Sherlock Holmes (/rlk homz/) is a fictional detective created by Scottish author and physician Sir

Arthur Conan Doyle, a graduate of the University of Edinburgh Medical School. A London-based
"consulting detective" whose abilities border on the fantastic, Holmes is known for his astute logical
reasoning, his ability to adopt almost any disguise and his use of forensic science to solve difficult
cases.
Holmes, who first appeared in print in 1887, was featured in four novels and 56 short stories. The first
novel, A Study in Scarlet, appeared in Beeton's Christmas Annual in 1887 and the second, The Sign of
the Four, in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine in 1890. The character's popularity grew with the first series
of short stories in The Strand Magazine, beginning with "A Scandal in Bohemia" in 1891, and additional
short-story series and two novels (published in serial form) appeared from then to 1927. The stories
cover a period from about 1880 to 1914.
All but four stories are narrated by Holmes's friend and biographer, Dr. John H. Watson. Two are
narrated by Holmes himself ("The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier" and "The Adventure of the Lion's
Mane"), and two others are written in the third person ("The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone" and "His
Last Bow"). In two stories ("The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual" and "The Adventure of the Gloria
Scott") Holmes tells Watson the story from his memory, with Watson narrating the frame story. The first
and fourth novels,A Study in Scarlet and The Valley of Fear, include long passages of omniscient
narrative of events unknown to either Holmes or Watson.
Contents
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1 Inspiration for the character

2 Life
o

2.1 Early life

2.2 Life with Watson

2.3 The Great Hiatus

2.4 Retirement

3 Personality and habits

o

3.1 Drug use

3.2 Finances

3.3 Attitudes towards women

3.3.1 Irene Adler

3.3.2 Other women

4 Methods of detection
o

4.1 Holmesian deduction

4.2 Disguises

4.3 Combat

4.3.1 Pistols

4.3.2 Cane and sword

4.3.3 Riding crop

4.3.4 Boxing

4.3.5 Martial arts

4.3.6 Physical strength

4.4 Knowledge and skills
5 Influence

5.1 Forensic science

5.2 The detective story

5.3 Scientific literature

6 Legacy
o

6.1 "Elementary, my dear Watson"

6.2 The Great Game

6.3 Societies

6.4 Museums

6.5 Other honours

7 Adaptations and derived works

o

7.1 Stage, screen and radio adaptations

7.2 Related and derivative works

8 Works
o

8.1 Novels

8.2 Short story collections

9 See also

10 References

11 Further reading

12 External links

Inspiration for the character

Doyle said that Holmes was inspired by Joseph Bell, a surgeon at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh for
whom he had worked as a clerk. Like Holmes, Bell was noted for drawing broad conclusions from
minute observations.[1] However, he later wrote to Conan Doyle: "You are yourself Sherlock Holmes and
well you know it".[2] Sir Henry Littlejohn, Chair of Medical Jurisprudence at the University of Edinburgh
Medical School, is also cited as an inspiration for Holmes. Littlejohn, Police Surgeon and Medical Officer
of Health in Edinburgh, provided Doyle with a link between medical investigation and the detection of
crime.[3]

Life
Early life

Holmes' first appearance in 1887

Details about Sherlock Holmes's life, except for the adventures in the books, are few and far between in
Conan Doyle's original stories. Nevertheless, mentions of his early life and extended families paint a
loose biographical picture of the detective.
An estimate of Holmes's age in "His Last Bow" places his birth year at 1854; the story, set in August
1914, describes him as 60 years of age.Leslie S. Klinger posits the detective's birthdate as 6 January.[4]
Holmes says that he first developed his methods of deduction as an undergraduate; his earliest cases,
which he pursued as an amateur, came from fellow university students.[5] A meeting with a classmate's

father led him to adopt detection as a profession,[6] and he spent six years after university as a
consultant before financial difficulties led him to accept Watson as a housemate (when the narrative of
the stories begins).
Beginning in 1881 Holmes has lodgings at 221B Baker Street, London. According to an early
manuscript[citation needed] 221B is an apartment at the upper end of the street, up 17 steps. Until Watson's
arrival Holmes worked alone, only occasionally employing agents from the city's underclass (including a
host of informants and a group of street children he called "the Baker Street Irregulars"). The Irregulars
appear in three stories: A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of the Four and "The Adventure of the Crooked
Man".
His parents are unmentioned in the stories, although Holmes mentions that his ancestors were
"country squires". In "The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter", he claims that his great-uncle was French
artist Horace Vernet. Holmes' brother Mycroft, seven years his senior, is a government official who
appears in "The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter", "The Final Problem" and "The Adventure of the
Bruce-Partington Plans" and is mentioned in "The Adventure of the Empty House". Mycroft has a
unique civil service position as a kind of human database for all aspects of government policy but lacks
Sherlock's interest in physical investigation, preferring to spend his time at the Diogenes Club.

Life with Watson

Holmes and Watson in a Sidney Paget illustration for "Silver Blaze"

Holmes shares most of his professional years with narrator John Watson, a physician who lives with
Holmes for some time before his 1887 marriage and again after his wife's death. Their residence is
maintained by their landlady, Mrs. Hudson. Most of the stories areframe narratives, written from
Watson's point of view as summaries of the detective's most interesting cases. Holmes frequently calls
Watson's writing sensational and populist, suggesting that it fails to accurately and objectively report the
"science" of his craft:
Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional
manner. You have attempted to tinge it ["A Study in Scarlet"] with romanticism, which produces much the
same effect as if you worked a love-story... Some facts should be suppressed, or, at least, a just sense
of proportion should be observed in treating them. The only point in the case which deserved mention
was the curious analytical reasoning from effects to causes, by which I succeeded in unravelling it. [7]

Sherlock Holmes on John Watson's "pamphlet", The Sign of the Four

Nevertheless, Holmes's friendship with Watson is his most significant relationship. In "The Adventure of
the Three Garridebs", Watson is injured; although the bullet wound turns out to be "quite superficial",
Watson is moved by Holmes' reaction:
It was worth a wound; it was worth many wounds; to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay behind
that cold mask. The clear, hard eyes were dimmed for a moment, and the firm lips were shaking. For the
one and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain. All my years of humble
but single-minded service culminated in that moment of revelation. [8]
According to "The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger" Holmes was in active practice for 23 years, with
Watson co-operating with him for 17.

The Great Hiatus

Holmes and Moriarty struggle at theReichenbach Falls; drawing by Sidney Paget

Conan Doyle wrote the first set of stories over the course of a decade. Wishing to devote more time to
his historical novels, he killed off Holmes in "The Final Problem" (which appeared in print in 1893, and is
set in 1891). After resisting public pressure for eight years, the author wrote The Hound of the
Baskervilles (which appeared in 1901, with an implicit setting before Holmes' death; some theorise that
it occurs after "The Return", with Watson planting clues to an earlier date). [9][10] In 1903 Conan Doyle
wrote "The Adventure of the Empty House", set in 1894; Holmes reappears, explaining to a stunned
Watson that he had faked his death in "The Final Problem" to fool his enemies. "The Adventure of the
Empty House" marks the beginning of the second set of stories, which Conan Doyle wrote until 1927.
Holmes aficionados refer to the period from 1891 to 1894between his disappearance and presumed
death in "The Final Problem" and his reappearance in "The Adventure of the Empty House"as the
Great Hiatus.[11] One later story ("A Reminiscence of Sherlock Holmes", later known as "The Adventure

of Wisteria Lodge") is described as taking place in 1892, although this may have been an error on the
author's part.

Retirement
In "His Last Bow", Holmes has retired to a small farm on the Sussex Downs. The move is not dated
precisely, but can be presumed to predate 1904 (since it is referred to retrospectively in "The Second
Stain", first published that year). He has taken up beekeeping as his primary occupation, producing
a Practical Handbook of Bee Culture, with some Observations upon the Segregation of the Queen. The
story features Holmes and Watson coming out of retirement to aid the war effort. Only one other
adventure, "The Adventure of the Lion's Mane" (narrated by Holmes), takes place during the detective's
retirement. The details of his death are unknown.

Personality and habits

Sidney Paget illustration from "The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez"

Watson describes Holmes as "bohemian" in his habits and lifestyle. Described by Watson in The Hound
of the Baskervilles as having a "cat-like" love of personal cleanliness, Holmes is an eccentric with no
regard for contemporary standards of tidiness or good order. In "The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual",
Watson says:
Although in his methods of thought he was the neatest and most methodical of mankind ... [he] keeps
his cigars in the coal-scuttle, his tobacco in the toe end of a Persian slipper, and his unanswered
correspondence transfixed by a jack-knife into the very centre of his wooden mantelpiece ... He had a
horror of destroying documents .... Thus month after month his papers accumulated, until every corner
of the room was stacked with bundles of manuscript which were on no account to be burned, and which
could not be put away save by their owner.[5]

Throughout the stories, Holmes dives into an apparent mess to find an item most relevant to a mystery.
The detective starves himself at times of intense intellectual activity, such as during "The Adventure of
the Norwood Builder"wherein, according to Watson:
[Holmes] had no breakfast for himself, for it was one of his peculiarities that in his more intense
moments he would permit himself no food, and I have known him to presume upon his iron strength until
he has fainted from pure inanition.[12]

Sidney Paget, whose illustrations inThe Strand Magazine iconicised Holmes and Watson

Although his chronicler does not consider Holmes' habitual use of a pipe (or his less-frequent use of
cigarettes and cigars) a vice per se, Watsona physicianoccasionally criticises the detective for
creating a "poisonous atmosphere" of tobacco smoke. [13] Holmes acknowledges Watson's disapproval in
"The Adventure of the Devil's Foot": "I think, Watson, that I shall resume that course of tobaccopoisoning which you have so often and so justly condemned".
His companion condones the detective's willingness to bend the truth (or break the law) on behalf of a
clientlying to the police, concealing evidence or breaking into houseswhen he feels it morally
justifiable,[14] but condemns Holmes' manipulation of innocent people in "The Adventure of Charles
Augustus Milverton".
The detective acts on behalf of the British government in matters of national security in a number of
stories,[15] and performs counter-intelligence work in His Last Bow (set on the eve of World War I). As
shooting practice during a period of boredom, Holmes decorates the wall of his Baker Street lodgings
with VR (Victoria Regina) in "bullet-pocks" from his pistol.[5]
Bordering on arrogance, he derives pleasure from baffling police inspectors with his deductions. The
detective does not actively seek fame, however, and is usually content to let the police take public credit
for his work.[16] In Watson's stories and an occasional newspaper article, Holmes' role in the cases is
evenutally revealed. Because of this he is well-known as a detective, and many clients ask for his help

instead of (or in addition to) that of the police.[17] These include government officials and royalty. A Prime
Minister[18] and the King of Bohemia[19] visit 221B Baker Street to request Holmes' assistance;
the government of France awards him its Legion of Honour for solving a case;[20] the King of
Scandinavia is a client,[21] and Holmes aids the Vatican at least twice.[22]
Holmes is pleased when his skills are recognised, and responds to flattery. Although the detective is
usually dispassionate and cold, during an investigation he is animated and excitable. He has a flair for
showmanship, preparing elaborate traps to capture and expose a culprit (often to impress Watson or
one of the Scotland Yard inspectors).[23]
Except for that of Watson, Holmes avoids casual company. In "The Adventure of the Gloria Scott" he
tells the doctor that during two years at college he made only one friend, Victor Trevor: "I was never a
very sociable fellow, Watson, always rather fond of moping in my rooms and working out my own little
methods of thought, so that I never mixed much with the men of my year; ... my line of study was quite
distinct from that of the other fellows, so that we had no points of contact at all". The detective is
similarly described by Stamford in A Study in Scarlet.
Holmes relaxes with music in "The Red-Headed League", taking the evening off from a case to listen
to Pablo de Sarasate play violin. His enjoyment of vocal music, particularlyWagner's, is evident in "The
Adventure of the Red Circle".

Drug use

1891 Sidney Paget Strand portrait of Holmes for "The Man with the Twisted Lip"

Holmes occasionally uses addictive drugs, especially in the absence of stimulating cases. He
uses cocaine, which he injects in a seven-percent solution with a syringe kept in a Morocco
leather case. Although Holmes also dabbles in morphine, he expresses strong disapproval when he
visits an opium den; both drugs were legal in late-19th-century England. Watson and Holmes use
tobacco, smoking cigarettes, cigars and pipes (a socially-acceptable habit at the time), and the detective
is an expert at identifying tobacco-ash residue.
As a physician Watson strongly disapproves of his friend's cocaine habit, describing it as the detective's
"only vice" and concerned about its effect on Holmes' mental health and intellect.[24][25] In "The Adventure

of the Missing Three-Quarter" Watson says that although he has "weaned" Holmes from drugs, he
remains an addict whose habit is "not dead, but merely sleeping".

Finances
Although Holmes initially needed Watson to share the rent for their comfortable residence at 221B Baker
Street, Watson says in "The Adventure of the Dying Detective" (set when Holmes was living alone): "I
have no doubt that the house might have been purchased at the price which Holmes paid for his
rooms." In "The Problem of Thor Bridge" the detective says, "My professional charges are upon a fixed
scale. I do not vary them, save when I remit [omit] them altogether". In this context a client is offering to
double his fee, and it is implied that wealthy clients habitually pay Holmes more than his standard fee. In
"The Final Problem", he says that his services to the government of France and the royal house of
Scandinavia had left him with enough money to retire comfortably. However, in "The Adventure of Black
Peter" Watson notes that Holmes would refuse to help the wealthy and powerful if their cases did not
interest him and devote weeks at a time to those of his humblest clients. The detective tells Watson, in
"A Case of Identity", about a gold snuff box received from the King of Bohemia after "A Scandal in
Bohemia" and a valuable ring from the Dutch royal family; in "The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington
Plans", he 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 a letter of thanks signed by the French
presidentand his country's Legion of Honourfor tracking down the assassin Huret ("The Adventure
of the Golden Pince-Nez"). In "The Adventure of the Priory School" Holmes rubs his hands with glee
when the Duke of Holdernesse mentions his 6,000 fee, the amount of which surprises even Watson.
During his career, Holmes works for the most powerful monarchs and governments of Europe (including
his own), wealthy aristocrats and industrialists, and impoverished pawnbrokers andgovernesses.
The detective is known to charge clients for his expenses and claim any reward offered for a problem's
solution; in "The Adventure of the Speckled Band" he says that Helen Stoner may pay any expenses he
incurs, and asks the bank in "The Red-Headed League" to reimburse him for money spent solving the
case. Holmes has his wealthy banker client in "The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet" pay the costs of
recovering the stolen gems, and claims the reward posted for their recovery.

Attitudes towards women

Irene Adler
Main article: A Scandal In Bohemia
Irene Adler is a retired American opera singer and actress who appears in "A Scandal in Bohemia".
Although this is her only appearance, she is one of the most notable female characters in the stories.
Five years before the story's events, Adler had a brief liaison with Crown Prince of Bohemia Wilhelm von
Ormstein while she was prima donna of the Imperial Opera of Warsaw. Recently engaged to the
daughter of the King of Scandinavia and fearful that if his fiance's family learned of this impropriety
their marriage would be called off, von Ormstein hires Holmes to regain a photograph of Adler and
himself. Adler slips away, leaving only a photograph of herself (alone) and a note to Holmes that she will

not blackmail von Ormstein. The beginning of the story describes the high regard in which Holmes holds
Adler:
To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other
name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt any
emotion akin to love for Irene Adler ...yet there was but one woman to him, and that woman was the late
Irene Adler, of dubious and questionable memory.
Her memory is kept alive by the photograph of Adler which Holmes received for his part in the case.
Other women

1904 Sidney Paget illustration of "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton"

In "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton," Holmes becomes engaged in order to obtain
information about a case. Although he initially seems interested in some female clients (Violet Hunter in
"The Adventure of the Copper Beeches", Violet Smith in "The Solitary Cyclist" and Helen Stoner in "The
Speckled Band"), Watson says in "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches" that the detective inevitably
"manifested no further interest in the client when once she had ceased to be the centre of one of his
problems". Holmes is adept at effortlessly putting his clients at ease, and Watson says that although the
detective has an "aversion to women", he has "a peculiarly ingratiating way with [them]". Holmes says
in The Valley of Fear, "I am not a whole-souled admirer of womankind",[26] and in "The Adventure of the
Second Stain" finds "the motives of women ... so inscrutable .... How can you build on such quicksand?
Their most trivial actions may mean volumes ... their most extraordinary conduct may depend upon a
hairpin or a curling tongs".[27]
As Doyle wrote to Joseph Bell, "Holmes is as inhuman as a Babbage's calculating machine and just
about as likely to fall in love".[28] The only pleasure Holmes derives from the company of women is the
problems they bring him to solve. In The Sign of the Four he says, "I would not tell them too much.
Women are never to be entirely trustednot the best of them". Watson calls him "an automaton, a
calculating machine", and the detective replies: "It is of the first importance not to allow your judgement
to be biased by personal qualities. A client is to me a mere unita factor in a problem. The emotional

qualities are antagonistic to clear reasoning. I assure you that the most winning woman I ever knew was
hanged for poisoning three little children for their insurance-money". [29] In "The Adventure of the Dying
Detective" Watson notes that Mrs. Hudson is fond of Holmes in her own way, despite his eccentricities
as a lodger, because of his "remarkable gentleness and courtesy in his dealings with women. He
disliked and distrusted the sex, but he was always a chivalrous opponent". [30]

Methods of detection
Holmesian deduction
Poster for the 1900 playSherlock Holmes by Conan Doyle and actor William Gillette, which included the line "Elementary,
my dear Watson" (a phrase absent from the stories)

Holmes's primary intellectual detection method is abductive reasoning.[31][32] "From a drop of water", he
writes, "a logician could infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of
one or the other".[33] Holmesian deduction consists primarily of observation-based inferences, such as his
study of cigar ashes.[31][34][35] The detective's guiding principle, as he says in chapter six ("Sherlock Holmes
Gives a Demonstration") of The Sign of the Four and elsewhere in the stories, is: "When you have
eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth". [36] In "A Scandal in
Bohemia", Holmes deduces that Watson had gotten wet lately and had "a most clumsy and careless
servant girl". When Watson asks how Holmes knows this, the detective answers:
It is simplicity itself ... My eyes tell me that on the inside of your left shoe, just where the firelight strikes
it, the leather is scored by six almost parallel cuts. Obviously they have been caused by someone who
has very carelessly scraped round the edges of the sole in order to remove crusted mud from it. Hence,
you see, my double deduction that you had been out in vile weather, and that you had a particularly
malignant boot-slitting specimen of the London slavey.
Deductive reasoning allows Holmes to learn a stranger's occupation, such as the retired sergeant of
Marines in A Study in Scarlet; the ship's carpenter-turned-pawnbroker in "The Red-Headed League",
and the billiard-marker and retired artillery NCO in "The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter". By studying
inanimate objects, he makes deductions about their owners (Watson's pocket watch in The Sign of the
Four and a hat,[37] pipe[38] and walking stick[39] in other stories).
However, Conan Doyle does not paint Holmes as infallible (a central theme of "The Adventure of the
Yellow Face").[38] At the end of the story, a chastened Holmes tells his chronicler: "If it should ever strike
you that I am getting a little over-confident in my powers, or giving less pains to a case than it deserves,
kindly whisper 'Norbury' in my ear, and I shall be infinitely obliged to you".

Disguises
Holmes is apt at acting and disguise. In several stories ("The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton",
"The Man with the Twisted Lip", "The Adventure of the Empty House" and "A Scandal in Bohemia"), to
gather evidence undercover he uses disguises so convincing that Watson fails to recognise him. In
others ("The Adventure of the Dying Detective" and, again, "A Scandal in Bohemia"), Holmes feigns

injury or illness to incriminate the guilty. In the latter story Watson says, "The stage lost a fine actor ...
when [Holmes] became a specialist in crime".[40]

Combat

British Army (Adams) Mark III, which differed from the Mark II in its ejector-rod design

Webley Bulldog

1868 Webley RIC

Pistols
Holmes and Watson carry pistols with themin Watson's case, his old service weapon (probably a Mark
III Adams revolver, issued to British troops during the 1870s).[41] In the stories, the pistols are used (or
displayed) on a number of occasions. In The Sign of the FourHolmes and Watson fire at the Andaman
islander, and shoot at The Hound of the Baskervilles. In "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches"
Watson kills the mastiff, and in "The Adventure of the Empty House" he pistol-whips Colonel Sebastian
Moran. In "The Adventure of the Three Garridebs", Holmes pistol-whips Killer Evans after Watson is
shot. In "The Musgrave Ritual", Holmes is described as decorating the wall of his flat with a
patriotic VR (Victoria Regina) of bullet holes. In "The Final Problem" Holmes has a pistol during his
interview withProfessor Moriarty, and he aims one at Sir George Burnwell in "The Adventure of the Beryl
Coronet". In "The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist", "The Adventure of Black Peter" and "The Adventure
of the Dancing Men" Holmes or Watson use a pistol to capture the criminals, and the detective uses

Watson's revolver to reconstruct a crime in "The Problem of Thor Bridge". A Webley Bulldog (carried by
Holmes),[41] Webley RIC[41] and Webley-Government ("WG") army revolver[41] have been associated with
Holmes and Watson.
Cane and sword
As a gentleman, Holmes often carries a stick or cane. He is described by Watson as an expert
at singlestick, and uses his cane twice as a weapon.[42] In A Study in Scarlet Watson describes Holmes
as expert with a sword, and in "The Adventure of the Gloria Scott" the detective practises fencing.
Riding crop
In several stories Holmes carries a riding crop, threatening to thrash a swindler with it in "A Case of
Identity". With a "hunting crop", Holmes knocks a pistol from John Clay's hand in "The Red-Headed
League" and drives off the adder in "The Adventure of the Speckled Band". In "The Six Napoleons" he
uses his crop (described as his favourite weapon) to break open one of the plaster busts.
Boxing
Holmes is an adept bare-knuckle fighter; in The Sign of the Four he introduces himself to McMurdo,
a prize fighter, as "the amateur who fought three rounds with you at Alison's rooms on the night of your
benefit four years back." McMurdo remembers: "Ah, you're one that has wasted your gifts, you have!
You might have aimed high, if you had joined the fancy."
The detective occasionally engages in hand-to-hand combat with his adversaries (in "The Adventure of
the Solitary Cyclist" and "The Adventure of the Naval Treaty"), and is always victorious. "The Adventure
of the Gloria Scott" mentions that Holmes trained as a boxer, and in "The Yellow Face" Watson says:
"He was undoubtedly one of the finest boxers of his weight that I have ever seen".
Martial arts
In "The Adventure of the Empty House", Holmes tells Watson that he used martial arts to fling Moriarty
to his death in the Reichenbach Falls: "I have some knowledge ... ofbaritsu, or the Japanese
system of wrestling, which has more than once been very useful to me". "Baritsu" is Conan Doyle's
version of bartitsu, which combined jujitsu with boxing and cane fencing.[43]
Physical strength
The detective is described (or demonstrated) as possessing above-average physical strength. In "The
Adventure of the Speckled Band", Dr. Roylott demonstrates his strength by bending a fire poker in half.
Watson describes Holmes as laughing, "'I am not quite so bulky, but if he had remained I might have
shown him that my grip was not much more feeble than his own.' As he spoke he picked up the steel
poker and, with a sudden effort, straightened it out again." In "The Yellow Face" Holmes' chronicler says,
"Few men were capable of greater muscular effort."

Knowledge and skills

In the first novel, A Study in Scarlet, Holmes' background is presented. In early 1881 he is
a chemistry student with a number of eccentric interests, almost all of which make him adept at solving
crimes. He appears for the first time crowing with delight at his new method for detecting bloodstains.
"The Adventure of the Gloria Scott", an early story, provides more background on Holmes' decision to
become a detective when a college friend's father compliments his deductive skills. Holmes adheres
strictly to scientific methods, focusing on logic, observation and deduction.
In A Study in Scarlet Holmes claims to be unaware that the earth revolves around the sun, since such
information is irrelevant to his work; after hearing that fact from Watson, he says he will immediately try
to forget it. The detective believes that the mind has a finite capacity for information storage, and
learning useless things reduces one's ability to learn useful things. Watson assesses Holmes' abilities:
1. Knowledge of Literature nil.
2. Knowledge of Philosophy nil.
3. Knowledge of Astronomy nil.
4. Knowledge of Politics Feeble.
5. Knowledge of Botany Variable. Well up in belladonna, opium and poisons generally.
Knows nothing of practical gardening.
6. Knowledge of Geology Practical, but limited. Tells at a glance different soils from each
other. After walks, has shown me splashes upon his trousers, and told me by their
colour and consistence in what part of London he had received them.
7. Knowledge of Chemistry Profound.
8. Knowledge of Anatomy Accurate, but unsystematic.
9. Knowledge of Sensational Literature Immense. He appears to know every detail of
every horror perpetrated in the century.
10. Plays the violin well.
11. Is an expert singlestick player, boxer and swordsman.
12. Has a good practical knowledge of British law.
Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet
At the end of A Study in Scarlet Holmes demonstrates a knowledge of Latin, presumably from his
university studies. Later stories also contradict Watson's early assessment. Despite Holmes' supposed
ignorance of politics, in "A Scandal in Bohemia" he immediately recognises the true identity of "Count
von Kramm". His speech is peppered with references to the Bible, Shakespeare and Johann Wolfgang
von Goethe, and the detective quotes a letter from Gustave Flaubert to George Sand in the original
French. At the end of "A Case of Identity", Holmes quotes Hafez (not part of a contemporary English

education). In The Hound of the Baskervilles, the detective recognises works by Martin
Knoller and Joshua Reynolds: "Excuse the admiration of a connoisseur .... Watson won't allow that I
know anything of art, but that is mere jealousy, since our views upon the subject differ".
In "The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans" Watson says that in November 1895 "Holmes lost
himself in a monograph which he had undertaken upon the Polyphonic Motetsof Lassus" (a field in
which Holmes would have had to "clutter his memory" with an enormous amount of information which
had nothing to do with crime-fighting), considered "the last word" on the subject. [44] The later stories
abandon the notion that Holmes did not want to know anything not immediately relevant to his
profession. In the second chapter of "The Valley of Fear" he says, "All knowledge comes useful to the
detective", and near the end of "The Adventure of the Lion's Mane" the detective calls himself "an
omnivorous reader with a strangely retentive memory for trifles". Holmes is a cryptanalyst, telling
Watson in "The Adventure of the Dancing Men": "I am fairly familiar with all forms of secret writing, and
am myself the author of a trifling monograph upon the subject, in which I analyse one hundred and sixty
separate ciphers".[45] and breaking a cipher with frequency analysis.
The detective's analysis of physical evidence includes examining latent prints (such as footprints, hoof
prints, and bicycle tracks) to identify actions at a crime scene ("A Study in Scarlet", "The Adventure of
Silver Blaze", "The Adventure of the Priory School", The Hound of the Baskervilles, "The Boscombe
Valley Mystery"); using tobacco ashes and cigarette butts to identify criminals ("The Adventure of the
Resident Patient", The Hound of the Baskervilles); comparing typewritten letters to expose a fraud ("A
Case of Identity"); using gunpowder residue to expose two murderers ("The Adventure of the Reigate
Squire"); comparing bullets from two crime scenes ("The Adventure of the Empty House"), analyzing
small pieces of human remains to expose two murders ("The Adventure of the Cardboard Box") and an
early use of fingerprints ("The Norwood Builder"). Holmes demonstrates a knowledge of psychology in
"A Scandal in Bohemia", where he lures Irene Adler into betraying where she hid a photograph based on
the premise that an unmarried woman will save her most valued possession from a fire. Another
example is in "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle", where Holmes obtains information from a
salesman with a wager: "When you see a man with whiskers of that cut and the 'Pink un' protruding out
of his pocket, you can always draw him by a bet ... I daresay that if I had put 100 pounds down in front
of him, that man would not have given me such complete information as was drawn from him by the
idea that he was doing me on a wager".

Influence

Sidney Paget illustration of Holmes for "The Adventure of the Abbey Grange"

Forensic science
Holmes helped marry forensic science, particularly his acute observation of small clues, and literature.
He uses trace evidence (such as shoe and tire impressions), fingerprints, ballistics and handwriting
analysis to evaluate his theories and those of the police. Some of the detective's investigative
techniques, such as fingerprint and handwriting analysis, were in their infancy when the stories were
written; Holmes frequently laments the contamination of a crime scene, and crime-scene integrity has
become standard investigative procedure.
Because of the small scale of much of his evidence (tobacco ash, hair or fingerprints), the detective
often uses a magnifying glass at the scene and an optical microscope at his Baker Street lodgings. He
uses analytical chemistry for blood residue analysis and toxicology to detect poisons; Holmes' home
chemistry laboratory is mentioned in "The Adventure of the Naval Treaty". Ballistics feature in "The
Adventure of the Empty House" when spent bullets are recovered and matched with a suspected
murder weapon.
Holmes observes the dress and attitude of his clients and suspects, noting style and state of wear of
their clothes, skin marks (such as tattoos), contamination (clay on boots), their state of mind and
physical condition in to deduce their origins and recent history.

19th-century Seibert microscope

He also applies this method to walking sticks (The Hound of the Baskervilles) and hats ("The Adventure
of the Blue Carbuncle"), with details such as medallions, wear and contamination yielding information
about their owners. In 2002 the Royal Society of Chemistry bestowed an honorary fellowship on
Holmes[46] for his use of forensic science and analytical chemistry in popular literature, making him (as of
2010) the only fictional character thus honoured.

The detective story

Although Holmes is not the original fictional detective (he was influenced by Edgar Allan Poe's C.
Auguste Dupin and mile Gaboriau'sMonsieur Lecoq), his name has become synonymous with the role.
The investigating detective (such as Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirotand Dorothy L. Sayers' Lord Peter
Wimsey) became a popular character for a number of authors, and forensic methods began to take a
back seat to the psyche of the criminal.

Scientific literature
John Radford (1999)[47] speculated on Holmes' intelligence. Using Conan Doyle's stories as data, he
applied three methods to estimate the detective's intelligence quotient and concluded that his IQ was
about 190. Snyder (2004)[48] examined Holmes' methods in the context of mid- to late-19th-century
criminology, and Kempster (2006)[49] compared neurologists' skills with those demonstrated by the
detective. Didierjean and Gobet (2008)[50] reviewed the literature on the psychology of expertise, using
Holmes as a model.

Legacy
"Elementary, my dear Watson"
Sherlock Holmes Museum, London

Study

Drawing room

The phrase "Elementary, my dear Watson" is never uttered by Holmes in the sixty stories written by
Conan Doyle. He often observes that his conclusions are "elementary", however, and occasionally calls
Watson "my dear Watson". One of the nearest approximations of the phrase appears in "The Adventure
of the Crooked Man", when Holmes explains a deduction: "'Excellent!' I cried. 'Elementary,' said he."[51][52]
The phrase "Elementary, my dear fellow, quite elementary" (not spoken by Holmes) appears in P. G.
Wodehouse's novel, Psmith in the City(1909-1910),[52] and his 1915 novel Psmith, Journalist.[53] It also
appears at the end of the 1929 film The Return of Sherlock Holmes, the first Holmes sound film.
[51]

William Gillette (who played Holmes on the stage and on radio) had previously said, "Oh, this is

elementary, my dear fellow". The phrase may have become familiar because of its use in Edith Meiser's
scripts for The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes radio series, which was broadcast from 1939 to
1947.[54] Holmes utters the exact phrase in the 1953 short story "The Adventure of the Red Widow" by
Conan Doyle's son, Adrian.[55]

The Great Game

Main article: Sherlockian game

Russ Stutler's view of 221B Baker Street

Conan Doyle's fifty-six short stories and four novels are known as the "canon" by Holmes aficionados.
Early canonical scholars included Ronald Knox in Britain[56] (credited with inventing "the Game")
[57]

and Christopher Morley in New York,[58] who founded the Baker Street Irregularsthe first society

devoted to the Holmes canonin 1934.[59]

The Sherlockian game (also known as the Holmesian game, the Great Game or simply the Game)
attempts to resolve anomalies and clarify details about Holmes and Watson from the Conan Doyle
canon. The Game, which treats Holmes and Watson as real people (and Conan Doyle as Watson's
literary agent), combines aspects of the stories with contemporary history to construct biographies of the
two and publishes scholarly analyses from the Holmes universe.[57]
One detail analyzed in the Game is Holmes' birthdate, with Morley contending that the detective was
born on 6 January 1854.[60][61] Laurie R. King also speculated about Holmes' birthdate, based on A Study
in Scarlet and "The Adventure of theGloria Scott"; details in "Gloria Scott" indicate that Holmes finished
his second (and final) year of university in 1880 or 1885. Watson's account of his wounding in
the Second Afghan War and return to England in A Study in Scarlet place his moving in with Holmes in
early 1881 or 1882. According to King, this suggests that Holmes left university in 1880; if he began
university at age 17, his birth year would probably be 1861.[62]
Another topic of analysis is the university Holmes attended. Dorothy L. Sayers suggested that, given
details in two of the Adventures, the detective must have studied atCambridge rather than Oxford: "of all
the Cambridge colleges, Sidney Sussex (College) perhaps offered the greatest number of advantages
to a man in Holmes's position and, in default of more exact information, we may tentatively place him
there".[63]
Holmes's emotional and mental health have long been subjects of analysis in the Game. At their first
meeting, in A Study in Scarlet, the detective warns Watson that he gets "in the dumps at times" and
doesn't open his "mouth for days on end". Leslie S. Klinger (editor of The New Annotated Sherlock
Holmes) has suggested that Holmes exhibits signs ofbipolar disorder, with intense enthusiasm followed
by indolent self-absorption. Other modern readers have speculated that Holmes may have Asperger's
syndrome, based on his intense attention to details, lack of interest in interpersonal relationships and
tendency to speak in monologues.[64] The detective's isolation and distrust of women is said to suggest a
desire to escape, with William Baring-Gould (author of Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street: A Life of the
World's First Consulting Detective) and othersincluding Nicholas Meyer, author of the Seven Percent
Solutionimplying a family trauma, the murder of Holmes' mother, as the cause.

Societies

Statue of Holmes in an Inverness cape and a deerstalker cap on Picardy Place in Edinburgh (Conan Doyle's birthplace)

In 1934, the Sherlock Holmes Society (in London) and the Baker Street Irregulars (in New York) were
founded. Both are still active, although the Sherlock Holmes Society was dissolved in 1937 and revived
in 1951. The London society is one of many worldwide who arrange visits to the scenes of Holmes
adventures, such as the Reichenbach Falls in the Swiss Alps.
The two societies founded in 1934 were followed by many more Holmesian circles, first in the U.S.
(where they are known as "scion societies"offshootsof the Baker Street Irregulars) and then in
England and Denmark. There are at least 250 Sherlockian societies worldwide, including Australia, India
and Japan (whose society has 80,000 members).[65]

Museums
For the 1951 Festival of Britain Holmes' living room was reconstructed as part of a Sherlock Holmes
exhibition, with a collection of original material. After the festival, items were transferred to the Sherlock
Holmes (a London pub) and the Conan Doyle collection housed inLucens, Switzerland by the author's
son Adrian.[65] Both exhibitions, each with a Baker Street sitting-room reconstruction, are open to the
public.
In 1990 the Sherlock Holmes Museum opened on Baker Street in London, followed the next year by a
museum in Meiringen (near the Reichenbach Falls) dedicated to the detective. [65] A private Conan Doyle
collection is a permanent exhibit at the Portsmouth City Museum, where the author lived and worked as
a physician.[66]

Other honours
The London Metropolitan Railway named one of its 20 electric locomotives deployed in the 1920s for
Sherlock Holmes. He was the only fictional character so honored, along with eminent Britons such
as Lord Byron, Benjamin Disraeli and Florence Nightingale.[67]

A number of London streets are associated with Holmes. York Mews South, off Crawford Street, was
renamed Sherlock Mews and Watson's Mews is near Crawford Place. [68]

Adaptations and derived works

Holmes' popularity has spawned additional stories and adaptations in other media. The copyright for all
Conan Doyle's works expired in the United Kingdom in 1980, and they are in the public domain there.
[69]

All works published in the United States before 1923 are in the public domain; this includes all the

Sherlock Holmes stories, except for some short stories in The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes. For
works published after 1923 but before 1963, in the U.S. if the copyright was registered its term is 95
years.[70] Conan Doyle's heirs registered the copyright to The Case Book (published after 1923) in 1981
in accordance with the Copyright Act of 1976.[69][71][72]
On 14 February 2013, Leslie S. Klinger filed a declaratory judgement suit against the Conan Doyle
estate in the Northern District of Illinois asking the court to acknowledge that the characters of Holmes
and Watson were public domain in the U.S.[73] The court ruled in Klinger's favor on 23 December, and the
Seventh Circuit affirmed its decision on 16 June 2014.[74]

Stage, screen and radio adaptations

Main article: Adaptations of Sherlock Holmes
Further information: List of actors who have played Sherlock Holmes

Filming Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking in machine-made smog

Guinness World Records has listed Holmes as the "most portrayed movie character",[75] with more than
70 actors playing the part in over 200 films. His first screen appearance was in the
1900 Mutoscope film, Sherlock Holmes Baffled.[76] The detective has appeared in many foreign-language
versions, including a Russian miniseries broadcast in November 2013.[77]

William Gillette's 1899 play Sherlock Holmes, or The Strange Case of Miss Faulkner was a synthesis of
several stories by Doyle, mostly based on A Scandal in Bohemia adding love interest, with the HolmesMoriarty exchange from The Final Problem, as well as elements from The Copper Beeches and A Study
in Scarlet. By 1916, Harry Arthur Saintsbury had played Holmes on stage more than a thousand times.
[78]

This play formed the basis for Gillette's 1916 motion picture, Sherlock Holmes, in which William

Gillete introduced the famous curved pipe as a trademark of Holmes.

From 1921 to 1923, Stoll Pictures produced a series of silent black-and-white films based on Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. Forty-five short films and two feature length films were
produced[79] featuring Eille Norwood in the role of Holmes and Hubert Williscast as Dr. Watson with the
exception of the final film, The Sign of Four, where Willis was replaced with Arthur Cullin. John
Barrymore also played Holmes in a silent 1922 version entitled Sherlock Holmes, with Roland Young as
Watson as well as the first film appearance ofWilliam Powell.

Basil Rathbone as Holmes

The first sound film to feature Sherlock Holmes was the sound-on-disk The Return of Sherlock Holmes,
written by Basil Dean, and filmed in New York City in 1929. [80] The picture stars Clive Brook as Sherlock
Holmes. A silent version of the film was also produced to accommodate theaters which did not feature
sound.[80]
Basil Rathbone starred as Sherlock Holmes alongside Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson in fourteen US
films (two for 20th Century Fox and a dozen for Universal Pictures) from 1939 to 1946, as well as the
radio show "The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" on the Mutual Broadcasting System from 1939 to
1946 before passing the role to Tom Conway. The 1939 20th Century Fox Hound of the
Baskervillescontains an unusually direct reference to Holmes's drug use in the last line of the film,
"Watson, the needle". The Universal Pictures are distinctive for being set in the then contemporary postWorld War II era.

Ronald Howard starred in 39 episodes of the Sherlock Holmes 1954 American TV series with Howard
Marion Crawford as Watson. The storylines deviated from the books of Conan Doyle, changing
characters and other details.

Jeremy Brett as Holmes in the Granada series

In 1959, Peter Cushing starred in Hammer Film Productions' The Hound of the Baskervilles(1959),
marking Holmes's first screen appearance in colour. He would return to the role several times in both
film and television performances.
Fritz Weaver appeared as Sherlock Holmes in the musical Baker Street, which ran
on Broadwaybetween 16 February and 14 November 1965. Peter Sallis portrayed Dr. Watson, Inga
Swenson appeared as The Woman, Irene Adler, and Martin Gabel played Moriarty. Virginia
Vestoff, Tommy Tune, and Christopher Walken were also members of the original cast.[81]
Roger Moore played the detective in the 1976 film Sherlock Holmes in New York alongside Patrick
Macnee as Watson.
Director Billy Wilder's 1970 The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, with Robert Stephens and Colin
Blakely, was heavily edited after its release and parts of it are now lost.[82]
In The Return Of Sherlock Holmes, a TV movie aired in 1987, Margaret Colin stars as Dr. Watson's
great-granddaughter Jane Watson, a Boston private eye, who stumbles upon Sherlock Holmes's (played
by Michael Pennington) body in frozen suspension and restores the Victorian sleuth to life in the 1980s.
The film was intended as a pilot for a TV series which never materialised. A similar plot line was used
in 1994 Baker Street: Sherlock Holmes Returns where Dr Amy Winslow (played by Debrah Farentino)
discovers Sherlock Holmes frozen in the cellar of house in San Francisco owned by a descendant of
Mrs. Hudson. Holmes (played by Anthony Higgins) froze himself in the hopes that crimes in the future
would be less dull. He discovers that consulting detectives have been replaced by the police
department's forensic science lab and that the Moriarty family are still the Napoleons of crime.

Jeremy Brett is considered by critic Julian Wolfreys to be the definitive Holmes, [83] having played the role
in four series of Sherlock Holmes, created by John Hawkesworth for Britain's Granada Television, from
1984 through to 1994, as well as depicting Holmes on stage. Brett's Dr. Watson was played by David
Burke (pre-hiatus) and Edward Hardwicke(post-hiatus) in the series.

Sculpture of Holmes and Watson, as portrayed in the Soviet series, at the UK embassy in Moscow

Nicol Williamson portrayed Holmes in The Seven-Per-Cent Solution with Robert Duvall playing Watson
and featuring Alan Arkin asSigmund Freud. The 1976 adaptation was written by Nicholas Meyer from his
1974 book of the same name, and directed by Herbert Ross.
Bob Clark directed Christopher Plummer and James Mason in the 1979 created film Murder by Decree,
which followed Holmes, huntingJack the Ripper.
Between 1979 and 1986, Soviet television broadcast a series of five made-for-TV films in a total of
eleven parts, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, starring Vasily Livanov as Holmes
and Vitaly Solomin as Watson. In 2006, Queen Elizabeth awarded Livanov an MBE (Order of the British
Empire) for his work as Sherlock Holmes.
Christopher Lee starred as Holmes in three screen adaptations, namely Sherlock Holmes and the
Deadly Necklace (1962), Incident at Victoria Falls (1991) and Sherlock Holmes and the Leading
Lady (1992) together with Morgan Fairchild as "The Woman".
The only actors to have portrayed Holmes and Watson in adaptations of every Doyle story are Clive
Merrison and Michael Williams, who played the detective and the doctor respectively in a BBC Radio
4 series which ran from 1989 until 1998.[84]

Related and derivative works

Main article: Non-canonical Sherlock Holmes works
In addition to the Sherlock Holmes corpus, Conan Doyle's "The Lost Special" (1898) features an
unnamed "amateur reasoner" clearly intended to be identified as Holmes by his readers. His explanation

for a baffling disappearance, argued in Holmes's characteristic style, turns out to be quite wrong
evidently Conan Doyle was not above poking fun at his own hero. A short story by Conan Doyle using
the same idea is "The Man with the Watches". Another example of Conan Doyle's humour is "How
Watson Learned the Trick" (1924), a parody of the frequent WatsonHolmes breakfast table scenes. A
further (and earlier) parody by Conan Doyle is "The Field Bazaar". He also wrote other material,
especially plays, featuring Holmes. Many of these are collected in Sherlock Holmes: The Published
Apocrypha edited by Jack Tracy, The Final Adventures of Sherlock Holmes edited by Peter
Haining and The Uncollected Sherlock Holmes compiled by Richard Lancelyn Green.
Starting in 1907, Sherlock Holmes was featured in a series of German booklets. Among the writers
was Theo van Blankensee. Watson had been replaced by a 19-year-old assistant from the street,
among his Baker Street Irregulars, with the name Harry Taxon, and Mrs. Hudson had been replaced by
one Mrs. Bonnet. From number 10, the series changed its name to "Aus den Geheimakten des WeltDetektivs". The French edition changed its name from "Les Dossiers Secrets de Sherlock Holmes" to
"Les Dossiers du Roi des Detectives".[85]

Reissue poster for The Mystery of the Leaping Fish(1916)

Sherlock Holmes's abilities as both a good fighter and an excellent logician has been a boon to other
authors who have lifted his name, or details of his exploits, for their plots. These range from Holmes as
a cocaine addict, whose drug-fuelled fantasies lead him to cast an innocent Professor Moriarty as a
super villain (The Seven-Per-Cent Solution), to science-fiction plots involving him being re-animated
after death to fight crime in the future (Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century). Douglas Fairbanks stars
as cocaine-addicted detective "Coke Ennyday" in a 1916 comedy co-written by Tod
Browning entitled The Mystery of the Leaping Fish.
Some authors have supplied stories to fit the tantalising references in the canon to unpublished cases
(e.g. "The giant rat of Sumatra, a story for which the world is not yet prepared" in "The Adventure of the
Sussex Vampire"), notably The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes by Conan Doyle's sonAdrian Conan
Doyle with John Dickson Carr, and The Lost Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Ken Greenwald, based
rather closely on episodes of the 1945 Sherlock Holmes radio show that starred Basil Rathbone and

Nigel Bruce and for which scripts were written by Dennis Green andAnthony Boucher. Others have used
different characters from the stories as their own detective, e.g. Mycroft Holmes in Enter the
Lion by Michael P. Hodel and Sean M. Wright (1979) or Dr. James Mortimer (from The Hound of the
Baskervilles) in books by Gerard Williams.
Laurie R. King recreated Sherlock Holmes in her Mary Russell series (starting with The Beekeeper's
Apprentice), set during the First World War and the 1920s. Her Holmes is (semi-)retired in Sussex,
where he is literally stumbled over by a teenage American girl. Recognising a kindred spirit, he gradually
trains her as his apprentice and subsequently marries her. As of 2012, the series includes twelve novels
and a novella tie-in with a book from King's present-time Kate Martinelli series, The Art of Detection.
Carole Nelson Douglas' series, the Irene Adler Adventures, is based on the character from Doyle's "A
Scandal in Bohemia". The first book, Good Night, Mr. Holmes, retells that tale from Irene's point of view.
The series is narrated by Adler's companion, Penelope Huxleigh, in a role similar to that of Dr. Watson.
The film They Might Be Giants is a 1971 romantic comedy based on the 1961 play of the same name
(both written by James Goldman) in which the character Justin Playfair, played by George C. Scott, is
convinced he is Sherlock Holmes, and manages to convince many others of same, including the
psychiatrist Dr. Watson, played by Joanne Woodward, who is assigned to determine if he should be
committed to a mental institution.
The film Young Sherlock Holmes (1985) explores adventures of Holmes and Watson as boarding
school pupils.[86]
The 1984-1985 Japanese anime series Sherlock Hound adapted the Holmes stories for children and
had the characters portrayed as anthropomorphic dogs. The series was co-directed by Hayao Miyazaki,
who later went on to direct the Oscar winning film Spirited Away.[87] The Japanese anime
series Detective Conan, also called Case Closed in English, is an homage to Doyle's work.
In 1988, Ben Kingsley played Dr. Watson in Without a Clue. In this film, the comic premise is that Dr.
Watson is actually a brilliant detective, and that he has hired an actor, Sherlock Holmes (Michael Caine),
to take credit for the cases that Watson has been writing about, to draw attention away from himself.
The powerful criminal Dr. Moriarty is said to know that Sherlock Holmes has no abilities as a detective
whatsoever.
In the 2002 made-for-television movie Sherlock: Case of Evil, James D'Arcy starred as Holmes in his
20s. The story noticeably departs from the style and backstory of the canon and D'Arcy's portrayal of
Holmes is slightly different from prior incarnations of the character, psychologically disturbed,
an absinthe addicted, a heavy alcohol consumer and a ladies' man.
The novel A Dog About Town by J. F. Englert makes reference to Sherlock Holmes, comparing the black
Labrador retriever narrator, Randolph, to Doyle's detective as well as naming a fictitious spirit guide after
him.[88]
The Final Solution is a 2004 novel by Michael Chabon. The story, set in 1944, revolves around an 89year-old long-retired detective who may or may not be Sherlock Holmes, but is always called just "the

old man", now interested mostly in beekeeping, and his quest to find a missing parrot, the only friend of
a mute Jewish boy. The title references both Doyle's story "The Final Problem" and the Final Solution,
the Nazis' plan for the genocide of the Jewish people.
In 2008, Holmes was featured in the episode "Trials of the Demon" from Batman: The Brave and the
Bold.[89][90]
In the 2009 film Sherlock Holmes, based on a story by Lionel Wigram and images by John Watkiss,
[91]

directed by Guy Ritchie, the role of Holmes is performed by Robert Downey, Jr. with Jude

Law portraying Watson. It is a reinterpretation which focuses on Holmes's more anti-social personality
traits as an unkempt eccentric with a brilliant analytical mind and formidable martial abilities. Robert
Downey Jr. won the Golden Globe Award for his portrayal.[92] Both Downey Jr. and Law returned in the
2011 sequel,Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.

Benedict Cumberbatch as Holmes in Sherlock

Benedict Cumberbatch plays a modern-day version of the detective, with Martin Freeman as Watson, in
the BBC One TV series Sherlock, which premiered on 25 July 2010. The series changes the books'
original Victorian setting to the shady and violent present-day London. The show was created by Mark
Gatiss and Steven Moffat, best known as writers for the BBC television series Doctor Who. Says Moffat,
"Conan Doyle's stories were never about frock coats and gas light; they're about brilliant detection,
dreadful villains and blood-curdling crimes and frankly, to hell with the crinoline. Other detectives have
cases, Sherlock Holmes has adventures, and that's what matters." Cumberbatch's Holmes also uses
modern technology, such as texting and blogging, to solve crimes,[93] and in a nod towards changing
smoking legislation, he has replaced his pipe with multiple nicotine patches, as London has forbidden
smoking in most public areas, yet this interpretation of Holmes still finds nicotine to help the cognitive
process.[94]
In June 2010, it was announced that Franklin Watts books, a part of Hachette Children's Books are to
release a series of four children's graphic novels by writer Tony Lee and artist Dan Boultwood in spring
2011 based around the Baker Street Irregulars during the three years that Sherlock Holmes was
believed dead, between The Final Problem and The Adventure of the Empty House. Although not

specifying whether Sherlock Holmes actually appears in the books, the early reports include
appearances by Doctor Watson, Inspector Lestrade and Irene Adler.
Independent film company The Asylum released the direct-to-DVD film Sherlock Holmes in January
2010. In the film, Holmes and Watson battle a criminal mastermind dubbed "Spring-Heeled Jack".
Holmes (Ben Syder) is portrayed as considerably younger than most actors who have played him, and
his disapproval ofScotland Yard is undertoned[clarification needed], though things like his drug addiction remain
mostly unchanged. Throughout the film, it is hinted that Holmes is strongly addicted to tobacco. The film
features a brother of Holmes's called Thorpe, who was invented by the producers. His companion
Watson is played by Torchwood actor Gareth David-Lloyd.
Sherlock Holmes has also appeared in video games. Most successful to date [citation needed] is the Adventures
of Sherlock Holmes video game series which comprises six main titles. Holmes in this video game
series was based upon Jeremy Brett, and presents an original story and plot that isn't based upon any
of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's works.
In 2011, Anthony Horowitz, author of the Alex Rider novels, The Power of Five and TV's Foyle's War,
published a new "authorised" Sherlock Holmes novel: The House of Silk, commissioned by the Conan
Doyle estate. The novel is presented as a continuation of Conan Doyle's work and is narrated by Dr.
Watson.[95] In 2014, a sequel was announced entitled Moriarty , but with Sherlock Holmes only making
an appearance towards the end of the novel.[96]
On 27 September 2012, Elementary, premiered on CBS. It takes place in modern-day New York
starring Jonny Lee Miller as recovering British drug addict Sherlock Holmes andLucy Liu as Dr. Joan
Watson.

Works
Main article: Canon of Sherlock Holmes

Novels

A Study in Scarlet (published 1887 in Beeton's Christmas Annual)

The Sign of the Four (published 1890 in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine)

The Hound of the Baskervilles (serialised 19011902 in The Strand)

The Valley of Fear (serialised 19141915 in The Strand)

Short story collections

The short stories, originally published in magazines, were later collected in five anthologies:

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (stories published 18911892 in The Strand)

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (stories published 18921893 in The Strand as further
episodes of the Adventures)

The Return of Sherlock Holmes (stories published 19031904 in The Strand)

His Last Bow: Some Later Reminiscences of Sherlock Holmes (stories published 19081917)

The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (stories published 19211927)