The Victorian Era is considered to be, probably thanks to the Reform Act 1831, a long period of peace, stability, social and national self-confidence for the United Kingdom. It is said that it was ‘the empire on which the sun never sets’, the term originally used for Spanish Empire in 16th and 17th centuries. Nevertheless, was the reality the same? It was Sunday, May 1863. A 39-year-old man named Fredrick Budd and his 5 years younger wife Frances were attacked by five men. Luckily, or not, Frances survived the attack but her husband didn’t. He was beaten to death. People started to panic because the number of crimes were rising and rising. Starting from street robbery called garrotting, violence gangs, ending up with murders, raping and many, many other horrible things a human is able to do. The most recognisable character from that Era is probably Jack the Ripper and famous Whitechapel Murders case following him. There is a website where we can read all about it and see shocking photos of murdered women. The Scotland Yard, which was the national police service that time, wasn’t able to solve all cases shrouded in mystery. However, in 1837, in Edinburgh, a man called Joseph Bell was born and no one knew that in several dozen years the approach to the criminal investigation would change forever. He was a brilliant surgeon, genius and lecturer of the University of Edinburgh. He has unbelievable deduction skills, the ability of to diagnose patients by looking at them and studying their appearance deeply. Students admire him. He was a legend. Sounds familiar?
Joseph’s dream was to apply science to crime detection. He got the opportunity when his friend wants him to investigate what happened to a girl named Lindsay who had many wounds. Bell managed to do it and he provided the cause of death – bacteria infection from her sores. He also was an expert during The Ardlamont investigation in 1983. There is also a connection between him and Jack the Ripper because it is said that Bell was trying to investigate the killer’s identity and he succeeded but his reports disappeared from police record. He managed to solve the mystery about a girl named Elizabeth. He was found dead in her room, according to her husband, overcame with gas. Bell figured out the real cause of death – opium, and that she was poisoned by her husband. There were several cases Joseph helped with. He also put a few man into prison. That is why he was the first who use autopsy to investigate a criminal case and he moved crime detection forward by providing a simple but crucially important method and approach to crime investigation. He was constantly developing his skills and broaden his knowledge of investigation and deduction. He always told his students ‘You must always verify your conclusions’.
The whole story of the most popular fictional character in the word began in 1877 when a 17 year old Irish-Catholic student joined doctor Bell’s classes. His name was Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle. This young boy quickly became deeply fascinated in professors classes. What is more, he looked up to him and admired his deduction, diagnosis, observation, and logic skills. After a couple of year of being a student, Doyle decided to write some short stories and the very first one was The Mystery of Sasassa Valley published in the Chamber’s Journal on 6 September 1897. In the following years, he created The Brown Hand, The Case of Lady Sannox, The Club-Footed Grocer, Danger!, The Horror of the Heights, How It Happened, J.Habakuk Jephson’s Statements, The Lost Special, Lot No.249, The Parasite, The Terror of Blue John Gap. This seems quite a lot, but it is nothing in comparison to what he wrote later. Afterwards, in 1886 in Beeton’s Christmas Annual, his first novel was published – A Study in Scarlet. It took 3 weeks to write it. 45000 of copies was sold in the first year. It was a story of a detective, or should I write, ‘the detective’ named Sherlock Holmes and his friend doctor Watson. The main point of the novel were the extraordinary and astonishing main character’s abilities in investigating and solving crimes by drawing conclusions from smallest observations. It was unheard of to have such a talent, or was it not? The description of Sherlock matches Dr. Joseph Bell perfectly.
People went crazy about the novel. They began to recognise that Doyle changed the idea of detective they knew so far. Holmes seemed to be such a real person because, in fact, he was! Yet, no one knew about Doyle’s inspiration. In his interview from 1930, he says that he was receiving many letters and requests for Sherlock’s autographs. What is more, some of them were offers from ladies that wanted to be Watson’s housekeepers. People really believed Sherlock was a non-fictional character!
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was himself very educated man. He knew science very well, and through his books wanted to show people that science can actually go with solving crimes. In addition, Doyle was also fascinated with spiritualism and paranormal what we may observe in his another work – The Mystery of Cloomber. His second novel The Sing of Four was written as a result of his meeting with Oscar Wilde. Sherlock Holmes shortly became world famous. It was translated into many languages. The United States quickly get acquainted with all stories. Detective fiction was more popular there than in England.
Subsequently, in 1891 Doyle began to write another collection and since then he has created 22 stories with the last one – The Final Problem in 1893 which the detective was killed by his greatest enemy in – Professor James Moriarty. According to Jürg Musfeld, a director of the Park Hotel du Sauvage, where Doyle supposed to stay when he was visiting the village, “In 1893 he wrote in his diary, which still exists, that he wanted to kill Sherlock Holmes at the Reichenbach Falls”.
The Final Problem was meant to be the final and the last book. The author considered his writings as a destruction from other literary works and also his career. In a list to his mother he wrote ‘I must save my mind for better things even if it means I must bury my pocketbook with him’. This was a true kick in the teeth of fans and they were disappointed and dissatisfied. This was another proof of the success of Doyle’s stories. Luckily, fans managed to persuade Doyle to write the third novel in his career which happened to be The Hound of the Baskervilles from 1901-1902. Afterwards, Sherlock starts his life anew. In 1914-1915 the fourth and the last novel appeared – The Valley of Fear. Overall, Doyle wrote 4 novels contains 60 adventures and 56 stories in The Cannon.
The stories about Sherlock Holmes (without novels)
Cinema Industry
The success of Sherlock Homes was huge. Detective Fiction involved into bestseller in the 19th century and Sherlock became the most recognisable detective in that period. No wonder people wanted more and more and there came the time that books weren’t enough. With time different plays, films and other were showing up. The first play was written by William Gilette and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and acted on stage in 1899. William Gilette played Sherlock and even injected himself on cocaine live on stage(Sherlock was addicted to it in the books). William knew how to attack people. In 1900 there was a chance to see Sherlock on screen because of the appearance of the very first silent film – Sherlock Holmes Baffled made by American Mutoscope and Biograph Company. It lasts around one minute and it is black and white. It is available on youtube nowadays so everyone has access to it. Since then, the cinema industry began to be interested in making different kinds of films connected with Holmes. In 1905 people could saw Adventure of Sherlock Holmes, or Held For Ransom. Afterwards, The Valley of Fear was produced in 1916 with Harry Arthur Saintsbury who was famous for playing Holmes and stage in Gilette’s plays. Not only serious films were made but also variety of comedies and parodies which poke fun at Sherlock and other characters, for example, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes with Robert Stephens and Colin Blakely as Holmes and Watson. The adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles with the same name occurred in 1950. Despite the film is black and white, the whole history is gripping and it is a very reliable adaptation because the whole plot is the same as in the book. I enjoyed watching the film even though I get used to modern cinema that includes special effects, etc. In Sleuth(1972) Michael Caine got the role of Sherlock. Many films were made in early twentieth century and later but nowadays, the number of different films about detectives influenced by Sherlock Holmes in enormous! The famous one is probably Sherlock Holmes(2009) and its sequel Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows(2011) directed by Guy Ritchie with Robert Downey, Jr as Holmes, Jude Law as Dr Watson, Rachel McAdams as Irene Adler, and Jared Harris as Moriarty. The productions became incredibly popular. Downey Jr’s acting skills are incredible and he perfectly managed to show Sherlock’s unusual perception of reality, and deductive skills. What is more, the director introduced a little bit of humour aspect to the series so it spoke to people even more. In 2015 Ian McKellan, known from X-men as a Magneto, played and 93 old Sherlock in Mr Holmes.
When it comes to television series, the earlier appearance was in the 1951 BBC Sherlock Holmes with Allan Wheatley as Holmes and Raymond Francis as Watson. Since then, lot of mini tv series showed up. Currently, the most popular one and the one I am a fan of, is BBC’s Sherlock released in 2010. The latest season 4 appeared in 2017 with the final episode The Final Problem. The main character is played by Benedict Cumberbatch and Dr Watson by Martin Freeman. The show presents a modern and updated version of Sherlock who lives in XXI century. The names of each episode correspond with the names of stories written by Doyle, but with a slight change, for example, Study in Scarlet became Study in Pink or A Scandal in Belgravia replaced A Scandal in Bohemia.
Despite being a quintessentially British, the series gained thousands of fans all around the world. In Japan where Sherlock was officially banned in local television, 60 million people watch it online. The USA created a very similar tv series – Elementary. It presents their own version of Sherlock because both Watson and Moriarty are played by women. In another American tv series House the main character played by a British actor Hugh Laurie is modelled after the great detective, for example, his psychological and deductive abilities in solving medical cases, his home address(221B), a drug addiction(vicodin) and many others. Japan fans created variety of anime like Young Miss Holmes, with Holme’s niece instead of him, and Sherlock Bones or Tanteiken Sherdock with in dog as the main character. How creative!
Books and comics based on the original
Since Sherlock has appeared on a market, detective fiction gained its popularity on a big scale. Unfortunately, Holmes is hardly the first detective in literary history – Edgar Allan Poe’s Dupin stories with C.Auguste Dupin, the brilliant French detective came prior to Doyle’s histories. However, Poe was a great inspiration to Doyle, for example, he used the same narration technique(from the point of view of a best friend). Nevertheless, because of Sherlock, many stories appeared in XX century and the attention to them are rising and rising. When it comes to current times, I read the trilogy by Robert Galbraith, who is only a pseudonym of J.K.Rowling, The Cuckoo’s Calling, The Silkworm, and Career of Evil. The structure is very similar to Doyle’s books. We’ve got the main character- Detective Cormoran Strike and his assistant and secretary – Robin Ellacott, who later will be helping with investigations. Does it ring a bell? It is almost like Sherlock and Watson. In Galbraith’s books, the main character is a loner like Sherlock, he had a fiancé who broke up with him whereas in Sherlock there is Irene who seems to be quite important to him. The technique Strike uses to solve mysteries resembles Sherlock’s way of thinking. Additionally, what I enjoy the most while reading Strike, is this sudden plot twist when nobody knows the solution and in the final scene nobody but Strike presents the answer.
So popular were Holmes stories that even after the author’s death in 1930, writers and illustrators created new adventures and put them into comic books. Every publisher on the market came put with Sherlock comic book, including DC Comics.
Sherlock Holmes’ home
The capital of Sherlock Holmes would unquestionably be London. Each year thousands of fans come to visit the most famous city in the world just to participate in some Sherlock Holmes Tours, took picture of the famous Statue of Sherlock Holmes located outside Baker Street tube station on Marylebone Road which is near to the Holmes’ home – 221B Baker Street. In fact, 221B didn’t actually exist, because the street only extended as far as number 85. In 1930, the whole area was renumbered and number 221 appeared. Nowadays, The Sherlock Holmes Museum is located there under 221B address even though the real one should be between numbers 237 and 241. However, it would ruin the whole atmosphere, wouldn’t it? Speaking about the atmosphere, the one in the museum is absolutely marvellous. Apart from the long queue, which is actually worth waiting, the whole idea of Sherlock’s house reflection is brilliant. The house looks like from XIX century. There are lot of different books, letters, wax figures, etc. Next to the museum is the souvenir shop. To be honest, everything is so expensive there that only I could afford was a bookmark that costs £4. This business is affordable.
Many tourist often go to The Sherlock Holmes pub 10 Northumberland St. to drink and eat, for example, Baker Street Irregulars Scampi Salad. Also the design does the work. The true Sherlock Holmes fan also should know something about his/her idol’s wardrobe. There are many places in London that they can buy coats or famous deerstalkers. What surprises me the most, was The Sherlock Holmes Society of London that is ‘a literary and social Society for study of the life and work of Sherlock and Dr Watson’(the official website). It is opened to everyone who is only interested in Doyle’s books. It was founded in 1951 and still exist. Through the official website everyone has access to the latest news and publications.
To sum up, the Sherlock’s phenomenon undoubtedly has spread all around the world.