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Auguste Dupin

Auguste Dupin

Auguste Dupin is a fictional detective created by Edgar Allan Poe. While not the first detective in fiction, Auguste Dupin was the prototype for many that came later (most notably Sherlock Holmes). He lives in Paris alone in an old house. Many tropes that would later become commonplace in mystery fiction first appeared in Poe's stories: the eccentric but brilliant detective, the bumbling constabulary, the first-person narration by a close personal friend. Like Sherlock Holmes, Dupin uses his considerable deductive prowess and observation to solve crimes. He appears in three stories by Poe:
- "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" (1841)
- "The Mystery of Marie Roget" (1842)
- "The Purloined Letter" (1844) He also makes a brief appearance in Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comic book. Dupin, Auguste Dupin, Auguste Dupin, Auguste ko:오거스트 뒤팽

Fictional character

A fictional character is any person who appears in a work of fiction. More accurately, a fictional character is the person or conscious entity we imagine to exist within the world of such a work. In addition to people, characters can be aliens, animals, gods or, occasionally, inanimate objects. Characters are almost always at the center of fictional texts, especially novels and plays. It is, in fact, hard to imagine a novel or play without characters, though such texts have been attempted (James Joyce's Finnegans Wake is one of the most famous examples). In poetry, there is almost always some sort of person present, but often only in the form of a narrator or an imagined listener. In various forms of theatre, performance arts and cinema (except for animation and CGI movies), fictional characters are performed by actors, dancers and singers. In animations and puppetry, they are voiced by voice actors, though there have been several examples, particularly, in machinima, where characters are voiced by computer generated voices. The process of setting up characters for a work of fiction is called characterization.

Names of characters

The names of fictional characters are often quite important. The conventions of naming have changed over time. In many Restoration comedies, for example, characters are given emblematic names that sound nothing like real life names: "Sir Fidget", "Mr. Pinchwife" and "Mrs. Squeamish" are some typical examples (all from The Country Wife by William Wycherley). Some 18th and 19th century texts, on the other hand, represent characters' names by the use of a single letter and a long dash (this convention is also used for other proper nouns, such as place names). This has the effect of suggesting that the author had a real person in mind but omitted the full name for propriety's sake. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo uses this technique. One reason for this dash is that, in Britain and in other countries with a feudal heritage, the names of counties and places might be the names of the feudal lords over those places. One cannot arbitrarily give someone the name "Earl of Manchester" because someone may either have or be elevated to such a title, so it may be grounds for a lawsuit. Hence fictitious names are based on disparaged historical characters, or tend to be re-used. For example, "Lady de Winter" is a character in Dumas pères Three Musketeers, and the family name was used in Du Maurier's Rebecca. (The same holds true for the names of houses: in the latter book, "Windermere" is named after a lake, not a feudal holding). The 19th century movements of sentimentalism, realism and naturalism all encouraged readers to imagine characters as real people by giving them realistic names, names that were often the titles of books, such as Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre or Charles Dickens' David Copperfield. These conventions were followed by the majority of subsequent literature, including most contemporary literature. However, there are few characters with names that are completely arbitrary. At the very least, names tend to indicate nationality and status. Often, the literal meaning or origin of a name is of some symbolic importance.

Some ways of reading characters

Readers vary enormously in how they understand fictional characters. The most extreme ways of reading fictional characters would be to think of them exactly as real people or to think of them as purely artistic creations that have everything to do with craft and nothing to do with real life. Most styles of reading fall somewhere in between. Here are some typical ways of reading fictional characters in literary criticism:

Character as symbol

In some readings, certain characters are understood to represent a given quality or abstraction. Rather than simply being people, these characters stand for something larger. Many characters in Western literature have been read as Christ symbols, for example. Other characters have been read as symbolizing capitalist greed (as in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby), the futility of fulfilling the American Dream, or quixotic romanticism (Don Quixote).

Character as representative

Another way of reading characters symbolically is to understand each character as a representative of a certain group of people. For example, Bigger Thomas of Native Son by Richard Wright is often seen as representative of young black men in the 1930s, doomed to a life of poverty and exploitation. Dagny Taggart and other characters from Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand are seen as representative of American's hard-nosed, hard-working class. Many practitioners of cultural criticism and feminist criticism focus their analysis of characters on cultural stereotypes. In particular, they consider the ways in which authors rely on and/or work against stereotypes when they create their characters. Such critics, for example, would read Native Son in relation to racist stereotypes of African American men as sexually violent (especially against white women). In reading Bigger Thomas' character, one could ask in what ways Richard Wright relied on these stereotypes to create a violent African-American male character and in what ways he fought against it by making that character the protagonist of the novel rather than an anonymous villain. Often, readings that focus on stereotypes demand that we focus our attention on seemingly unimportant characters, such as the ubiquitous sambo characters in early cinema. Minor characters, or stock characters, are often the focus of this kind of analysis since they tend to rely more heavily on stereotypes than more central characters.

Characters as historical or biographical references

Sometimes characters obviously represent important historical figures. For example, Nazi-hunter Yakov Liebermann in The Boys from Brazil by Ira Levin is often compared to real life Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal, and corrupted populist politician Willie Stark from All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren is often compared to Louisiana governor Huey P. Long. Other times, authors base characters on people from their own personal lives. Glenarvon by Lady Caroline Lamb chronicles her love affair with Lord Byron, who is thinly disguised as the title character. Nicole, a destructive, mentally ill woman in Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is often seen as a fictionalized version of Fitzgerald's wife Zelda. Perhaps because so many people enjoy imagining characters as real people, many critics devote their time to seeking out real people on whom literary figures were likely based. Frequently authors base stories on themselves or their loved ones.

Character as words

Some language- or text-oriented critics emphasize that characters are nothing more than certain conventional uses of words on a page: names or even just pronouns repeated throughout a text. They refer to characters as functions of the text. Some critics go so far as to suggest that even authors do not exist outside the texts that construct them.

Character as patient: psychoanalytic readings

Psychoanalytic criticism usually treats characters as real people possessing complex psyches. Psychoanalytic critics approach literary characters as an analyst would treat a patient, searching their dreams, past, and behavior for explanations of their fictional situations. Alternatively, some psychoanalytic critics read characters as mirrors for the audience's psychological fears and desires. Rather than representing realistic psyches then, fictional characters offer us a way to act out psychological dramas of our own in symbolic and often hyperbolic form. The classic example of this would be Freud's reading of Oedipus (and Hamlet, for that matter) as emblematizing every child's fantasy of murdering his father to possess his mother. This form of reading persists today in much film criticism. The feminist critic Laura Mulvey is considered a pioneer in the field. Her groundbreaking 1975 article, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema"[http://www.jahsonic.com/VPNC.html], analyzed the role of the male viewer of conventional narrative cinema as fetishist, using psychoanalysis "as a political weapon, demonstrating the way the unconscious of patriarchal society has structured film form."

Round characters vs. flat characters

Some critics distinguish between "round characters" and "flat characters" or types. The former are made up of many personality traits and tend to be complex and both more life-like and believable, while the latter consist of only a few personality traits and tend to be simple and less believable. The protagonist (main character, sometimes known as the "hero" or the "heroine") of a novel is certain to be a round character; a minor, supporting character in the same novel may be a flat character. Scarlett O'Hara, of Gone with the Wind, is a good example of a round character, whereas her servant Prissy exemplifies the flat character. Likewise, many antagonists (characters in conflict with protagonists, sometimes known as "villains") are round characters. An example of an antagonist who is a round character is Gone with the Wind's Rhett Butler. A number of stereotypical or "stock" characters have developed throughout the history of drama. Some of these characters include the country bumpkin, the con artist, and the city slicker. Often, these characters are the basis of "flat characters", though elements of stock characters can also be present in round characters as well.

Unusual uses

Postmodern fiction frequently incorporates real characters into fictional and even realistic surroundings. In film, the appearance of a real person as himself inside of a fictional story is a type of cameo. For instance, Woody Allen's Annie Hall has Allen's character call in Marshall McLuhan to resolve a disagreement. In some experimental fiction, the author acts as a character within his own text. One of the earliest examples of this is Niebla ("Fog") by Miguel de Unamuno (1907), in which the main character visits Unamuno in his office to discuss his fate in the novel. Paul Auster also employs this device in his novel City of Glass (1985), which opens with the main character getting a phone call for Paul Auster. At first the main character explains that the caller has reached a wrong number, but eventually he decides to pretend to be Auster and see where it leads him. In Immortality by Milan Kundera, the author references himself in a storyline seemingly separate from that of his fictional characters, but at the end of the novel, Kundera meets his own characters. With the rise of the "star" system in Hollywood, many famous actors are so familiar that it can be hard to limit our reading of their character to a single film. In some sense, Bruce Lee is always Bruce Lee, Woody Allen is always Woody Allen, and Harrison Ford is always Harrison Ford; all often portray characters that are very alike, so audiences fuse the star persona with the characters they tend to play, a principle explored in the Arnold Schwarzeneggar vehicle, Last Action Hero. Some fiction and drama make constant reference to a character who is never seen. This often becomes a sort of joke with the audience. This device is the centrepoint of one of the most unusual and original plays of the 20th century, Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, in which Godot of the title never arrives.

Iconic fictional characters

Some fictional characters are so famous that they can be references easily outside of the work from which they came, often because they have come to symbolize some archetype or ideal.

Lists of fictional characters

General


- List of advertising characters
- List of aliens in fiction
- List of comic and cartoon pairs
- Comic and cartoon characters named after people
- List of notable female fictional characters
- List of dead fictional characters
- List of fictional characters with one eye
- List of fictional clergy and religious figures
- List of mad scientists
- List of mythological pairs
- List of real-life characters
- List of fictional robots and androids
- List of Greek mythological characters
- List of heroic fictional scientists and engineers
- List of unseen characters
- List of video game mascots
- List of fictional witches
- List of fictional television sitcom characters
- List of fictional people known for their names
- List of horror film killers

Stock characters


- Damsel in distress
- Femme fatale
- Butch and femme
- Hero
- Mad scientist
- Villain

Fictional animals


- list of fictional apes (and other non-human primates, excluding Monkeys)
  - list of fictional monkeys
- list of fictional bears
- list of fictional birds
- list of fictional cats
- list of fictional dinosaurs
- list of fictional dogs
- list of fictional dragons
- list of fictional elephants
- list of fictional horses
- list of fictional mice and rats
- list of fictional pigs
- list of fictional rabbits
- list of fictional sheep
- List of fictional animals of other species

Lists of fictional characters in specific works or series


- List of X-Men
- List of Digimon
- List of Pokémon
- Characters from Dune
- Characters of The Sandman
- Characters in Atlas Shrugged
- List of DC Comics characters
- List of Dickens characters
- List of Disney characters
- List of Dragon Ball characters
- List of Middle-earth peoples
- List of Middle-earth characters
  - Characters from The Lord of the Rings
- List of Characters in Grand Theft Auto Vice City
- List of characters in Beavis and Butt-head
- List of Hercules and Xena characters
- List of Mortal Kombat characters
- List of Archie Comics characters
- List of Characters in The Chronicles of Narnia
- List of characters from Family Guy
- List of characters from The Simpsons
  - Fictional characters within The Simpsons
  - List of celebrities on The Simpsons
  - List of recurring characters from The Simpsons
  - One-time characters from The Simpsons
- List of characters from The Sopranos
- List of the Legend of Zelda characters
- List of Hanna-Barbera characters
- Invader Zim characters
- List of Mario series characters
- List of Marvel Comics characters
- List of Nintendo characters
- List of Final Fantasy characters
- List of Characters from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
- List of Mega Man characters (original series)
- List of Mega Man characters (X series)
- List of Mega Man characters (Zero series)
- List of Mega Man characters (Legends series)
- List of Mega Man characters (Battle Network series)
- List of Metroid characters
- List of Tekken characters
- List of the Adventures of Tintin characters
- List of Carmen Sandiego characters
- List of characters in translations of Harry Potter
- List of characters in the Harry Potter books
- Characters in the Wheel of Time series
- List of Soul Calibur characters
- List of Star Trek characters
- List of Star Wars characters
- List of Sesame Street characters
- Minor characters from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
- List of characters from Alias
- List of characters in the Oz books
- List of Robert Heinlein characters
- Love Hina main characters
- Love Hina minor characters

Heroes and villains


- List of fictional heroes
- List of anti-heroes
- List of black superheroes
- List of female superheroes
- List of male superheroes
- List of literary works with eponymous heroines
- List of supervillains

See also


- Archive of fictional things
- Fictional realm
- Grand argument
- Mary Sue
- The 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time Category:Fiction Category:Lists of fictional characters
- ja:架空の人名一覧

Detective

:To see the article about the Nintendo game, see Gumshoe (video game). A detective is
- an officer of the police who performs criminal or administrative investigations,
- in some police departments, the lowest rank among such investigators (above the lowest rank of officers and below sergeants). Some departments have distinct levels of detectives, depending on their experiences and skills. New York City and Los Angeles both have three grades. A number of larger police departments have rank structures for their investigators that parallel the "street" police, such as Detective Sergeants and Detective Lieutenants,
- a civilian licensed to investigate information not readily available in public records (a private investigator, also called "P.I." or, in a pun on "private i.", private eye), or
- informally and primarily in fiction, any unlicensed person who solves crimes, including historical crimes, or looks into records.

Detectives and their work

Becoming a detective

In most American police departments, a candidate for detective must have served as a uniformed officer for a period of one to five years before becoming qualified for the position. Prospective British police detectives must have completed two years as a uniformed officer before applying to join the Criminal Investigation Department. In European police systems, most detectives are university graduates who join directly from civilian life without first serving as uniformed officers. In fact, many European police experts cannot understand why British, American and Commonwealth police forces insist on recruiting their detectives from the ranks of uniformed officers, arguing that they do a completely different job and therefore require completely different training, qualifications, qualities and abilities. The opposing argument is that without previous service as a uniformed patrol officer a detective cannot have a great enough command of standard police procedures and problems and will find it difficult to work with uniformed colleagues. Detectives obtain their position by competitive examination, covering such subjects as:
- Principles, practices and procedures of investigations
- Principles, practices and procedures of interviewing and interrogation
- Local criminal law and procedures
- Applicable law governing arrests, search and seizures, warrants and evidence
- Police department records and reports
- Principles, practices and objectives of courtroom testimony
- Police department methods and procedures Private detectives are licensed by the state in which they live after passing a competitive examination and a criminal background check. Some states, such as Maryland, require a period of classroom training as well.

Organization of detectives

The detective branch in most larger police agencies is organized into several squads or departments, each of which specializes in investigation into a particular type of crime or a particular type of undercover operation, which may include:
- Homicide
- Robbery
- Stolen vehicles
- Fraud
- Burglary
- Narcotics
- Forgery
- Criminal intelligence
- Sex crimes
- Street crime (mugging etc.)
- Computer crime
- Crimes against children
- Surveillance
- Arson

Techniques of detectives

Street work

Detectives have a wide variety of techniques available in conducting investigations. However, the majority of cases are solved by interrogation of suspects and witnesses, which takes time. In a policeman's career as a uniformed officer and as a detective, a detective develops an intuitive sense of the plausibility of suspect and witness accounts. This intuition may fail at times, but usually is reliable. Besides interrogations, detectives may rely on a network of informants they have cultivated over the years. Informants often have connections with persons a detective would not be able to approach formally. In criminal investigations, once a detective has a suspect or suspects in mind, the next step is to produce evidence that will stand up in a court of law. The best way is to obtain a confession from the suspect, usually in exchange for a plea bargain for a lesser sentence. A detective may lie or otherwise mislead and may psychologically pressure a suspect into confessing, though in the United States suspects may invoke their Miranda rights.

Forensic evidence

Physical forensic evidence in an investigation may provide leads to closing a case. Examples of physical evidence can be, but are not limited to:
- Fingerprinting of objects persons have touched
- DNA analysis
- Luminol to detect blood stains that have been washed
- Bloodstain pattern analysis
- Footprints or tire tracks
- Chemical testing for the presence of narcotics or expended gun propellant
- The exact position of objects at the scene of an investigation Many major police departments in a city, county, or state, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, maintain their own forensic laboratories.

Records investigation

Detectives may use public and private records to provide background information on a subject. These include:
- Fingerprint records. In the United States, the FBI maintains records of people who have committed felonies and some misdemeanors, all persons who have applied for a Federal security clearance, and all persons who have served in the U.S. armed forces
- Records of criminal arrests and convictions
- Photographs or mug shots, of persons arrested
- Motor vehicle records
- Credit card records and bank statements
- Hotel registration cards
- Credit reports
- Answer machine messages

Court testimony

Unless a plea bargain forestalls the need for a trial, detectives must testify in court about their investigation. They must seem reliable and credible to a jury, and must not give the impression of personal vindictiveness or cruelty. A detective's background often comes into question in courtroom testimony. A famous example came in the murder trial of O. J. Simpson, when Detective Mark Fuhrman of the Los Angeles Police Department testified for the prosecution. Attorney F. Lee Bailey first asked Fuhrman if he had ever used the "n-word" (see Nigger). Fuhrman denied this. In court, Bailey produced taped interviews with Fuhrman using this offensive word.

Famous detectives

The detective story has been a popular genre in books, radio, television, and movies since the early 19th century. In many police drama series, detectives are depicted as being something of an elite, with most uniformed police officers deferring to them. Famous fictional detectives include:

Police detectives


- Detective Andy Sipowicz, played by Dennis Franz in the television series NYPD Blue
- Lennie Briscoe, played by Jerry Orbach in the television series Law & Order
- Sergeant Joe Friday, portrayed by Jack Webb and later by Ed O'Neill in the television series Dragnet
- Lieutenant Columbo, played by Peter Falk in the television series Columbo (and also some television movies)
- Detective Chief Inspector Jane Tennison, played by Helen Mirren in Prime Suspect.
- Detective Chief Inspector Morse, in the novels of Colin Dexter and played by John Thaw in Inspector Morse.
- Detective Inspector Jack Regan, also played by John Thaw, and Detective Sergeant George Carter, played by Dennis Waterman, in the television series The Sweeney.
- Thompson and Thomson, from the comic Tintin, created by Hergé

Private detectives


- Adrian Monk, played by Tony Shalhoub
- Auguste Dupin, created by Edgar Allan Poe
- Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple, both created by Agatha Christie
- Jim Rockford, created by Roy Huggins and Stephen J. Cannell, and portrayed by James Garner in the television series The Rockford Files
- Thomas Sullivan Magnum, played by Tom Selleck in the television series Magnum P.I.
- Philip Marlowe, created by Raymond Chandler
- Sam Spade, created by Dashiell Hammett and portrayed on film by Humphrey Bogart
- Sherlock Holmes, created by Arthur Conan Doyle See Detective fiction and Crime fiction for more details.

See also


- Criminal Investigation Department
- Private investigator
- Eugène François Vidocq
- Special Agent

External links


- [http://www.my-private-investigator.com/ Online Detective Tools]
- [http://www.detectivechoice.com Online Investigation Tools]
- [http://www.diydetective.com/ Do it yourself detective] Category:Law enforcement Category:Law enforcement workers
- Detective Category:Police officers ja:探偵

Fiction

, were the goddesses of charm, beauty, nature, human creativity and fertility in Greek mythology.]] Fiction is storytelling of imagined events and stands in contrast to non-fiction, which makes factual claims about reality. A large part of the appeal of fiction is its ability to evoke the entire spectrum of human emotions: to distract our minds, to give us hope in times of despair, to make us laugh, or to let us experience empathy without attachment. Fictional works—novels, stories, fairy tales, fables, films, comics, interactive fiction—may be partly based on factual occurrences but always contain some imaginary content. The term is also often used synonymously with fictional prose. In this sense, fiction refers only to novels or short stories and is often divided into two categories, popular fiction (e.g., science fiction or mystery fiction) and literary fiction (e.g., Victor Hugo or William Faulkner). Fiction is largely perceived as a form of art and/or entertainment, although not all fiction is necessarily artistic. Fiction may be created for the purpose of educating, such as fictional examples used in school textbooks. Fiction is also frequently instrumentalized by propaganda and advertising. Fiction may be propagated by parents to their children out of tradition (e.g. Santa Claus) or in order to instill certain beliefs and values. Fables with an explicit moral goal are not necessarily targeted at children, however. Fiction may over time blend with factual accounts and develop into mythology. Many atheists perceive religion as no different from any fictional tale, whereas members of religious groups typically explain their beliefs with faith and claim they are fundamentally different from fictional tales (although they may call other religious views fictional). The sociological school of constructivism argues that every view of reality is fundamentally a construction of the self and that a safe distinction between fact and fiction is impossible, whereas the philosophy of naturalism holds that reality can be approximated and truth can be demonstrated through usefulness, allowing the distinction from fiction. Fiction has often been the target of censorship or boycotts, escalating into book burnings or bans. Extremist regimes like the Taliban have been even more prohibitive, restricting all reading to religious texts. There is an ongoing debate regarding sexual content in fiction and whether or not juveniles can be safely exposed to it; opponents of fiction with sexual content typically label it pornography. The Internet has had a massive impact on the distribution of fiction, calling into question the feasibility of copyright as a means to ensure royalties are payed to copyright holders. Also digital libraries such as Project_Gutenberg have come into being which make public domain texts more readily available. The combination of inexpensive home computers, the Internet and the creativity of its users has also led to new forms of fiction, such as interactive computer games or computer-generated comics. Countless forums for fan fiction can be found online, where loyal followers of specific fictional realms create and distribute derivative stories. Through open writing systems like wikis, collaboratively written fiction is also becoming possible (see the [http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikifiction Wikifiction] initiative). Fiction is a fundamental part of human culture, and the ability to create fiction and other artistic works is frequently cited as one of the defining characteristics of humanity.

Categories of fiction


- Children's fiction
- Crime fiction
  - Detective fiction
  - Mystery fiction
- Fan fiction
- Interactive fiction
- Literary fiction
- Romantic fiction
- Speculative fiction
  - Fantasy fiction
  - Horror fiction
    - Vampire fiction
  - Science fiction
- Spy fiction
- Inspirational fiction

Elements of fiction


- antagonists
- conflicts
- climax
- characters
- plots
- protagonists
- resolution
- structures
- subplots
- themes
- fictional character
- suspension of disbelief

See also


- Archive of fictional things

External links


- [http://book.awardannals.com/genre/fiction/ Most Honored Fiction] at the Book Award Annals
-
- ja:フィクション

Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes (1854–1957, according to William S. Baring-Gould) is a fictional detective of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, created by Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Holmes is famous for his prowess at using logic and astute observation to solve cases. Sherlock Holmes describes himself as a "consulting detective", an expert who is brought into cases that have proven too difficult for other investigators; we are told that he is often able to solve a problem without leaving his home. Naturally, this aspect is minimized in the stories themselves, which tend to focus on the more interesting cases which require him to do actual legwork. He specializes in solving unusual cases using his extraordinary powers of observation and logical reasoning, and frequently demonstrates these powers to new clients by making on-the-spot observations about their personalities and recent activities. This rarely fails to impress (see below). Sir Arthur Conan Doyle credits the inception of Holmes to his teacher at the medical school of Edinburgh University, the gifted surgeon and forensic detective Joseph Bell, forensic science being a new field at the time. However, some years later Bell wrote to Conan Doyle: "you are yourself Sherlock Holmes and well you know it" (Baring-Gould, p. 8). "Holmes" was named after Oliver Wendell Holmes, whom Conan Doyle admired, and an English cricketer named Sherlock – however some early notes give his name as Sherrinford Holmes.

Detective story

A popular myth is that Sherlock Holmes gave rise to the entire genre of murder mystery fiction. This now famous character and the detective story itself, however, were inspired by Auguste Dupin and his technique for solving crime. Created by Edgar Allan Poe, Dupin was a fictional investigator to whom even Holmes himself alluded. Many fictional detectives have imitated Holmes' logical methods and followed in his footsteps, in many different ways. Some of the more popular fictional detectives to continue Holmes' legacy include Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot, Ellery Queen, Perry Mason, Columbo, Dick Tracy, and even the comic book hero Batman. Modern variants might be the NBC TV series Law and Order: Criminal Intent and the USA Network's show Monk, which even replicates the Holmesian style of "quiet analysis", during which no one speaks to the character while he works. Monk also has an older brother, who, like Holmes' older brother Mycroft, is a bit more able but less interested in crime. Another analogue is the Fox series House in which Dr. House (like Joseph Bell, on whom Doyle based Holmes) is the Holmes figure (an infectious disease specialist) and Dr. James Wilson (an oncologist) is his Watson with the exception that where Holmes solved crimes, House solves medical mysteries. (See also detective fiction).

Profile

detective fiction Historically, Holmes lived from the year 1881 at 221B Baker Street, London, an upper-storey flat at 221 Baker Street (in early notes it was described as Upper Baker Street), where he spent many of his professional years with his good friend Dr. John H. Watson, and with whom he shared rooms for some time before Watson's marriage in 1890. The residence was maintained by his Scottish landlady, Mrs Hudson. In many of the stories Holmes is assisted by the practical Watson, who is not only Holmes's friend but his chronicler (his "Boswell"). Most of Holmes' stories are told as narratives, by Watson, of Holmes' solutions to actual crimes; in some later stories, Holmes criticizes Watson for his writings, usually because Watson relates them as exciting stories rather than as objective and detailed reports. Holmes also has an older brother, Mycroft Holmes, who appears in three stories—"The Greek Interpreter", "The Final Problem", and "The Bruce-Partington Plans"—and is mentioned in a number of others, including "The Empty House". In three stories, including The Sign of Four, he is assisted by a group of street children or urchins he calls the Baker Street Irregulars.

His background

the Baker Street Irregulars] In the very first Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet, something of Holmes's background is given. On March 4, 1881 he is presented as an independent student of chemistry with a variety of very curious side interests, almost all of which turn out to be single-mindedly bent towards making Holmes superior at solving crimes. In another early Holmes story, "The Gloria Scott", more background on what caused Holmes to become a detective is presented; a college friend's father complimented him very highly on his deductive skills. In A Study in Scarlet, Dr. Watson makes an evaluation of Sherlock's skills: "Sherlock Holmes–his limits" # Knowledge of Literature.—Nil. # " " Philosophy.—Nil. # " " Astronomy.—Nil. # " " Politics.—Feeble. # " " Botany.—Variable. Well up in belladonna, opium, and poisons generally. Knows nothing of practical gardening. # Knowledge of Geology.—Practical, but limited. Tells at a glance different soils from each other. After walks has shown me splashes upon his trousers, and told me by their colour and consistence in what part of London he had received them. # Knowledge of Chemistry.—Profound. # " " Anatomy.—Accurate, but unsystematic. # " " Sensational Literature.—Immense. He appears to know every detail of every horror perpetrated in the century. # Plays the violin well. # Is an expert singlestick player, boxer, and swordsman. # Has a good practical knowledge of British law. For all of his knowledge, he is imparted with an IQ of 190 (explicitly revealed). Later stories make clear, however, that the above list is misleading, and that Holmes—who has just met Watson—is pulling Watson's leg. Two examples: Despite Holmes' supposed ignorance of politics, in "A Scandal in Bohemia" he immediately recognizes the true identity of the supposed Count von Kramm. Regarding non-sensational literature, Holmes' speech is replete with references to the Bible, Shakespeare, and even Goethe. Holmes is also a competent cryptanalyst; he relates to Watson that he is "fairly familiar with all forms of secret writing, and am myself the author of a trifling monograph upon the subject in which I analyse one hundred and sixty separate ciphers." One such scheme is solved in "The Adventure of the Dancing Men" which uses a series of stick figures, for example: cipher Elsewhere Holmes himself mentions that he has "some knowledge" of baritsu, "the Japanese system of wrestling", by means of which he escaped the death-grip of his arch-enemy Professor Moriarty (who, however, figures in only two of the stories, despite his later reputation). In this same first story, Doyle presents a comparison between his debuting character and two earlier established and better known at the time fictional detectives: Edgar Allan Poe's Auguste Dupin and Emile Gaboriau's Monsieur Lecoq. Dupin had first appeared in "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", first published in 1841, and Lecoq in "L'Affaire Lerouge" ("The Lerouge Affair") in 1866. The brief discussion between Watson and Holmes about the two characters begins with a comment by Watson:
"You remind me of Edgar Allan Poe's Dupin. I had no idea that such individuals did exist outside of stories."

Sherlock Holmes rose and lit his pipe. "No doubt you think that you are complimenting me in comparing me to Dupin," he observed. "Now, in my opinion, Dupin was a very inferior fellow. That trick of his of breaking in on his friends' thoughts with an apropos remark after a quarter of an hour's silence is really very showy and superficial. He had some analytical genius, no doubt; but he was by no means such a phenomenon as Poe appeared to imagine."

"Have you read Gaboriau's works?" I asked. "Does Lecoq come up to your idea of a detective?"

Sherlock Holmes sniffed sardonically. "Lecoq was a miserable bungler," he said, in an angry voice; "he had only one thing to recommend him, and that was his energy. That book made me positively ill. The question was how to identify an unknown prisoner. I could have done it in twenty-four hours. Lecoq took six months or so. It might be made a textbook for detectives to teach them what to avoid."
Sherlock seems convinced that he is superior to both of them, while Watson expresses his admiration of the two characters. It has been suggested that this was a way for Doyle to pay some respect to characters by writers who had influenced him, while insisting that his character is an improvement over them. Holmes' arch-enemy, and popularly-supposed nemesis was Professor James Moriarty ("the Napoleon of Crime") who fell, struggling with Holmes, over the Reichenbach Falls. Conan Doyle intended "The Final Problem", the story in which Holmes and Moriarty fell over the cliff, to be the last that he wrote about Holmes; however the mass of mailings he received demanding that he bring Holmes back convinced him to continue. "The Adventure of the Empty House" had Conan Doyle explaining that only Moriarty fell over the cliff, but Holmes had allowed the world to believe that he too had perished while he dodged the retribution of Moriarty's underlings. Notably, Moriarty never appears directly in the stories; Watson never encounters Moriarty, and so the encounters between Holmes and his nemesis are described by Holmes.

His women

Irene Adler was always referred to by Holmes and his fans as "The Woman". She appeared only in "A Scandal in Bohemia", but she is often thought to be the only woman who broke through Holmes' reserve. In one story, "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton", Holmes is engaged to be married, but only with the motivation of gaining information for his case. He clearly demonstrates particular interest in several of the more charming female clients that come his way (such as Violet Hunter of "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches", who Watson thought might become more than a client to Holmes). However, the context implies that Holmes found their youth, beauty, and energy (and the cases they bring to him) invigorating, as opposed to an actual romantic interest, as Holmes inevitably "manifested no further interest in her when once she had ceased to be the centre of one of his problems." If he was able to turn on a certain amount of charm, as indicated by these episodes, there is no indication of a serious or long-term interest apart from the case of Adler. Watson states that Holmes has an "aversion to women" but "a peculiarly ingratiating way with [them]." Holmes stated "I am not a whole-souled admirer of womankind." His dislike may have stemmed from the fact he found "the motives of women... so inscrutable... How can you build on such quicksand? Their most trivial actions may mean volumes... their most extraordinary conduct may depend upon a hairpin"; this resistance to his deductive processes may have annoyed him. Watson, on the other hand, has a perhaps justifiable reputation as a ladies' man: he spoke favourably of some women and actually married one, Mary Morstan of The Sign of Four (and another following Mary's death (1892), according to Holmes, and possibly one more according to some interpretations of the text).

His habits

However, Holmes is not at all a stuffy strait-laced Victorian gentleman; in fact, he describes himself and his habits as "Bohemian." He may suffer from bipolar disorder, alternating between days or weeks of listless lassitude and similar periods of intense engagement with a challenging case or with his hobby, experimental chemistry, "extreme exactness and astuteness... [or a] poetic and contemplative mood", "outbursts of passionate energy... followed by reactions of lethargy." Some Holmes researchers, however, believe the symptoms to be closer to those of ADD, since his mood swings have causes and are not completely arbitrary. Modern readers of the Holmes stories are apt to be surprised that he is an occasional user of cocaine, though Watson describes this as Holmes's "only vice." Holmes had a notable obsession with order and neatness. Watson did not consider a vice Holmes's habit of smoking (usually a pipe) heavily, nor his willingness to bend the truth and break the law (e.g., lie to the police, conceal evidence, burgle and housebreak) when it suited his purposes; in Victorian England such actions were not necessarily considered vices as long as they were done by a gentleman for noble purposes, such as preserving a woman's honor or a family's reputation. Since many of the stories revolve around Holmes (and Watson) doing such things, a modern reader must accept actions which would be out of character for a 'law-abiding' detective living by the standards of a later time.

Holmesian (or Sherlockian) deduction

reputation "From a drop of water"—Holmes wrote in an essay described in A Study in Scarlet—"a logician could infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of one or the other." Holmes stories often begin with a bravura display of Holmes' talent for "deduction". It is of some interest to logicians and those interested in logic to try to analyse just what Holmes is doing when he performs his deduction. Holmesian (the British adjective; Americans may also say "Sherlockian") deduction appears to consist primarily of drawing inferences based on either straightforward practical principles—which are the result of careful inductive study, such as Holmes's study of different kinds of cigar ashes—or inference to the best explanation. In many cases, the inference can be modelled either way. In 2002, Holmes was inducted as an honorary fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry—the only fictional character so honored—in appreciation of the contributions to forensic investigation. Holmes's straightforward practical principles are generally of the form, "If p, then q," where "p" is observed evidence and "q" is what the evidence indicates. But there are also, as one may observe in the following example, often some intermediate principles. In "A Scandal in Bohemia", Holmes deduces that Watson had gotten very wet lately and that he had "a most clumsy and careless servant girl". When Watson, in amazement, asks how Holmes knows this, Holmes answers:
"It is simplicity itself . . . my eyes tell me that on the inside of your left shoe, just where the firelight strikes it, the leather is scored by six almost parallel cuts. Obviously they have been caused by someone who has very carelessly scraped round the edges of the sole in order to remove crusted mud from it. Hence, you see, my double deduction that you had been out in vile weather, and that you had a particularly malignant boot-slitting specimen of the London slavey."
In this case, we might say Holmes employed several connected principles such as these:
- If leather on the side of a shoe is scored by several parallel cuts, it was caused by someone who scraped around the edges of the sole in order to remove crusted mud.
- If a nineteenth-century London doctor's shoes are scraped to remove crusted mud, the person who so scraped them is the doctor's servant girl.
- If someone cuts a shoe while scraping it to remove encrusted mud, that person is clumsy and careless.
- If someone's shoes had encrusted mud on them, that person has been very wet lately and has been out in vile weather. By applying such principles in an obvious way (using repeated applications of modus ponens), Holmes is able to infer from :p: The sides of Watson's shoes are scored by several parallel cuts. to :q1: Watson's servant girl is clumsy and careless. and :q2: Watson has been very wet lately and has been out in vile weather. But perhaps Holmes is not giving a proper explanation—after all Holmes may be well aware of Watson's servant girl. As Watson is a doctor and it has been raining, it is likely he has been out in the rain. In other instances of Holmesian deduction, it is more difficult to model his inference as deduction using general principles, and logicians and scientists will readily recognize the method used, instead, as an inductive one—in particular, argument to the best explanation, or, in Charles S. Peirce's terminology, abduction. That Holmes should have called this deduction is entirely plausible, however; in several stories, Holmes is said not to have known anything at all of philosophy, although he quotes Thomas Carlyle. The instances in which Holmes uses deduction tend to be those where he has amassed a large body of evidence, produced a number of possible explanations of that evidence, and then proceeds to find one explanation that is clearly the best at explaining the evidence. For example, in The Sign of Four, a man is found dead in his room, with a ghastly smile on his face, and with no immediately visible cause of death. From a whole body of background information as well as evidence gathered at and around the scene of the crime, Holmes is able to infer that the murderer is—not the various people that Scotland Yard has in custody (each of them being an alternative explanation)—but rather another person entirely. As Holmes says in the story, "How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?" This phrase has entered Western popular culture as a catchphrase. It also turned up in the Dirk Gently stories by Douglas Adams where the detective uses the opposite phrase "because we know very much about what is improbable, but very little about what is possible". In the latter example, in fact, Holmes's solution of the crime depends both on a series of applications of general principles and argument to the best explanation. Holmes's success at his brand of deduction, therefore, is due to his mastery of both a huge body of particular knowledge of things like footprints, cigar ashes, and poisons, which he uses to make relatively simple deductive inferences, and the fine art of ordering and weighing different competing explanations of a body of evidence. Holmes is also particularly good at gathering evidence by observation, as well locating and tracking the movements of criminals through the streets of London and environs (in order to produce more evidence)—skills that have little to do with deduction per se, but everything to do with providing the premises for particular Holmesian deductions. In the stories by Conan Doyle, Holmes often remarked that his logical conclusions were "elementary", in that he considered them to be simple and obvious. However, the complete phrase "Elementary, my dear Watson" does not appear in any of the 60 Holmes stories written by Doyle. It does appear at the very end of the 1929 film, The Return of Sherlock Holmes, the first Sherlock Holmes sound film, and may owe its familiarity to its use in Edith Meiser's scripts for The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes radio series. It should be noted too, that our modern stereotype of police procedure—someone who looks for physical clues, rather than someone who examines opportunity and motive—comes from Holmes. Readers of the Sherlock Holmes stories have often been surprised to discover that their author, Conan Doyle, was a fervent believer in paranormal phenomena, and that the logical, sceptical character of Holmes was in opposition to his own in many ways. The word "Sherlock" has entered the language to mean a detective or nosy person; it is also commonly used in American slang to mean a knowledgeable person, as in the sarcastic phrase "No shit, Sherlock", uttered when someone says something obvious.

Man or machine

"So many regard him as a machine rather than a man." Watson describes Holmes a "desiccated calculating machine", "as deficient in human sympathy as he was pre-eminent in intelligence", and states that "all emotions... were abhorrent to his cold, precise, yet admirably balanced mind." In the era of Charles Babbage, Holmes may have been written as a human computer. He treats all he finds as data, information to be interpreted, and does not proceed without all the facts. Like a machine, he does not have a social life and he does not seem to eat or even sleep (even when he is ill). However, there are complications for this theory. Although a computer could possibly come up with the idea of getting engaged to a woman to gain information from her, it could not come up with a way of doing this (i.e. convince the woman). A computer would not stoop to disguise or acting as Holmes did. In fact if you consider Holmes's deduction principles above, it seems a very skewed logic. His bipolar nature, skill as a musician and composer, and occasional fondness for showmanship also count against this. While "his cold and proud nature was always adverse... [to] public applause" and "turned away with disdain from popular notoriety" but "for an instant he ceased to be a reasoning machine, and betrayed his human love for admiration and applause... from a friend." Consider also Prof. John Sutherland's insights into the moral judgements Holmes (possibly) makes in the conclusion to the story 'The Speckled Band'. Conan Doyle wrote four novels and fifty-six short stories about Sherlock Holmes. Almost all were narrated by Dr. Watson, with the exception of two narrated by Holmes himself and two more written in the third person. The stories first appeared in magazine serialization, notably in The Strand, over a period of forty years. This was a common form of publication in those days; Charles Dickens wrote in a similar fashion. The stories cover a period from around 1878 up to 1903, with a final case in 1914. In addition to the canonical Sherlock Holmes stories, Conan Doyle's "The Lost Special" (1908) features an unnamed 'amateur reasoner' clearly intended to be identified as Holmes by his readers. His explanation for a baffling disappearance, argued in Holmes' characteristic style, turns out to be quite wrong – evidently Conan Doyle was not above poking fun at his own hero. Another short story by Conan Doyle using the same idea is "The Man with the Watches." Another example of Conan Doyle's humour is "How Watson Learned the Trick" (1924), a parody of the frequent Watson-Holmes breakfast table scenes. Another parody by Conan Doyle is "The Field Bazaar"; he also wrote other material, especially plays, featuring Holmes.

Novels


- A Study in Scarlet (serialized 1887)
- The Sign of Four (published 1890)
- The Hound of the Baskervilles (serialized 1901-1902; original illustrations by Sidney Paget)
- The Valley of Fear (serialized 1914-1915) (briefly involves Professor Moriarty)

Short stories

For more detail see List of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes short stories. The short stories were originally published in periodicals, they were later gathered into five anthologies:
- The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Contains stories published 1891–1892.
- The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. Contains stories published 1892–1893.
- The Return of Sherlock Holmes. Contains stories published 1903–1904.
- His Last Bow. Contains stories published 1908–1913, 1917.
- The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes. Contains stories published 1921–1927.

Lists of favorite stories

There are two famous lists of favourite stories: that of Conan Doyle himself, in 1927, and that of the Baker Street Journal in 1959. Conan Doyle's list: #The Adventure of the Speckled Band #The Red-Headed League #The Adventure of the Dancing Men #The Final Problem #A Scandal in Bohemia #The Adventure of the Empty House #The Five Orange Pips #The Adventure of the Second Stain #The Adventure of the Devil's Foot #The Priory School #The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual #The Adventure of the Reigate Squire The Baker Street Journal's list: #The Adventure of the Speckled Band #The Red-Headed League #The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle #The Adventure of Silver Blaze #A Scandal in Bohemia #The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual #The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans #The Adventure of the Six Napoleons #The Adventure of the Dancing Men #The Adventure of the Empty House

"The Hiatus"

Holmes fans refer to the period from 1891 to 1894—the time between Holmes's disappearance and presumed death in The Final Problem and his reappearance in The Adventure of the Empty House—as "the Great Hiatus". It is notable, though, that one later story (The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge) is described as taking place in 1892. For Conan Doyle, writing the stories, the period was ten years long. Conan Doyle, wanting to devote more time to his historical novels, killed off Holmes in The Final Problem, which appeared in print in 1893. After resisting public pressure for eight years, Conan Doyle wrote The Hound of the Baskervilles, which appeared in 1901, setting it before Holmes's "death". The public, while pleased with the story, were not satisfied with a posthumous Holmes, and so Conan Doyle resuscitated Holmes two years later. Many have speculated on Conan Doyle's motives for bringing Holmes back to life, notably writer-director Nicholas Meyer, who wrote an essay on the subject in the 1970s, but the actual motives are not known, other than the obvious: publishers offered to pay generously. For whatever reason, Conan Doyle continued to write Holmes stories for a quarter-century more. Some writers have come up with alternate explanations for the hiatus. In Meyer's novel, The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, the hiatus was explained as a secret sabbatical that Holmes indulged in for those years, while he light-heartedly suggested that Watson write a fictitious account claiming he had died: "They'll never believe you in any case." John Kendrick Bangs, creator of Bangsian fantasy, wrote a book in 1897 called Pursuit of the House-Boat (a sequel to his A House-Boat on the Styx, in which the souls of famous dead people start up a club in Hades). In it, the house-boat (which was hijacked at the end of A House-Boat on the Styx by Captain Kidd) is tracked down by the members of the club with the aid of none other than Sherlock Holmes—who is indeed dead. In his memoirs Conan Doyle quotes a reader, who judged the later stories inferior to the earlier ones, to the effect that when Holmes went over the Reichenbach Falls, he may not have been killed, but he was never quite the same man after. The differences in the pre and post Hiatus Holmes has in fact created speculation among those who play 'The Game' (making believe Sherlock Holmes was a historical person). Among the more interesting and plausible theories: the later Holmes was in fact an imposter (perhaps even Professor Moriarty), the later stories were fictions created to fill other writers pockets (this is often used to deal with the stories which supposedly are written by Holmes himself), and Holmes and Professor Moriarty were in fact a variation of Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Among the more fanciful theories, the story "The Case of the Detective's Smile," by Mark Bourne and published in the anthology Sherlock Holmes in Orbit, posits that one of the places Holmes visited during his hiatus was Alice's Wonderland. While there, he solved the case of the stolen tarts, and his experiences there contributed to his kicking the cocaine addiction.

Adaptations

See Sherlock Holmes in other media

Holmesian speculation

A popular pastime among fans of Sherlock Holmes is to pretend that Holmes and Watson were real people, and Arthur Conan Doyle merely Watson's "literary agent," and to attempt to "discover" new facts about them, either from clues in the stories or by combining the stories with historical fact. Early scholars of the canon included Ronald Knox and Christopher Morley. An influential mid-20th century player of the historical-Holmes game was William S. Baring-Gould, whose works on the subject included The Chronological Holmes (1955), an attempt to lay out in chronological order all the events alluded to in the Sherlock Holmes stories; Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street (1962), an influential "biography" of Holmes; and Nero Wolfe of West Thirty-fifth Street (1969), a "biography" of Rex Stout's detective character Nero Wolfe which popularized the theory that Wolfe was "really" the son of Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler. Stout's own tongue-in-cheek contribution to the field was the theory that Watson was a woman. Baring-Gould also edited The Annotated Sherlock Holmes (1967), which combines in two volumes the complete canon and a hundred thousand words of additional explanation and illustration drawn from the Holmesian literature. Dorothy Sayers, creator of the detective Lord Peter Wimsey, also wrote several essays on Holmesian speculation, later published in Unpopular Opinions, including an interesting discussion of Watson's middle name. In 2004 and 2005 a three-volume The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes, edited by Leslie S. Klinger, to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the birth of Holmes (often given as January 6, 1854) and "reflect the spectrum of views on Sherlockian controversies" rather than "Baring-Gould's personal theories". There is also the idea that many characters in the Sherlock Holmes stories were based heavily on real people, particularly Friedrich Nietzsche (who may have been the model for Holmes himself and Professor Moriarty), and that Conan Doyle borrowed from other writers, as many other writers have done.

The Holmes family

A particularly-rich area of "research" is the "uncovering" of details about Holmes's family history and early life, of which almost nothing is said in Conan Doyle's stories. In "The Greek Interpreter" Watson states: "I had never heard him refer to his relations, and hardly ever to his early life." But in that story, as well as introducing his brother, Holmes mentions the only facts about his family that are in any of the stories – "My ancestors were country squires... my grandmother... was the sister of Vernet, the French artist." (Presumably Horace Vernet). Beyond this all familial statements are speculation. For example, there is a certain belief that his mother was named Violet, based on Conan Doyle's fondness for the name and the four strong Violets in the canon; however, as Baring-Gould noted, in Holmes' Britain Violet was a very common name. It is clear from references to "the university" in The Gloria Scott, The Musgrave Ritual, and to some degree The Adventure of the Three Students, that Holmes attended Oxford or Cambridge, although the question of which one remains a topic of eternal debate (Baring-Gould believed textual evidence indicated that Holmes attended both). The most influential "biography" of Holmes is Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street by Baring-Gould. Faced with Holmes's reticence about his family background and early life, Baring-Gould invented one for him. According to Baring-Gould, Sherlock Holmes was born in Yorkshire, the youngest of three sons of Siger Holmes and Violet Sherrinford. The middle brother, Mycroft, appears in the canon, but the eldest, Sherrinford Holmes, was invented by Baring-Gould to free Mycroft and Sherlock from the obligation of following Siger as a country squire. (In reality, "Sherrinford Holmes" was one of the names Arthur Conan Doyle considered for his hero before settling on Sherlock.) Siger Holmes's name is derived from The Adventure of the Empty House, in which Sherlock spends some time pretending to be a Norwegian mountaineer called Sigerson. (This hardly qualifies as a clue about the name of Sherlock's father, but in the absence of any genuine clues it was the best Baring-Gould had to work with.) Sherrinford had a significant role in the Doctor Who crossover novel All Consuming Fire by Andy Lane, which also featured a cameo by Siger. Some other versions of Sherlock's parentage:
- Ian Charnocks's Watson's Last Case names his father as Sherlock Holmes, Sr.
- Robert D'Artagnan's Sherlock Holmes's Last Case names his father as Mark Moriarty and gives Sherlock's true name as Joseph Moriarty, explaining that he was adopted at age four by Gregory C. Holmes and his wife Lydia Mycroft Holmes. This would make him a younger brother of Professor James Moriarty.
- Michael Harrison's I, Sherlock Holmes names his father as Captain Siger Holmes of the British East India Company.
- Cass Lewis's Dead Man's Confession names his father as Robert Holmes and his mother Carla "Violet" Holmes.
- Mona Morstein's The Childhood of Sherlock Holmes names his father as David William Holmes and his mother Catherine Simone Lecomte-Vernet.
- Fred Saberhagen's The Holmes-Dracula File gives his true father as the lover of Mrs. Holmes: The vampire Radu the Handsome, a younger brother of Vlad III Dracula, who had succeeded him as a ruler of Wallachia. This would make Sherlock a nephew of Dracula (against whom he was pitted in Loren D. Estleman's novel The Case of the Sanguinary Count).
- Christopher Leppek's The Surrogate Assassin named Sherlock's father as a younger brother of Mary Ann Holmes, a historical figure better known as the mother of John Wilkes Booth. This would make Sherlock a first cousin of Booth.

The Holmes family and the Wold Newton family

Based originally on the writings of Philip José Farmer, the concept of the Wold Newton family is the construction of a giant genealogical tree which connects many fictional characters to each other and to a number of historical figures. Additions to this tree are based on the writings of the original creators, pastiche writers, and "Wold Newton scholars." Sherlock Holmes has been one of the central characters of this tree. The [http://www.pjfarmer.com/secret/contributors/holmes-family-tree.htm Holmes family] and its various generations have been the subject of many Wold Newton articles. Sherlock himself has been described as born as William Sherlock Scott Holmes on January 6, 1854 to Siger Holmes and his wife Violet Rutherford. One of eight siblings, including Mycroft. The descendants of those siblings include many other characters. Sherlock himself has been given as the father of at least eight children, including Nero Wolfe. Sherlock is also an ancestor of Star Trek's Spock through Amanda Grayson.

The Sherlock Holmes copyright

The copyright of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's works and of the Sherlock Holmes character were predominately held by his descendants starting first with his son Adrian Doyle. After Adrian's death in 1972 Dame Jean Conan Doyle (Conan Doyle's daughter) and the other descendants sold the rights to Baskerville Investments, a firm fronted by the surviving wife of Doyle's eldest son. The Bank of Scotland took over the European rights after a loan defaulted and auctioned them off to a consortium led by the producer of the 1954 Holmes series, Sheldon Reynolds. In 1981 the copyright expired everywhere except for the United States, where they were still held by the Conan Doyle family. Dame Jean, with the assistance of the Baker Street Irregulars, claimed the US rights to those works not yet in the public domain. Her Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Estate both licensed and defended the Sherlock Holmes character by requiring royalties and famously sued the producers of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Meitantai Holmes and the movie The Young Sherlock Holmes for their unauthorized direct portrayals of Holmes. In 1999 Andrea Plunket, who had divorced Sheldon Reynolds in the 1980s to become the mistress of Claus von Bulow while he was on trial for attempting to murder his wife, was refused a US trademark for Sherlock Holmes, and lost a series of US Federal Court cases against the Estate of Dame Jean Conan Doyle's executors, agents, and licensees, in decisions declaring that Plunket neither owns nor represents the owners of the Conan Doyle rights in the US. In 2001 all but one of the remaining works were released into public domain. Originally Dame Jean left the US rights to the Royal National Institute for the Blind, but the executors of her Estate wished to keep them in the family's hands, and negotiated a buy-out; the Estate of Dame Jean Conan Doyle continues to own the rights in the US. The Case Book is the only work with an outstanding US copyright and will pass into the public domain between 2016 and 2023.

Related and Derivative Works (non canonical)

See Non-canonical works related and derived from Sherlock Holmes

Notes

# Holmesian scholars who cite this date do so as Holmes quotes from Twelfth Night [http://www3.sympatico.ca/mudthehut/docs/faq.htm more often than from any other Shakespeare play].

References


- Baring-Gould, William S. The Annotated Sherlock Holmes Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., New York, NY. ISBN 0-517-502917
- Klinger, Leslie S. The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York, NY. ISBN 0-393-05916-2

See also


- List of people who have played Sherlock Holmes
- List of authors of new (i.e. Non-Doyle) Sherlock Holmes stories
- HOLMES (police computer system)
- Professor Challenger (another Doyle character)
- Meiringen
- Sherlockiana

External links


- [http://www.sherlock-holmes.co.uk The Sherlock Holmes Museum]
- [http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/004817.php The Quotable Sherlock Holmes: Complete copy in PDF]
- [http://wikibooks.org/wiki/Adventures_of_Sherlock_Holmes Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Study Guide at Wikibooks]
- [http://www.bakerstreet221b.de/canon/index.html Full text of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, including illustrations]
- [http://sherlock-holmes.classic-literature.co.uk/ Sherlock Holmes Books in HTML format]
- [http://webpages.charter.net/lklinger/Chrotabl.htm A timeline of Sherlock's life as given by various sources]1
- [http://www.sherlock-holmes.org.uk The Sherlock Holmes Society of London]2
- [http://www.sshf.com The Sherlock Holmes Society of France]3
- [http://www.schoolandholmes.com/ A listing of historical, fictional and canonical characters appearing in pastiche stories]4
- [http://221bakerstreet.org/ This leads to the public domain listing of the books in the "canon".]5
- [http://sherlock.mindcop.net Sherlock Holmes Public Library]
- [http://www.sherlockian.net/ Sherlockian.Net]
- [http://in.groups.yahoo.com/group/SherlockHolmesSocietyofIndia/?yguid=72331759 The Sherlock Holmes Society of India]
- [http://www.bcpl.net/~lmoskowi/holmes.html The Sherlockian Connection]
- [http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/4040/sherlock.html A Little of Sherlock Holmes]
- [http://www.bakerstreetholmes.info Sherlock Holmes information]7
- [http://www.bertcoules.co.uk/sh-home.htm Bert Coules' website (BBC Radio 4 canonical and original stories, 1989–2004)]
- [http://www.shpcboston.org The Sherlock Holmes Pipe Club of Boston]
- [http://www.sherlockiana.de Our Virtual Holmes - A New German Sherlock Holmes Page] ja:シャーロック・ホームズ

Trope

Linguistic usage

A trope is a rhetorical figure of speech that consists of a play on words, i.e. using a word in a way other than what is considered its literal or normal form. The other major category of figures of speech is the scheme, which involves changing the pattern of words in a sentence. Trope comes from the Greek word, tropos, which means a "turn", as in heliotrope, a flower which turns toward the sun. We can imagine a trope as a way of turning a word away from its normal meaning, or turning it into something else. A large number of tropes have been identified, among them:
- metonymy as in association.
- irony as in contraries.
- metaphor as in comparatives.
- synecdoche as in the distribution of the whole into the part. (For a more comprehensive listing, see Figure of speech)

Literary usage

In literature, a trope is a familiar and repeated symbol, meme, style, character or thing that permeates a particular type of literature. They are usually tied heavily to genre. For example, tropes in horror literature and film include the mad scientist or a dark and stormy night. Tropes can also be plots or events, such as the science fiction trope of an alien invasion that is deterred at the last minute. Authors that rely on tropes are often seen as unimaginative and dull. However, many authors have twisted tropes into new forms to great success. Stephen King has been noteworthy for taking older horror tropes and reworking them into the modern world to great effect. A wiki collecting tropes used in television is available at [http://www.tvtropes.org TV Tropes Wiki].

Tropes in philosophy

In Philosophy of history

The use of tropes has been extended from a linguistic usage to the field of philosophy of history by, among other theoricists, Hayden White in his Metahistory (1973). Tropes are generally understood to be styles of discourse - rather than figures of style - underlying the historian's writing of history. They are historically determined in as much as the historiography of every period is defined by a specific type of trope. For Hayden White, tropes historically unfolded in this sequence: metonymy, metaphor, synecdoche and, finally, irony.

Trope theory in metaphysics

Trope theory in metaphysics is a flavor of nominalism. Here, a trope is a particular instance of a property, like the specific redness of a rose. This use of the term goes back to D. C. Williams (1953).

Tropes in music

In Medieval music

In the Medieval era, troping was an important compositional technique. There were two basic types of tropes: textual and musical. A textual trope involved the assigning of a new text to an existing musical melisma. A musical trope was the insertion of new notes into a piece of music, creating or extending a melisma.

In 20th-century music

In serial music, a trope is an unordered collection of six different pitches, what is now called an unordered hexachord, of which there are two (complementary ones) in twelve tone equal temperament. Tropes were used by Josef Matthias Hauer in his twelve-tone technique developed simultaneously but overshadowed by Arnold Schoenberg's.

See also


- Framing (communication theory)
- Meme Category:Figures of speech Category:Rhetoric

Eccentricity (behavior)

:This page refers to eccentricity in behavior and popular usage. For other uses, see the disambiguation page: eccentricity. In popular usage, eccentricity refers to unusual or odd behavior on the part of a person, as opposed to being normal. Eccentric behavior is often considered whimsical or quirky, although it can also be strange and disturbing. American millionaire Howard Hughes, for example, was considered to be very eccentric in his old age, when he stored his urine in glass jars and never cut his hair or nails. Other people may have eccentric taste in clothes, or have eccentric hobbies or collections. Eccentricity is often associated with genius or extreme creativity. The individual's eccentric behavior is seen as the outward expression of his unique intelligence or creative impulse. In this view, the eccentric's habits are incomprehensible not because they are illogical or the result of madness, but because they stem from a mind so original that it cannot be conformed to "normal" society. In this vein, Edith Sitwell wrote : "Eccentricity is not, as dull people would have us believe, a form of madness. It is often a kind of innocent pride, and the man of genius and the aristocrat are frequently regarded as eccentrics because genius and aristocrat are entirely unafraid of and uninfluenced by the opinions and vagaries of the crowd." Eccentric personalities are marked by precisely this disregard for society's norms. The eccentric may comprehend the standards for normal behavior in his culture, or he may not. He is simply unconcerned by society's disapproval of his habits or beliefs. Many of history's most brilliant minds have displayed many unusual behaviors and habits. However, some eccentrics are cranks, rather than geniuses. Extravagance is a kind of eccentricity, related to abundance and wastefulness. For extravagant text, see also hyperbole.

Quotes

"That so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of our time". -- John Stuart Mill, On Liberty.

See also


- List of people widely considered eccentric category:Human behavior Category:Personality

Constabulary

Constabulary may have several definitions.
- A civil, non-paramilitary police force consisting of police officers called constables. This is the usual definition in Britain, in which all county police forces once bore the title (and some still do).
- A large civil police force organized and trained along military lines, which may contain paramilitary elements. This is the usual definition in places outside of Great Britain (e.g. Royal Irish Constabulary, Royal Ulster Constabulary, Royal Newfoundland Constabulary, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Pennsylvania Constabulary etc.). These were based on the French Gendarmerie, originally consisting of military personnel seconded to or recruited directly to the constabulary or military veterans and later became all civilian forces after they were well established.
- A military or para-military type force consisting of soldiers trained for police duties. These were mostly established by the United States in the several countries it had protective status over (e.g. Philippine Constabulary, United States Constabulary in West Germany after World War Two, Nicaraguan National Guard, Panama National Guard). These forces also performed military functions by maintaining "mobile forces" of organised units. In Europe such forces are called Gendarmeries or (in Italy) Carabinieri. Category:Law enforcement

The Mystery of Marie Roget

"The Mystery of Marie Roget" is a story by Edgar Allan Poe written in 1842. This is the first murder mystery revolving around a real crime. It first appeared in the Ladies' Companion in three installments, November and December 1842 and February 1843.

Origins

The narrative is based upon the murder of Mary Cecilia Rogers, a young woman known popularly as "The Beautiful Cigar Girl," who disappeared on October 4, 1838 in New York. Only a few days later the newspapers announced her return. It was said she had eloped with a naval officer. Three years later, on July 25, 1841, again she disappeared. Her body was floating in the Hudson River three days later. The details surrounding the case suggested she was murdered. The death of this beautiful and well-known girl received national attention for weeks. Months later, the inquest still ongoing, her fiance was found dead. By his side a remorseful note. Writing this as a sequel to "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", Poe tried to solve the aforementioned enigma by creating a murder mystery. He situated the narrative in Paris using the details of the original tragedy. The same principle was later used in trying to uncover the identity of Jack the Ripper. Although there was intense media interest and immortalization of a sort by Poe, the crime remains one of the most puzzling unsolved murders of New York City.

References


- The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, Tales and Sketches, edited by Thomas Ollive Mabbott, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

External links


- [http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/classics/mary_rogers/6.html?sect=13 All about Mary Rogers' Mysterious Murder]
- [http://www.poeforward.com/mrperfumery/mary.htm THE ORIGINAL DEAD GIRL: MARY ROGERS/MARIE ROGET]
- [http://www.assumption.edu/acad/ii/Academic/history/Hi113net/his213/MaryRogers.html The Murder of Mary Rogers/Marie Roget]
- [http://bau2.uibk.ac.at/sg/poe/works/m_roget.html THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET: A Sequel to "The Murder in the Rue Morgue"] by Edgar Allan Poe Mystery of Marie Roget Mystery of Marie Roget Mystery of Marie Roget

Alan Moore

Alan Moore (born November 18, 1953, in Northampton, England) is a British writer most famous for his work in comics. He is the co-creator of some of the most acclaimed comic books in history, including Watchmen, V for Vendetta, From Hell and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

Overview

Moore is renowned for bringing more mature, literary sensibilities to a medium often dismissed as juvenile and trivial. As well as including adult themes and challenging subjects, he also experiments with the form of comics, employing effects uniq