Johnson / Upton Sherlock Holmes: Inspiring Lives

1. Auflage 2012
ISBN: 978-0-7524-8347-4
Verlag: The History Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 224 Seiten

Reihe: Inspiring Lives

This miscellany explores the fascinating and enigmatic world of Sherlock Holmes, his place in literary history and how he has become the iconic, timeless character who is loved by millions. Containing facts, trivia and quotes from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's legendary stories, the reader can also explore the often weird and wonderful characters who graced Conan Doyle's pages. Do you know the difference between a Penang Lawyer and a Tide-Waiter? And if you think a 'life preserver' is a cork-filled flotation device, how does Wilson Kemp fit one into the sleeve of his jacket? Sherlock Holmes: Inspiring Lives is light-hearted and highly informative, and perfect for both the Sherlock aficionado and those new to the world of 221B Baker Street.

ROGER JOHNSON and JEAN UPTON have been members of The Sherlock Holmes Society for many years and have both regularly contributed to its popular journal - a publication which Roger himself edits. Other Sherlockian publications they have written for include The Baker Street Journal (American), The Passengers' Log (Australian), The Musgrave Papers (British) and The Ritual (British). Having met through a mutual long-term interest in Sherlock Holmes, Roger and Jean's wedding was attended by Dame Jean Conan Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's daughter. Together they are joint custodians of the 221B sitting room at The Sherlock Holmes pub in London.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Johnson, Roger

Upton, Jean

Leseproben

• 3 •

‘THAT MIXTURE OF IMAGINATION AND REALITY’

• SHERLOCK HOLMES – FACT AND FICTION •

A NUMBER OF YEARS ago Anthony Howlett, then chairman of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London, was asked by a journalist: ‘Was Sherlock Holmes a real person or a fictional character?’ Tony’s simple and direct answer was ‘Yes.’

THE AUTHOR

Both fact and fiction start with Arthur Conan Doyle, physician and author, born on 22 May 1859 in Edinburgh, to Anglo-Irish parents. As a writer, he had some success with his early short stories, but his first attempt at a novel was rejected and he decided to try his hand at a mystery story. He said in his memoirs:

Gaboriau had rather attracted me by the neat dovetailing of his plots, and Poe’s masterful detective, M. Dupin, had from boyhood been one of my heroes. But could I bring in an addition of my own? I thought of my old teacher Joe Bell, of his eagle face, of his curious ways, of his eerie trick of spotting details. If he were a detective, he would surely reduce this fascinating but unorganised business to something nearer to an exact science. I would try [to see] if I could get this effect.

His detective was to have been called Sherrinford Holmes, a name soon altered to the neater and more forceful Sherlock Holmes. He told a reporter: ‘Years ago I made thirty runs against a bowler by the name of Sherlock, and I always had a kindly feeling for that name.’ The surname was that of the American essayist Oliver Wendell Holmes, also a physician, whom Conan Doyle greatly admired. The narrator was originally called Ormond Sacker, but fortunately that didn’t last long.

The detective could not tell his own exploits, so he must have a commonplace comrade as a foil – an educated man of action, who could both join in the exploits and narrate them. A drab, quiet name for this unostentatious man. Watson would do …

And so Conan Doyle started work on the story he called ‘A Tangled Skein’. When it was complete he gave it a new title, ‘A Study in Scarlet’, and sent it out to the publishers. The Cornhill Magazine found it too long for a short story and too short for a novel. The firm of Arrowsmith kept the manuscript for three months and then returned it unread. Others also rejected it. Finally came a letter from Ward Lock & Co.:

Dear Sir,

We have read your story and are pleased with it. We could not publish it this year, as the market is flooded at present with cheap fiction, but if you do not object to its being held over till next year we will give you £25 for the copyright.

Yours faithfully,

Ward Lock & Co.

October 30th 1886

Arthur Conan Doyle towards the beginning of his career as an author. Collection of Roger Johnson and Jean Upton

Conan Doyle was not a rich man. After some hesitation, he accepted the offer, and the story became the leading item in Beeton’s Christmas Annual for 1887. Ward Lock continued to publish the story in various editions until their copyright expired. Arthur Conan Doyle later said that he never received another penny for it.

British literature was enjoying a great vogue in the United States because the copyright laws there protected only American authors and works first published in America. The situation was hard on British writers whose work was freely pirated (one judge said that it must not be protected, because no true American could ever owe anything to a Britisher) but it did introduce much good literature to the American public.

In 1889, J.M. Stoddart came to London from Philadelphia to commission new works for Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine. It says something for the success of his first book that Arthur Conan Doyle was one of three guests whom Stoddart invited to dinner at the Langham Hotel. The others were Thomas Patrick Gill MP and Oscar Wilde. Before the evening was over, Stoddart had commissioned a novel from each of the authors. From Wilde he got The Picture of Dorian Gray, and from Conan Doyle The Sign of the Four, the second exploit of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson.

Oscar Wilde was very complimentary about it, though he may not have realised that one of the principal characters, Thaddeus Sholto, had some of his own attributes, such as his taste for epigrams and his trick of speaking with a finger crooked across his mouth to hide his bad teeth.

Arthur Conan Doyle was then living in Southsea, but a fellow physician advised him to advance his career by specialising in London. He qualified in ophthalmology and put up his brass plate at 2 Upper Wimpole Street. Much later, he described the experience: ‘For £120 a year, I got the use of a front room with part use of a waiting room. I was soon to find that they were both waiting rooms, and now I know that it was better so.’

No patients entered his consulting room, but he kept himself busy anyway. The early issues of The Strand Magazine had appeared, and he had begun writing more stories about Sherlock Holmes. As he explained:

Considering these various journals with their disconnected stories, it had struck me that a single character running through a series, if it only engaged the attention of the reader, would bind that reader to that particular magazine. On the other hand, it had long seemed to me that the ordinary serial might be an impediment rather than a help to a magazine since, sooner or later, one missed one number, and afterwards it had lost all interest. Clearly the ideal compromise was a character which carried through, and yet instalments which were complete in themselves. I believe that I was the first to realise this, and the Strand magazine the first to put it into practice.

From the first, the editor liked the stories. He commissioned the artist Sidney Paget to illustrate them, and it is in Paget’s pictures that we first see the true Holmes portrayed.

It was almost entirely due to Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes that The Strand Magazine became by far the most popular periodical in Britain. The first twelve stories were immediately issued in book form as The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. The writer was happy, the publisher was happy, and above all the public were happy. Without too much regret, Conan Doyle finally gave up the scalpel for the pen.

What of the man whom Conan Doyle called ‘my old teacher, Joe Bell’ – Dr Joseph Bell, who lectured at the medical school at Edinburgh University? An example of his technique, as recorded by a student, has a familiar ring:

‘Well, my man, you’ve served in the army?’

‘Aye, sir.’

‘Not long discharged?’

‘No, sir.’

‘A Highland regiment?’

‘Aye, sir.’

‘A non-commissioned officer?’

‘Aye, sir.’

‘Stationed at Barbados?’

‘Aye, sir.’

‘You see, gentlemen, the man was a respectful man, but he did not remove his hat. They do not in the army, but he would have learned civilian ways had he been long discharged. He has an air of authority, and he is obviously Scottish. As to Barbados, his complaint is elephantiasis, which is West Indian, not British, and the Scottish regiments are at present in that particular island.’

Arthur Conan Doyle never hesitated to acknowledge that Dr Bell was the inspiration for Sherlock Holmes’s methods, and Bell himself was proud of the association.

As he approached the last story, Conan Doyle began to wonder if he was doing the right thing. He wrote to his mother: ‘I think of slaying Holmes and winding him up for good and all. He takes my mind from better things.’

Dr Joseph Bell in deerstalker and Inverness. Can anyone doubt his influence? Collection of Roger Johnson and Jean Upton

But the old lady knew a good thing when she saw one. She persuaded him to write a further series. He demanded £1,000 for these new tales, in those days a breathtaking sum, and the publishers agreed instantly. Even so, in the last of these adventures Holmes and the master criminal Professor Moriarty were sent plunging over the Reichenbach Falls, to lie for all time in ‘that dreadful cauldron of swirling water and seething foam’.

Conan Doyle definitely intended to kill Sherlock Holmes – and yet, in devising a suitably dramatic death, he chose one that would not require the body to be produced. This was something for which the public, and even Conan Doyle himself, were at last to be profoundly grateful.

It is said that when ‘The Final Problem’ was published in December 1893, members of the public wore mourning bands on their sleeves. Certainly letters of protest were written to author and publisher. In his memoirs, Conan Doyle gleefully quotes one, from a lady, which bluntly commenced: ‘You brute!’

Six years later, William Gillette became the living embodiment of the detective in his play Sherlock Holmes: A Drama in Four Acts, but there was nothing more from Conan Doyle, who was happily concentrating on the historical novels that he thought of as his important work.

Then in 1901, a friend, Bertram Fletcher Robinson, recounted the dramatic legend of a spectral hound that stalked Dartmoor by night. It was ideal material for a thrilling novel, and for the protagonist Conan Doyle naturally turned to the late Sherlock Holmes. The resulting story, The Hound of the Baskervilles, is the best known of all the detective’s adventures, but it was made...