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Get a comprehensive guide to this important literary figure and his author. A classic literary character, Sherlock Holmes has fascinated readers for decades -- from his repartee with Dr. Watson and his unparalleled powers of deduction to the settings, themes, and villains of the stories. Now, this friendly guide offers a clear introduction to this beloved figure and his author, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, presenting new insight into the detective stories and crime scene analysis that have has made Sherlock Holmes famous. Inside you'll find easy-to-understand yet thorough information on the characters, recurring themes, and locations, and social context of the Sherlock Holmes stories, the relationship of these stories to literature, and the forensics and detective work they feature. You'll also learn about the life of the author. Better understand and enjoy this influential literary character with this plain-English guide. Gain insight on these classic Doyle tales -- from the classic Hound of the Baskervilles to the lesser-known short stories to Holmes stories written by other mystery writers. Explore the appearance of Sherlock Holmes on film, TV, and stage. Examine Holmes today -- from the ever-expanding network of fans worldwide to story locations that fans can visit. It's elementary! Sherlock Holmes For Dummies is an indispensable guide for students and fans alike!
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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor
Steven Doyle is co-founder of Wessex Press/Gasogene Books, a small press specializing in Sherlock Holmes books, including the landmark Sherlock Holmes Reference Library. David A. Crowder is the author or co-author of several For Dummies titles.
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Your comprehensive guide to this important literary figure and his author
It's elementary! Sherlock Holmes is a classic character who has fascinated readers for decades, and now this indispensable guide explores the enduring detective's stories like never before. Discover the rich characters, recurring themes, and social context of Arthur Conan Doyle's tales; the influence of Holmes on literature and pop culture; and why his stories still offer endless and fascinating new discoveries to readers.
See where it all began ? meet Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the man who created the world's greatest detective, and learn about Victorian London, where the Holmes stories take place
Gain new insight into Doyle's tales ? from the classic Hound of the Baskervilles to the lesser-known short stories, get a closer look at the forensics and detective work that made Sherlock Holmes famous
Get to know the characters ? discover why Holmes and Watson are such beloved characters, and meet other characters such as cops, bad guys, victims, and damsels in distress
Experience Holmes today ? from the ever-expanding network of worldwide fans to story locations that fans can visit, discover how the character continues to resonate with so many devoted followers
"Move over, Arthur Conan Doyle. Make room for Steve Doyle, whose handy Sherlock Holmes For Dummies will constitute addictive reading for Holmes fans and novices alike. Doyle has merrily put together a compendium of every sort of information regarding The Great Detective, from animal, vegetable, mineral, comical, tragical, and geographical. He even recommends ten Holmes books no aficionado should be without ? but make that eleven. Sherlock Holmes For Dummies is essential reading." ? Nicholas Meyer Author, The Seven-Per-Cent Solution
Open the book and find:
A list of all Sherlock Holmes short stories and novels
A detailed picture of Britain during Holmes's time
In-depth analysis of Holmes and Watson as characters
Detailed coverage of the four novels in the Sherlockian canon
Holmes portrayals in television, movies, onstage, and in fan fiction
The most memorable quotes of Holmes
Active Sherlockian societies in the United States
Learn to
Identify key themes, settings, and characters
See the influence of Holmes stories and their impact on literature, mystery writing, and detective work
Discover Holmes through his contemporary fan following, and stage and screen adaptations
Appreciate the literary genius of the Sherlock Holmes canon
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Sherlock Holmes For Dummies
By Steven Doyle David A. CrowderJohn Wiley & Sons
Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, LtdAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-470-48444-9
Chapter One
A Snapshot of Sherlock Holmes And the Stories That Made Him Famous
In This Chapter
* Debunking the erroneous popular image of Sherlock Holmes
* Tracing Holmes the creation and Doyle the creator
* Reviewing all the stories that comprise the Holmes canon
* Looking at Holmes's enduring popularity
Try this experiment: Ask ten random people if they know who Sherlock Holmes is. Odds are they'll say yes. Then ask what they know about him. Chances are they'll say he's a detective, he has a friend named Watson, he smokes a pipe, and he wears a funny hat. Some will even think he was real. What's even more amazing is that if you were to try this experiment on every continent on the planet, you'd likely get the same results, demonstrating the grip that Sherlock Holmes has on the popular culture, even to this day.
Sherlock Holmes: Not Who You Think He Is
The popular image of Sherlock Holmes is largely made up of clichs that have become associated with the Great Detective over the years. Some of these do come from the actual character as written in the stories, while others have come from the countless adaptations on TV and in the movies. But if you're approaching the Holmes stories for the first time, you may be surprised at the person you find. Sherlock Holmes is not who you think he is. (And neither is his friend, Dr. Watson!)
Pop culture portrayal versus portrayal in the stories
The common picture of Holmes is of a square-jawed, well-off, middle-aged, stuffy do-gooder who lives with an elderly, slightly befuddled roommate in a quaint London apartment. Both men while away their time until Scotland Yard appears with a particularly baffling case of murder that's so mysterious it has the official police force stumped. (Well, this bit about the official police force being stumped does happen a lot in the stories!) Holmes comes off as a bit of a prig - stern, cold, scientific, and humorless. And always running around in an odd cape and funny hat.
Surprise! That is not Sherlock Holmes.
Who you meet in the stories is a young man (both Holmes and Watson are in their 20s when they meet) who's poor enough to need a roommate and untidy and strange enough that he has trouble finding one. Sherlock is musical (he plays the violin and loves to attend concerts), occasionally funny, and, as becomes clear over time, a loyal friend.
In the fashion department, it's top hat and frock coat for Sherlock, not a checked cape and hunting cap! Holmes has a dark side as well - impatience, vanity, depression, drug abuse, and an antisocial streak that keeps him from making many friends or forming romantic relationships. These are all personality traits that help define the real Sherlock Holmes.
REMEMBER ME
In other words, you won't find the cartoon image of Holmes in the stories. Instead, you meet a character with virtues and vices, strengths and weaknesses, and professionally, successes and failures. It's a complex personality that has kept fans coming back to his adventures over and over for more than a century.
Why the confusion
As the famous poet T. S. Eliot once said when speaking of Holmes, it's hard "not to slip into the myth of his existence." And in fact, many people think Holmes was a real, living, historical person. So great is the impression he made, first on his readers and then on the popular culture, that thinking he actually lived is an understandable mistake. Of course, the myth of Sherlock's reality has been helped along by a number of factors.
His fans treated him as though he were real
From the moment Sherlock Holmes appeared in his first short story in 1891, fans began treating the detective as real. For instance, when readers learned that Holmes had died in "The Final Problem," a public outcry of shock and grief ensued that equaled, and even exceeded, that which would occur at the death of real-life persons. Young businessmen in London even wore black armbands in mourning.
He's been written about as if he were real
Since the early 1900s, fans and scholars have perpetuated the myth by writing about Holmes - his adventures, his methods, his world - as if he were real. The best example of this phenomenon is The Baker Street Journal, a quarterly publication by the Baker Street Irregulars, the oldest and most prestigious Sherlock Holmes society in the world. (For more on the Baker Street Irregulars and other Holmes organizations, go to Chapter 15.)
The Baker Street Journal was founded in 1946, and it's devoted to publishing essays, commentary, and research papers that "play the game," a term Sherlockians use for pretending that the stories are factual accounts of real persons and events. However, there have been quite literally tens of thousands of similar publications: books, articles, journals - the list is endless!
He still inspires the pros
PAST TO PRESENT
To this day, Holmes continues to be held up as a role model in police departments around the world. He is cited in countless academic and professional articles and journals. College classes in forensic science, logic, chemistry, and scientific method, using Holmes as a model, are taught every day around the world.
For a fictional character, he gets a lot of kudos!
PAST TO PRESENT
Imagine you're on vacation in Switzerland and you come to a small village in the Alps, and there outside an inn is a life-sized statue of Sherlock Holmes! Nearby is a plaque that reads, "At this fearful place, Sherlock Holmes vanquished Professor Moriarty, on 4 May 1891." The fact is that Holmes has more plaques, statues, and museums erected in his honor than most real-life historical figures!
TECHNICAL STUFF For decades, the actual 221b Baker Street address was occupied by Abbey House, a financial institution. Abbey House opened for business on this location in 1932 and immediately began to receive letters addressed to Sherlock Holmes. Holmes received so much mail that Abbey hired a secretary to answer it, and the letters continue to arrive to this day, with many people asking for Holmes's help in solving a mystery!
TECHNICAL STUFF
Blue plaques are historical markers used in many European countries that are installed in public places to commemorate a link between the location and a famous person or event. It's believed that Holmes's residence is the only fictional location to receive such an honor.
Given all these accolades and commemorative markers, what's a person to think?
Though Sherlock Holmes may seem more real to people than many actual historical figures, he is, of course, a work of fiction. But as a work of fiction, his identity has eclipsed the author of the stories. More people know of the creation than the creator. For even more details on Holmes, head to Chapter 2.
Arthur Conan Doyle: Holmes's Creator
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was born in 1859 in Edinburgh, Scotland. His father was Charles Altamont Doyle, an artist and painter. His mother was Mary Foley. As a boy, his main interests were sports and storytelling. He attended private schools and entered Edinburgh University medical school in 1876. He completed work on his doctor's degree in 1885 and entered into private practice.
In his early career, in order to both pass the considerable time between infrequent patients and earn a little extra money, he began writing. He had a number of short stories published anonymously and wrote several novels of questionable quality. His main interests were in historical fiction and the supernatural. He didn't set out to be a mystery or detective fiction writer. When Doyle wrote the first Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet, he had no idea he had created the defining character of his career.
REMEMBER ME
In medical school, Doyle was influenced and inspired by his professors, especially Dr. Joseph Bell. Bell was a master of diagnosis using observation and deduction. It was from Bell that Doyle learned the Sherlock Holmes method. Doyle's medical training and career were to be major sources of writing inspiration throughout his life, including the Holmes stories. For more on Doyle, the Holmes stories, and his other works, head to Chapter 3.
Sherlock Holmes's debut
In 1887, Doyle got the idea to write a detective story and to model the main character after his old medical school professor, Dr. Bell. He gave it the lurid title of A Study in Scarlet. This was the first Holmes story, and despite being the best thing Doyle had written up to this time, very few publishers were interested. Finally, out of desperation, he accepted an offer from Ward, Lock & Co. to purchase the copyright for 25. The novel appeared complete in 1887, in the seasonal publication Beeton's Christmas Annual. It was a great story, but to be honest, it just sort of came and went without a lot of hoopla.
That might have been it for Sherlock, but then, in 1890, Holmes made his second appearance in the novel The Sign of the Four. This exciting tale was commissioned by the publisher of Lippincott's Monthly Magazine, an American publication. (That's right, Sherlock Holmes owes his continued existence to an American.) The Sign of the Four did a little better than A Study in Scarlet, but bigger and better things were right around the corner for both Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes.
Changing the way stories were serialized
The Victorian era was a golden age of magazine publishing, especially from the 1860s to the first decade of the 1900s. These reasonably priced monthly publications appealed to a wide range of readers and featured essays, stories, poetry, and serialized novels.
Many famous authors serialized novels over a number of months in a magazine. For example, most of Charles Dickens's best-known works appeared as serialized installments in magazines before they were published in book form. The problem with this was that if readers missed an issue, they were lost!
REMEMBER ME
In 1891, Doyle had an idea that revolutionized the way fiction was published in magazines. Instead of having a continuing story appear over numerous issues, Doyle decided to have a continuing character appear in a series of short stories. If you missed an issue, hey, no big deal - the character would be back the next month in a brand new, self-contained adventure. The character Doyle chose for this innovation was Sherlock Holmes, and he placed the stories in a new monthly called The Strand Magazine.
Holmes was an overnight sensation! Subscriptions to the magazine went through the roof. At the end of the first 12 stories, The Strand asked for more. Doyle in turn asked for more money and got it. And so it went until Holmes made Doyle a very rich man.
It turned out to be a long, profitable relationship. The first story appeared in The Strand in 1891, and the last one appeared in 1926. In England, new Holmes stories always made their first appearance in The Strand, and the detective and magazine are permanently linked.
The Canon of Sherlock Holmes
When Doyle wrote the very first Holmes story, he thought that was it. He never dreamed that he'd be writing stories about this character his entire life. The detective's enormous popularity and the love/hate relationship that Doyle had with the character (Doyle felt that Sherlock's popularity obscured his more important writing, which goes to show that an artist isn't always the best judge of his own work!) ultimately compelled him to write 60 official adventures of Sherlock Holmes. These 60 stories are what fans and scholars call the canon.
So, what kind of stories are they?
If you're unfamiliar with the Holmes adventures, you may think that every story finds Holmes and Watson solving a baffling case of murder. This is the case for many famous detectives who came in Sherlock's wake. Let's face it - murder sells.
REMEMBER ME
However, this isn't the case with Holmes. Oh, the canon has plenty of dead bodies - in fact, 263 dead bodies and 119 murders! But despite the body count, a large percentage of the tales are not murder mysteries. For example, only 4 of the 12 stories from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes have anything to do with murder. In fact, many of the tales have, in the end, nothing criminal about them at all. They're often more accurately described as detective stories than murder mysteries.
The Holmes stories can be classified into different categories. Following are some of these categories, and many tales actually fall into more than one:
The long and the short of it
The Sherlock Holmes canon contains 4 novels and 56 short stories. Both forms have their strengths and weaknesses, but Doyle generally excelled at the short story format. He once explained that it took as much effort to concoct the plot of a short story as it did a novel, and it's clearly easier for him to sustain a tale over fewer pages. Three of the four novels have a lengthy flashback that explains the back story and motivation of the adventure at hand. Of course, there's an exception to every rule! The greatest of all Holmes adventures, The Hound of the Baskervilles, is a novel.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Sherlock Holmes For Dummiesby Steven Doyle David A. Crowder Copyright © 2010 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
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