Sherlock Holmes: Inspiring Lives E-Book

Roger Johnson

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 229

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

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.

Leseprobe

• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS •

WE’DLIKETOTHANK the following people who provided special assistance toward the completion of this book:

Scott Bond; Gyles Brandreth; Sue Collier and her staff at The Sherlock Holmes pub; Catherine Cooke; Michael Cox; Jeff Decker; Evelyn Herzog; Jon Lellenberg; Roger Llewellyn; Harold & Teddie Niver; Steven Rothman; Bill Vande Water; Sue Vertue, Steven Moffatt, Mark Gatiss and the Sherlock cast and crew; Michael Whelan and Mary Ann Bradley.

And the many friends and colleagues around the world who help to keep the memory green.

• CONTENTS •

Title

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Introduction ‘A friend of Mr Sherlock is always welcome’

1

‘May I introduce you to Mr Sherlock Holmes?’

2

‘A singular set of people, Watson’

3

‘That mixture of imagination and reality’

4

‘Your pictures are not unlike you’

5

‘It may have been a comedy, or it may have been a tragedy’

6

‘Dramatic entrances and exits’

7

‘A well-known voice’

8

‘Actors in this drama’

9

‘Confound that whining music; it gets on my nerves!’

10

‘The old rooms in Baker Street’

11

‘I’m a believer in the genius loci’

12

‘It really is rather like me, is it not?’

13

‘That’s what puzzles me, Mr Holmes’

14

‘Most singular and whimsical’

15

‘You have been at your club all day’

16

‘A fraudulent imitation, Watson’

17

‘Maybe you collect yourself, sir’

18

‘We know the code’

Bibliography ‘Several trustworthy books of reference’

Copyright

• FOREWORD •

BY GYLES BRANDRETH

NOTRUE HOLMESIANWILL want to be without this wonderful book – and I am a true Holmesian. I really am.

I am a Londoner. I was brought up in Baker Street. My parents lived in a block of flats called Chiltern Court, immediately above Baker Street tube station. It is a block with an interesting literary heritage. H.G. Wells lived at Chiltern Court. Arnold Bennett died there. From my parents’ sitting-room window you looked over Baker Street itself onto what was the Abbey National Building Society headquarters, regarded by many as the location of 221B Baker Street. So, when I was a boy, Sherlock Holmes was not simply my hero: I felt he was my neighbour.

And when I left London and was sent away to boarding school, I took Holmes with me – and decided to bring him to life. At school, in my early teens, I read (and re-read) the complete Holmes canon, as well as William S. Baring-Gould’s 1962 ‘biography’ of my hero, and decided that I would write my own Sherlock Holmes drama. I wrote a play (my first play!) and called it A Study in Sherlock. I cast a 12-year-old friend of mine in the title role. His name was Simon Cadell and he went on to become a professional actor of distinction. You may remember him from Hamlet – or Hi-De-Hi. As Holmes, Simon, aged 12, was definitive – rivalled only (in my mind) by Jeremy Brett a few years later.

After school and university, I maintained my enthusiasm for Holmes, reading and re-reading the stories, both for pleasure and, in moments of crisis, for comfort. (Holmes, Watson and their world give us what a great poet once described as ‘the security of known relationships’.) When I was a member of parliament, my happiest hours were spent curled up in a red leather armchair in the library of the House of Commons, taking refuge from the hurly-burly (or tedium) of the chamber in the company of the world’s foremost consulting detective.

It was in the Library of the House of Commons that I came across the autobiography of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It was reading this biography (first published in 1926) that I discovered that Conan Doyle – creator of my fictional hero, Sherlock Holmes – had known (and admired) my other life-long hero, Oscar Wilde. The pair met in 1889, in London, at the newly built Langham Hotel, in Portland Place. They were brought together by an American publisher, J.M. Stoddart. Evidently, Wilde, then 35, was on song that night and Conan Doyle, 30, was impressed – and charmed. ‘It was a golden evening for me,’ he wrote. The upshot of it was threefold: Stoddart got to publish Arthur Conan Doyle’s second Sherlock Holmes story, TheSign of the Four, and Oscar Wilde’s novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and, more than a century later, I began writing a series of Victorian murder mysteries featuring Oscar Wilde as my detective (more Mycroft than Sherlock Holmes, of course) with Dr Arthur Conan Doyle as his Dr Watson.

And this fascination of mine with the friendship between Wilde and Conan Doyle led directly to my friendship with Roger Johnson and Jean Upton, whose remarkable Sherlock Holmes Miscellany you now hold in your hand – or have before your eyes, should you be reading this on a tablet. It is a truly wonderful book – entertaining, engaging, surprising – and it is the work of two wonderful people who know the world of Holmes better than anyone else I know. I thought that the meeting between Wilde and Conan Doyle, these two great literary myth-makers, merited a commemorative plaque on the exterior of the Langham Hotel – and Johnson and Upton, alongside fellow members of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London and the Oscar Wilde Society, made it happen. (When you are next in Portland Place, please take a look at the plaque. We are proud of our endeavour.)

Jean Upton was born and brought up in Wyncote, Pennsylvania, in a house formerly occupied by Christopher Morley, who, in 1934, founded the Baker Street Irregulars. At the age of 6 Jean read her first Sherlock Holmes story, ‘The Engineer’s Thumb’. In the 1980s she joined the Sherlock Holmes Society of London and made annual visits to Britain for the Society’s weekend excursions. In 1992 she married Roger Johnson. (Rumour has it, Roger proposed at the Reichenbach Falls...) A very special guest at their wedding was Sir Arthur’s daughter, Dame Jean Conan Doyle.

Roger Johnson was born and still lives in Chelmsford. He worked for nearly forty years as a librarian with Essex County Council Libraries and has been a member of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London since 1968. In 1982 he started the Society’s newsletter, The District Messenger, which he still writes and distributes. Since 2007 he has also edited The Sherlock Holmes Journal. Thanks to the newsletter, he is in touch with Sherlock Holmes groups throughout the world, and holds honorary membership in societies in Australia, Canada, France, the USA and the UK.

Both Roger and Jean are members of the senior American society, the Baker Street Irregulars, and of the Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes... If that piques your curiosity, all is explained in the chapter entitled ‘You have been at your club all day’ – but do not rush to it right away. Read this book from start to finish and revel in every page. It is the ultimate vade mecum for Holmesians everywhere. It is the one book that has been missing from the shelf of the true Sherlockian. It has got all the stuff in it that you would expect – and so much you wouldn’t. It is a labour of love and a model of scholarship. Behold the fruit of pensive nights and laborious days, dear reader – and enjoy.

Gyles Brandreth,

2012

• INTRODUCTION •

‘A FRIEND OF MR SHERLOCK IS ALWAYS WELCOME’

WHATISITTHAT we love about Sherlock Holmes? In 1946, Edgar W. Smith, editor of The Baker Street Journal, attempted to explain:

We love the times in which he lived, of course: the half-remembered, half-forgotten times of snug Victorian illusion, of gaslit comfort and contentment, of perfect dignity and grace …

But there is more than time and space and the yearning for things gone by to account for what we feel toward Sherlock Holmes. Not only there and then, but here and now, he stands before us as a symbol – a symbol, if you please, of all that we are not, but ever would be. His figure is sufficiently remote to make our secret aspirations for transference seem unshameful, yet close enough to give them plausibility. We see him as the fine expression of our urge to trample evil and to set aright the wrongs with which the world is plagued. He is Galahad and Socrates, bringing high adventure to our dull existences and calm, judicial logic to our biased minds. He is the success of all our failures; the bold escape from our imprisonment.

Or, if this be too complex a psychological basis to account for our devotion, let it be said, more simply, that he is the personification of something in us that we have lost, or never had. For it is not Sherlock Holmes who sits in Baker Street, comfortable, competent and self-assured: it is we ourselves who are there, full of a tremendous capacity for wisdom, complacent in the presence of our humble Watson, conscious of a warm well-being and a timeless imperishable content. The easy chair in the room is drawn up to the hearthstone of our very hearts … And the time and place and all the great events are near and dear to us not because our memories call them forth in pure nostalgia, but because they are a part of us today.

That is the Sherlock Holmes we love – the Holmes implicit and eternal in ourselves.

It is difficult to improve upon those sentiments. We have been devoted to Sherlock Holmes from a very early age and with the recent phenomenal resurgence of interest in the ‘Great Detective’, we are coming into contact with many people who are only just learning about this eccentric but charming little world of ours. Some novices are interested only in films and television, others are eagerly devouring the original stories, and, gratifyingly, there are also those who wish to dip their toes in the vast ocean of canonical scholarship.

The Sherlockian world is large, with room for everyone. Back in 1971, Dr Julian Wolff – Smith’s successor at The Baker Street Journal – made a telling comment: ‘It is well known that the purpose (and delight) of the Baker Street Irregulars is to pursue the study of that great body of Sherlockian literature. Now I hope I shall not be impeached for heresy when I say that an equally great and delightful purpose is the forging of true friendships.’ It is the sharing of this interest with others that makes it such fun and also keeps Sherlock Holmes alive for yet another generation.

For more than a century books have been written on the subject of Holmes and his world; it would be impossible to compress all of that information into a single, small volume such as this. It would also be idiotic to try. When describing Professor Moriarty, Holmes remarks: ‘He sits motionless, like a spider in the centre of its web, but that web has a thousand radiations …’ This book is intended to be like that spider, but in a good way. We’ve tried to provide some basic information on a number of topics with links to where you can find out more; it’s then up to you to follow any of those ‘thousand radiations’.

As we said, the Sherlockian world is a friendly one, so we’ve included quite a lot of information on its population. If you have a specific query or are having difficulty trying to track down a particular book or reference, help is always only an email or a phone call away.

Join the Grand Game!

• 1 •

‘MAY I INTRODUCE YOU TO MR SHERLOCK HOLMES?’

HOWEXACTLYDOESONE first become introduced to Sherlock Holmes? Even if you have not yet discovered the original stories, you’ll know that Holmes is omnipresent in everyday life. His name has become a byword, whether used sarcastically or admiringly, for someone who investigates matters or solves troublesome problems. His iconic image appears in cartoons, greetings cards and advertisements. His exploits are dramatised for the stage, radio, audio recordings, television and cinema screen. With the advent of the internet there are countless websites, blogs, discussion groups and tweets. Quotations from the stories have been gradually absorbed into our conversations (how often have you heard someone refer to ‘the dog in the night-time’?). With the plethora of media now available, it is very nearly impossible to escape the influence of Sherlock Holmes.

But what about that initial, early awareness of the Great Detective? American children born in the 1940s or ’50s would most likely have first encountered Sherlock Holmes in the Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce films that were enjoying a renaissance on our tiny black-and-white television screens. He also featured in the cartoons shown on children’s television programmes, either as an idealised character, or with a familiar cartoon personality, togged up with a pipe, magnifying lens and deerstalker.

British children of the same generation were less aware of the films of Rathbone and Bruce until much later in life. For them, the radio series starring Carleton Hobbs and Norman Shelley paved the way to dreams (or nightmares) of adventure, soon followed by the 1960s television productions with Douglas Wilmer or Peter Cushing as Holmes and Nigel Stock as Dr Watson. Some young Britons were even lucky enough to find old forgotten copies of The Strand Magazine tucked away in an aged relative’s attic.

Regardless of where we grew up, most of us can recall reading our first Conan Doyle-penned stories by the age of around 10 or 11. What a treat they were! Poisonous snakes, ancient rituals, daring burglaries, mysterious noises from behind the door in the tower … What more could one ask for? Well, more of the same – and what a joy it was to discover at the library or local bookshop that there were more. We found that the short stories were divided into delicious chunks of books: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, The Return of Sherlock Holmes, His Last Bow, and The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes. Once these morsels were devoured, we feasted on the novellas, or long stories: A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of Four, The Valley of Fear and The Hound of the Baskervilles.

Beeton’s Christmas Annual for 1887. The main feature is A Study in Scarlet – the first story of Sherlock Holmes. Collection of Roger Johnson and Jean Upton

For some brave young souls TheHound was the first story they read, much to the consternation of countless parents who had to deal with the results of the inevitable nightmares. Another trauma for young minds was the death of Sherlock Holmes, as recounted in ‘The Final Problem’. Many adult Sherlockians of our acquaintance admit that they could never bring themselves to re-read the story, so deep-seated and memorable was the distress caused by this incident. Not even the rapture of discovering that Holmes had not perished could erase this aversion.

If you are one of those rare beasts, an adult who has not yet read the original stories, then hesitate no longer. Curl up in an armchair by the fire while twilight creeps in, prop yourself up in bed with a restorative cup of tea, laze in a shady garden or on a sun-drenched beach; regardless of where you are, Holmes is the ideal companion.

‘THEBESTANDTHEWISESTMANWHOM I HAVEEVERKNOWN’

Young Stamford looked rather strangely at me over his wine-glass. ‘You don’t know Sherlock Holmes yet,’ he said; ‘perhaps you would not care for him as a constant companion.’

A Study in Scarlet

What is so special about Conan Doyle’s creation, and how has he so adeptly endured the test of time? Holmes gradually became a real, living and breathing being in the eyes of the public for a number of reasons. The obvious place to start is with the sheer ingenuity of his creator. Arthur Conan Doyle was a cracking storyteller, coming up with characters and plots that amazed and delighted his publishers and his readers. The impecunious young doctor was keen to earn money from his writing and needed to appeal to a wide audience, so his style was simple and direct but never patronising. Everyone could enjoy the stories, from the enthusiastic child to the sophisticated adult.

The novels of Charles Dickens and many other authors of the time were serialised in monthly publications. But what if the reader missed a month’s episode? In many instances, interest was lost in the story and further issues were not purchased. Conan Doyle recognised the wisdom of offering the reader a complete adventure in each issue of a magazine and suggested it to his publishers. Fortunately, the proprietors of The Strand Magazine agreed with this revolutionary philosophy, and Sherlock Holmes became the first literary character to appear in a continuing series.

Thanks to his regular scheduled appearances in TheStrand Magazine, Sherlock Holmes very soon came to have a special place in his readers’s lives, and in their homes. As with any new acquaintance, each meeting provided more information about his intriguing personality and his idiosyncratic lifestyle. In another masterly touch, the author provided just enough physical description to satisfy the reader and allow each individual to form in his or her own mind their own vision of Sherlock Holmes. Illustrators added to the picture that was forming, but it is fair to say that we all have our own interpretation of how Holmes looks and behaves, which is why we so often have strong feelings for or against a particular actor who has taken the role.

Crucially, Sherlock Holmes inhabited the same world as his readers. Much of the fiction of the time dealt with improbable romances, exotic locations or rarefied lifestyles. Holmes, however, walked the familiar streets and patronised the same shops, restaurants, theatres and concert halls frequented by his public. One wonders how many readers experienced a frisson at the notion that the tall young man just ahead of them in the queue at the Wigmore Street Post Office might be Sherlock Holmes … Even in the twenty-first century, much of Holmes’s London is still tangible and we can continue to follow in his footsteps.

• 2 •

‘A SINGULAR SET OF PEOPLE, WATSON’

WHENONEENTERSTHE world of Sherlock Holmes, one is almost inevitably drawn to the world of Sherlock Holmes enthusiasts. Initially known as Sherlockians in the United States and Holmesians in the UK, the terms are now pretty much interchangeable and used according to each individual’s preference. Doyleans, on the other hand, have a more expanded interest in the life and other works of Arthur Conan Doyle, although one can easily be both a Sherlockian (or Holmesian) and a Doylean.

There are a number of misconceptions about Holmes aficionados. Many people, especially members of the media, think that we all:

•  Go everywhere dressed in Victorian clothing

•  Hold meetings that entirely revolve around murder mystery weekends

•  Have long, boring conversations about every tiny detail in the stories

•  Belong to secret societies that are incredibly difficult to join

•  Actually believe that Sherlock Holmes was a real person

•  Are generally a bunch of sad, lonely weirdos

In fact:

When the Sherlock Holmes Society of London makes its occasional trips to Switzerland, we do dress as characters from the stories. It’s part of the experience and provides a great deal of amusement. There are also times when a few of us are requested to turn up in costume for special occasions, such as charity events or business launches, in order to generate publicity. Some of us are reasonably expert on Victorian and Edwardian attire and have provided assistance for museum exhibitions and dramatic productions. But most of the time we look like normal people.

•  A few of our friends do run murder mystery events as a sideline. However, to our knowledge this is not anyone’s sole source of entertainment.

•  Most of the time we talk about almost everything except Sherlock Holmes. But, as with all literary societies, there always will be a few hard-headed scholars who need to learn to loosen up a bit. If one of the bores manages to corner you at a meeting, someone will swiftly come to your rescue before your eyes glaze over.

•  There are hundreds of Sherlockian societies, nearly all of which are very easy to join. The one that maintains a degree of intrigue about it is the Baker Street Irregulars; one becomes a BSI by invitation only.

•  Believe it or not, we do know that Sherlock Holmes was a creation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The concept of pretending that Conan Doyle was Watson’s literary agent and that Holmes was real is known as ‘The Grand Game’ amongst those who play it. There’s more about this elsewhere in the book.

•  We’re actually a very sociable bunch and rather a lot of fun!

Anthony D. Howlett in character as Professor Moriarty, with the Reichenbach Falls behind him, on the Sherlock Holmes Society of London’s 1991 Swiss pilgrimage. Photo copyright Jean Upton

There are hundreds of societies that encompass all ages, interests and walks of life. Several people of our acquaintance used to bring their toddlers to meetings; these toddlers have now grown into enthusiastic adult members of the societies. The recent annual dinner of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London, for example, was attended by several teenagers, a couple of nonagenarians and all ages in between. Members of the different societies to which we belong have included former US presidents, taxi drivers, librarians, doctors, lawyers, artists, actors, members of parliament, teachers, travel agents, armed forces personnel, science-fiction writers, police officers, used-car salesmen, students, computer programmers … the list just goes on and on. The important factor is that we all love Sherlock Holmes.

• 3 •

‘THAT MIXTURE OF IMAGINATION AND REALITY’

• SHERLOCK HOLMES – FACTAND FICTION •

A NUMBEROFYEARS 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: