The Enduring Legacy of Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes Lives On
Sherlock Holmes is a fictional private detective who uses his talent for logical thinking to solve complex mysteries. He is frequently depressed, bored, and socially snobbish. He apparently never had an affair and has few friends besides his assistant, Dr. John H. Watson, the narrator of the story, with whom he shares a house at 221b Baker Street in London. From this description, Holmes does not seem like an obvious character to have fascinated readers for more than one hundred years, but he has been popular since his first case.
Created by the British physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Holmes was introduced in the 1887 novel, A Study in Scarlet. In 1890, a second Holmes novel, The Sign of the Four, was published. Conan Doyle soon gave up his medical practice to write full time. For nearly two years, Holmes stories were published in the monthly magazine, The Strand. Illustrated with spectacular drawings by Sidney Paget, the stories were very popular.
Then, very suddenly, Conan Doyle decided to end Holmes’ life, saying he was “tired of his name.” In the last issue, published in The Strand in December 1893, Holmes died fighting Professor Moriarty, the director of a London-based criminal gang.
The Public’s Reaction
Holmes fans reacted with anger and sadness. Twenty thousand subscribers canceled their subscriptions to protest the author’s decision, and some men even wore black ribbons around their arms in mourning. Hundreds of disappointed readers wrote to Conan Doyle, begging him to revive Sherlock Holmes. But Conan Doyle ignored the public outcry and focused on writing what he considered more serious historical novels.
They were, for the most part, unsuccessful. In 1901, needing money, Conan Doyle published The Hound of the Baskervilles, which was presented as a “souvenir” by Dr. Watson in a case Holmes had worked on in previous years. Conan Doyle was soon back in business with Holmes, publishing 32 Holmes stories over the next 26 years. Conan Doyle died in 1930, three years after the last Holmes story was published.
The Enduring Popularity
However, Sherlock Holmes lives on, even after the death of Conan Doyle. The stories, which popularized the detective genre, are still hot sellers in several different languages and have been made into dozens of films and plays. Surprisingly, Holmes has been the subject of serious academic research, with scholarly books and articles written about him and his cases.
The Sherlockians
But strangest of all is “the game,” a hobby of thousands of people around the world. Participants, who call themselves Sherlockians, pretend to believe that Holmes and Watson are real people. They make detailed research on all aspects of the stories in order to clarify conflicting details and try to work out things Conan Doyle did not specify, for example, when Holmes was born, or which college he attended.
Sherlockians have formed local clubs, created Internet sites, published research, and held conferences. With new books on Holmes being released every year, the number of Sherlockians is sure to grow.