The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

The Hound of the Baskervilles

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes movies

The Hound of the Baskervilles movies

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DOYLE, Arthur Conan  (1859-1930)

You know Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created the ultra-rational fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. Everyone knows that.

But did you know he was also a great follower of the irrational, visiting the mediums of his day and supporting the claims of two young girls who became famous early in the 20th century for supposedly photographing fairies frolicking in the woods?

But never mind that—it has little to do with his literary career.

Like Dr. Watson, Conan Doyle studied medicine, but poverty as a practitioner in England led him to try writing. He published stories of various kinds in magazines and eventually produced A Study in Scarlet (1887), a short book introducing the famous detective and his sidekick. This was followed by the novel Sign of the Four which expanded the Holmes universe to include, among others, the Baker Street Irregulars. His short detective stories were then serialized in a magazine and collected in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892). The next collection of stories was Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1893) which ends with the tale "The Final Problem". Yes, Conan Doyle killed off his detective. You see, he thought his historical romances, like The White Company (1890), were more worthy literary works that his popular detective stories were distracting him from. 

However the public demand for more Holmes could not be withstood and the character was brought back from apparent death to appear in stories later collected as The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1905) and to greatest effect in the novel The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902), which has been adapted for numerous films. This was followed by another detective novel, The Valley of Fear (1915), and another collection of stories, His Last Bow (1917). The latter once again was meant to include, but did not, the final published cases of Sherlock Holmes. Twelve more stories appeared and were published together as The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes (1927).

Among Conan Doyle's popular non-Sherlockian works was The Lost World (1912), speculative fiction about a surviving prehistoric environment. 

Here's something else you may not know about Sir Arthur. You know he was knighted, but it wasn't for writing the most famous series of stories and novels of his time, or for creating the immortal character of Sherlock Holmes. Rather it was for writing a pamphlet in 1902 on the Boer War where he served as a physician.

Two more facts you may not realize: 

1. Sherlock Holmes never says "Elementary, Watson" in any of the works by Conan Doyle. 

2. Despite references to Holmes's deductive abilities, he seldom uses the method of logical deduction. As any philosophy student can tell you, he usually uses induction. Or even just inspired guessing. Ah, well, it seems to work and makes for good stories.

Conan Doyle was not the first writer to feature a cerebral detective. Edgar Allan Poe and Wilkie Collins both had characters solve mysteries with reason. But Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes set the standard for generations of detectives to follow. Hundreds have come and gone since then, but for some reason readers (and movie and television producers) keep going back to Holmes. His character continues to repel and attract.

— Eric

© Copyright 2002-2003 Eric McMillan. All rights reserved.