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Sherlock Holmes
First appearance: 1887
Created by: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Episode count: 4 Novels
56 short stories
Information
Gender: Male
Occupation: Consulting detective,
works alone until arrival of
Watson
Family: Brother (Mycroft)
Nationality: English
Lodgings: 221 B Baker Street, London
Lifestyle: no regard for contemporary
standards of tidiness. Yet, he has
a "cat-like" love of personal
cleanliness.
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Arthur Conan Doyle
(22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930)
•A doctor whose practice was initially not
very successful; while waiting for
patients, he began writing stories in
1882 .
•His first significant work, A Study in Scarlet,
featured the first appearance of
Sherlock Holmes, who was partially
modeled after his former university
teacher Joseph Bell.
•November 1891 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."
STEEL TRUE
BLADE STRAIGHT
•His mother responded, "You won't! You
can't! You mustn't!“
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
•He did kill him off, but brought him back
KNIGHT
due to public outcry.
PATRIOT, PHYSICIAN & MAN OF LETTERS
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SHERLOCK HOLMES: INTRODUCTION
•Sherlock Holmes is a fictional character.
•Holmes is famous for his intellectual
prowess and is renowned
for his skillful use of astute
observation, deductive reasoning
(though in reality, he uses abductive
reasoning) and forensic skills to
solve difficult cases.
•All but four stories are narrated by
Holmes‘ friend and biographer, Dr.
John H. Watson.
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Life with Dr Watson
Holmes and Watson are roomies for some time before
Watson’s marriage in 1887, and again after his wife’s death.
Watson has two roles in Holmes' life.
•He is the detective's right-hand man, acting variously
as look-out, decoy, accomplice and messenger.
•He is Holmes' chronicler.
•Most of the Holmes stories are frame narratives, written
from Watson's point of view as summaries of the detective's
most interesting cases.
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Use of drugs
•Holmes is also an occasional user of
morphine, but expressed strong
disapproval on visiting an opium
den.
•All three were LEGAL in late-19thcentury England.
•It is Holmes's "only vice”
•In later stories, Watson claims to have
"weaned" Holmes off drugs.
•Even so, according to his doctor friend,
Holmes remains an addict whose
habit is "not dead, but merely
sleeping."
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1951: Sherlock Holmes' sitting-room
was reconstructed as the masterpiece
of a Sherlock Holmes Exhibition.
1990: the Sherlock Holmes Museum
opened in Baker Street. The Sherlock
Holmes Museum in Baker Street,
London was the first Museum in the
world to be dedicated to a fictional
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character.
Holmes’ inspired characters
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Methods of detection: Holmesian deduction
Holmes' primary intellectual
detection method is
deductive reasoning of the
solution to a crime. Holmesian
deduction appears to consist
primarily of drawing
inferences based on either
straightforward practical
principles—which are the
result of careful inductive
study.
There are 9 people in this
picture.
If you find 6: ordinary powers of observation.
If you find 7: above average powers of
observation.
If you find 8: very observant.
If you find 9: extremely observant, very intuitive
and creative.
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