It is certainly odd to think what the history of crime investigation would have been like if, on that fateful day in 1881, Doctor John H. Watson, M.D., Late of the Army Medical Department, had not bumped into his old colleague Stamford, and had not subsequently been introduced to Mr. Sherlock Holmes, the world’s only unofficial consulting detective. Indeed, if these events had not happened, where would detective fiction be now, without even the humble magnifying glass ever having been used as an investigative tool? Where would forensic science be, had the ‘Sherlock Holmes Test’ of searching for otherwise-invisible blood particles not been developed? Where would we be now if the terrible war which had almost occurred during the events chronicled by Watson under the title ‘The Adventure of the Second Stain’ had not been avoided? Where, oh where, would the world itself be if these events had never happened?
Well, the shocking truth is, these things never happened. Sherlock Holmes is a fictional creation which burst from the depths of the mind of a struggling 27-year-old doctor in a story entitled A Study in Scarlet, first published in Beeton’s Christmas Annualduring the November of 1887. The original story made very little impact, but a second novel, The Sign of Four, was published in the February 1890 edition of Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine, with two further novels and fifty-six short stories appearing in The Strand Magazinebetween 1891 and 1927 (with an infamous hiatus between 1893 and 1901). With this in mind, it seems incredible that this character appears to have transgressed the boundaries set by his creator to become a figure almost with a life of his own. Despite him so obviously being fictional, there is still a part within all of us interested in Holmes which believes him to be real. Statements such as ‘I wish I could have met him’ and ‘he was the greatest detective of all time’ float out of the mouths of people fully aware of his fictional nature, and yet we still half-believe what we are saying: that Sherlock Holmes was a real, living, breathing man, who kept his tobacco in a Persian slipper and occasionally made use of cocaine to stimulate his great mind during lengthy periods of idleness.
So what is it about the characters created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle that seems so real? It isn’t as though the stories explored exclusively-realistic themes – how, for example, could Holmes have been employed by the King of Bohemia in ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’ when there was no such position at the time (the Kingdom of Bohemia was at the time of writing owned by the House of Habsburg and had no monarchy)? The continuity, also, is particularly unbelievable - Watson, after claiming to have been shot in the shoulder in A Study in Scarlet, changes his story to the injury being in his leg from The Sign of Four onwards; after claiming never to have heard of Moriarty before ‘The Final Problem’, he readily identifies him in the prequel The Valley of Fear; similarly, in ‘The Final Problem’, Moriarty’s brother’s first name is said to be James, and yet this is identified as Moriarty’s name in every story thereafter; it is impossible for Watson to still be living with Holmes inThe Hound of the Baskervilles, set in 1889, as he got married to Mary Morstan at the end of The Sign of Four, set in 1887, and she did not die until sometime between ‘The Final Problem’ (set in 1891) and ‘The Adventure of the Empty House’ (set in 1894) – the list of discontinuities and errors in Doyle’s work could go on and on. But the fact is that is simply does not matter – a reader could spend forever trying to explain away the problems in the ongoing narrative, but it would not make any difference to a fantastic body of works. And so, the question remains, just what is so special about Holmes that he is still being read, adapted, talked about and watched today, in 2012, one hundred and twenty five years after his initial appearance in print?
The answer is simple: Sherlock Holmes is such a brilliant creation. What’s not to like about a man with such incredibly powerful deductive powers that he could tell you everything about yourself within a few moments of seeing you for the first time? The man would be incredibly annoying to meet, after all (certainly spending a day with him would be more of a chore than a holiday with Louis Spence), but his brilliance would still be undeniable. People wanthim to be real – he is such a fantastic portrayal of the potential intellectual powers of a human being that, were he to have existed, nothing could be more amazing.
Despite the fact that Holmes has frequently been identified as the worst kind of depressive he could be (constantly requiring mental stimulation or risking falling into a deep, dark melancholy which can only be survived through occasional cocaine abuse), is frequently horrendously rude to the few friends he has (he tells Watson in ‘The Adventure of the Dying Detective’ that he is ‘only a general practitioner with very limited experience and mediocre qualifications’ and gives frequent backhanded compliments to Inspector Lestrade) and is unable to see anything beyond what is relevant to his own ego ('His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know nothing' - A Study in Scarlet), everyone has a soft spot for the character. He certainly isn’t all bad – he does show genuine compassion on numerous occasions; he spares several criminals across his career if he sees their crimes to be the result of understandably grave experiences or situations; he even treats a group of street urchins (The Baker Street Irregulars), neglected and looked down upon by society and downright hated by landlady Mrs Hudson, as equals, incredibly useful in solving several of his cases. If he is arrogant and self-proud about it (‘The air of London is the sweeter for my presence. In over a thousand cases I am not aware that I have ever used my powers on the wrong side’ – ‘The Final Problem’) then he certainly has earned the right.
And yet, Conan Doyle hated Holmes, or so it has been reported. In the preface to the final short story collection, The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes (published in 1927 and made up of the stories to have appeared in The Strand between 1921 and 1927) Doyle stressed his belief that ‘he may perhaps have stood a little in the way of [his] more serious literary work.’ But then again, perhaps for Doyle to judge Holmes as anything other than ‘serious literary work’ is a little harsh: after all, today there is both a blockbuster movie series and a hugely successful modern-day reimagining of the series being fed to the public almost simultaneously, and who has ever heard of Doyle’s other works, such as The Tragedy of the Korosko or The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard, or of his historical works, such as Micah Clarke? Furthermore, I am quite certain very few people know The Lost World was a novel by Doyle before it became the basis for Michael Crichton’s 1995 novel of the same name (which in turn was adapted into the second movie in the Jurassic Park series).
Conan Doyle’s feelings towards Holmes could not have been so strong so as to reject him entirely, after all. In 1927 – the same year as the Casebookwas released – Conan Doyle drew up a list of his own twelve favourite Holmes short stories, reproduced faithfully here:
1. The Adventure of the Speckled Band (The Adventures)
2. The Adventure of the Red-Headed League (The Adventures)
2. The Adventure of the Red-Headed League (The Adventures)
3. The Adventure of the Dancing Men (The Return)
4. The Final Problem (The Memoirs)
5. A Scandal in Bohemia (The Adventures)
6. The Adventure of the Empty House (The Return)
7. The Five Orange Pips (The Memoirs)
8. The Adventure of the Second Stain (The Return)
9. The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot (His Last Bow)
10. The Adventure of the Priory School (The Return)
11. The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual (The Memoirs)
12. The Adventure of the Reigate Squires (The Memoirs)
I have to say, in many ways I whole-heartedly disagree with this hierarchy. Conan Doyle was the hardest critic of the stories, which may explain why, to my mind, he has outright neglected to include some of the best stories he ever wrote in this list, and also why he has elevated some of the duller narratives to such a high status. It is also clear that he has completely ignored the Casebook, despite the fact that some of these stories are unique in every way. Personally, I have never been particularly enamoured with ‘The Priory School’, and the plot of ‘The Reigate Squires’, despite my having read the stories several times, has almost entirely failed to be retained within my memory. Therefore, it seems right that I should be permitted to suggest my own list of twelve, which would come as follows:
1. The Adventure of the Dancing Men (The Return)
2. The Adventure of the Second Stain (The Return)
3. The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans (His Last Bow)
4. The Final Problem (The Memoirs)
5. The Adventure of the Dying Detective (His Last Bow)
6. The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton (The Return)
7. The Problem of Thor Bridge (The Casebook)
8. A Scandal in Bohemia (The Adventures)
9. The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter (The Memoirs)
10. The Adventure of the Speckled Band (The Adventures)
11. The Adventure of the Five Orange Pips (The Memoirs)
12. The Adventure of the Six Napoleons (The Return)
Speaking from a fan perspective, it is clear that my preferences come from entertainment value rather than whether the stories themselves are of any real literary ‘worth’. You will notice how I have managed to squeeze in one particularly outstanding story from the Casebook and how the Return certainly comes out on top with four contributions, whereas Doyle tied the Memoirsand Return together with four apiece. As a considerably darker, racier collection, I still maintain that the Return is superior, but who am I to judge Conan Doyle’s own preference. The fact that I took the time to compile my own list shows the fondness I clearly hold for this writer and his greatest creation.
The fact is that, yes, regarding the immense number of continuity errors, the character and his world are incredibly unbelievable; and yet, oddly, it is this fact which, conversely, makes it all so believable: we want him to exist – we want such an amazing human being to be possible, because we ourselves want to believe it is possible to raise a human being to such great intellectual heights. Conan Doyle was a flawed writer – he altered his continuity to suit his newer stories; he allowed himself to live in the shadow of a fictional individual he created; he became unable to rid himself of him. But he never truly wanted to do so, in my belief. Look at the evidence – at the end of ‘The Final Problem’, he makes it as clear as he possibly can that there was no body to be found, and if there is no body, he could always resurrect Holmes, should he so desire. Similarly, despite his assertion that The Return was to be the final Holmes collection before the character retired, he could not help but write another collection of reminiscences from earlier in his career – the first ending with a defiant farewell, ‘His Last Bow’, subtitled as ‘An Epilogue to Sherlock Holmes’. And yet he still could not eliminate him – although clearly tired of Holmes by the time the stories in the Casebook were published, he still showed no sign of giving up –during this period, Doyle’s experimental side is at its best: here, we see him doing things he had never done before: Holmes narrates two stories, there is a story in the third person, and the themes explored include vampirism and child killers (both in the sense of a killer of children and a killer being a child himself).
It is certain that Conan Doyle could not have hated his most famed creation as much as he implied, therefore, and for a writer to continue with the same character throughout such an extended period of time is undeniably something impressive. Whether you find the stories exciting or tedious (God forbid), whether you are jealous that the stories are difficult to work out a solution to yourself, or whether you feel that Conan Doyle ‘sold-out’ by bringing him back from the dead, the talent and continuing popularity of the man and his work is undeniable. Even today, re-runs of the fantastic 1980s TV series starring Jeremy Brett are shown frequently on ITV, a new novel (The House of Silk) has been written and released by Anthony Horowitz, and a blockbuster movie series starring Robert Downey Jnr and Jude Law is being produced simultaneously with a high-budget modern retelling starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman. And even this shiny new updated version has not entirely forgotten its roots: aside from episode titles such as ‘A Study in Pink’ (2010), ‘A Scandal in Belgravia’ (2012) and ‘The Reichenbach Fall’(2012), we are provided within the episodes with plot references to the original stories (look out especially for ‘The Bruce-Partington Plans’ and ‘The Five Orange Pips’ in the 2010 episode ‘The Great Game’), as well as jokes tailor-made for the Holmes aficionado (in ‘A Scandal in Belgravia’ we are treated to blog titles such as ‘The Speckled Blonde’ and ‘The Geek Interpreter’). The life of Sherlock Holmes is most definitely not dead. Where the world’s obsession with the character will go from here, however, waits to be seen.
William D. Green
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