How Sherlock Holmes Got His Start

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
James O'Brien
Keyword(s):  
Edgar Allan Poe ◽  
Great Influence ◽  
Sherlock Holmes ◽  
Extensive Reading ◽  
Drinking Problem ◽  
Arthur Conan Doyle ◽  
University Of Edinburgh ◽  
Detective Stories ◽  
Jesuit College ◽  
Catholic Schooling

One can achieve somewhat of an understanding of how Sherlock Holmes came to exist by looking at the contributions of three people: Conan Doyle himself, Edgar Allan Poe, and Conan Doyle’s mentor in medical school, Dr. Joseph Bell. First we shall look at Conan Doyle, focusing on those aspects of his life that led to his writing of the Sherlock Holmes stories. Arthur Conan Doyle was born on May 22, 1859, in Edinburgh. His father, Charles Altamont Doyle, was English and his mother, Mary Foley, was Irish. His father had a drinking problem and was consequently less a factor in Conan Doyle’s upbringing than was his mother. Charles would eventually end up in a lunatic asylum (Stashower 1999, 24). Mary Doyle instilled in her son a love of reading (Symons 1979, 37; Miller 2008, 25) that would later lead him to conceive of Sherlock Holmes. Conan Doyle’s extensive reading had a great influence on the Sherlock Holmes stories (Edwards 1993). He was raised a Catholic and attended Jesuit schools at Hodder (1868–1870) and Stonyhurst (1870–1875), which he found to be quite harsh. Compassion and warmth were less favored than “the threat of corporal punishment and ritual humiliation” (Coren 1995, 15). Next he spent a year at Stella Matutina, a Jesuit college in Feldkirch, Austria (Miller 2008, 40). As Conan Doyle’s alcoholic father had little income, wealthy uncles paid for this education. By the end of his Catholic schooling, he is said to have rejected Christianity (Stashower 1999, 49). At the less strict Feldkirch school, his drift away from religion turned toward reason and science (Booth 1997, 60). At this time he also read the writings of Edgar Allan Poe, including his detective stories. So, although Sherlockians debate the “birthplace” of Holmes, a claim can be made that Holmes was conceived in Austria. In 1876, Conan Doyle began his medical studies at the highly respected University of Edinburgh. These years also played a large role in shaping the Holmes stories. One obvious factor was his continued exposure to science.

What Is Left of the Genius? Sherlockian Legacy in Contemporary Crime Fiction

2021 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-150
Author(s):  
Jacek Mydla
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Crime Fiction ◽  
Time Of Death ◽  
Sherlock Holmes ◽  
Arthur Conan Doyle ◽  
Scientific Expertise ◽  
Detective Stories ◽  
Working Out

Arthur Conan Doyle famously popularised science in his series of detective stories by placing its three constitutive elements (scientific knowledge, the collection of evidence, and art of making inferences), in his protagonist Sherlock Holmes. The legacy is present in contemporary crime fiction, but the competencies have been distributed among a group of individuals involved in the investigation. This distribution has affected and changed the position of the detective vis-à-vis scientific expertise. Science, chiefly in the form of different branches of forensics, is as indispensable as the detective, and authors have been working out different ways of making the two work together. As an example of this cooperation, the paper examines Mark Billingham’s 2015 novel Time of Death.

The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arthur Conan Doyle
Keyword(s):  
English Literature ◽  
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ◽  
Sherlock Holmes ◽  
General Editor ◽  
Arthur Conan Doyle ◽  
University Of Edinburgh ◽  
Biographical Study ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The University ◽  
Murder Weapon

In The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes we read the last twelve stories Conan Doyle was to write about Holmes and Watson. They reflect the disillusioned world of the 1920s in which they were written, and he can be seen to take advantage of new, more open conventions in fiction. Suicide as a murder weapon and homosexual incest are some of the psychological tragedies whose consequences are unravelled by the mind of Holmes before the eyes of Watson. That said, the collection also includes some of the best turns of wit in the series, and indeed in the whole of English literature. The editor of this volume, W.W. Robson, is Emeritus David Masson, Professor of English Literature at the University of Edinburgh and the author of Modern English Literature. The general editor of the Oxford Sherlock Holmes, Owen Dudley Edwards, is Reader in History at the University of Edinburgh and author of The Quest for Sherlock Holmes. A Biographical Study of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

The Hound of the Baskervilles

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arthur Conan Doyle
Keyword(s):  
English Literature ◽  
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ◽  
Sherlock Holmes ◽  
General Editor ◽  
Arthur Conan Doyle ◽  
University Of Edinburgh ◽  
Open Country ◽  
Biographical Study ◽  
Modern Application ◽  
The University

The Hound of the Baskervilles is the tale of an ancient curse suddenly given a terrifying modern application. The grey towers of Baskerville Hall and the wild open country of Dartmoor hold many secrets for Holmes and Watson to unravel. The detective is contemptuous of supernatural manifestations, but the reader will remain perpetually haunted by the hound from the moor. The editor of this volume, W.W. Robson, was Emeritus David Masson Professor of English Literature at the University of Edinburgh and author of Modern English Literature. The general editor of the Oxford Sherlock Holmes, Owen Dudley Edwards, is Reader in History at the University of Edinburgh and author or The Quest for Sherlock Holmes: A Biographical Study of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Ways of reading Sherlock Holmes: the entrenchment of discourse blends

2006 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vera Tobin
Keyword(s):  
Literary Texts ◽  
Sherlock Holmes ◽  
Conceptual Integration ◽  
Historical View ◽  
Non Fiction ◽  
Single Reading ◽  
Arthur Conan Doyle ◽  
History Of ◽  
Detective Stories ◽  
Single Set

Current work on conceptual integration and literary texts often features detailed analysis of a single reading of a text in terms of the conceptual integration networks involved in constructing that interpretation. However, a single linguistic form can inspire manifold readings. This article takes a historical view of the conceptual blends involved in a range of different literary interpretations generated by different groups of readers of a single set of texts, the Sherlock Holmes detective stories by Arthur Conan Doyle. First, it examines the case of the numerous and diverse historical readers who took these fictional texts to be non-fiction, and how their conceptions mirror and diverge from the ways readers become immersed in texts they know to be fiction. This is followed by an analysis of the early ‘Sherlockian’ essays, criticism operating under the pretense of a historical Holmes and a historical Watson who recorded his adventures with varying accuracy. In the Sherlockian tradition, something very like the naïve believer stance independently emerges from this playful and parodic novel blend. The history of this stance among its practitioners is then shown to be an example of the routinization of a blend within a discourse community. These complex discourse blends turn out to have much the same capacity for entrenchment and semantic change as any grammatical construction.

scholarly journals From Hamlet to Holmes: literary detective tradition

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (S1) ◽  
pp. 1087-1099
Author(s):  
SeyedehZahra Nozen ◽  
Hamlet Isaxanli ◽  
Bahman Amani
Keyword(s):  
Edgar Allan Poe ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Sherlock Holmes ◽  
Fyodor Dostoevsky ◽  
The Public ◽  
Crime And Punishment ◽  
Auguste Dupin ◽  
Arthur Conan Doyle ◽  
Agatha Christie

Exposed to the mystery of his father’s suspicious death, young Hamlet followed the riddle of solving it in the longest tragedy of Shakespeare. By suspension and the lengthy nature of detective works, Shakespeare seems to have initiated a new subgenre in drama which may have later on been converted into an independent subgenre in the novel by Edgar Allan Poe, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Agatha Christie through their imaginative characters, Auguste Dupin, Sherlock Holmes and the pair of Hercules Poirot with Miss Marple respectively. Fyodor Dostoevsky may have also spread the net of Hamletian subtext in his Crime and Punishment. Plotting a perfect crime by the murderers and the public approval of the plan, on one hand, and the inconvincible mind of the hero which ultimately undo the seemingly unsolvable puzzle, on the other, construct the very core of all aforementioned works of Shakespeare, Poe, and Doyle. The unanticipated and unpredicted findings of either Holmes or Hamlet defeat the expectations of the audience and bring the runaway justice back to her groom. 

Der Krimi in Literatur, Film und Serie

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Neuhaus
Keyword(s):  
Edgar Allan Poe ◽  
Friedrich Schiller ◽  
Sherlock Holmes

Ein Blick in die Programme von Verlagen, Fernsehsendern und Filmanbietern zeigt, dass es kein populäreres Genre gibt als den Krimi. Allein von Agatha Christies Romanen wurden über zwei Milliarden Exemplare verkauft. Die Figur Sherlock Holmes gehört zu den frühesten Film- und Serienhelden und am Anfang der modernen Krimiliteratur stehen Erzählungen nicht nur von Edgar Allan Poe, sondern auch von Friedrich Schiller und E.T.A. Hoffmann. Erstmals wird der Versuch gewagt, an exemplarischen Beispielen aus Literatur, Film und Serie in den ‚ganzen‘ Krimi einzuführen – in Merkmale, Geschichte und Entwicklung. Die englischsprachige Krimitradition wird in die Darstellung mit einbezogen. Bisher hat sich die Forschung selten mit dem als trivial geltenden Genre beschäftigt. Ein genauerer Blick zeigt aber, dass der Krimi genauso anspruchsvolle Beispiele bereithält wie andere Genres.

scholarly journals El crimen en la novela negra latinoamericana. "Entre la fascinación y la memoria"

Poligramas ◽  
2017 ◽  
pp. 75
Author(s):  
James Valderrama Rengifo
Keyword(s):  
Edgar Allan Poe ◽  
Ricardo Piglia ◽  
Arthur Conan Doyle ◽  
Abril Rojo ◽  
Novela Negra

En el presente artículo académico se realiza un acercamiento a la novela negra Latinoamérica desde dos perspectivas: la fascinación y la memoria. El artículo establece una secuencia crítica que da cuenta de la evolución del género: sus regularidades y sus cambios  literarios desde Edgar Allan Poe y Arthur Conan Doyle hasta los más destacados representantes del género negro en Latinoamérica, marcando la condición contemporánea de esta apropiación y desarrollo de este tipo de novelas. Posteriormente se postulan las claves de su análisis  tomando referencias obras como Abril rojo del peruano Santiago Roncangliolo, Scorpio City del colombiano Mario Mendoza y Plata quemada de Ricardo Piglia, de Argentina. Estas obras finalmente se proponen como un ejercicio de memoria donde ocurre un choque de ficciones en el que los hechos pasados adquieren un orden distinto porque aparecen otras voces, otros informes, testimonios, otros crímenes, otras víctimas, otros asesinos, otros detectives, etc. En este orden distinto, las marcas previas de la memoria chocan con las marcas nuevas que propone el relato. El centelleo resultante de ese choque de ficciones permite el acceso a otro conocimiento sobre el pasado y sus deudas con el presente y el futuro.

scholarly journals Sherlock Holmes y el razonamiento abductivo: Una mirada semiótica al discurso científico

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (14) ◽  
pp. 411-425
Author(s):  
Yohan Ramón Godoy Graterol
Keyword(s):  
Charles Sanders Peirce ◽  
Sherlock Holmes ◽  
Arthur Conan Doyle

Este ensayo presenta una mirada semiótica al discurso científico. Para su interpretación se procedió realizar un análisis a la enunciación discursiva de la serie de ficción “El Signo de los Cuatro” de Sherlock Holmes, donde el actor semiótico representa a un detective privado, el cual adopta el método abductivo para esclarecer los diferentes casos. El director cinematográfico impulsa al espectador entrar en un mundo posible con elementos de drama y suspenso, para que mantenga su atención en todo el filme. La investigación encuentra su soporte en los trabajos del filósofo y lógico Charles Sanders Peirce (1893-1914), en su mayoría utilizaron el razonamiento abductivo como método para la búsqueda de la verdad a través de conjeturas bien realizadas. Los resultados obtenidos demuestran que el objeto semiótico empleado para su análisis, desde la noción peirceana, está orientado a establecer una semiosis vinculante entre los casos detectivescos y los diagnósticos de un médico, y que el escritor escocés Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), dejó para la posteridad a un héroe prefigurado en los personajes ficticios de Sherlock Holmes y el Dr. John H. Watson.

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
pp. 229-236
Author(s):  
Andrew Glazzard
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
The United States ◽  
Sherlock Holmes ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
Arthur Conan Doyle

‘You will be amused to hear that I am at work upon a Sherlock Holmes story. So the old dog returns to his vomit.’1 Arthur Conan Doyle to Herbert Greenhough Smith Sherlock Holmes, who died in Switzerland in May 1891, returned to the world on 23 October 1899. The location for his rebirth was, somewhat surprisingly, the Star Theatre in Buffalo, New York. Early the following month, Holmes moved to New York where he could be found in Manhattan’s Garrick Theatre on 236 separate occasions, before making his way across the United States. In September 1901, Holmes went back to Great Britain, arriving (like so many travellers from the US) at Liverpool, before reaching London on 9 September 1901. He was so much in demand that on 1 February 1902 he received an audience with King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra. In 1902 he was again in New York, was seen travelling across northern England in 1903, and for the next thirty years popped up repeatedly in various American towns and cities....

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