In actuality, the deerstalker hat was never mentioned in any of the Sherlock Holmes stories. However, it was shown in some of the stories' illustrations by Sidney Paget (but the deerstalker was only an occasional part of the illustrations - it was never implied that Holmes wore it all the time). Holmes did have a small magnifying glass, but he didn't have it in his hand 24 hours a day. He kept it in his pocket, and took it out when needed. And he actually examined some clues without it (gasp!). He did smoke a pipe, but it was usually when he was at home, not when he was out looking for clues. And it was actually a straight pipe. The curved pipe was used by actor William Gillette, who played Holmes in his 1899 play "Sherlock Holmes". He found that it was difficult to say his lines with a straight pipe in his mouth, so he began using a curved one. Gillette also coined the phrase "Elementary, my dear Watson." Holmes never said this phrase in the original stories, although he said "my dear Watson" quite a bit, and used the word "elementary" once. All of these traits were used in Basil Rathbone's characterization of the great detective in movies of the 1930s and 40s, where they became forever associated with Holmes.
This is one of the original Sherlock Holmes illustrations, drawn by
Sidney Paget for "Strand" magazine, where most of the stories appeared
before being published as books. This illustration is more based on
the descriptions in the story than the above picture is. But after
William Gillette's characterization, some of the illustrators began
using him as a model for the illustrations rather than the
actual stories.
The Sherlock Holmes "canon" - ie., the stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is comprised of 56 short stories and 4 novels, published between 1887 and 1927. Most of the stories are told in the first-person by Dr. John Watson, although 2 are told by Holmes, and 2 are written in the third person.
Some of the main sources for discussion among Sherlockians are the various continuity errors in the canon. Just how many times was Watson married? In A Study in Scarlet, Watson says that he received a wound in the Afghan war - a bullet in his shoulder. But in The Sign of Four, he says that the bullet wounded his leg. And if Watson's first name is John, why does his wife inexplicably call him James in one story? And what on earth did Watson mean when he told Holmes "I keep a bull-pup"?
Sherlock Holmes himself has been the subject of much debate. Some people have speculated that he was autistic, that he had manic-depression, or Attention Deficit Disorder. Also debated is Holmes' use of cocaine, refered to in The Sign of Four. Some people would call him a drug addict, but keep in mind that during the late 1800s, cocaine was perfectly legal, and its dangers were not fully known. Holmes' sexuality is also an occasional topic of discussion. He seems to have no desire to enter into romantic relationships, and explanations abound: some say that Holmes was a mysoginist, a homosexual, a repressed heterosexual, or even asexual. Or maybe Holmes was just too in love with himself to love anyone else. Or maybe his emotionless manner is a sign that he is a Vulcan.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle first wrote about Holmes in two novels, A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of Four. He then wrote a collection of short stories, called The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. In 1893, Doyle grew tired of being identified only with Sherlock Holmes stories, and wanted to do some different writing. So, he decided to kill Holmes off in the story, "The Final Problem." This story took place in Doyle's second collection of short stories, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. This story introduced Holmes' arch-enemy, the evil Professor Moriarty, "the Napolean of Crime." At the end of the story, both Holmes and Moriarty had apparently died. A few years later, Doyle relented to public pressure by writing what would become the most famous Holmes story, The Hound of the Baskervilles. Holmes had not come back to life, however, as Doyle explained that the story took place before "The Final Problem." But since Holmes' body had never been found, Doyle had a loophole by which to resurrect him, which he finally used in the story "The Empty House," written in 1903. In this story, it turns out that Holmes had not died after all, although Moriarty had.
And so, after writing the collection of short stories entitled The Return of Sherlock Holmes, Doyle again thought that he would be through with writing stories about the detective. But he wasn't. Due to popular demand, he wrote yet another collection of short stories about Holmes, called His Last Bow, and a novel, The Valley of Fear. Now this was surely the last set of stories, right? Not quite. Relenting yet again to public pressure, Doyle wrote one more collection of short stories, called The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes. The last story was "Shoscombe Old Place," published in 1927, 40 years after A Study in Scarlet first appeared in Beeton's Christmas Annual, and bringing the canon to a total of 60 stories.
So, is that the end of the Sherlock Holmes stories? By no means - ever since Holmes first captured the interest of his readers, other writers have created their own stories about the detective. Perhaps the best known of these pastiches is Nicholas Meyer's novel The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, which deals with Holmes' cocaine use, and purports to tell us what "really" happened when everyone believed him to be dead. Within the hundreds of pastiches that have been printed, you'll find Holmes meeting dozens of celebrities such as Teddy Roosevelt, George Bernard Shaw, and Oscar Wilde. He also meets up with literary characters such as Dr. Fu Manchu, Count Dracula, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Alice in Wonderland, and the Invisible Man. There are several stories that deal with Holmes trying to solve the mystery of Jack the Ripper. And I was very happy to find that Holmes was combined with one of my other big interests (the Phantom of the Opera) in two different books: The Canary Trainer and The Angel of the Opera.
Well, I suppose that it's time to bring this long-winded "essay" to an end - and if you're still reading this, you've probably learned more about Sherlock Holmes than you ever cared to know! But no informational page would be complete without a list of related links, so here they are:
Camden
House - the complete canon online, including publication dates
and the original
illustrations
Foxhound's Sherlockian Page - includes Sherlockian pastiches,
essays, and an archive of Sidney Paget illustrations
The
Sherlockian Holmepage - chock full of information, as well as
links to all the best Holmes sites on the web
Sherlocktron - extensive lists of Sherlockian Societies,
publications, merchandise, etc.
alt.fan.holmes - the Sherlock
Holmes Newsgroup. And despite what any of the trolls say, it is a
Sherlock Holmes newsgroup, not a John Holmes newsgroup.
The Hounds
of the Internet - the Sherlock Holmes mailing list
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