Facts on Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes is a famous fictional detective of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, who first appeared in publication in 1887. He is the creation of Scottish-born author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

A brilliant London-based detective, Holmes is famous for his intellectual prowess, and is renowned for his skilful use of "deductive reasoning" while using abductive reasoning and astute observation to solve difficult cases.

Holmes describes himself and his habits as "Bohemian." Modern readers of the Holmes stories might be surprised that he was an occasional user of both cocaine and morphine.

Watson, however, describes this as the detective's "only vice", and later "weaned" Holmes off of drug use, citing its destructive qualities. In his personal habits, he is very disorganised, as Watson notes in The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual, leaving everything from notes of past cases to remains of chemical experiments scattered around their rooms and his tobacco inside his Persian slipper. Dr. Watson also states in The Adventure of the Speckled Band that Holmes is generally late to rise.

Nevertheless, Watson is very typical of his time in not considering a vice Holmes' habit of smoking (usually a pipe) heavily, nor his willingness to bend the truth and break the law (e.g., lie to the police, conceal evidence, burgle, and housebreak) when it suited his purposes.

In Victorian England, such actions were not necessarily considered vices as long as they were done by a gentleman for noble purposes, such as preserving a woman's honour or a family's reputation (this argument is discussed by Holmes and Watson in The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton.

Since many of the stories revolve around Holmes (and Watson) doing such things, a modern reader must accept actions, which would be out of character for a "law-abiding" detective living by the standards of a later time. (They remain staples of detective fiction, however.) Holmes has a strong sense of honour and "doing the right thing".

He also has a flair for showmanship and often prepares dramatic traps to capture the culprit of a crime which are staged to impress Watson or one of the Scotland Yard inspectors (e.g., Inspector Lestrade at the end of The Norwood Builder .

He also holds back his chain of reasoning, not revealing it or giving only cryptic hints and surprising results, until the very end, when he can explain all of his deductions at once.

He is also quite an actor, in several of his adventures he has feigned being wounded or ill to give effect to his case, or to incriminate the people involved, as in The Adventure of the Dying Detective.

Holmes does have an ego that sometimes seems to border on arrogance; however, his arrogance is justified. He seems to enjoy baffling police inspectors with his superior deductions.

However, he is often quite content to allow the police to take the credit for his work, with Watson being the only one to broadcast his own role in the case (in The Adventure of the Naval Treaty, he remarks that of his last fifty-three cases, the police have had all the credit in forty-nine), although he enjoys receiving praise from personal friends and those who take a serious interest in his work.

Holmes also tells Watson, in "A Case Of Identity", of a golden snuffbox received from the King of Bohemia after A Scandal In Bohemia and a fabulous ring from the Scandinavian royal family; in The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans Holmes receives an emerald tie-pin from Queen Victoria.

Other mementos of Holmes' cases are a gold sovereign from Irene Adler A Scandal in Bohemia and an autograph Letter of thanks from the French President and a Legion of Honour - for tracking down an assassin named Huret The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez.

Holmes is generally quite fearless. He dispassionately surveys horrific, brutal crime scenes; he does not allow superstition (as in The Hound of the Baskervilles) or grotesque situations to make him afraid; and he intrepidly confronts violent murderers.

He is generally unfazed by threats from his criminal enemies, and indeed Holmes himself remarks that it is the danger of his profession that has attracted him to it. The only thing that truly bothers Holmes is boredom, and he can become very agitated and upset when there is no case set before him.

Holmes does have capacities for human emotion and friendship. He has a remarkable ability to gently soothe and reassure people suffering from extreme distress, a talent which comes in handy when dealing with both male and female clients who arrive at Baker Street suffering from extreme fear or nervousness.

Holmes and women

The only woman in whom Holmes ever showed any interest that verged on the romantic was Irene Adler. According to Watson, she was always referred to by Holmes as "The Woman." Holmes himself is never directly quoted as using this term - though he does mention her actual name several times in other cases.

She is also one of the few women who are mentioned in multiple Holmes stories, though she actually appears in person only in one, "A Scandal in Bohemia". She is often thought to be the only woman who broke through Holmes's reserve. She is possibly the only woman who has ever "beaten" Holmes in a mystery; this point is unclear owing to a comment with some chronological problems in one of the stories .

In one story, The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton, Holmes is engaged to be married, but only with the motivation of gaining information for his case.

He clearly demonstrates particular interest in several of the more charming female clients that come his way; however, Holmes inevitably "manifested no further interest in the client when once she had ceased to be the centre of one of his problems." Holmes found their youth, beauty, and energy (and the cases they bring to him) invigorating, as opposed to an actual romantic interest.

At the end of The Adventure of the Devil's Foot, Holmes states: "I have never loved, Watson, but if I did and if the woman I loved had met such an end, I might act as our lawless lion-hunter had done". In the story, the explorer Dr. Sterndale had killed the man who murdered his beloved, Brenda Tregennins, to exact a revenge which the law could not provide.

Watson writes in The Adventure of the Dying Detective that Mrs. Hudson is fond of Holmes in her own way, despite his bothersome eccentricities as a lodger, owing to his "remarkable gentleness and courtesy in his dealings with women." Watson notes that while he dislikes and distrusts them, he is nonetheless a "chivalrous opponent."

However, Holmes cannot be said to be misogynistic, given the number of women he helps in his work.

As an inspiration for speculation by fans

The 56 short stories and four novels written by Conan Doyle are termed "the Canon" by the Sherlockians. A popular pastime among fans of Sherlock Holmes is to treat Holmes and Watson as real people, and attempt to elucidate facts about them from clues in the stories or by combining the stories with historical fact.

Early scholars of the canon included Ronald Knox in Britain and Christopher Morley in New York.

As an inspiration for scientists

Sherlock Holmes has occasionally been used in the scientific literature. Radford (1999) speculates on his intelligence. Using Conan Doyle's stories as data, Radford applies three different methods to estimate Sherlock Holmes's IQ, and concludes that his intelligences was very high indeed.

Snyder (2004) examines Holmes' methods in the light of the science and the criminology of the mid- to late-19th century. Kempster (2006) compares neurologists' skills with those displayed by Holmes.

Finally, Didierjean and Gobet (2008) review the literature on the psychology of expertise by taking as model a fictional expert: Sherlock Holmes. They highlight aspects of Doyle's books that are in line with what is currently known about expertise, aspects that are implausible, and aspects that suggest further research.

Societies

In 1934 were founded the Sherlock Holmes Society, in London, and the Baker Street Irregulars, in New York. Both are still active today (though the Sherlock Holmes Society was dissolved in 1937 to be resuscitated only in 1951).

The two initial societies founded in 1934 were followed by many more Holmesians circles, first of all in America (where they are called "scion societies" - offshoots - of the Baker Street Irregulars), then in England and Denmark. Nowadays, there are Sherlockian societies in many countries like India and Japan being the more prominent countries which have a history of such activity.

Museums

During the 1951 Festival of Britain, Sherlock Holmes' sitting-room was reconstructed as the masterpiece of a Sherlock Holmes Exhibition, displaying a unique collection of original material.

After the 1951 exhibition closed, items were transferred to the Sherlock Holmes Pub, in London, and to the Conan Doyle Collection in Lucens (Switzerland). Both exhibitions, each including its own very good Baker Street Sitting-Room reconstruction, are still to be seen today.

In 1990 The Sherlock Holmes Museum was opened in Baker Street London and the following year in Meiringen Switzerland another Museum was also opened, but naturally they include less historical material about Conan Doyle than about Sherlock Holmes himself. The Sherlock Holmes Museum at 221b Baker Street London was the first Museum in the world to be dedicated to a fictional character.

Sherlock Holmes in reality

Whenever sir Arthur Conan Doyle was asked if there was a real Sherlock Holmes, his answer never changed. Holmes was inspired, Doyle said, by Dr. Joseph Bell, for whom Doyle had worked as a clerk at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. Like Sherlock Holmes, Bell was noted for drawing large conclusions from the smallest observations. Dr. Bell was also interested in crime and assisted the police in solving a few cases.

According to a survey commissioned by UKTV Gold, many British believe Sherlock Holmes himself is an actual historical character, with 58% of teens thinking that he really did live at 221B Baker Street.