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 Annual
during 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 Magazine
between 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 in
The 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 want
him 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 Casebook
was 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)
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 Memoirs
and 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.
2012
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