1. This is how Conan Doyle introduces Holmes in Memories and Adventures. He said that the character permitted no light or shade as adding anything to a man who was basically a calculating machine would lessen his impact; he was sometimes inclined to weary of him for this reason.
2. Conan Doyle probably had one of two characters in mind here. In David Copperfield he is first sent to learn under the dreadful and often drunk Mr Creakle, who puts a sign around David’s neck which reads ‘Take care of him. He bites’. It is only removed as it gets in the way of beatings. The other candidate, Thomas Gradgrind, in Hard Times, is the cold and unfeeling school superintendent who, at least when we first meet him has no time for emotion, declaring: ‘Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else.’
3. The almost eleven-minute interview is at the time of writing available on YouTube.
4. More parody titles are given in Appendix 3: An Alphabetical Sherlock Holmes Miscellany.
5. See Appendix 2 for more information on William Gillette.
6. Conan Doyle played ten first class matches, mainly for Marylebone Cricket Club. He was a useful slow bowler and competent lower-order batsman. In eighteen first class innings he averaged 12.8 with a top score of 43.
7. ‘You should have gone to Cromer, my dear, if you went anywhere. Perry was a week at Cromer once, and he holds it to be the best of all sea-bathing places. A fine open sea, he says, and very pure air.’ (advice from Mr Woodhouse)
8. If you are using buses and underground trains (the ‘tube’) you can buy tickets as you go; you can buy a daily pass (no travel before 0930); or, probably most convenient and cheapest, you can buy an ‘oyster card’ (travel anytime). This may require some simple planning in advance in order to receive one https://oyster.tfl.gov.uk/ As regards accommodation, London is very expensive and an excellent and cost-effective alternative to hotels are university rooms, available when students are on vacation www.universityrooms.com.
9. Interview currently on YouTube – see note 3 also.
10. website Ihearofsherlockeverywhere.com.
11. There are also two other ‘stories’, both very short. The Field Bazaar was written in 1896 in order to help raise money for a cricket pavilion on ground purchased by Edinburgh University. It was published in Student and is simply an analysis by Holmes of what Watson was thinking at breakfast. It begins with the words, ‘I should certainly do it.’ The other is How Watson Learned the Trick, which is a very funny take of the same subject and was published by Methuen in 1924.
12. 221B Baker Street is one of the most famous addresses in the world, especially considering that it never actually existed. A great many people have had fun with the number and here are a few examples. In 1987 CBS made a movie, The Return of Sherlock Holmes (not to be confused with many others of that name), in which Holmes is cryogenically frozen and returned to life over a hundred years later; on searching for his old home he finds it turned into a McDonalds hamburger franchise. In the hugely successful American TV series House M.D., Dr Gregory House lives in 221 Baker Street, Apartment B, Princeton, USA. In the wonderful 2015 movie Mr Holmes, starring Sir Ian McKellen, we see Holmes looking out from the real 221B to a house surrounded by tourists and fans on the opposite side of the street and he remarks that Watson had deliberately given the wrong location in his stories.
The interior of the flat has been recreated in many places around the world, including at Meiringen, Switzerland, near the Reichenbach Falls, where the windows were shipped over from England and the wallpaper copied from an authentic late nineteenth-century pattern. There is another recreation in a hotel in Lucens and in the library of the University of Minnesota, USA. Some artefacts and furniture can also be seen in the Sherlock Holmes pub (see Walk 2).
As regards the address itself, some see it as a typical English townhouse divided into flats and 221B as one of these. A good deal of creative brainpower has been used over the years to try to answer the question: ‘If Sherlock Holmes lived at 221B Baker Street, then who lived at 221A?’ It could, of course, be Mrs Hudson and an attempt at answering this question is in the BBC production of Sherlock (2010–17) when the viewer is taken to a flat in the basement of 221B that Hrs Hudson says she cannot let because of damp; in this case, Mrs Hudson could presumably live at 221A or 221C….
13. The Baker Street Boys is a BBC series aired in 1983, with Jay Simpson as Wiggins, Roger Ostine as Sherlock Holmes and Huber Rees as Dr Watson.
Sherlock Holmes and The Baker Street Irregulars is a BBC drama, starring Jonathan Pryce as Sherlock Holmes and Bill Paterson as Dr Watson, released in 2007.
The Irregulars is a Netflix series, first aired in 2020, featuring Henry Lloyd-Hughes as Sherlock Holmes and Royce Pierreson as Dr Watson.
Christopher Morley famously wrote that ‘The whole Sherlock Holmes saga is a triumphant illustration of art’s supremacy over life.’ (introduction to The Penguin Complete Sherlock Holmes).
14. Dorothy L. Sayers (1893–1957) was a founding member of both the Detection Club and The Sherlock Holmes Society (1934). She wrote extensively on Holmes, mainly for other fans, as well as producing her own novels, which were very successful but received some savage criticism in their day.
15. The Inner Room was first published in Conan Doyle’s poetry collection Songs of Action (1898). It is an introspective exercise in which Conan Doyle sees himself comprising several different people, including a soldier and a priest, a ‘rogue and an anchorite’, and they all compete for domination of his soul.
16. The Daily Telegraph published his letter with the heading ‘The Case of George Edalji – Special investigation by Sir A. Conan Doyle’ on 6 January 1907.
17. For those interested in the case, Julian Barnes has written a best-selling novel, Arthur and George (Vintage 2006).
18. Conan Doyle wrote to the Spectator concerning several aspects of the case including a so-called ‘confession’ given by Slater and also saying that a man should be tried for the crime of which he was accused and not his moral character.
19. George Meredith (1828–1909) was an important but controversial Victorian poet and novelist. He was influential also with other writers as his poor sales meant he had to take work as a publisher’s reader and read up to ten manuscripts a week. He is reputed to have been responsible for encouraging Thomas Hardy not to publish his first novel as it could be seen as ‘socialistic’ and ruin his career. Thomas Hardy then wrote Far From the Madding Crowd which was a best-seller and made his name.
20. Conan Doyle listed his personal favourites as follows:
1. ‘The Adventure of the Speckled Band’ 1892
2. ‘The Red-headed League’ 1891
3. ‘The Adventure of the Dancing Men’ 1903
4. ‘The Final Problem’ 1893
5. ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’ 1891
6. ‘The Adventure of the Empty House’ 1903
7. ‘The Five Orange Pips’ 1891
8. ‘The Adventure of the Second Stain’ 1904
9. ‘The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot’ 1910
10. ‘The Adventure of the Priory School’ 1904
11. ‘The Musgrave Ritual’ 1893
12. ‘The Adventure of the Reigate Squires’ 1893
21. Memories and Adventures 1924
22. Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) was Prime Minister 1902–5. He also served as a Cabinet Minister for a total of twenty-seven years under Prime Ministers Asquith, Lloyd George and Baldwin. He may have said something often attributed to him: ‘Nothing matters very much and few things matter at all.’ Conan Doyle wrote that of the ‘occasional’ great men that he had met, hardly anyone stood out more clearly. He was a very religious man and Conan Doyle was once a guest at Balfour’s North Berwick estate when, on a Sunday night, maids, grooms, in fact all the staff of about twenty, and Balfour himself, conducted joint prayers. He was moved to see all, from the master of the house down to the most junior servant, praying as one. In life, nothing seemed more worthy of scorn to Balfour, Conan Doyle observed, than cowardice.
23. Herbert Henry Asquith, Prime Minister 1908–16, was the last leader of a majority Liberal government. Conan Doyle liked him greatly, especially his conversation, thinking him much maligned by people who said that he did not take the war seriously enough for the first two years during which he led the nation.
24. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. The novel’s full title is The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery (Which He Never Meant to Publish on Any Account), 1850 (previously serialised in monthly instalments from May 1849).
25. Details: The World of Charles Dickens by Stephen Browning (Halsgrove).
26. It was also at the Adelphi in December 1867 that Charles Dickens collaborated with his friend Wilkie Collins, to put on their play No Thoroughfare. It, too, was an enormous success running to over 150 performances and making a huge sum. Other Dickens productions included The Christening (1834), The Peregrinations of Pickwick or Boz-i-a-na (1837), Nicholas Nickleby (1838) and The Old Curiosity Shop (1840).
27. Dickens sets the beginning of his last great, unfinished, novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood in a drug den.
28. For many fans of the stories, this reaction of Watson is implausible. Yes, he is the most honourable and kindest of men, but Holmes had deceived him for three years in the most hurtful way imaginable. Watson’s reaction in the BBC series Sherlock starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, when he attempts to basically knock Holmes’ block off received almost unstinting approval on social media.
29. Laurence Sterne’s body was possibly the victim of grave-robbers and sold to anatomists at Cambridge University and was only reinterred after being recognised by someone who knew him in life. In the 1970s over 11,000 skulls were taken from this area when the land was redeveloped and one, with marks that would have been caused by anatomists and which was consistent with the size and shape of his bust, was found. This, and other remains, were reinterred at Coxwold churchyard in North Yorkshire.
30. Colonel Moran has spawned a huge amount of literature. There are many and an ever-growing number of Holmes’ pastiches that introduce him. He has also been featured in novels, poems, TV series and films; notably George MacDonald Fraser introduces him in three of his Flashman books and T.S. Eliot, in his poem Gus: The Theatre Cat, has Gus play a man-eating tiger who is chased down a drain by an Indian colonel – it was one of the legendary stories of late-Victorian society that Moran had fearlessly pursued a tiger in this manner.
31. The Marquess of Queensbury was acquitted; later Oscar Wilde was charged with gross indecency and sentenced to two years with hard labour.
32. Montague Street leads off Montague Place.
33. Watson, on the other hand, never sets foot in the British Museum as far as we know. On the principal occasion that he conducts research – into Chinese pottery in The Adventure of the Illustrious Client – he chooses to go to The London Library in St James’s Square.
34. http://www.crossness.org.uk/
35. The complete list is: Bardle, Barton, Baynes, Bradstreet, Brown, Forbes, Forrester, Gregory, Gregson, Hill, Hopkins, Athelney Jones, Peter Jones, Lanner, Lestrade, MacDonald, MacKinnon, Martin, Merivale, Montgomery, Morton, Patterson and Youghal.
36. At the time of writing, eight of the twenty-four episodes filmed are available on YouTube, hugely enjoyable although the quality is not good. The series was filmed in Poland on a very tight budget, Reynolds using some scripts from his earlier and better known 1954 series starring Ronald Howard. At the end of filming the head of Polish television, who had authorised the production, was reportedly arrested and the film confiscated. The series never aired in the UK.
37. For analysis of the poem see the British Library www.bl.uk-romantic-and-victorians.
38. These include Chaucer, the first poet to be interred in the abbey. Some memorials have been delayed, for example, that of Lord Byron who had to wait almost 150 years before he was given one in 1969. Others include Edmund Spenser, George Handel, Charles Dickens, Ted Hughes, C.S. Lewis, Ben Johnson, Samuel Johnson, John Dryden, Robert Browning, Lord Tennyson, Rudyard Kipling, and Philip Larkin.
39. From The Times 14 June 1905 in an article entitled Rifle Shooting as a National Pursuit.
40. A Hull steam trawler, Conan Doyle H240, was named after Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and in 1917, under Skipper William Addy and Lieutenant McCabe, was involved for several hours in a fight with a German submarine and either sunk it or sent it under the waves in retreat. Skipper Addy was subsequently awarded the DSC. The ship sent Conan Doyle its ship’s bell as a souvenir; he replied with his congratulations and a silver cigarette case inscribed with the skipper’s name. Skipper Addy and the Conan Doyle also happened to hold the world record for the financial value of a trawler catch – £10,790.
41. reception@londonlibrary.co.uk. At time of writing, individual full membership is £510 a year. Special rates apply for young persons aged 16–26.
42. Graham Green wrote The Return of A.J. Raffles (1975) which was set in 1900 and included the characters of Lord Alfred Douglas and the Prince of Wales. In the play, Raffles and Bunny forge a plan to rob the Marquess of Queensbury, partly as revenge for his treatment of Oscar Wilde. Green said, ‘I’ve brought out what I consider the latent homosexuality in the characters of Bunny and Raffles. I’ve done it only slightly—I mean it’s not by any means a homosexual play.’ It opened at the Aldwych Theatre on 4 December 1975, receiving rave reviews in some quarters for its sparkling dialogue. It has been produced many times since, including as a radio play for which it is particularly suited, by the BBC.
43. Julian Fellowes, or Baron Fellowes of West Stafford to give him his full title, is a best-selling author probably best known as creator, writer and producer of the worldwide success Downton Abbey (TV series 2010–15 and film 2019). He also appeared in two little-remembered, although highly entertaining, episodes of the Polish-British 1979 TV series Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson with Geoffrey Whitehead as Holmes and Donald Pickering. as Watson, A Motive for Murder and A Case of High Security. Some of the series is available on YouTube.
44. Mark Haddon used the idea as the title of his award-winning novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and the idea of a dog making a noise when sensing a stranger but keeping quiet when approached by someone it knows has been used in many subsequent crime stories.
45. Pierre Bayard: Sherlock Holmes was Wrong: Re-opening the Case of the ‘Hound of the Baskervilles’ (2007). Bayard, a French professor of literature, claims the hound to be totally innocent, the genuine human culprit slipping Holmes’ grasp. This argument, of course, also implies that every reader of the tale was hoodwinked, too. Bayard argues that Conan Doyle, under pressure to bring back a character that he subconsciously hated, set Holmes up to fail. The book is ingenious, fun to read and the ‘real’ culprit will probably surprise you.
46. Details: The World of Charles Dickens by Stephen Browning (Halsgrove).
47. Angela Buckley has produced a fascinating book The Real Sherlock Holmes – The Hidden story of Jerome Caminada for Pen and Sword (2014).
48. After a chequered history during which it was very nearly turned into flats, ‘Undershaw’ was bought by The DFN Charitable Foundation for Stepping Stones School and was completely restored as far as possible to its original condition. The school was opened in 2016.
49. The other Holmes-recounted story is The Blanched Soldier. He did write, of course, and in the canon reports or monographs in his hand are mentioned on the following subjects: distinction between the ashes of various tobaccos; the tracing of footsteps; the influence of a trade upon the form of a hand; two studies on the human ear; the typewriter and its relation to crime; the Polyphonic Motets of Lassus; Practical Handbook of Bee Culture with some observations on the Segregation of the Queen; dating of documents; secret writings; and tattoo marks.
50. In The Adventure of the Second Stain, Watson begins the tale by saying that Holmes has since retired to keep bees on the Sussex Downs. We further learn, in the preface to His Last Bow, that this is at a small farm about five miles from Eastbourne.
51. For the list see www.arthur-conan-doyle.com.
Bibliography
Baring-Gould, William, The Annotated Sherlock Holmes: The Four Novels and Fifty-six Short Stories Complete, Clarkson Potter (1988)
Baring-Gould, William, Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street: A Life of the World’s First Consulting Detective, Bramhall House (1962)
Browning, Stephen, The World of Charles Dickens, Halsgrove (2012)
Browning, Stephen, When Schooldays Were Fun, Halsgrove (2010)
Buckley, Angela, The Real Sherlock Holmes, Pen and Sword Social (2014)
Conan Doyle Sir A., Stashower D., Lellenberg J., Foley C., Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters, Harper Perennial (2008)
Conan Doyle, Sir Arthur, Memories and Adventures, Project Gutenberg, Australia (2014)
Conan Doyle, Sir Arthur, The Penguin Complete Sherlock Holmes, Penguin Books (1981)
Duncan, Alistair, An Entirely New Country, MX Publishing (2011)
Hornung, E.W., Raffles: The Amateur Cracksman, Penguin Classics (2003)
Hornung, E.W., The Complete Raffles Mysteries, Createspace Independent Publishing Platform (2015)
Kirby, Dick, Whitechapel’s Sherlock Holmes, Pen and Sword True Crime (2014)
Klinger, Leslie, The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Short Stories: The Return of Sherlock Homes, His Last Bow and The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes, W.W. Norton and Company (2007)
Lellenburg Jon, Stashower Daniel, Foley Charles, Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters, Harper Press (2007)
Lycett, Andrew, Conan Doyle: The Man Who Created Sherlock Holmes, W&N (2008)
Meyer Nicholas, The Seven-Per-Cent Solution: Being a Reprint from the Reminiscences of John H. Watson, E.P. Dutton (1974)
Morrisey S., Morrisey G., The Complete Raffles, Annotated and Illustrated (Kindle), Amazon.com Services (2015)
Pascal, Janet B., Arthur Conan Doyle: Beyond Baker Street, Oxford University Press (2000)
Pearson, Hesketh, Conan Doyle: His Life and Art, Methuen (1943)
Read, Donald, Edwardian England, Harrap (1972)
Rowland, Peter, Raffles and His Creator, Nekta Publications (1999)
Stickler, Paul, The Murder that Defeated Whitechapel’s Sherlock Holmes, Pen and Sword History (2018)
Wood, James P., The Man Who Hated Sherlock Holmes. A Life of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Pantheon Books (1965)
Interesting websites
www.Ihearofsherlockeverywhere.com Excellent for latest news of Sherlock and his world, especially as regards the USA.
arthur-conan-doyle.com For The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopaedia.
www.sherlockian.net Very good for all sorts of Sherlockian information.
bakerstreetirregulars.com Originally founded in 1934, The Baker Street Irregulars was the first Sherlockian literary society. It publishes the Baker Street Journal and is a wonderful source of information and events.
The Sherlock Holmes Society of London is a social and literary society and studies the life and work of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. It is open to all. www.sherlock-holmes.org.uk
nationalarchives.org.uk for information on the history of the period.