Literature / Sherlock Holmes

"You know, sometimes I think that my whole life is spent in one long effort to escape from the common places of existence."

— Sherlock Holmes, "The Red-Headed League"

The Trope Codifier for the Great Detective. As Dracula is to vampires and Superman is to superheroes, so Sherlock Holmes is to detectives.

Created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes is a fictional Private Detective (or, Consulting Detective, the term he preferred), an analytical genius with generally unrivaled deductive powers (and a certain disregard of social norms ^note Though various adaptations tend to overplay this; in the stories, he can occasionally be The Social Expert). The original version lived in Victorian London, at 221B Baker Street.

Holmes was assisted by his trusty sidekick, Doctor John Watson, an ex-army surgeon with an injured limb. Watson also served as Character Narrator: the majority of Holmes's adventures were told via the Framing Device of Watson's journals, with only four exceptions: His Last Bow and The Mazarin Stone are both told in the third person, whilst The Blanched Soldier and The Lion's Mane are both narrated by Holmes himself, and don't feature Watson at all.

Holmes had a number of well-known catchphrases: "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth", "The game's afoot" (itself a quote from Shakespeare's Henry V), "The Plot Thickens", and, most famously, "Elementary, my dear Watson" (which Holmes never actually said in any of Doyle's stories).

Doyle admitted that he based the character of Holmes on Dr. Joseph Bell, one of his professors from University, and Edgar Allan Poe's C. Auguste Dupin. This is lampshaded in a rather blunt statement made by Holmes within the story in which he is originally introduced ("A Study in Scarlet"), "Now, in my opinion, Dupin was a very inferior fellow. That trick of his of breaking in on his friends' thoughts with an apropos remark after a quarter of an hour's silence is really very showy and superficial. He had some analytical genius, no doubt; but he was by no means such a phenomenon as Poe appeared to imagine." (In later stories, Holmes isn't above performing this precise feat on Watson, to show that he's perfectly capable of doing it; he just considers it flashy, rather than genuinely useful.)

Throughout the stories, only one person ever refers to Holmes as "Sherlock", and that's his brother. Nearly everyone else, even Watson, calls him "Holmes" or "Mister Holmes". This is normal for Victorian and Edwardian England; at the time, men would only use a first name to address family members, romantic partners (and you had to be all-but-engaged), junior servants, or children^note women might use first names alone for each other, but only if they were the closest of friends — e.g. Elizabeth Bennet and Charlotte Lucas. One minor character in "The Sign of Four" refers to him as "Mister Sherlock", which, in context, implied that he'd known Holmes since boyhood. Additionally, this is updated and played with in the 2011 Ritchie sequel, where Mycroft calls his brother "Sherly" on a number of occasions.

Other recurring characters in the Holmes stories:

• Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard. Initially, he was mildly antagonistic as he disapproved of Holmes's interference in police matters, but he later came to respect and rely on the detective. Holmes would usually allow — or insist — that Lestrade take full credit for cases that Holmes had solved. (While Holmes worked with other Scotland Yard detectives, several of whom are even recurring characters, Lestrade is the best known.)
• Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock's Aloof Big Brother. Mycroft's role varied from time to time, but he was generally Always Someone Better to Holmes. Even Sherlock acknowledged that Mycroft's mind was sharper than his own, but his skills were largely wasted due to his exceptional sloth: almost nothing piqued Mycroft's interest enough to lure him out of the familiar surroundings of his favorite private club. Mycroft was some sort of government functionary, whose official duties were limited, but "In certain cases, Mycroft is the British Government."
• Professor James Moriarty, Holmes's personal Evil Counterpart; a mathematician and criminal mastermind whom Holmes described as "the Napoleon of Crime". Moriarty was killed (as, apparently, was Holmes, though he turned out to be Not Quite Dead) in "The Final Problem", his introductory story, though Conan Doyle went on to reuse Moriarty in The Valley of Fear, a novel whose action takes place before that of "The Final Problem." Moriarty's henchman, Colonel Sebastian Moran, is the villain of "The Adventure of the Empty House", and has been used in many post-Doyle Holmes stories.
• Irene Adler. Though her only appearance in the Doyle canon was "A Scandal in Bohemia", it was a memorable one as she managed to outwit Holmes himself and earn his respect as a Worthy Opponent. Add in the fact that she's also one of the few notable women in the stories, and the result is that she's an extremely popular character to include in adaptations.
• Mrs. Hudson, Holmes's long-suffering landlady.
• Mary Watson (née Morstan), Watson's fiancée and later wife.
• The Baker Street Irregulars, a gang of street children who gather information for Holmes.

A final note: as one of the oldest continuously exploited character of fiction in existence (there have been over 230 versions of Holmes in film, television, stage, radio, and even video games; not to mention the seemingly endless literary pastiches by numerous other authors), it stands to reason that he also has a very extensive fandom, and there's a very compelling argument that, even more so than Star Trek, Holmes and the works about him laid the groundwork for what a high-interest, high-engagement fandom of a long-running media franchise would be in the 20th century and beyond (for good and ill). For many Fanfic Trope and Audience Reaction examples, it happened in the Sherlock Holmes fandom first. Following the entry into the public domain of the final anthology in 2023, this number will only increase further.

The literary canon of Sherlock Holmes as written by Arthur Conan Doyle consists of fifty-six short stories and four novels. See this page for more information about the various adaptations and non-Doyle Holmes works.

---

Novels:

• A Study in Scarlet: Published 1887.
• The Sign of the Four: Published 1890.
• The Hound of the Baskervilles: Serialized 1901 through 1902 in The Strand. Published as one volume in 1902.
• The Valley of Fear: Serialized 1914 through 1915. Published as one volume in 1915.

Anthologies:

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Contains 12 stories published in The Strand between July 1891 and December 1892 with original illustrations by Sidney Paget and then published in one volume in 1892.

• "A Scandal in Bohemia"
• "The Red-Headed League"
• "A Case of Identity"
• "The Boscombe Valley Mystery"
• "The Five Orange Pips"
• "The Man with the Twisted Lip"
• "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle"
• "The Adventure of the Speckled Band"
• "The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb"
• "The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor"
• "The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet"
• "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches"

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

Contains 12 stories published in The Strand as further episodes of the Adventures between December 1892 and November 1893 with original illustrations by Sidney Paget and then published in one volume in 1893.

• "The Adventure of Silver Blaze"
• "The Adventure of the Cardboard Box" (this story is included as part of His Last Bow in American editions of the canon)
• "The Adventure of the Yellow Face"
• "The Adventure of the Stockbroker's Clerk"
• "The Adventure of the Gloria Scott" (Holmes's first case, described to Watson)
• "The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual" (another early case, told by Holmes to Watson)
• "The Adventure of the Reigate Squire"
• "The Adventure of the Crooked Man"
• "The Adventure of the Resident Patient"
• "The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter" (Mycroft appears for the first time)
• "The Adventure of the Naval Treaty"
• "The Adventure of the Final Problem" (Watson reports the death of Holmes; Professor Moriarty is introduced)

The Return of Sherlock Holmes

Contains 13 stories published in The Strand between October 1903 and January 1905 with original illustrations by Sidney Paget and then published in one volume in 1905.

• "The Adventure of the Empty House" (the return of Holmes)
• "The Adventure of the Norwood Builder"
• "The Adventure of the Dancing Men"
• "The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist"
• "The Adventure of the Priory School"
• "The Adventure of Black Peter"
• "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton"
• "The Adventure of the Six Napoleons"
• "The Adventure of the Three Students"
• "The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez"
• "The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter"
• "The Adventure of the Abbey Grange"
• "The Adventure of the Second Stain"

His Last Bow

Contains seven stories published 1908–1913, 1917 and then published in one volume in 1917.

• "The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge" (originally published simply as "A Reminiscence of Mr Sherlock Holmes", this story is made up of two parts given separate titles: "The Singular Experience of Mr. John Scott Eccles" and "The Tiger of San Pedro")
• "The Adventure of the Red Circle"
• "The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans" (Mycroft appears)
• "The Adventure of the Dying Detective"
• "The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax"
• "The Adventure of the Devil's Foot"
• "His Last Bow" (Narrated in the third person)

The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes

Contains 12 stories published 1921–1927 and then published in one volume in 1927.

• "The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone" (second story narrated in the third person)
• "The Problem of Thor Bridge"
• "The Adventure of the Creeping Man"
• "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire"
• "The Adventure of the Three Garridebs"
• "The Adventure of the Illustrious Client"
• "The Adventure of the Three Gables"
• "The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier" (narrated by Holmes; Watson does not appear)
• "The Adventure of the Lion's Mane" (narrated by Holmes; Watson does not appear)
• "The Adventure of the Retired Colourman"
• "The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger"
• "The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place"

Audiobook Readers

There have numerous audiobook recordings of the original canon. Here is a list of some of the most prolific, notable, or more highly regarded performers.

---

• Basil Rathbone (Recorded 5 selected Doyle stories for Caedmon Records in the 1960s, subsequently re-released by HarperColins Audio in 2008)
• Peter Cushing (Recorded The Return of Sherlock Holmes for the Royal National Institute for the Blind in 1971. Was widely commercially released in 2011 by Cosmic Hobo Productions.)
• Douglas Wilmer (Narrated selected Doyle stories for Penguin Audio in 1997)
• Ian McKellen (Narrated The Valley of Fear for BBC Audio)
• Christopher Lee (Narrated The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes for Harper Audio in the 1990s; re-released in the 2000s)
• Derek Jacobi (Narrated the Doyle canon for AudioGo, and Anthony Horowitz's The House of Silk)
• Edward Hardwicke (Narrated selected Doyle stories for CSA Telltapes Ltd./The Audio Partners Publishing Corp; subsequently re-released by AudioGo and BBC Audio over the years)
• Stephen Fry (Narrated the entire Doyle canon for Audible, also wrote and read introductions for each story)
• Simon Vance (Narrated the Doyle canon, and numerous pastiches including Lyndsay Faye's Dust and Shadow)
• David Timson (Narrated the complete Doyle canon for Naxos Audio)
• Simon Prebble
• Walter Covell

The short stories contain examples of:

• Sherlock Holmes - Tropes A to G
• Sherlock Holmes - Tropes H to N
• Sherlock Holmes - Tropes O to T
• Sherlock Holmes - Tropes U to Z

---