Day Fifty Four 

May 22nd Sherlock Holmes Day :The game’s afoot!

When Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote his very first Sherlock Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet (1887) he had no reason to believe how popular the character would become.   The story, rejected by other publishers, made not a ripple in the minds of the reading public.

It wasn’t until 1891 Holmes and Watson found their way into print again and

became firmly established with subscribers to The Strand Magazine, where A Scandal in Bohemia resulted in record sales.

The Guinness Book of Records list Holmes and Watson as the most portrayed characters in history. 

By 1990, well over 25,000 films, stage adaptations and TV series had been made featuring the consulting detective and his emanuensis, Dr John H Watson.

Dr Josephe Bell - Edinburgh

It is said Doyle was inspired by Joseph Bell a surgeon at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh and with whom Doyle had worked.

Bell, a meticulous observer, would draw conclusions (often correctly) from the slightest evidence.

Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce 

When Watson and Holmes first meet, Sherlock says:

‘You have been in Afghanistan I perceive’.

Dr Watson assumes someone told him and Holmes is quite affronted.

‘Nothing of the sort. I knew you came from Afghanistan. Here is a gentleman of a medical type, but with the air of a military man. Clearly an army doctor. His left arm has been injured. He holds it in a stiff and unnatural manner. Where in the tropics could an English army doctor have seen much hardship and got his arm wounded? Clearly in Afghanistan.'

It all sounds very plausible but some of the fun in being an addicted  Holmesian, is finding holes in the reasoning. All the things Holmes observed could easily have other explanations.

Francis “Tanky” Smith, a policeman who used disguises in his work, was another influence on Conan Doyle.

Smith with partner Tommy Haynes, known as Black Tommy were the first detectives in Leicester and had the courage and ability to infiltrate some of the city’s worst and most brutal criminal gangs.

Tanky looking uncannily like Stephen Fry

When Tanky retired, he built, with the help of his architect son, a property in Top Hat Terrace where several sculptures now show his many disguises.

The name Sherlock is now, along with Watson and Mycroft, firmly embedded in literary history but he was, originally named, Sherringford in early drafts. 

Quite a distinguished name in itself, unlike Ormond Sacker, the first incarnation of Dr Watson.   Thank goodness Doyle decided to change them.

Whilst most of us think of Sherlock in a cape and Deerstalker hat, there is no mention in the stories,  of Holmes wearing one. 

This image comes from one of the first illustrations in The Strand magazine (seen at the top of the page).

We all have our favourite actors portraying Holmes and Watson on screen. Mine are Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, whose Watson was so endearing that he won my heart at an early age and I’ve stayed faithful to him for over 70 years.

I do admit though to finding Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke worthy successors in the following decades.