Bohemia Wilhelm von Ormstein, and the Prince was engaged to another when the story opened. Fearful that the marriage would be called off if his fiancée's family learned of this past impropriety, Ormstein hired Holmes to regain a photograph of Adler and himself. Adler slipped away before Holmes could succeed, and her memory was kept alive by the photograph of Adler that Holmes received for his part in the case. Holmes stated that love was an emotional thing, and whatever was emotional was opposed to that true, cold reason which he placed above all things. He claimed that he had never loved, and that he was not a whole-souled admirer of womankind, finding the motives of women to be inscrutable. Yet, Watson noted that Holmes had a peculiarly ingratiating way with women, and their housekeeper Mrs. Hudson was fond of Holmes because of his remarkable gentleness and courtesy in his dealings with women. Holmes disliked and distrusted the sex, but he was always a chivalrous opponent, and in The Adventure of the Lion's Mane, he wrote that women had seldom been an attraction to him, for his brain had always governed his heart.
The Legacy of the Game
The popularity of Sherlock Holmes has led to the creation of the Great Game, a practice that applies the methods of literary and especially Biblical criticism to the canon, operating on the pretense that Holmes and Watson were real people and that Conan Doyle was not the author of the stories but Watson's literary agent. From this basis, it attempts to resolve or explain away contradictions in the canon, such as the location of Watson's war wound, described as being in his shoulder in A Study in Scarlet and in his leg in The Sign of Four. The chronology of the stories is notoriously difficult, with many stories lacking dates and many others containing contradictory ones. Christopher Morley and William Baring-Gould contend that the detective was born on the 6th of January 1854, while Laurie R. King argues that details in The Gloria Scott indicate that Holmes finished his second year of university in 1880 or 1885. There are at least 250 societies worldwide, including Australia, Canada, India, and Japan, and fans tend to be called Holmesians in the UK and Sherlockians in the US. The Sherlock Holmes Museum opened on Baker Street in London in 1990, followed the next year by a museum in Meiringen near the Reichenbach Falls dedicated to the detective. The address 221B Baker Street did not exist when the stories were first published, but letters began arriving to the large Abbey National building which first encompassed that address almost as soon as it was built in 1932, and fans continue to send letters to Sherlock Holmes, which are now delivered to the Sherlock Holmes Museum.
The Most Portrayed Character
By the 1990s, over 25,000 stage adaptations, films, television productions, and publications had featured the detective, and Guinness World Records lists him as the most portrayed human literary character in film and television history. The first known pastiche dates from 1891, titled My Evening with Sherlock Holmes, written by Conan Doyle's close friend J. M. Barrie. Holmes's first screen appearance was in the 1900 Mutoscope film, Sherlock Holmes Baffled, and from 1921 to 1923, Eille Norwood played Holmes in forty-seven silent films. From 1939 to 1946, Basil Rathbone played Holmes and Nigel Bruce played Watson in fourteen US films and in The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes radio show. Jeremy Brett played the detective in Sherlock Holmes for Granada Television from 1984 to 1994, and Benedict Cumberbatch plays a modern version of the detective in the BBC One TV series Sherlock, which premiered in 2010. The phrase Elementary, my dear Watson has become one of the most quoted and iconic aspects of the character, yet it is never uttered in any of the sixty stories by Conan Doyle. One of the nearest approximations of the phrase appears in The Adventure of the Crooked Man when Holmes explains a deduction, and the exact phrase, as well as close variants, can be seen in newspaper and journal articles as early as 1909. The character has also appeared in video games, including the Sherlock Holmes series of eight main titles, which sold over seven million copies by 2017.