The most famous detective in the literary world came from the pen of Arthur Conan Doyle and is still a recognized favorite of the public. The recognizable character acquired its own characteristic features, certain attributes that allow him not to get lost among other heroes and be familiar even to those who have not even met the work of Conan Doyle. To this day, film adaptations of the numerous adventures of this detective in the form of films and serials remain relevant. The characterization of Sherlock Holmes will help to present this character as he was conceived by his creator.

Brief information

Sherlock Holmes is the hero of detective stories and short stories by Arthur Conan Doyle. His image of an observant genius, able to unravel any case and solve even the most complex puzzle, is complemented by the image of a true friend - Dr. Watson, a simpler and more ordinary person. Arthur Conan Doyle devoted thirty-one years of his life (from 1886 to 1917) to the great detective, popularizing the detective novel genre and generating many followers and admirers. The characterization of Sherlock Holmes cannot be unambiguous, since even this character himself cannot be called unambiguous.

"Sherlock Holmes is a great man, and maybe one day, with great luck, he will become more understandable"

The image of Sherlock Holmes was formed at the turn of the era, at a time when the world in which Arthur Conan Doyle and his characters lived could only be described by one epithet - contradictory.

The detective can be immediately identified as a decadent, Victorian and neo-romantic hero. Why does the characterization of Sherlock Holmes reach such extremes? Because each direction had a strong enough influence on the formation of the image that was so remembered by the readers.

Victorian Sherlock Holmes

It is the prototype of the character of the real Victorian novel. But what is included in this definition?

Previously, it was believed that a gentleman is a person of noble birth, provided enough to live without working. Therefore, the occupations of such persons were of an amateur nature, and their qualities included the ability to improvise, the presence of a free mind and a love of experimentation.

Over time, the criteria became more and more blurred, and as a result, for the definition of a gentleman, his character traits, personality traits became more important, and not a Gentleman is an example of nobility, a code of honor, gallantry and intelligence, equanimity under any circumstances.

So who is Sherlock Holmes? The characteristic of the hero contains all these qualities, so he may well be called a gentleman. In addition, he is quite wealthy, and he is engaged in investigating crimes solely for his own pleasure in order to dispel boredom.

But still, he doesn't quite fit this image.

Decadence - the aesthetics of the end of the century

Decadence is an extreme, it is opposition to the old system. It was expressed in contempt for the ordinary, it was stormy, not stiff, individual and creative, instead of normal and accepted. And who will argue that all this does not suit our hero? The characteristic of Sherlock Holmes, after all, is precisely this - he cannot be called ordinary. And if something aroused interest in him, then everything else became unimportant: the time of day did not play a role in the detective's activity schedule, only the desire to eliminate boredom, to unravel another riddle, remained important.

Neo-romantic Sherlock Holmes

The characterization as a self-sufficient and amateur person, independent in actions and judgments - this is how the character came to the fore in neo-romanticism. The same features are characteristic of Mr. Holmes. Just like neo-romantic heroes, he fights for justice in his microcosm, not seeking to solve global universal problems.

and drug addiction

One of the reasons why Sherlock Holmes cannot be classified as Victorian literature is that the hero does not promote family values. Relations with relatives of the detective are strained, for the entire cycle only the older brother Mycroft is mentioned, who is rather a stranger or enemy than a friend, and there is a reference to his nephew (only once).

In addition, Holmes has a passion that is closer to decadence than to prim Victorian gentlemen - drugs, morphine and cocaine. In those days when these substances still walked along the sharp edge between medications and harmful to the body, the detective's addictions did not seem unambiguously harmful, but they left a bad imprint, clearly separating stories from family books.

Features of the novels of Conan Doyle and the deductive method of Holmes

The characterization of Sherlock Holmes focuses on his unique and inquisitive mind. The same distinguishes all the stories about the detective: Arthur Conan Doyle does not relish the aesthetics of the murder, he does not consider it aesthetic, most of the attention is paid to reflection, the course of action, intellectuality and psychology.

You can also notice that an amateur detective often acts not according to the laws of England, but according to the laws of honor, his own principles - he can let the criminal go if he thinks that he was right in his actions. And this is not an isolated case. Villains in the adventures of Holmes can not always even be called such - they are always stories of love and betrayal, friends and enemies, and they are rarely committed for the sake of only one evil.

In the short story "The Drawings of Bruce-Partington", set in November 1895, Mycroft Holmes is described thus:

Portly, even heavy-set, he seemed to be the embodiment of great potential physical strength, but above this massive body towered a head with such a magnificent forehead of a thinker, with such penetrating, deep-set eyes the color of steel, with such a firmly defined mouth and such a subtle play of facial expression that you they immediately forgot about the clumsy body and distinctly felt only the powerful intellect dominating it.

He occupies a significant position in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, although when Holmes did not know Watson well enough, he said that his brother "checks the financial statements in one ministry." Sherlock in the same story "Drawings of Bruce-Partington" tells Watson about his brother:

He is in the service of the British government. And it is just as true that he is sometimes the British government itself.<…>Mycroft earns £450 a year, occupies a subordinate position, has not the slightest ambition, renounces titles and titles, and yet is the most independent man in all of England.<…>You see, he has a very special role, and he created it for himself, he himself<…>He is handed the conclusions of all departments, he is the center, the clearinghouse where the overall balance is summed up.<…>In his powerful brain, everything is sorted out and can be presented at any time. More than once, his one word decided the issue of state policy - he lives in it, all his thoughts are only absorbed by that.

Holmes also noted that Mycroft's specialty is "to know everything". Like Sherlock, Mycroft is brilliant with the "deductive method", even greatly surpassing his brother in his possession, but does not use it as a working tool, here is what Sherlock says about this: “If the art of the detective began and ended with thinking in a dead chair, my brother Mycroft would be the world's greatest crime-solver. But he has no ambition and no energy.”. Mycroft is also one of the founding members of the Diogenes Whitehall Club, which brings together the most unsociable people in London. He rarely communicates with Sherlock: in the story “Drawings of Bruce-Partington,” Sherlock says that Mycroft only once visited him on Baker Street, and by that time the detective had lived there for more than 10 years. Mycroft calls Sherlock "my boy" and the detective says "dear Mycroft" to his brother.

Mary Morstan

First appears in the work " The Sign of Four", as a client. Until the age of seventeen, she was brought up in a private boarding school in Edinburgh.

It was a very young girl, blonde, fragile, graceful, dressed with impeccable taste and impeccably clean gloves. But in her clothes there was noticeable that modesty, if not simplicity, which suggests cramped circumstances. She wore a dress of dark gray wool, without any trim, and a small hat of the same gray tone, which was slightly enlivened by a white feather on the side. Her face was pale, and her features were not distinguished by regularity, but the expression of this face was sweet and inviting, and her big blue eyes shone with spirituality and kindness.

Chapter II "We get acquainted with the case", the novel "The Sign of the Four"

Mary was supposed to inherit wealth, but at the last moment they were lost. Immediately after it turned out, Watson confessed his love for her. Subsequently, they decided to get married, which Holmes was extremely upset about.

Holmes let out a cry of despair. - I was so afraid of it! - he said. - No, I can't congratulate you.
- You don't like my choice? I asked, slightly hurt.
- I like it (...) But love is an emotional thing, and being such, it is the opposite of a pure and cold mind.

The death of Mary Morstan is mentioned in passing by Sherlock Holmes in the story "The Empty House" with the words:

Somehow Holmes managed to learn about the death of my wife, but his sympathy manifested itself rather in a tone,
than in words.
“Work is the best antidote to grief, dear Watson,” he said, “and it’s waiting for you and me tonight.”
such work that a person who manages to successfully bring it to the end will be able to boldly say,
that he had not lived his life in vain.

Prior to this, Watson himself says that his wife gave birth to a son, but both the son and Mrs. Watson died. After her death, Watson moves back to Baker Street.

police officers

Mr. Lestrade

Hopkins appears in the short story "Gold-rimmed pince-nez", set in 1894, where he is referred to as "a young, up-and-coming detective in whose career Holmes took an interest." In the short story Black Peter, set in 1895, there is a description of Hopkins by Dr. Watson:

“A thin, agile man of about thirty entered us. He wore a modest woolen suit, but his bearing showed that he was accustomed to wearing a military uniform. I immediately recognized Stanley Hopkins, a young police inspector who, in Holmes's opinion, showed great promise. Hopkins, in turn, considered himself a student of the famous detective and admired his scientific methods.

He comes from a good family, received an excellent education and is naturally endowed with phenomenal mathematical abilities. When he was twenty-one years old, he wrote a treatise on Newton's binomial, which won him European fame. After that, he received a chair in mathematics at one of our provincial universities, and, in all likelihood, a bright future awaited him. But the blood of a criminal flows in his veins. He has a genetic propensity for cruelty. And his extraordinary mind not only does not moderate, but even strengthens this tendency and makes it even more dangerous. Dark rumors spread about him on the campus where he taught, and in the end he was forced to leave the department and move to London, where he began to prepare young people for the officer's examination ...

The most brilliant mind in Europe, who also leads all the forces of hell.

Also, Holmes describes him as the "Napoleon of the underworld". This phrase was borrowed by Arthur Conan Doyle from one of the Scotland Yard inspectors in the case of Adam Worth, an international criminal of the 19th century, who served as the prototype of the literary Moriarty.

It is curious to note that Professor Moriarty, who has become a vivid example of a fictional villain and even managed to become a nomadic character in culture (as well as the “femme fatale”, Irene Adler), directly appears in the original works of Conan Doyle in only one story - “The Last Case Holmes". In addition, there is a description of Moriarty's appearance:

This man looks amazingly like a Presbyterian preacher, he has such a thin face, and gray hair, and stilted speech. Saying goodbye, he put his hand on my shoulder - just like a father, blessing his son to meet the cruel, cold world.

Possesses untold wealth. Uses every opportunity to hide his position, since his official income as a professor is approximately seven hundred pounds a year. Here is how he himself speaks about this:

... He tries to hide the extent of his wealth. Not a single person should know this. I think he has at least twenty bank accounts, and it is likely that the main capital is located abroad, somewhere in Germany or France.

Also appears in books that are a continuation of the Sherlock Holmes stories, but written by other authors. For example, in the novel by Jamyang Norbu "The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes", as well as in the novels by D. Gardner "The Return of Moriarty" (Russian translation was published in 2012 by the publishing house "Veche", ISBN 978-5-9533-5837-8), "Revenge of Moriarty" (Russian translation was published in 2012 by the publishing house "Veche", ISBN 978-5-9533-6010-4), "Moriarty. The Last Chapter ”(Russian translation was published in 2012 by the Veche publishing house, ISBN 978-5-9533-6011-1), in which there is no longer Sherlock Holmes.

Sherlock Holmes clients

The clients of the famous detective were people from the lowest stratum to kings (“A Scandal in Bohemia”). Most often, Holmes sees the client in advance, standing at the window. He brings this to the attention of Dr. Watson, talking about how they are looking for a house at 221-B Baker Street. After Holmes solves the riddle of the client, the latter ceases to be interesting to him, and Holmes no longer communicates with him.

Sherlock Holmes is a private detective doing his job out of "love of art". Solving difficult intellectual problems for him is a kind of drug. Without a job, Holmes becomes depressed and may start taking cocaine.

Holmes calls his method of solving crimes deductive. Its essence is in taking into account the smallest details, using strict logic and identifying cause-and-effect relationships. The key points of Holmes's work are observation and expert knowledge (he could determine the brand of a cigar from the remains of the ashes).

... By one drop of water, a person who knows how to think logically can conclude that the Atlantic Ocean or Niagara Falls can exist, even if he has not seen either one or the other and has never heard of them. Every life is a huge chain of causes and effects, and we can know its nature by one link...

Initially, Holmes looks like a rather one-sided man, obsessed with his work (the great detective did not know the structure of the solar system). He believed that only special knowledge was important. Everything else only prevents a person from being a professional in his field. Nevertheless, Holmes plays the violin well, boxing, owns different types of weapons, understands politics, etc.

...it seems to me that the human brain is like a small empty attic that you can furnish as you wish. The fool will drag in there any junk that comes to hand, and there will be nowhere to stick useful, necessary things, or at best, you won’t get to the bottom of them among all this rubble. And an intelligent person carefully selects what he puts in his brain attic. He will take only the tools that he will need for his work, but there will be a lot of them, and he will arrange everything in an exemplary order ...

Holmes is of high spiritual quality and often performs work for nominal pay in order to save the innocent, protect the weak, and find out the truth. He is a good friend and a confirmed bachelor.

Sherlock Holm is the most famous fictional detective and has been the subject of many books (in addition to the canonical series) and films.

Here are some film incarnations of the detective.

Basil Rathbone. The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939).

Peter Cushing. The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959).

Nikolay Volkov. The Hound of the Baskervilles (1971).

Roger Moore. Sherlock Holmes in New York (1976).

Vasily Livanov. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson (1979).

Jeremy Brett. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1984-1985).

Robert Downey. The Younger Sherlock Holmes (2009).

Benedict Cumberbatch Sherlock (2010 - ...)

Igor Petrenko. Sherlock Holmes (2013).

Ian McKellen. Mister Holmes (2015).

Beloved Sherlock Holmes, the wife of Dr. Watson - Mary Morstan, in the stories about the adventures of the most famous detective in the world is given very little space. Why did this happen and what is the fate of this woman?

Mary's early years

Mary Morstan was born in 1860 (according to other sources, in 1861) in the family of the British military Arthur Morstan. The exact place of her birth is not specified. Most likely, this is India, where Captain Morstan served.

Judging by Mary's appearance, which is described as a pretty blonde with blue eyes, her mother was European or English, but not Indian. Although such marriages were not uncommon among the British military in the XIX century. This woman was probably not in very good health, which was aggravated by the climate of India: Mrs. Morstan died when Mary was very tiny. Or maybe it was some kind of hereditary disease that subsequently killed Mary.

The girl's father was not a rich man, although his military career in India went uphill. And he had no wealthy friends or relatives. After the death of his wife, he had no one to leave his daughter with, so he sent her to Edinburgh, to a private boarding house.

The fate of Mary after the death of her mother, before meeting her future husband

All her childhood years, until 1878, Mary Morstan spent in a boarding house. She had not seen her father until that time.

The story does not specify the exact reason why it was in 1878 that Captain Arthur Morsten decided to take a vacation and, after many years of absence, return to his homeland and demand his share of the treasure from Major Sholto. Probably his daughter was the culprit. After all, by that time she had turned 17 - and at that age girls leave boarding schools. Most likely, Morsten planned, having got his share of the money, to take care of his daughter during the year of vacation. This was hinted at by his telegram to Mary. If this happened, Miss Morstan would become one of the richest brides in the UK.

However, fate in an instant deprived the girl of all hopes. Arriving at the hotel to her father, Mary Morstan finds out about his disappearance.

Left without a beloved father and having no relatives who could provide for an orphan, the girl was forced to get a job as a companion to Mrs. Cecil Forrester. Although the woman was sympathetic to her, she paid Mary very little, because of which the girl was very poor.

4 years after her father went missing, Mary found out that an unknown person was looking for her through an ad in The Times. Having given this man her address, Miss Morstan began to receive annually a large and very expensive pearl.

After 6 years, the same unknown sent Mary an invitation to meet. However, the girl was afraid to go to the meeting alone and turned to the private detective Sherlock Holmes.

The story "The Sign of Four": the first acquaintance with Miss Morstan

Arriving at 221-b Baker Street, the girl met Sherlock Holmes and his biographer, Dr. John Watson. It is with this that the events of Arthur Conan Doyle's story - "The Sign of the Four" begin.

After learning Mary's story, Sherlock and John agree to help her. It is worth noting that Watson immediately liked Miss Morstan, and Holmes noticed this and reacted rather negatively to this.

Arriving at a meeting with Tadeusz Sholto, the future wife of Dr. Watson learned the truth about her father's death. It turns out that while in India, Morsten and Sholto conspired with a prisoner named Jonathan Small. He told them where the treasures of the rajah of the northern provinces were, and in return asked them to organize an escape for him and his three friends.

However, Sholto was stingy and mean: he single-handedly took possession of the valuables and left with them for England. After some time, Morsten visited him and demanded his share. During the quarrel, the captain became ill and died, and Sholto, fearing that he would be considered a murderer, hid the body and only on his deathbed told his sons about what had happened.

Since the major died before he could tell where the treasure was, his 6-year-old children could not find it. At this time, they sent pearls to Mary so that she would not need anything. When the treasure was found, the Sholto brothers wanted to meet the girl and give her a third of the treasure.

But the deceived convict Jonathan Small managed to return to England. Together with his assistant - a native from the Andaman Islands, Small stole a treasure chest. When Sherlock and the police got on his trail, he threw the jewels into the Thames.

Thus, for the second time in her life, Mary lost her chance to get rich. However, fate had mercy: upon learning that she was poor, Watson confessed his feelings to her and made an offer. Soon Dr. Watson and Mary Morstan got married and began to live separately from Sherlock.

The married life of the Watson couple

Little is known about the years of Mary's marriage. It is mentioned that she gave birth to a son to Watson, and in 1893 (or 1894) both mother and child died.

After the death of Mary Watson, he returned to Holmes again and continued to be his partner.

As for the mention of this heroine in the works of Conan Doyle, after The Sign of the Four, Mrs. Watson appeared in two more stories: The Hunchback and The Boscombe Valley Mystery. By the time The Norwood Contractor came out, she was dead.

Cause of death of Mary Watson

Why the wife and son died in the books is not really told. A popular version is that the cause of this was some kind of infectious disease. At the same time, the true reason why Conan Doyle "killed" Watson's young wife is widely known.

The fact is that writing stories about Holmes periodically bothered the writer. He was more willing to write fantasy stories a la HG Wells. However, detective stories were paid significantly more than others. Therefore, although he twice tried to complete the cycle of stories about Sherlock Holmes, first by killing his hero and then marrying Watson, later the writer returned to him again.

After the wedding, it became necessary to return the doctor to Holmes in Baker Street. And for this, the author had to "bring to the grave" the unfortunate Mary and her child.

The fate of Mary Elizabeth Morstan according to the creators of the series "Sherlock"

Unlike Irene Adler, Mary's character does not appear in all adaptations of Arthur Conan Doyle's stories. But even if she is shown, as a rule, the girl’s biography is not really changed.

However, in the modernized British film adaptation - the series "Sherlock", Mary is given a lot of attention, and her biography is quite changed. What is she?

As in the original, in the series the heroine is an orphan, only her name is Rosamund Mary. Having matured, the girl chooses the profession of a mercenary, and soon becomes very successful. Together with her 3 colleagues, she formed the AGRA group and performed various tasks for the elimination and rescue of people for money.

One day, while on a mission for the British government, AGRA was betrayed. As a result, only Rosamund managed to survive. She abandoned the past and, taking on the new name "Mary Morstan", began working as a nurse in one of London's hospitals.

Here she met John Watson and they began an affair. Six months later, the lovers got married, and Mary became pregnant. The all-powerful blackmailer Charles Magnussen found out about Mrs. Watson's past and began to pursue her. But Sherlock and John, having learned the truth, helped Mary escape punishment.

After 9 months, she gave birth to Watson's daughter Rosamund. But it soon became clear that one of her comrades from AGRA was also alive and, considering Mary a traitor, wanted to kill her.

Sherlock manages to find out that Vivian, an employee of the British government, was the culprit. Exposed, she tried to kill the detective, but the bullet accidentally hit Mary and she died.

Thus, as in the book, Watson returned to Baker Street again.

Other important stories about Sherlock Holmes

In addition to Mrs. Watson, there are 2 more important characters in the book: Sherlock - the swindler Irene Adler, and the mistress of the detective's apartment - Mission Hudson. What is known about them?

Irene Adler, unlike book Mary, was not only a brilliant beauty, but also an adventurer. She was born in New Jersey (USA) in 1858. Possessing not only beauty, but also a fantastic voice, the girl managed to make an excellent career as an opera singer in Italy and Poland.

While touring in Warsaw, Adler became the mistress of the King of Bohemia. And some time after breaking up with him, she left the stage and moved to London. Here she meets the British lawyer Godfrey Norton and secretly marries him.

Being a very practical person, Irene hides a photo shared with the king, with which you can blackmail the monarch. Sherlock manages to find the hiding place, but Adler unravels his plan and, together with her husband, manages to escape, taking a photo. In her farewell letter, she promises not to blackmail the king unless he tries to harm her.

Irene died somewhere in 1888-1891. The details of her death are unknown.

Mrs Hudson is another woman that Sherlock Holmes appreciated. The biographies of Mary Morstan and Irene Adler are more or less detailed in the books. But there is no such detailed information about the life of Mrs. Hudson, it is only specified that she is a widow. Moreover, smart, economic and very clean. Also, the book does not mention her name, however, as well as her appearance.

While Mrs. Hudson is hard to get along with Sherlock, his politeness and generosity to her make up for his antics. In addition, she understands that her tenant is doing a good deed, and sometimes she herself helps him.

100 Great Literary Heroes [with illustrations] Eremin Viktor Nikolaevich

Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes

“He was not a great writer; he cannot be compared with such geniuses of English literature as Swift, Defoe, Fielding, Thackeray, Dickens,” said the domestic writer, translator and outstanding literary critic K.I. Chukovsky (1882–1969). To clarify: Conan Doyle could have become a great writer (just remember his wonderful historical novel The White Squad about the events of the Hundred Years War), but was ruined by the main literary hero of his work and life - Sherlock Holmes. The paradox, apparently, lies in the fact that Conan Doyle himself knew about this and tried to get rid of Holmes, and many in his entourage - friends, household members - understood this, but all of them taken together turned out to be powerless before the temptations of that mighty force that today we call mass culture. So, Sherlock Holmes is one of the most fundamental creations of mass culture literature, moreover, is the cornerstone in the foundation of mass culture, but precisely because of this, all the weaknesses of mass culture are also characteristic of him - sketchiness, lightness and ... gradual aging.

Yes Yes! It is aging, because already today, after a little more than a hundred years, books about it are read less and less. And it's not that the interest of new generations in reading is falling in general. Fiction, especially with the development and cheapening of printing, from the 18th century. largely filled for educated people the second part of the famous cry of the ancient Roman mob "Bread and circuses." But if initially the artistry of description and thought had a dominant role in the work, then by the end of the 19th century. the fascination of the plot began to come out on the first positions. Literature of mass culture finally moved to the position of "bast" and pure entertainment for the crowd. Its pioneers and leaders were Alexandre Dumas père and Arthur Conan Doyle, which is why their works in the bud still bear the remnants of a philosophical and artistic beginning. Entertainment, as you know, requires more and more renewal, the old becomes boring and forgotten. A large role in this is played by an infinite number of epigones eager for quick earnings, devaluing the original source with their large number and mediocrity.

K.I. also understood this. Chukovsky, who spoke more than once with Conan Doyle himself. He tried to justify the popular hero with a saving reference: “Children of the whole world love Sherlock Holmes, and although books about his adventures are written for adult readers, they have long become children's (read: always in demand - V.E.) books…” Today, even this thesis is gradually becoming obsolete. However, the brothers of Sherlock Holmes in the criminal investigation department presented in this book - Hercule Poirot and Commissioner Maigret - are aging many times faster than the main detective of world literature.

Arthur Conan Doyle was born in 1859 in Edinburgh into a large Irish Catholic family. His father, Charles Altamont Doyle (1832–1893), was a painter and architect. Mother, nee Mary Foley (1838–1921), was a housewife. Arthur Conan is the name of the writer, but over time he himself began to use his middle name as part of the family name.

Unfortunately, the father of the future writer was a chronic alcoholic (by the time Arthur came of age, he had gone crazy because of drunkenness), and the family often lived in poverty. However, wealthy relatives of the Doyles took care of the boy's education. For seven years, Arthur studied at a closed Catholic school in Stonyhurst, which belonged to the Jesuit order. After successfully graduating from school, the young man began to prepare to take the priesthood.

But first, Arthur went on a pleasure trip to the continent, where he first became acquainted with the works of the father of the detective genre, Edgar Allan Poe (Auguste Dupin from Murder on the Rue Morgue can be considered the first detective in the history of world literature).

Upon returning to Scotland, the young man learned that his father had been placed in a psychiatric clinic and that the care of the family rested entirely on his shoulders. The way out was the medical faculty of the University of Edinburgh, where you could get a good scholarship.

At the university, Arthur was particularly influenced by his teacher Dr. Joseph Bell (1837-1911), an excellent diagnostician, surgeon and pathologist, who developed a method of research (mainly diseases), which later became known as deductive. It was Bell who later served as the prototype of Sherlock Holmes.

At the university, Arthur Conan Doyle began his literary career: in 1879, his first story, "The Secrets of the Sussex Valley," was published in Chambers magazine.

And the next year, in order to earn extra money, the young man went as a surgeon on a voyage to the Arctic Circle on the Nadezhda whaler. The voyage lasted seven months. After graduating from university in 1881, Doyle entered the merchant ship Mayumba as a doctor and traveled to Africa, after which he preferred to go ashore. In 1882, he opened a private practice in the small seaside town of Southsea, where he lived for seven years, until 1890, when he said goodbye to medicine forever. The fact is that initially the young doctor had no clients, and for the sake of boredom he returned to writing stories.

When Conan Doyle married Louise Hawkins (1858-1906) in 1885, he decided to earn money to support his family through literature. Since the stories provided little income, Doyle wrote the novel Girdlestones Trading House, but he could not publish it - all publishers refused. The second novel seemed to be in for the same fate, but there were publishers who published it (albeit only two years after the submission of the manuscript) in Beaton's Christmas Weekly for 1887. It was A Study in Scarlet, where for the first time appeared private investigator William Sherlock Scott Holmes, better known to us as Sherlock Holmes, and his friend and assistant Dr. John Hamish Watson. It is curious that in the same year and for the rest of his life, Conan Doyle became interested in the "study" of life after life - spiritualism.

The name Sherlock Holmes did not come about by chance. Rather, the name of the detective - it was the American writer and satirist beloved by Doyle, and at the same time the medical scientist Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894).

At first, Sherlock Holmes did not interest the reading public. Considering it only an episode in his literary destiny, Conan Doyle became interested in writing historical novels, in particular, he created The Adventures of Mickey Clark (1888) and The White Squad (1889-1890) (the latter during the author's lifetime was recognized as the best English historical novel after Ivanhoe). And suddenly, in the midst of work on The White Squad, the writer received an invitation to a meeting from the American editor of Lippincots Magazine. The recommender turned out to be Oscar Wilde, who was then unfamiliar with Doyle, one might say, the godfather of the great detective. With his light hand, the young writer was ordered a story about Sherlock Holmes. Thus, in 1890, The Sign of Four appeared, which brought Conan Doyle international fame and made Sherlock Holmes the most popular hero of the detective genre. By the way, the word “detection” in English means “discovery”, “detection”, therefore, the center of a detective work is not a crime or a criminal, but a person who solves a crime and his path to solving a crime. Edgar Poe laid the foundations of the genre, and Arthur Conan Doyle became its true creator.

In total, Conan Doyle wrote nine books about Sherlock Holmes - four novels ("A Study in Scarlet" - 1887; "The Sign of the Four" - 1890; "The Hound of the Baskervilles" - 1902; "Valley of Terror" - 1914-1915 years) and five collections, bringing together fifty-six stories ("The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" - 12 stories; "Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes" - 12 stories; "The Return of Sherlock Holmes" - 13 stories; "His Farewell Bow" - 7 stories "; " Sherlock Holmes Archive" - ​​12 stories"). In total, Conan Doyle worked on the Holmes cycle for about forty years - the last work about the brilliant detective "His Last Bow" appeared in 1927.

While working on stories about a brilliant detective for the Strand magazine (the writer collaborated with this magazine all his life), illustrator Sidney Edward Paget (1860–1908), together with Conan Doyle, developed the appearance of Sherlock Holmes, which became canonical. Ironically, Paget's model for Holmes was his younger brother Walter Paget (1863–1935), also an artist who picked up the baton of illustrating Holmes after Sidney's death. So our domestic illustrators began to portray Holmes.

The stories in the Strand, especially The Man with the Slit Lip, brought Doyle worldwide fame. He left the medical practice and devoted himself entirely to literature. By the beginning of 1892, the writer was tired of Sherlock Holmes and tried to return to the historical subject. However, it was not there. When he was offered 1,000 pounds for a story about Holmes, the writer did not have the strength to refuse. But it was already becoming more and more difficult to come up with new stories even then.

In early 1893, Conan Doyle and his wife went on holiday to Switzerland. There, at the Reichenbach Falls, the writer came up with the idea to kill his hero in order to close the topic of Sherlock Holmes once and for all. When Holmes' Last Case was published, twenty thousand subscribers dropped out of the Strand magazine at once!

The writer did not agree to revive his hero for almost ten years. But his income gradually decreased - for works on other topics they paid several times less, readers demanded the return of Sherlock Holmes, new stories about the adventures of the detective were ripening.

In early 1901, a friend of the writer, journalist and editor of the Daily Express, Bertram Fletcher Robinson (1872-1907), told Doyle a terrible legend about a seventeenth-century man. in Devonshire, Sir Richard Cabell, who sold his soul to the devil, for which he was later torn to pieces by wild dogs. It was one of the variants of an ancient legend about a huge ferocious dog that once lived in Norfolk and was called the Black Devil. The idea to write a novel on this topic immediately arose. Friends agreed on co-authorship, as Conan Doyle said in a letter to his mother. Fletcher invited Doyle to Dartmouth to show him where the events were to take place. A certain Harry Baskerville worked as a groom there for the co-author Conan Doyle ...

In the course of work on the novel, the idea arose to make not a simple horror novel, but a detective story, that is, to return Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. To avoid inconsistencies, the events of the novel should have taken place even before the death of the detective in the waterfall.

However, Conan Doyle was not going to share his heroes. The novel "The Hound of the Baskervilles" was published in 1902 in the magazine "Strand" only under his name, but with thanks to Fletcher Robinson, which subsequently disappeared from reprints. And already in 1902, rumors began to spread that the novel was written by Robinson, and Doyle only allowed him to use the name of Holmes. Fifty years after the first publication of the novel, this gossip was confirmed by Harry Baskerville!

The writer's biographers have long refuted it on facts, but the story of how in 1907 Conan Doyle persuaded his mistress - Mrs. Robinson - to give poison to her typhoid husband and thus hid the secret of the birth of the "Hound of the Baskervilles" is still being discussed in the yellow press .

The publication of The Hound of the Baskervilles spurred a new wave of interest in Sherlock Holmes. Conan Doyle at first refused to return to his hero, but when an offer was received from the United States to pay 5 thousand dollars (over 80 thousand dollars at the current exchange rate) for each story about the detective, the writer gave up. Sherlock Holmes escaped the waterfall and returned to further investigations. By the way, passionate admirers of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, based on the works of Conan Doyle, clearly calculated the years of life of their favorite heroes: Dr. Watson (1852-1929), Sherlock Holmes (1854-1930). The detective died along with his author.

These dates only confirm the famous words of the writer, said by Conan Doyle on the day of the celebration of his seventieth birthday:

“-… Don't you know that I'm not the creator of the image of Sherlock Holmes? It was the readers who created it in their imagination!”

This is the key given to us by Doyle to reveal the true image of Sherlock Holmes. If initially the writer treated his hero with respect and tried to give him as many attractive features as possible - Holmes is an energetic, sympathetic, and disinterested person, ready to help the humiliated and insulted to the detriment of the rich and noble, then later Doyle began to openly mock his hero, but it was already too late - the mass culture did its job and lifted the detective above his creator. But the writer showed him as a limited ignoramus - Holmes has no idea that the Earth is round, and a slow-witted man who speaks banal truths, and a drug addict - his thought processes are activated mainly under the influence of morphine and cocaine, and in some cases even a complete fool ... Everything was justified by the readers, the true creators of Sherlock Holmes! All the filth was attributed to Conan Doyle. And Holmes himself remained, according to K.I. Chukovsky, almost the only one "of the characters of children's world literature, whose main occupation is thinking, logic." Masscult defeated Conan Doyle, who hated him, Sherlock Holmes - the parent of masscult - triumphed, for he was and remains wise at the level of the crowd.

Susanna Dean, Odette Susanna Holmes, Detta Susanna Walker, Mia “I am three women… who I was at first; one that had no right to be, but was; and the one you saved. (TB-2) Five-year-old Odette Holmes was hit on the head by a brick when the whole family came north for her aunt's wedding.