The Great Detective Sherlock Holmes is perhaps the most popular detective in the history of literature. People all over the world know that his analytical skills are extraordinary and he can carefully sort out clues among numerous clues. The character was inspired by Joseph Bell, Arthur Conan Doyle's professor of medicine and resident at the University of Edinburgh, whose "power of observation was supreme." Doyle discovered that detectives in other novels relied on luck rather than science to obtain case information. He wanted to let "science replace luck" in his detective novels. The first novel starring Sherlock Holmes was published. in 1887. Later, Holmes appeared in 3 novels and 56 short stories.
Literary Idol
Even if you have never read these original novels, you can probably picture Sherlock Holmes in your mind, imagine his pipe, magnifying glass, and deerstalker hat , his apartment at 211B Baker Street in central London (now a museum), his loyal partner Watson, and his archenemy Dr. Moriarty. The police are at a loss to solve the mystery, and only the greatest detective in history can bring it to light. The original Sherlock Holmes books were published between about 1886 and 1927, and since then the legend has been retold again and again and shaped into a huge series, including the BBC's The Sherlock Holmes Chronicles, starring Benedict Cumberbatch. "Sherlock" played by Benedict Cumberbatch allows the spirit of the great detective to be reborn in the 21st century and compete with a new generation of criminal masters.
The Early Years
It may surprise you to learn that the writer who created one of Britain's most enduring literary icons was not English at all, but Scottish. Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh in 1859. As a child, he was sent to a Catholic boarding school that he hated. Like many middle-class Scottish teenagers at that time, he chose to study medicine and entered Edinburgh Medical College in 1876.
Although studying medicine was as different as his later writing career, it was Joseph Bell, an Edinburgh professor and medical diagnostician who taught him, who inspired him to create The image of detective expert Sherlock Holmes. It is said that Bell could not only see patients through careful scientific observation, but also discern their background and occupation - observing details such as sailors' knots and calluses on maids' hands, and use this information to outline the reasons behind the illnesses. Conan Doyle also recalled his mother's influence in his autobiography. She was also good at telling vivid stories. By the time he entered medical school, he had already begun writing, publishing a few articles in small literary magazines.
In 1885, he married his first wife, Louisa Hawkins. As a doctor, the step-by-step life path seemed to have been paved for him. . But Conan Doyle had other ambitions, and by 1886 he had completed what would become his first Sherlock Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet. The story begins with a mysterious murder in a house in London (the murder on Lauriston Garden Street), and then ends up in Salt Lake City in the wilderness of the western United States, laying the foundation for a routine that millions of readers are now familiar with—— Holmes, who is maverick and as smart as Superman (a freelance "consulting detective" who can play the violin and inject himself with cocaine solution), his loyal partner and assistant Watson, detective Lestrade who is determined to catch the thief, and a A dangerous and complex mystery that only Sherlock Holmes can solve. However, this novel was almost ignored when it first appeared, as was the next novel, The Sign of the Four (1890). The author himself prefers another of his works, "Micah Clark" (1889), which is set in Scotland in the 17th century and tells how children grow up.
There is an anecdote that was not revealed until much later: Sherlock Holmes almost couldn't be called Sherlock Holmes and originally wanted to be named Sherrington Hope.
"Killing Sherlock Holmes"
Despite the poor reception of the first two Sherlock Holmes stories, the detective's reputation grew, especially in the United States. Conan Doyle later wrote two stories for Riverside Magazine, which were a huge success. The great detective written by illustrator Sydney Paget is alert and sharp, and his image is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. The novel caused a sensation.
Ironically, this puts Conan Doyle in a dilemma, wondering whether he should continue the life of the great detective. On the one hand, Sherlock Holmes has achieved a cultural cult phenomenon, with readers begging the author to write more and more stories. On the other hand, Conan Doyle's original intention was to make money by casually writing detective and surprising novels to support his pursuit of more "serious" novels and story creation. If his side business was too successful, it might delay his serious work.
What followed was one of the most outrageous accidents in the literary world of the 19th century. Conan Doyle, who was determined to get rid of the great detective, had Holmes and Moriarty engage in a desperate fight at the Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland in 1893's "The Adventure of the Final Problem". Holmes lost his life. In the author's diary of that day, one can read the exhaustion and relief after "killing Holmes". He planned to concentrate on writing historical novels and complete several novels and screenplays in the next few years.
However, readers did not agree and launched a campaign to resurrect Sherlock Holmes. Conan Doyle tried his best to pretend not to see it and traveled around. In early 1900, he volunteered to work as a military doctor in the South African battlefield where the Boer War was in full swing. In the same year, he published a best-selling war narrative. He also had ambitions to enter politics and ran for parliament twice, but failed both times. There were also difficult times at home: Louisa was diagnosed with tuberculosis and was in poor health. After his wife's death in 1906, he married Jean Leckie, a woman he had probably fallen in love with years before.
The Return of Sherlock Holmes
In 1901, Conan Doyle made a fateful decision to add Sherlock Holmes to the novel "The Hound of the Baskervilles" that he had been pondering. (The Hound of the Baskervilles). The inspiration for his creation came from his trip to Dartmoor in southwest England. At that time, he was traveling with the young journalist Bertram Fletcher Robinson. "A majestic place, very sad and desolate," he wrote in the letter - a place suitable for a gloomy legend, with a gothic atmosphere that penetrates the bone marrow, unexplained bizarre deaths, and an escaped beast. To get around the embarrassing reality that Holmes was doomed to die at Reichenbach Falls, he set The Hound of the Baskervilles in an earlier period.
You don’t need to worry about this in the next work, because in "The Adventure of the Empty House" (1905), Holmes returns to London in disguise and casually explains why only Holmes is there. Riati died under the waterfall and how he escaped (careful readers discovered that Watson never witnessed the incident). Thus, this series of novels will continue for another twenty-five years.
When the entire series ended in 1927, Conan Doyle had published a total of 56 short stories and 4 novels. He also became the famous writer with the most readers and the most widely translated books at that time. one. "The Hound of the Baskervilles" was followed by "The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter" (The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter) published in 1904, which tells the story of the mysterious disappearance of a Cambridge student.
One of the final stories, "The Adventure of the Retired Colourman" (1926), unusually features Watson as the protagonist, tells the story of an eccentric and suspicious art supply dealer and his missing wife.
Later in life
Despite his fame and fortune, Conan Doyle still resented the lack of attention given to his serious literary creation and devoted himself to various pastimes, especially sports and outdoor sports. (He is said to have introduced Norwegian downhill skiing to the Swiss Alps).
He also believed that his "psychic" writings were the most important public works - research showed that the dead and the living could conduct so-called communication. This theory was popular in England for a while, and some The cause was the tragic trauma of World War I. Perhaps because his son Kingsley died in the 1918 influenza pandemic, Conan Doyle invested countless time and money on the "spiritual medium issue" and published a series of books with increasingly weird content, such as "The Soul" The Case for Spirit Photography (1922), The Coming of the Fairies (1922), and The History of Spiritualism (1926).
When Conan Doyle died in 1930, his fans packed the Royal Albert Hall to hold a séance (a ritual in which a medium presided over and attempted to communicate with the dead) in his honor. ). By this time, Doyle was established as a literary immortal. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Sherlock Holmes is the character with the most appearances in film and television of all time.