The Complete Sherlock Holmes, Volume I (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (134 page)

10
(p. 55)
From the Sierra Nevada . . . silence:
American readers may be pardoned for raising both eyebrows at this wildly exaggerated description. Such fanciful notions of American geography were not uncommon among Europeans. Dickens sets part of
Martin Chuzzlewit
(1843-1844) in the miasmal swamps a short train ride away from New York, and Puccini’s lovers in
Manon Lescaut
(1893) wander in the deserts outside New Orleans.

11
(p. 60)
Joseph Smith:
Joseph Smith (1805-1844), founder of the Mormons, was born in Palmyra, New York, where he experienced spiritual visions beginning at an early age. He established his church in Fayette, New York, in 1830 and moved west several times in search of freedom from persecution, ending up in Commerce, Illinois, which he renamed Nauvoo. After political squabbles and charges of corruption, he was murdered by a mob in 1844 at Carthage, Illinois. After Smith’s death, Brigham Young (1801-1877) became leader of the Mormons. He led the migration to Utah in 1846 and 1847, established a settlement at Salt Lake City, in a state the Mormons established and called Deseret, and later became governor of Utah.

12
(p. 68)
Danite Band:
Although such a group did exist, its activities were not nearly as sensational as those depicted here. The group existed for only a few months in 1838, and while it did retaliate against people who had run afoul of the Mormons, it was far from the bloodthirsty group portrayed in this story. Conan Doyle later apologized to the Mormons for this exaggeration when he spoke to them in Salt Lake City while on an American speaking tour.

13
(p. 101)
wounded leg. I had a Jezail bullet through it:
On page 7 of
A Study in Scarlet
this bullet was said to be in Watson’s shoulder. This discrepancy has fueled a minor industry of explanations, from the ingenious to the bizarre. The most probable is that Conan Doyle simply misremembered where he had located the wound. In only his second Sherlock Holmes story, he hadn’t foreseen that generations of sharp-eyed devotees would scan every line for inconsistencies with the fervor of medieval scholastics explicating Holy Writ.

14
(p. 114)
a genuine Corot . . . that Salvator Rosa . . . the Bouguereau:
This collection indicates that Sholto not only had fine taste in art, but the means to collect expensive works. Jean Baptiste Camille Corot (1796-1875) was a French landscape painter of the Barbizon School; Salvator Rosa (1615-1673), from Naples, was known for landscapes and battle scenes; Adolph William Bouguereau (1825-1905), a French painter much admired in his day, is remembered now chiefly for his sentimental renderings of mythological scenes and for his strenuous opposition to the Impressionists.

15
(p. 119)
Holmes declares . . . sedative:
Holmes claims, probably facetiously, that Watson has reversed the dosages for these two drugs. Two drops of castor oil produce little effect, while large doses of strychnine are fatal.

16
(p. 138)
Jean Paul:
Pen name of Johann Paul Friedrich Richter (1763-1825), German novelist who was immensely popular in the nineteenth century. Holmes refers to one of his
Analects
entitled “The Grandeur of Man in His Littleness.’ Richter’s work was introduced to the English public by Thomas Carlyle.

17
(p. 169)
great mutiny:
Also known as the Indian Mutiny and the Sepoy Mutiny or the Sepoy Rebellion, it was an uprising, in 1857 and 1858, against British rule in India. Indian soldiers, known as sepoys, who were employed by the British East India Company, massacred the Europeans at Meerut, then joined with other Indian forces as the rebellion spread, but were eventually suppressed by British troops.

18
(p. 176)
After Wilson took Delhi . . . Nana Sahib made himself scarce over the frontier:
Brigadier-General Archdale Wilson (1801-1874) assumed command of the Bengal Artillery after initial British losses, and did much to turn the tide in the English favor. Sir Colin Campbell (1792-1863) became commander-in-chief in India shortly after the mutiny began. Nana Sahib, adopted son of an Indian prince, was one of the Indian leaders of the mutiny.

19
(p. 190)
Wallenstein:
Bohemian statesman and general Albrecht Wenzel Eusebius von Wallenstein, duke of Friedland (1583-1634), commanded the armies of Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II during the beginning of the Thirty Years War (1618-1648). He was assassinated after his alienation from the Emperor.

20
(p. 226)
Duchess of Devonshire fashion:
Georgiana Spencer Cavendish (1757-1806), ancestor of Princess Diana and wife of William, fifth duke of Devonshire, was not only the leader of London’s high society, but one of the most popular figures in the history of English social life.

21
(p. 238)
Hafiz:
This (or Hafez) is the pen name for Mohammad Shams od-Din Hafez, a fourteenth-century Persian poet who was known for passionate poems spiritualizing his ideal woman, much as Dante did for Beatrice. The name Hafez, which means “keeper,” is given to one who has memorized the Koran, which he did at an early age. Scholars have not been able, however, to trace Holmes’s quotation to Hafez.

22
(p. 260)
Jackson’s army . . . Hood . . . Lee:
Thomas Jonathan (“Stone-wall”) Jackson (1824-1863), John Bell Hood (1831-1879), and Robert E. Lee (1807-1870) were generals in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War.

23
(p. 271)
Gravesend:
Although a ship leaving London would necessarily pass Gravesend, the mention of its name here is an ironic comment on the fate of the
Lone Star
.

24
(p. 309)
Regency:
The period between 1811 and 1820, when the prince of Wales, later George IV, was appointed regent to rule England because of the insanity of his father, George III.

25
(p. 321)
Palmer and Pritchard:
The reference is to two notorious doctors: William Palmer (1824-1856) was hanged for poisoning one of his friends, while Edward Pritchard (1825-1865) was hanged for poisoning his wife and mother-in-law.

26
(p. 482)
Queen Anne house:
Houses designed by Italian architect Andrea Palladio (1508-1580) became fashionable during the reign of Anne Stuart (1665-1714), queen of England from 1702 to 1714.

27
(p. 517)
Vernet, the French artist:
There was indeed a French artist of that name: Émile Jean Horace Vernet (1789-1863) was a painter known for battle scenes.

28
(p. 518)
the Diogenes Club:
Diogenes (412-322 B.C.), was a Greek Cynic philosopher who exhibited contempt for riches and honors, and proclaimed self-sufficiency for the individual. He was said to carry a lamp around Athens during the daytime, insisting he was searching for an honest man. The joke here is that while clubs were formed as places where men could share similar interests with other men of their class, this club makes every man an island unto himself.

29
(p. 547)
Bertillon . . . measurements:
Alphonse Bertillon (1853-1914), while working for the Paris police as chief of identifications in 1880, invented a system for identifying people through records of body measurements and markings. His system was later superseded by fingerprinting, but for a decade it was the most sophisticated form of identification.

30
(p. 579)
Bertillon:
See note directly above.

31
(p. 581)
Clarendon:
Edward Hyde (1609-1674), first earl of Clarendon and a Royalist statesman and historian, served as chief minister and lord chancellor, and wrote
History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England
.

32
(p. 616)
Swan:
In 1860 English chemist and physicist Sir Joseph Wilson Swan (1828-1914) invented a primitive electric light; in 1880 both Swan and Thomas Edison produced a practical light bulb.

33
(p. 674)
Kneller . . . Reynolds:
German-born Sir Godfrey Kneller (1646-1723) was a court painter for Charles II, William III, and other monarchs; he became the leading portrait painter of his time. Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), one of the great names in English painting, was also known for portraits.

34
(p. 675)
Rodney . . . Baskerville . . . Pitt:
British admiral George Brydges Rodney (1718-1792), won a number of important naval battles against the French, Spanish and Dutch. William Pitt (1759-1806) was prime minister for eighteen years under George III.

35
(p. 695)
the De Reszkes:
Jean de Reszke (1850-1925), renowned Polish tenor, was the leading singer in Paris between 1884 and 1889. He often appeared with his brother Edouard and sister Josephine.

COMMENTS & QUESTIONS

In this section, we aim to provide the reader with an array of perspectives on the text, as well as questions that challenge those perspectives. The commentary has been culled from sources as diverse as reviews contemporaneous with the work, letters written by the author, literary criticism of later generations, and appreciations written throughout the history of the stories. Following the commentary, a series of questions seeks to filter Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s
Sherlock Holmes
stories through a variety of points of view and bring about a richer understanding of these enduring works.

In attempting to reach the genuine psychological reason for the popularity of detective stories, it is necessary to rid ourselves of many mere phrases. It is not true, for example, that the populace prefer bad literature to good, and accept detective stories because they are bad literature. The mere absence of artistic subtlety does not make a book popular. Bradshaw’s Railway Guide contains a few gleams of psychological comedy, yet it is not read aloud uproariously on winter evenings. If detective stories are read with more exuberance than railway guides, it is certainly because they are more artistic. Many good books have fortunately been popular; many bad books, still more fortunately, have been unpopular. A good detective story would probably be even more popular than a bad one. The trouble in this matter is that many people do not realize that there is such a thing as a good detective story; it is to them like speaking of a good devil. To write a story about a burglary is, in their eyes, a sort of spiritual manner of committing it. To persons of somewhat weak sensibility this is natural enough; it must be confessed that many detective stories are as full of sensational crime as one of Shakespeare’s plays.

There is, however, between a good detective story and a bad detective story as much, or, rather more, difference than there is between a good epic and a bad one. Not only is a detective story a perfectly legitimate form of art, but it has certain definite and real advantages as an agent of the public weal. . . .

The narrowest street possesses, in every crook and twist of its intention, the soul of the man who built it, perhaps long in his grave. Every brick has as human a hieroglyph as if it were a graven brick of Babylon; every slate on the roof is as educational a document as if it were a slate covered with addition and subtraction sums. Anything which tends, even under the fantastic form of the minutiæ of Sherlock Holmes, to assert this romance of detail in civilization, to emphasize this unfathomably human character in flints and tiles, is a good thing.

—from
The Defendant
(1901)

 

The work that has made this author popular is the series of tales, admirable in their way, associated with Sherlock Holmes, a character, as is now generally known, imitated from Poe. Sherlock Holmes has so seized the popular ear that he almost alone of the abundance of men and women provided by living authors supplies a familiar reference used everywhere, an ineffaceable part of the English language. Such impression of a figure on the public is an achievement of the rarest (it is only equalled, as far as we recall at the moment, by the case of Jekyll and Hyde), but in this case it is an achievement which has little to do with letters.

—January 9, 1904

 

The idea of Sherlock is the idea of Zadig in Voltaire’s
conte
, and of d’Artagnan exploring the duel in “Le Vicomte de Bragelonne,” and of Poe’s Dupin, and of Monsieur Lecoq; but Sir Arthur handles the theme with ingenuity always fresh and fertile; we may constantly count on him to mystify and amuse us. . . . If we are puzzled and amused we get as much as we want, and, unless our culture is very precious, we
are
puzzled and amused. The
roman policier
is not the roof and crown of the art of fiction, and we do not rate Sherlock Holmes among the masterpieces of the human intelligence; but many persons of note, like Bismarck and Moltke, are known to have been fond of Gaboriau’s tales. In these, to be sure, there really is a good deal of character of a sort; and there are some entertaining scoundrels and pleasant irony in the detective novels of Xavier de Montépin and Fortuné du Boisgobey, sonorous names that might have been borne by crusaders! But the adventures of Sherlock are too brief to permit much study of character. The thing becomes a formula, and we can imagine little variation, unless Sherlock falls in love, or Watson detects him in blackmailing a bishop. This moral error might plausibly be set down to that overindulgence in cocaine which never interferes with Sherlock’s physical training or intellectual acuteness. Sir Arthur writes in one of his prefaces:—